Is your identity the key to your destiny? I would argue the answer to that is absolutely. Here's the problem. Many people are living their lives with a false identity. Meaning, somebody along the way, typically people who love you the most, gave us a false identity. So it could have been a teacher, a parent, a sister, brother, loved one, coach, go through the list.
But what I mean by a false identity is they told us things, our subconscious recorded those things, and something in our subconscious believed it. And then we become that reality. Because by the way, you've heard it said, your perception becomes your reality, and your perception is your reality. How we view the world is how the world becomes around us.
So I would argue when we see an adult that has a messed up life, if you will, or a troubled life, or maybe even a teen with a troubled life, I promise you, at the core of that is an identity problem. They believed something that wasn't true about themselves. Because here's what I believe, and here's what hopefully you believe. And maybe you're watching this and you're going to send this to your teenager, hopefully, or even anyone that you love.
Because by the way, we all suffer from some false identity. And I believe that our level of success and even happiness is proportional to how much we walk in our true identity. Because I do believe, and I didn't finish the point, is that God created us perfect and he created us with a true identity. And as we go through life, our goal is to obtain and walk as close into that real and true identity as God created us to be. And when we do, we become happy. When we do, we are successful.
Things just seem to happen for us. Oh, but I'm not talking about just financial success because many people who are financial success, they get there because of a great insecurity in their life. And when you really examine them, they're very unhappy and their life's very incomplete. I'm talking about success from all I call it 12 pillars of success, relationships. And yes, finances is a pillar, right? But you know, all of these things, even health, uh would reflect success in a way.
Meaning you look at someone's life and it's very balanced in every area. And yes, they're typically very happy, content, and they're typically making a difference uh on this planet. But I can argue that those people are walking very closely to their true identity. If you're wondering or asking the question right now, Dr. Pomper, are you functioning 100% in your true identity? The answer is no, I'm not.
But I can tell you this because I purposely choose to get closer every year to my true identity. Every year I do get closer. Now, I don't say that to brag or boast. I say that because that is an intentional goal that I believe all of us can do, that we can walk absolutely closer to who God created us to be and create that happiness. Okay, so what do we do? Meaning, let's talk about some of these false identities. I'll talk about mine.
Because I always say every bad behavior as an adult came out of me thinking I'm stupid. Many of you look at me and be like, how possibly could you think you're stupid? Well, what you don't know is I was dyslex, I am dyslexic. You don't lose dyslexia, but I couldn't read until about the seventh grade. I can tell you this: if you can't read in the sixth, seventh grade, even the fourth grade, you're considered stupid, okay?
And in any aspect of measurement, you're going to believe anyone that would call you stupid because you kind of put the pieces together yourself. So I believe my false identity was absolutely created more from my perception of how I fit into the class around you. So these false identities, they don't even have to be told that you're stupid. Oh, I've had people say I'm stupid and make fun of me. And guess what? I overcompensated with my physical abilities.
Now you'd look at me and think that I'm no brute, but back then when we're kids, we're all about the same size, but I always say I was a little faster and I was a little stronger just genetically than other kids. So I punched some kids up a few times. Matter of fact, I remember punching a sixth grader square in the nose, but I was only in fourth grade on the playground. And back then, you know, they sent you to the principal's office and say, make up, you know, but he said the wrong thing to me.
And I don't, again, I don't say that to brag. I say that to show you that that insecurity was bred then. And as I pointed out, every bad behavior as an adult really came out of that. That said, now my perception is all of my superpowers, honestly. And this I'll brag about, all of my superpowers, ability to read a book and remember what page everything's on, and put all this information that I gathered over years, put it together and create new things and thoughts.
All of that is because of my dyslexia. It was my superpower, wasn't stupid at all. Okay, now many people don't have that opportunity. And my son Simon, who's also dyslexic, thought he was stupid, even though his parents are saying, no, no, no, your brilliance is there, your brilliance is there. But you know what? They don't want to hear mom and dad.
Fact is, he's comparing himself to his classmates, going, Man, I I can't read, I can't pronounce words, etc. But I can tell you now, I told him, wait for it. In your 20s, you're gonna start walking into it. In your 30s, you're gonna start recognizing you have superpowers because of your dyslexia. And here my son Simon is walking into his an understanding of wow, you mean everyone can't do that? That's exactly what I said.
You mean everyone can't read a book and remember exactly where it is on the page, and you know, yeah, no, that came much later, you know. But unfortunately, I lived a lot of my life with those insecurities and now functioning from a superpower. That said, I would still argue that there's still insecurities about when I have to read out loud in public. Maybe I even have done it on the show and I stumble because I can't read out loud.
I have little techniques that when I read to myself, but reading out loud, it just I stumble on it. And if I you asked me to spell a word, forget it. I will get very embarrassed. Or if I type something, uh the spell check, I can't even get close. It has no idea what I'm trying to say. Oh, and by the way, words that I can spell today, tomorrow I might not be able to spell. Isn't that bizarre? But that's the way my brain works. The word patient, I had to use all the time.
The I, the e, I know there's rules. Yeah, they don't apply, they don't work. Point is, is I guess protein, I guess how to spell protein. Every day, I still don't know how to spell protein. I throw down the letters. The word view, is it the e? The I? I mean, simple four-letter word. Why can't I remember it? I can remember everything I read. My point is, I'm just bringing you into my world in my false identity of stupid and dumb. I probably have others I do, of course I do, right?
But that one I share. But the point is, is that the false identities, the adversary, the enemy, whatever you want to call it, Satan himself uses against us and can take our life or the way off the rails, I should say, of the will that God has for us. And my goal, even in this short little podcast teaching here, is to get you, perhaps your children, you know, to understand that we can come back to the real identity, our true identity. I want to tell you a story, and it's about this book.
And David perceived he was king. Because if you understand that this happens to everybody, David, oh, you have to understand. I love the story of David in the Bible. It's not a story, it really is. It's reality, it's history. David, arguably the most important king that ever walked the face of the earth. Why? Because the king of kings came from David's lineage, right? Jesus himself came from the lineage of David, and that's God had purpose, and the identity of David was ultimately that.
Yet he would usher in that lineage, right? From his seat in his kingdom will be the kingdom of Christ. And you know, how more important is that? But that's not where David's life started. David's life started as a shepherd boy, insecure. He was born out of wedlock. His own brothers mocked him, teased him because he never fit in, and honestly, didn't really even like him. So David was absolutely more of an outcast, if you will, especially in his own family.
Well, one day, Samuel, he was the prophet of the day, old and age at this time, I would say, but Samuel at this time, every time Samuel showed up, Israel would just be like, oh no, now what? Because they were always in trouble. He wasn't prophesying good things. Well, so Samuel steps up and God tells him to go and anoint the next king of Israel. Well, he ends up at a man named Jesse's house.
And he says to Jesse, bring out all of your sons, because one of them is going to be anointed as the king of Israel. And imagine Jesse thinking, My gosh, surely it's Elab, which is his oldest son. So he brings out all his sons, though. And of course, he starts with Elab and he says, Obviously, this is the one, my oldest son. Nope, next. No, next. He had seven before David. And he says, That's all. I don't have any more. Well, there has to be, Samuel says. Well, maybe David.
So even think of David as a potential son. That's imagine that false identity. Is he didn't even think of him as a son. So he had a lot of wounds and a lot of false identities from his brother and his father. See, I said many of them come from the people who love us, and his father did love David, of course. But David brought a lot of potential shame on the family because he wasn't born in wedlock. So fact was, is he said, go get him, bring them back. We're not sitting until David comes.
David shows up and he's anointed as king. And of course, his brothers despised him even more after that. But you know, David had some victories in his life. David did, in fact, kill a lion and kill a bear and from protecting the sheep. And that gave some dwins to David, a confidence. So David knew he was really good with the sling. David knew that he was good at certain things that his brothers couldn't do. So he had a confidence.
However, he still had a lot of insecurities from obviously this false identity that was put on him. And his brothers are off fighting because they're the soldiers, right? They're the masculine ones in the family. And they go off to war. And David wanted to go off too, but his father said, No, no, no, you have to tend to my sheep. And David goes off to the, or I'm sorry, his brothers go off to the front lines.
And one day, Jesse, his father, says, Take this to the your brothers on the front lines, some food and some things that they may need. So David goes and he sees them all cowering over this giant, Goliath, who's basically taunting all of Israel, saying, Send your best man, I'll fight him so we don't have to go to war. And if you win, you win, but if we win, you're our slaves. Right? He was making it very simple.
And every day this man would come out, this giant who was probably at least nine feet tall, coming out and taunting Israel, taunting their God, challenging them, saying, If your God's so good, let your best come out and fight me. And David says, wait a minute, are you kidding? It's like, why isn't anyone stepping up to this man? I'll deal with this man. See, because David had a perception that it wasn't a battle between his might and his little sling or him.
It was a battle between his God and his God. And David knew he served the one and only true God. So David stepped up with what I say Amots. And he had a lot of courage because it wasn't his courage, wasn't in him. But remember, he had some victories with the sling, right? But David stepped up, and you know the story. He takes down Goliath and becomes the hero. Well, his brothers, what did his brothers say when he even showed up before he stepped up? What are you doing here?
He said, Go back to your lowly sheep. You're here, you're here just for your own ego. You're here just to watch the battle. I know why you're here. I see your heart, he said. He's like, gosh, you know, what do you? I'm just questioning why everyone's afraid of this guy. But see, David stepped up with a different confidence, a confidence in God. He saw this guy really criticizing the God that he knew because when he was in the field, he spent a lot of time with this God, right?
He spent a lot of time there, so his confidence was there and he saw it differently. He saw it that this was a battle not between flesh and blood. It was not a battle between Goliath in Israel or Goliath in a man, but it was a battle between Goliath, this giant, and his God that protected him. See, his perception was very different than his brothers in all the of Israel. And David stepped into that. Okay, hold on to that thought. But here's the thing David literally becomes king one day.
But even before that, as he was already anointed king, he was running from Saul for many years. David made a lot of mistakes. And even when David became and was anointed finally king over Israel, he made a lot of errors and mistakes. He fell into many different sins, right? Even had a man killed. Obviously, he adultery was one of his sins, but David had all kinds of other insecurities and he wasn't leading Israel well until David perceived he was king.
David really perceived, and I have a mark in my Bible where David started functioning differently. See, because David walked in to further into his true identity. He realized what he really was, he realized the anointing and what it meant, that God chose him, just like he chose us for something very special, right? And he did. He created us. David stepped into that knowing. And not only did it change David, but it changed all of Israel, the nation of Israel.
And I believe it changed really history as we know it. And I believe even on David's deathbed, he walked even closer into that, really, an understanding of his true identity. I think he had a better vision, what would actually come when God gave him a vision talking about how his ancestors would multiply. And I think he had a greater vision of what God was doing beyond just his family that he saw.
But that was a better understanding of his true identity, meaning he was called to something much bigger than anything. And he lived that out in his latter years and walked closer in that true identity. And David became the king that he really God intended him to be. So true for us. Okay, how do we get there? Well, here's what I'm gonna give you a little instruction on. What you need to do is this.
First of all, I always when I'm teaching a group about this concept, because again, I believe people come to me and say, I want to be a better doctor, I want to be better in life, I want to make a difference, Dr. Pompa, like you are. I want to, and they want this simple answer. And when I talk about them walking closer to the identity, who God created them to be, it's kind of a step back. But I'm telling you, this is the key to success and happiness.
You have to make a timeline, and you want to go through, and on this timeline, as far back as you can remember, where were your traumas? What were the things that really affected you as a child? Maybe they were horrific things. Maybe they were, they say one in three people had some type of sexual trauma in their life. Horrible statistic, by the way, right? Maybe it's that. Maybe it was something um traumatic that your father, mother, sister, brother had said.
Maybe it was a physical trauma, a car accident, another accident that traumatized you. Because, see, any of these things can give us a false identity. So go through year by year, and I want you to timeline it out, even if it takes an hour. Keep going through. And by the way, typically that doesn't just come in one sitting. You have that timeline in front of you for a few days and you pray about it. And that's again, I'm not telling you to do what I do, but that's what I do.
I pray, show me these things, Lord, even the things I don't see now. And I believe God, after a few days, starts to reveal them to you, and sometimes even instantaneous, but and you mark them down as best you can on this timeline of when they have. And then I want you to do the opposite. I want you, like David, go through and mark the victories God gave you. The lion, the bear, the, you know, whatever. That David had many other victories, but you talk about you mark those down as well.
Because just like David had to anchor back into those things, see, because that was a clue to who God made him when he slayed the lion and the bear. It was a clue. So in the victories gives us clues, but in the hard things gives us what we need to pray about and focus on to break the stronghold of the false identities. And yes, they're strongholds.
And biblically, they we talk about how the enemy sets up a stronghold in our life, something that's not true, something that the enemy uses and a power in our life, you know, really make us weak and to overcome what God has for us. And the enemy sets up those strongholds. But we have the power in the name of Jesus, I believe, to break down those strongholds.
So when you look at all of these things, one by one, you need to address them and break the stronghold, rebuke them, all of these, what this did to your perception of yourself, and one by one pray about them. And maybe you need someone to help you with that. Maybe you need someone in your life that you love, trust that sit down with you.
Matter of fact, I find that even when you're looking at your traumas on a timeline, someone that you trust, a brother, sister, friend, someone you love dearly that knows you very well, let them sit down with you and help you because they perceive things differently than you do. And matter of fact, even for the good things, help let them look at that and say, Oh, don't you remember? Because again, they perceive things differently than you do. And then you you pray about that.
And I believe if you do that exercise, God will bring you closer to your true identity. And to repeat myself, closer you walk with your true identity, it's proportional to the level of success and happiness and effectiveness, and closer to the purpose God has for you, you become.
So the goal is to identify the false identities that we unfortunately believe cause bad behavior, oftentimes could lead even to depression and other things, because that's what happens when we're functioning in a false identity and walk closer to what God has for us. And God wants that for you. That's why I know that it works. The timeline is just a tool of identifying what's here, oftentimes, to bring it into our consciousness where we can now pray about it.
Because oftentimes we're not conscious about some of these things or even some of the false identities. That's why talking to someone that you love to help you identify them is an assistance because we would never, we think this is true about us. And yet someone that loves you differently says, Oh my gosh, like you thought that? I would never think that you thought you were stupid. Are you kidding me?
But yet we're embarrassed, and so we hide sometimes those things, and we need someone to point those things out to us. So there is really, it can happen in a moment's time sometimes that we break through into being and walking closer into our identity. And let me tell you something: people that typically get addicted to drugs, false identity leads you there.
Because when you're on a drug or you're addicted to something, you know, it it helps this feeling that we get when we're not in our true identity and we feel good for that moment. Obviously, it doesn't last, right? That's the problem with addiction, but it really helps us break out of what it feels like walking out of the identity, meaning that when you're so far off your true identity, then you just can't deal with life oftentimes, and we reach for other things.
And it could be even gambling, it could be many different addictions that replace what only God can do for us, but also it replaces who we really are. And when I watched um people, I would watch doctors uh doing different videos and trying to be effective in whatever mission that they really truly have a heart for and are called for, but they're not effective. I would watch them on a video because I did a lot of that in my early days of training doctors.
And I would be like, that's not who you are. It's like you're trying to be someone else, or they would even watch some of my videos and try to be me, or they would just be someone totally different. And I found early on, I just thought it was scripting. I just thought, no, no, don't talk that way. Just talk normally like you're talking to me right now. Right. But I found that when they're not functioning their true identity, they would put up a facade.
And oftentimes people that just don't function well in society and that have a lot of bad relationships or ruined relationships, they're just not functioning for really who they are. Maybe they're afraid because they don't even really know how to get there. And that's what I'm talking about functioning in a false identity versus functioning in your true identity. So the fact is that when you break through to that, you speak differently, you influence differently.
People are naturally just attracted to you. Yeah, you attract opposite sex much more, right? People are just generally spoon, you know, I don't know what it is about that person, but I just want to be around that person. See, they're functioning closer to their true identity. And when you don't have that effect, oftentimes you're just too far away from your true identity. So, again, the goal isn't to be 100% your true identity, the goal is every year to walk closer to who God created you to be.
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