After reading two books by Don Miguel Ruiz, I started to love the way he looks at life. I've already made a summary of two of his best books, four agreements, and the mastery of love. Both of these books have massively helped me to become a better version of myself. So I decided to read another book by him, and this time I chose the fifth agreement. It turns out this is also an amazing book that can be super helpful. In the four agreements, Don gave us four powerful agreements to free ourselves from any self-limiting beliefs. The fifth agreement starts where the last book left us. Here he gives us another agreement and I think the most important of all that can help us in the process of self-improvement. In this video, I'll give you a quick summary of the four agreements, and then I'll dig deeper into the fifth agreement.
Welcome to RAGWise, For those of you that are new to the channel, I am Bahman and I’ve committed to reading at least 100 self-improvement books and I am making these videos because I once read in a book, you don’t actually learn something unless you can explain it to someone else so that they do understand it. Let’s start with a quick summary of the four agreements.
The first agreement is to be impeccable with your words.
Words are very powerful and we should never use them against ourselves and other people. Being impeccable with words means using words to empower ourselves and other people around us. And this also includes the self-talk that goes on in our heads.
The second agreement says, don't take anything personally.
You just know what other people say or do, has everything to do with them and only shows how they see the world. So you don't take personally what other people do or say to you, and you no longer have to worry about the opinions other people have about you. This makes you immune to judgments.
The third agreement says, don't make assumptions.
This means when you don't know something, instead of assuming and pretending that you know, just ask questions that can help you to find out the actual truth.
And the fourth agreement says, always do your best.
This can help you integrate other agreements into your life, you commit to practicing them and you simply do the best you can.
These four agreements can empower us a lot but you often hear all types of stories from people that they believe are true, how to know which one of these stories is true? The fifth agreement can help us discover the truth.
The fifth agreement and the most important of all is to be skeptical, but learn to listen.
This has two parts. The first part is to be skeptical because most of the things you hear aren’t true. Every person you know has a belief system and they see the world through the lens of their belief system. This includes each and every one of us. Most of our knowledge comes from the belief system mainly programmed into us in our childhood. Not all of them are true. So don't believe in anything that you hear because they aren't necessarily true. Remember this, the truth doesn't need you to believe it. It just is. And the best test for truth is that whatever is not the truth, will not survive the test of skepticism. If you don't believe lies, they simply disappear. So we can use the power of doubt to find the truth, the doubt takes you behind the belief system and helps you to discover the truth, the ultimate truth, and not the relative one, why invest your faith in any message that is not true?
But being skeptical is not just discarding everything that people say. To fully understand other people's point of view, you also have to learn to listen very carefully. This is the second half of the agreement. The reason is simple. When you learn to listen, you understand the meaning behind the stories that people say. You don't focus on symbols. People will come and tell their point of view, what they believe is true. You listen very carefully to what they say, knowing that whatever they say is nothing but a story distorted by their belief system. You don't have to believe in anyone’s story, you just listen. Remember, when people believe in a story, it's absolutely true for them. But it is not necessarily the truth. With this awareness, It's not about being right or wrong. You respect whatever they say and learn to listen without judging them to be wrong, because, you know, from their point of view, they are right because that's what they believe. And if you listen and find out that specific belief can’t help you, you just let that go. But if you don't learn to listen, you will never understand what they are saying.
So, to summarize:
Agreement #1: Be impeccable with your words
Agreement #2: Don’t take anything personally
Agreement #3: Don’t make assumptions
Agreement #4: Always do your best
Agreement #5: Be skeptical, but learn to listen
Guys, I am not perfect at applying these agreements to my life, but I am doing my best and I’ve already seen so many benefits. You can start by choosing one of these agreements that makes more sense to you and apply it to your life, believe me, you’d be glad you did that.
Also, make sure to like this video and also check out the other book summaries by don Miguel Ruiz. See you in the next video.
