I would like to begin by taking you back in time with me to an experience I had three years ago it was summertime and I just moved here to San Jose I was living with two great roommates and I was a tag along with one of my roommates too my first pool party in California when we arrived to the gated gated mansion sized houses I felt like I was living in the California that I had always seen on TV I had an awesome time food and drinks were abundantly provided and I partook of the shrimp cocktail shall we say generously it was only the right thing for me to do to introduce myself to the host so I approached I smiled I stuck out my hand and said thanks for hosting such a lovely party but I was met with the response of qualify yourself huh I said arm still outstretched expecting a greeting and that's when his friend beside him reiterated the question with more clarity he said qualify yourself tell him why he should talk to you immediately my mind split into two paths the first and more dominant voice got to work on the task I ain't asked myself what are the bells and whistles of my existence that I can showcase to woo and persuade this person I'm worth his time Stanford I'll start with Stanford I'm a psychologist at Stanford and then maybe the car I Drive well nobody cares about a Ford Focus and on I went the other part of me was still stunned and staggering that there was a litmus test for conversation and probably consequences for not measuring up I had no idea what mattered to him and the things that mattered to me felt inconsequential so this was very demoralizing I'm happy to say that this part of me one out I didn't engage I simply said thanks again for hosting and walked away now I hope none of you have had such a direct and disheartening experience where your worth was directly questioned but there's a more common experience a more common question that taps into the same type of jockeying for value quick show of hands how many of you have been asked what do you do or what do you study and feel like that question is gonna determine how much respect or attention you receive that looks like the whole room now this is just the surface of the types of daily experiences that slowly erode our way our sense of inherent value and replace it with a sense of conditional mattering a conditional sense of self-worth means you think your worth as a person depends upon something else now as a psychologist who's heard and held hundreds of human stories I have witnessed firsthand how this mentality of feeling like you are not enough has stolen dreams ambitions relationships health and happiness away from people if we were to excavate to its core issues like impostor syndrome perfectionism some anxieties depression we would find fears of unworthiness lurking there with other factors so I'm here to declare enough is enough with these worth wars were raging with one another think about how radically different our world and relationships would be if each of us actually acted like we all had inherent value this is probably hard for you to even fathom because we've all been taught and groomed to value ourselves based on conditions so I'm also here to break new ground in your consciousness I want to invite you to entertain how your enough is enough so let's answer three questions what is inherent value and why is it psychologically healthier to live from this worldview how have we lost sight of this truth and how might we unlearn this unhelpful message so the concept of inherent value is a philosophical idea that dates back centuries with much debate around the topic but simply put something is said to be intrinsically valuable if the the thing has value in itself or for its own sake essentially it's not a means to an end there's so much that we do towards some other end goal right students you do the assignment to get the a you want the a in the courses to get to the degree you want the degree to land the job and you believe the job will give you the standard of living that you desire you achieve one thing in order to earn another so feeling inherently valuable is not found in the youngster who notices more parental attention when he's playing sports than when he's playing when he's creating art it's not found in the romantic partner who believes dropping 10 or 15 more pounds will afford her more affection from her significant other and it's not found in the graduate student who says to me in therapy I have to do something big with my life something of Steve Jobs level impact to matter when it comes to your self-worth as a person if we believe this premise that you are inherently valuable period there's nothing that comes after that if you get the a you're valuable if you don't get the a you have some work to do but you're still just as valuable now some people believe inherent value is a God granted gift others think it's based on the unique light in the unique human existence of each individual life whatever the source what we do know is that those among us who are able to be self valuing fare far better in terms of mental health and relationships and that's why I propose it to you let's look at some of the literature the go-to study on this is out of the University of Michigan they looked at college students and those who base their self-worth on external sources such as academic performance appearance approval of others reported more stress more anger at lower academic performance and relationship difficulties disturbingly they also had a higher tendency toward drug and alcohol use and eating disorder symptoms while their peers who base their self worth on internal sources had better grades reported less stress and a lower tendency for those same drug alcohol and eating disorder symptoms another study out of Ohio actually created a scale to measure self-worth and one interesting finding there was they saw that contingent self-worth was associated with something they called non autonomous controlled motivation essentially that is the feeling stress and pressure to perform which naturally decreased well-being the literature has many threads that echo the same message that if you're able to own your some body Ness its preferred for wellness hmm go sent the brain one second so acknowledging your inherent value does not mean lowering the bar please go and achieve much but do it in such a way that you know there's a floor or a baseline of worth that you cannot descend below and what I'm saying about inherent value is different than self-esteem the nation in psychology was hooked on self-esteem theory in the 1970s as the way to build a successful person we now know that high self esteem alone doesn't always correlate to ha to desired outcomes if anything sometimes it can backfire having someone misjudged their responsibility and then do poorly so here's the difference an inflated self sense of self-esteem sounds like I got this I can do it I'm the best whether or not that's actually true no assessment of strengths and weaknesses while inherent value sounds like this is important to me and I'm gonna do my best and regardless of the outcome afterwards I deserve to rest or this is important but doesn't define me okay so let's try to make your worth omnipresent and unequivocal let that simmer as we move on how is it that we've lost sight that we matter unconditionally well it can be a silent and insidious process or it can be quite explicit and overt but it happens to us all psychologist Carl Rogers coined the term conditions of worth a condition of worth is those circumstances situations and behaviors we think we must meet in order to be worthy and approved by other people and win their love and positive regard as youngsters we notice from parents what pleases them and then we strive to do more of those things as we get older we seek to be palatable to our peers our teachers our romantic partners our advisors our bosses our culture and society as a whole all the while contour ourselves to some external definition of worth as a soon-to-be parent I've been thinking about these early messages a great deal think to yourself for a moment what were some of the early messages you received about who you needed to be to show up in the world as meaningful if you had a thought it probably is accurate and it's probably stayed with you across your development so having counseled people with students and professionals for the last eight years I have seen how we all strive tirelessly to feel worthy here are some of the common conditions of worse that I've come across first up money the accrual of it raising your social class and the lifestyle that it can afford beauty or appearance usually manifesting as thinness for a female identified people and strength for male identified people academic prowess having deep knowledge and then having that knowledge recognized by others athleticism talent speed fitness agility helping others being known as that person that is reliable loyal and dependable sometimes to a fault relationships and networking being able to procure as many relationships as you want and also knowing others who are deemed worthy and lastly family approval needing the endorsement from family members or family culture now individuals don't bestow these burdens on themselves again our society is riddled with many conditions and consequences for not meeting them and even those of us who seem to be winning at these conditions stand to lose because conditions change with time age or unexpected hardships furthermore those of us with more minority identities have even more treacherous paths because there are extra messages of unworthiness lofted upon you based on stereotyped microaggression discrimination prejudice and outright hate so what do we do in the face of this how do we unlearn an unhealthy message that is so entrenched disclaimer the methods i'ma briefly about to describe are not easy they won't happen overnight and they might not even happen over the course of years it's a process and I call it lifespan work but on an individual level let's start with the hardest task which is to stop comparing yourself to others I know what you're thinking how can I do this when the world around me does this constantly well a full answer would pull on the literature's from self compassion gratitude would likely advocate for a separation of comparing to acquire new skills and increase performance and comparing that is harmful for your sense of self another part of my answer is to do something that resonates with you for its own sake when was the last time you did something not because it's going to show up on your resume not because it meets that condition of worth that you're wrestling with but just because you enjoyed it it's probably been a while what this does is it softens our stance toward ourselves it allows us a zoomed out perspective and gives us a chance to experience ourselves and others in a non conditional way in our families we need to nurture the unconditional self and respond with love and acceptance to successes and failures in our schools and institutions this is difficult because we are seeking outcomes but a person is not a product and we need a culture that delineates the two and helps us see that one does not define the other so I leave you with the challenge to get started on some of this the next time someone asks you what do you do or what are you studying and attempt to qualify your worth I want you to try to answer them from this new understanding of inherent value don't provide an occupation or field of study instead share with them something that you cherish about yourself try to break interpersonal ground with them and not start with labels for example if I could go back to that pool party and have a second chance of introducing myself I would once again not say I'm a Stanford psychologist but I would say that I'm a story keeper that I show love through listening and then I share what I learn to educate and liberate people that says so much more about me and it's something I do cherish about myself and I'm really honored to have shared it with you tonight thank you [Applause]