I would like to start by pre-framing today’s topic by stating that this topic isn’t in any way a criticism of anyone. It is simply an observation of something I have noticed recently and I would like to initiate a conversation about this. Today, we shall look at ten things that I have noticed women tend to undervalue about themselves.

I remember one time when I was traveling in Ecuador, I looked up at a billboard and saw a beautiful couple and my first thought was that they didn’t look like they were from that country. I tapped a friend we were with and asked whether the models on the billboard were from Ecuador. She looked up and remarked that they weren’t from Ecuador and were probably from Columbia or Brazil, but they most likely weren’t from Ecuador.

I asked her what she meant, and as I looked around, I noticed that the bone structure of the couple on the billboard was similar but not quite that of the Ecuadorians. The people on the streets didn’t look like those on the billboard.

One of my good friends that I worked with for a long time and was my client is a model that grew up in Michigan and lives in NYC. One day, she told me that she was going for a catalog shoot for clothes that were going to be sold in Germany.

I was like, “German catalog? Why don’t they use German models for a German catalog?” She said she didn’t know and added that she gets hired for such tasks quite often because she has brown hair and somehow looks like a German. And so they use her all the time for catalogs in Germany.

I found that interesting, and immediately started looking around at the catalogs here in the U.S. and noticed that the models were similar, but not quite from this country. What I started to notice was that as a society, we purposely use marketing in a way that causes people to start aspiring to be like something that isn’t physiologically possible to be like.

People from here don’t look like people from there. We are different, we are all humans even if we have different bone structures, different shades and sizes and all kinds of stuff. And where all this came true was in Fiji where I grew up going when I was little and generally, the Fijian women were strong like Samoan-type Fijian women. They were strong, powerful big Fijian women. I remember going there and noticing that the men were skinny because they were always in the fields working and the women were big and strong because they had to put a bunch of stuff on their heads and walk while carrying those loads.

And then I remember when I was around 20 or 23-years old, I looked around and noticed that the body shape of a generation of women had completely changed. They had gone from being big, powerful women to skinny ones.

I asked myself what had happened because I didn’t think women’s bodies could change so rapidly in one generation. What happened was that someone came in and introduced television and magazines, particularly beauty magazines, to the Fijian islands and all of a sudden, young Fijian girls made the decision that they had to look like the women in those magazines.

These young women therefore started conforming so that they look like the women in the magazines. They changed their diet, changed their workout habits and a whole bunch of other things, and this reshaped an entire generation of women. This isn’t a criticism in any way, it is a statement of a fact that society, the billboards, the advertising, the magazines and all this stuff is shaping the things we value or don’t value about ourselves. Here are the ten things women undervalue about themselves.

1.The Ability to 3-D Print a Human

The number one thing that I think women in the U.S., the UK, Australia and Canada tend to underestimate is the fact that the human species cannot do without them in this day and age. That blows my mind. You know, I talk to clients, the husband works with the wife. Oftentimes, during the process of working together, they get pregnant and when that happens, I hear stuff like in four, five or six months she says I’m going to rush to office and get this done, then I will rush home and get this, that and the other done and then she asks, do you think that is enough?

And I am like, “Dude, you are 3-D printing a human inside you right now and you are asking do I think it is enough? If all you did was 3-D print a human, you’ve done way more than enough for the day!”

For some reason, women tend to undervalue the fact that 3-D printing a human in their belly, creating life, is the most spectacular, incredible amazing wonderful thing on the planet. Let’s just take it from there. If you were 3-D printing a human and didn’t do anything else all day, and not valuing that and not realizing that is the coolest thing on earth, then I am shocked because guys cannot do that!

I realize there are circumstances sometimes that compel women to do more while pregnant, such as working at their jobs in order to eat. In Costa Rica, they have a different set of values. If a pregnant woman comes around a line in which there is a father, mother, sister, brother, grandmother and a mix of everything else in between, once the pregnant woman comes, everyone’s attention is immediately captured and they all make room for her. They nudge her forward and take care of her. Wow! That is totally different from what goes down at Whole Foods in Miami Beach!

It was just beautiful to see how much they value a pregnant woman in other countries. Something that we don’t have here in the U.S. and some other countries around the world.

2. The Ability to Shape the Future of Humanity By Raising and Molding the Future of Humanity

If we were to stop right here and say for a mother, the most important job in the world that I believe to be true is shaping the future of humanity. There’s no business job, no company job, no CEO title, no C-level executive blah blah blah, nothing that comes close to the importance of shaping the future of humanity.

Now, why do I say that? I remember I was a university senior years ago, and my cousin who was two years younger than me was a sophomore. I remember going to her dorm room to hang out with her and she had a bunch of friends over there getting ready for something, and I was making a vegetable juice or something while hanging out with them.

As we were talking, I remember I asked this to the room, there were sophomores and seniors in university. I said, “Ladies, can anyone finish this sentence by saying the first thing that pops into your mind?” And I said, “Never depend on a…?” And every woman in the room said, “Never depend on a man!” And I said wow!

That was intense. I asked them whether they get together and train on this. Who taught you this? Where do you learn this? Is there like girls’ meeting once a week when you are real little and they train you to never depend on a man? How did you all say the same thing without any training?

Related: Create Deeper and More Meaningful Relationships

Let me say this, if there was a woman in this room right now who was at the top of her class, straight-A student, magna cum laude, she was the best student here, wise, intelligent and this young woman said that her number one goal would be to graduate university and find a good husband and become an incredible mother, to take care of the home, and have three or four babies, to raise those young future leaders of the world and she says that is her number one goal upon graduation. Would you be cool with that? What would you tell her if you were in the same room?

Would you congratulate her upon such a goal? Would you tell her to go for it? Someone said she would tell her to drop out of school immediately if that was her goal. She would tell her to move out of the way so that someone who wants to use her degree could take her place in school.

I remember being shocked and went back to the same conversation. If someone literally graduates at the top of their class and decides that they want to create human life and shape the future of humanity by raising global and community world leaders through their children, kind of like I think it was J. F. Kennedy’s mother who was interviewed and was asked what her mission was.

She said that her mission was to create future world leaders by raising her children. I remember hearing that goal and going like “wow, what a powerful mission statement.” She certainly did, she created world leaders, she shaped them, she sculpted them, she molded them, she loved them, cared for them and guided them along their journey. That was very powerful.

And I remember hearing what these young women said about graduating and going to raise a family. That is amazing how undervalued shaping the future of humanity is vs. graduating and starting a business or becoming an executive and going up the corporate ladder; all these are valued so much and little is said about how important it is to shape humanity through raising the future humans. I think that is something that is grossly undervalued by lots of people.

3. How Nourishing Your Love and Kindness Is

You know I have a lot of men in my life who are incredibly loving, but there is nothing like a mother’s love. My mum passed away about a month ago, and there is nothing like having your mom call you and just love on you a little and tell you what’s good or how she’s proud of you.

I think the power in how powerful and nourishing a woman’s love can be is grossly undervalued. This love and kindness is powerful not only when you share it with others but also when you shared it with yourself. I have noticed women to be so critical of themselves instead of looking at themselves and sharing that love with themselves by noticing what is beautiful about you (not in a conceited kind of way), but just noticing the beauty of your soul, your spirit or who you are. And taking time to do that each day.

4. How Powerful You Are

You have the ability. I remember when we were in India touring a Sikh temple and as we were going through all the leaders of the Sikh over time, it was like guy on a horse, guy with a spear, guy with a sword and we got to this one which had a huge woman on a horse with a giant sword leading an entire army into battle, and I looked at the next one and it was the same thing and even the next one. I was like, “Who are these babes, these generals who are just killing it?” We were told that those were some of the most powerful war leaders of the Sikh culture, religion and group. That was incredible!

This got me thinking of how powerful women are, not only are they able in that day to lead the charge from the front of the army to take on an opposing army, but they also have the ability to go back the same day and nourish brand new life. I remember thinking that women really tend to undervalue how powerful they are.

5. The Ability to Have Diffused Awareness

If you are not familiar with the concept of diffused awareness, a feminine woman has feminine energy and feminine energy tends to have diffused awareness and so it can be in a man or a woman in this case as long as that person is feminine. To a man, diffused awareness is thinking about multiple things all at once. In actuality, that isn’t diffused awareness.

Diffusion is to go all in all directions all at once, it is the ability to think about everything all the time, all at once. That blew my mind! My brain doesn’t work that well. I wish my brain was that capable. You know my wife can be sitting at the table and we are talking while she is thinking about the thing that is on the stove, the thing that we are working on, what we did last week, the fact that a friend is on their way over; she is literally thinking about everything all at once.

If she lets me do something, I am so freaking focused on one thing that I will forget something else that is happening. The gears in my brain just grind because they aren’t capable of doing multiple things at the same time. Our brain operates by shutting one door in order to open another one, then shuts that one and opens a totally different one.

Can the brain handle different things all at once? Of course it can, but mine isn’t built that way. For some reason, feminine women that I have interacted with in a relationship and in family, they are able to do this naturally. They didn’t need any practice to be this way. I think that is something that is undervalued in women.

6. The Ability to Cultivate Relationships

I learnt this one from my wife, she transformed so many relationships in my life. Meaning, I watched and observed how good she is at relationships, friendships, caring about other people. I care about other people or humans, but I was not just as good at relationships. And I remember just sitting there and being like, “Damn, are all women this good at relationships?”

And the obvious answer is that not all of them are, but I think the ones who are great at relationships don’t realize how valuable that is. According to Harvard University, the relationships you keep, the friendships you keep determine how long you live, how happy you are and how much money you make in your lifetime. And so the ability to cultivate relationships is something that I think is radically undervalued by women.

7. How Much They Do Everyday

I think women do so much every day. A lot of the stuff that is undervalued are the little things they do. The little tiny stuff that they do in between all the other big things they engage in every day, such as raising the future of humanity while running a business and so many other demanding things, but in between all that they do lots of other tiny things. When I look at all those things and tell my wife that she did so much today, she replies that no, she feels she is behind on so many of her projects.

I hope after watching this all the guys realize how amazing the woman in their life is, if they have a woman in their life. I also hope the women who are watching this realize how amazing they are. Like I said, this isn’t criticism, I am just trying to go down a list pretty quick so that you realize how incredibly powerful and amazing you are. I realize there are some bad eggs out there, some tards that need to be kicked in the butt, but for the most part it is really incredible, and a lot of this is undervalued.

8. Asking for Help

I have noticed that if a guy is doing something and he needs help he will be like, “hey! You, come here. I need some help.” And if you do it wrong, a guy will not have any problem telling you to get out real quick. We guys aren’t very patient with things like that.

But I have noticed that with women, especially businesswomen who are professionals and executives who are trying to accomplish and achieve, they tend to put everything on their plate and not really value asking anyone else for help. It is like they see it as a weakness, so they dare not ask anyone for help. Instead, they try to show everyone that they are capable by putting more and more on their plate. In reality, I think it is powerful to be able to ask someone for help and say you put too much on your plate and you want someone to pass it off to.

9. How Powerful Vulnerability Is

This is most pronounced at this time in history, and women don’t seem to know how powerful it is to just be vulnerable and open up about what is real. I think men need more training on how to connect with, understand and listen to a man or a woman who is being vulnerable. But I think underneath it all, the power of vulnerability is being undervalued.

There is no number ten, you all don’t need to be told how to do it better, you all don’t need to be told that you need to do anything differently than you are already doing, and the purpose of this wasn’t to point out something that was wrong. Instead, it was to call attention to all that you do that is amazing, that so often you don’t take time to recognize or acknowledge or appreciate about yourself and each other. And so that is what today’s little lesson is all about. Hopefully, you’ve enjoyed this. If you know someone who needs to hear this, share with them, pass this one on to them and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow for Day 95 of our 100 Day Personal Performance and Business Growth Challenge!

To Your Success,

Jairek Robbins

 

 

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