Residency Insight -- A PRESENT Podiatry eZine

Guest Editorial: Rem Jackson

Rem Jackson is the President and CEO of Top Practices, LLC, and the leader of the Top Practices Master Mind Group. Top Practices is a company dedicated to helping professionals and businesses reach their professional and personal goals by building their “perfect practice”. He can be reached at [email protected]. You can find out more about Top Practices at www.TopPractices.com.

—John Steinberg, DPM, PRESENT Editor

Nurturing Your Inner Six-Year-Old, Part 2

by Rem Jackson
President and CEO of Top Practices, LLC

You talking to me? You talking to me? You talking to me?
— Robert Di Niro in "Taxi Driver"

In the first part of this two part message, I focused on the self defeating way we routinely inflict pain and suffering on ourselves by the harsh way we speak to ourselves. This trash talk accomplishes nothing positive and slows us down or stops us in our tracks. I also asked the question "What did you do to deserve such treatment."

I've used many things to help me overcome this, but the most effective technique (or habit) I've ever used, I discovered myself. Here it is:

This weekend wouldn’t it be fun if you could spend the day with yourself as a six year old? Imagine yourself at your old house, sitting on the porch, waiting to be picked up for a lovely day out with, yourself as an adult. You'd run up and jump into the car, buckle your seatbelt and look over at the grown-up who is going to hang out with you today with great anticipation. Your adult self would look into the eyes of this precious child and ask "Well, Remy, what would you like to do today?" Of course, you would already know the secrets of this little child's heart, and when your six year old self answered, you'd say "I thought you might say that — let's go!"


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As you spend the day with this lovely blessed child, how would you talk to them? You might, of course, try to teach them all about investing and suggest some great stock tips and you might even try to teach them how to access the funds to accomplish the trades, but this six year old would be totally lost, so you would abandon that plan. You might then decide to tell them how to not go out with a boy or a girl on a certain night to avoid two years of heartache in the future, but this plan would most likely fail as well.

What you would not do is start to berate and belittle this little child. You wouldn't hit them on the forehead and call them stupid. You wouldn't tell them that they "always do this!" You wouldn't wake them up in the middle of the night and pound them with blow after blow of their parade of mistakes. You wouldn't look at them in disgust for being too short, tall, fat, skinny, average, etc., etc. You wouldn't attack them incessantly with your own version of "You talking to me?"

Instead you would nurture and cherish that little soul. You would tell them how great they are. How much you love them. You'd tell them that they won't believe some of the wonderful blessings that are coming their way. If you could, you would tell them about their children and how proud they would be, how they are going to become a doctor or a lawyer, or business owner, and how proud they will be of that achievement. If you could, you would tell them that they will help so many people in their career. You'd tell them about the letters from clients or patients or customers who've told you about what a difference you've made in their lives. You would tell them about the blessings that will rain upon their heads.

You will them that you love them. They will make mistakes in their lives — lot's of them, but that they shouldn't be hard on themselves when it happens. You will tell them that every time they made a mistake, they were trying hard to do the right thing, be the best person they could, be a good man or woman. And you will tell them that they will be a wonderful person worthy of love and respect. And you will be inspired to tell them that you will always be with them - every minute of every day - helping them and guiding them. You will tell them that you love them…many times.

This little six year old will look deep into your eyes and believe every word you say—
just like the adult you believes every word you say today.

So dear friends, the next time you are taking yourself out to the woodshed, stop. Remember to speak to yourself as though you were that six year old. Resolve never again to inflict the pain and suffering on yourself that you are so good at. Shrink yourself down to a six year old and look into those eyes before you speak to yourself. You'll find yourself saying "It's ok. You weren't trying to mess that up. Let's fix it. It's not that bad. You are a wonderful person worthy of love and respect."

Keep your promise to that little six year old you. Be your own BEST FRIEND each and every day. Nurture your own spirit and mind and body. Be able to turn to yourself as your number one source of support. Celebrate the blessings you do have - they are great and many. Stop and smell the roses -every time you walk past them.

If you intentionally nurture your own spirit, you will have an almost limitless capacity to help and love others. I have made this one of my TOP goals. My wife Diane recently gave me a wonderful gift for our 20th wedding anniversary in which she had written some really nice stuff about me. One thing she said was, "Rem, you care about us more than it seems humanly possible." I really liked that. The only way I could hear that from someone I love is to care about me first. So, I'm here to tell you — this does work.

I don't have to remind you how Bobby De Niro ended up at the end of Taxi Driver. Not so good. I like happy endings a lot more.

—Rem

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