In August, I caught up with Ken Fraser, the "Esteem Wizard" and Australian Representative on the International Council for Self-Esteem to find out what self-esteem is and just how important it is for successful weight management.

In the interview below you'll discover:

• What self esteem is and how it relates to body image and weight loss
• How to boost poor self-esteem
• A different way to view failure and relapse
• The principles of self esteem
• The benefits of being accountable
• How to delete negative self-talk
• Plus a bunch of one-liners and stories to share with your clients to enhance their self esteem and success!

Matt:
This is Matt O'Neill from SmartShape.com.au. Today I'm talking with Ken Fraser, who works with individuals on self-esteem, and also with companies and organisations to create harmonious, productive workplaces.

In a past life Ken was a teacher, but now he focuses on self esteem and is the Australian representative on the International Council for Self Esteem.

Matt:
Before we define self esteem, how did you get involved in this area?

Ken:
In the early Nineties I was working with the old Skill Share project, a job creation scheme set up by the Federal Government. I was working essentially with people with a disability; vision loss, hearing loss, psychiatric, sensory etc, teaching work and living skills.

The message I was getting loud and clear from them was, Ken, it's not the disability that's the problem, it's what I think, it's what I believe, it's what I feel about my disability. That is the obstacle.

The term self esteem came up more and more regularly so I realised I had to look at this baffling thing called self esteem.

Matt:
Was that something that was missing from the solutions you were trying to provide?

Ken:
I'd thought about it, but I was giving it 1 per cent instead of about 95 per cent.

Matt:
What do the words self esteem mean?

Ken:
To me it means knowing that you're worth something as an individual. The definition I use, which is by Nathaniel Brandon, is it's not a feeling - it's the disposition to see one's self as competent to deal with life challenges and deserving or worthy of happiness.

It's partly a skill and partly an attitude.

Matt:
A lot of people who have problems with dieting and challenges with their weight feel like they're not worthy. Maybe that's a major barrier to getting results, but certainly people aren't born with that. When do we start to feel we have low self esteem?

Ken:
My gut feeling tells me it starts somewhere between the ages of two and nine. My grandson was born two weeks ago; he's got high self esteem because no one's told him otherwise. Unfortunately as children grow up they start to be told by parents or peers that they're not good enough; you're a bad boy etc. And we start to get this picture that there's something missing in our lives.

This is often reinforced when we go to school and we're told we haven't handed in a good paper, we have spelling mistakes, we're not as good as Jimmy. We compare ourselves with other people and once we bring competition it the child starts to see itself in terms of failing. Not how well did I do, but what did I do wrong.

This is reinforced over the next 10 years at school. So often when we get to the age of 15 or 16 we're more concerned with why we're not as brainy as him, as pretty as her, as rich as him. We start comparing ourselves and seeing ourselves in terms of what's missing.

Matt:
With something missing—perceived or real—how does that usually affect people's lives?

Ken:
In terms of the media today, we're conditioned to believe that to have high self esteem one must be young, slim, attractive, good looking… I score zero on these, but I think my self esteem's quite high.

Matt:
[Ken's actually going alright!] If people are comparing themselves with all these images and trying different diets, how does repeatedly failing on a diet effect self esteem?

Ken:
In my view it need not have any effect at all. One of the problems in our society, where body image is ranked so highly, is that we tend to equate our body image with self esteem. To me, it has nothing to do with it.

Matt:
They're different things?

Ken:
Quite fundamentally different, unless we choose to bring them together.

Matt:
How should body image be different to self esteem?

Ken:
My body is not me; Ken Frazer the person is not Ken Frazer's body.

Matt:
Related to weight loss, is the problem when someone thinks their body is their whole self esteem and, therefore, every other talent is ignored?

Ken:
Yes. It gets put into abeyance because all they can see is the so-called fat body.

Matt:
How can people turn that around?

Ken:
There's a vast array of things. One is to look back at the things you've done well in your life. If you feel you haven't accomplished anything, hey, you're still alive. That's a big accomplishment.

If you have your health, your family, your friends - those are accomplishments. If you believe you're a good person, if you believe you're kind - these are huge achievements. Who cares if your body is a few pounds over what you think it should be.

Matt:
For people who never compliment themselves, how can a weight loss coach, trainer or dietitian help them realise this and them move on?

Ken:
Well, my past doesn't equal my future. Just because in the past 50-odd years I've been slothful and lazy doesn't mean that it's going to be like that for the rest of my life.

I often say to people, okay, if you think you're fat and have all these negative attributes that's fine. Just say these two words: “until now”. You'll never have as much time as you do now to change yourself. Do it now.

Matt:
That's easy to say, but what are the things that usually put people off track?

Ken:
The fact that they compare themselves with other people—absolutely fatal. The fact that they might have `failed' in the past. So what?

Thomas Edison who invented electric lights supposedly failed 2,000 times. But he didn't acknowledge the word failure. He said, I haven't failed, I've figured out 2,000 ways to make a light that doesn't work!

It's a mental trick, if you like, but it sends the real you a message that says, hey, just because you haven't done well in the past doesn't mean anything.

Matt:
What should people say to friends that might undermine that they're now a positive person?

Ken:
There are a number of ways. My trick is to accept all compliments gladly and say, yes, thank you very much.
Some people aren't good at accepting compliments.

In Australia we're not very good at accepting complements. But you should accept compliments even if it feels strange. Fake it till you make it!

When I work with business, I tell bosses to stop looking for things their employees are doing wrong and try to catch them doing something right and say well done.

Matt:
Tell us about working with groups in the workplace?

Ken:
Young men are much harder to work with than young women. They tend to be less in touch with their feelings and more interested in projecting a macho image. But that's a defence mechanism; scratch the surface a little bit and you often find a little boy inside.

Young women seem to accept the fact that they can change and they're more in touch wit their feelings.

Matt:
For a male who's not in touch with his feelings—he's working at the gym but not the healthiest way, or he's older and ignoring a serious health problem—how can a coach or motivator break through?

Ken:
Getting in touch with your feelings takes a bit of time; it's not one-size-fits-all. I often tell little stories and you see the body language change. It's different strokes for different folks.

Matt:
What sort of stories do you tell?

Ken:
There's one I tell at the end of my sessions called `Love You Forever'. A mum has a baby in her arms and she says, No matter what your behaviour is I'll love you forever anyway. The child grows older and when five, she says I love you anyway. When he's 9 or 10 and he's dirty and he swears, she goes to his bed at night and when she's sure he's asleep she says I'll love you forever. I'll like you for always, as long as you're living my baby you'll be.

She still does it when he's a grown man, but one day she discovers she's old and sick. So he goes to her and says, no matter that you're old, forgetful and sick, I'll still love you because I love the person. Then he goes upstairs to his new baby and starts the process starts all over again.

You can touch people emotionally because messages last a lifetime. So let's make them positive if we can.

Matt:
We were chatting about the emotional impact of words. Like `loss' as in `weight-loss' may not be the most positive thing. Tell us more about that.

Ken:
It's an idea I picked up from the author Wayne Dyer. He's written great books on enhancing yourself. In one of his books he said the greatest disease of the 20th Century was the disease of more.

If only I had more money, I'd be happy. If only I had better looks, I'd be happy. If only I had more time, I'd be happy. If only I had a better job, I'd be happy.

Dyer says, forget the word more and accept who you are now because there's nothing missing. I think that's a really important concept.

Matt:
If you say `loss' are people losing something there?

Ken:
I think we've lost our concept of who we are. At the risk of being deeply philosophical… we equate the word self with the body.

If someone was asked to describe me, there's my personality, my temperament, my character, my beliefs, my values, my fears, my memories, dreams, passions—I haven't even mentioned the body yet! Start looking at other aspects of you as a human being.

That long list could essentially be a check list of things you could talk about with your client. For example, what are your passions? I don't have a duty statement I have a passion statement.

Matt:
That would make it fun!

Ken:
Yes it does. Know your values.
If you don't know what your personal values are you don't know what's important to you. And if you don't know what's important to you in life, how can you know what you want? And if you don't know what you want, how are you going to know when you've got it.

I often find that when people losing weight get to their goal weight they find things haven't really changed. What should people expect to happen and what disappoints them?

When I set myself a goal, I ask what do I want and I'm very specific. The second question is why do I want this, how will life be different for me? A lot of people just see themselves losing weight, but I think you've got to be more specific.
If you've lost three kilos or ten kilos, how will life be different for you? Is that what you really want?

Which need is it going to meet? Is it my need for acceptance? Well, why do I feel I need to be accepted. We need to accept ourselves first before we worry about other people's acceptance.

Matt:
If more people did accept themselves and open themselves up to more possibilities, how could they help other people in terms of being a role model?

Ken:
Some one with a positive attitude would wake up and, instead of waking up and saying Good God, Morning! would say, Good Morning, God.

You don't have to be religious or spiritual, it's just a case of reprogramming yourself.

What I've learned to do since practicing self esteem is that I've managed to give up what I call the negative emotions. I rarely ever feel anger; it just doesn't happen. I rarely ever feel the need to blame, myself or others. I rarely if ever feel guilty. Because I know that because I respect myself, all my actions are the best I could do at the time. We've all got 20-20 hindsight. There's no need to blame ourselves.

I rarely worry, because living one day at a time I'm confident to deal with life's challenges. Worrying isn't going to help me or anybody else.

The other one is fear. If you're confident in who you are, the future ceases to hold any fears for you.

Matt:
I wish more of my clients were like that. They have the fear of failure so they won't try or experiment. How do you get people to deal with fear?

Ken:
Well, we haven't covered the principals yet… But self esteem is knowing that you're confident to deal with life's challenges. And if `failing' is one of life's challenges I know I can deal with it. Failure, to me, doesn't exist. If there's such a thing as failure it means I didn't try.

Matt:
You mentioned principals, what are they?

Ken:
I use the ideas of Nathaniel Brandon, he calls them pillars.
The first pillar of self esteem is to be aware: of our values, beliefs, temperament, passion, fears etc.

The second pillar is to have a sense of purpose: knowing what you want, why you want it and what you're prepared to do about it.

The third is accepting total responsibility for your actions; not blaming, just accepting responsibility.

The fourth is being assertive: stand up for the reality of who you are, don't fake yourself.

The fifth is integrity; walk the talk. If you say you're honest, act honestly. If you say you're kind, act in a kind way.

The last is self acceptance. Some people would say that goes first, but if you practice the first five you'll probably be able to accept yourself far more readily.

Matt:
I heard you say accountability…

Ken:
It's much the same thing.

Matt:
I always get asked how people can make their clients accountable to eat certain foods or do their exercise. How would you start a conversation about accountability?

Ken:
I would go back to the American Indians. I have a poster on my wall at home with the 10 Commandments of American Indians. Number one is: Accept Total Responsibility for Your Actions.

If you do that, it's amazingly freeing. If you accept total responsibility you don't need to blame anybody. You did the best you could at the time and you goofed. Do it differently next time.

You can apply that to weight loss. If you goof tonight, don't beat yourself up. Say you goofed and do something to make up for it. Instead of thinking you've stuffed the whole diet, walk an extra half hour tonight. That makes you accountable and you can accept responsibility and do something to compensate.

Matt:
That sounds like solving your own challenges and coming up with your own program?

Ken:
When you have high self esteem you can do that.

Matt:
It's good advice for clients, because when they do lose weight they either achieve their goal or not, but if they feel happy then it doesn't matter, does it?

Ken:
No. There's a book by Susan Jeffers who wrote a wonderful book: Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. She says, what if there's never such a thing as a wrong decision? Whatever you do, go with it. If you get what you what, great. If you don't, you've learned something. And if you've learned something, how can that be wrong?

That's a big part of cognitive reprogramming, which I practice most days of my life.

So if you have the chockie bar you didn't plan to have…
I would say, gee, I enjoyed that. I can have another one next year. I won't kick myself for goofing once, I'll make up for it by walking a little bit further.

Be kind to yourself. The harshest judgement we make in our entire lives is the one we make on ourselves.

Matt:
If you catch yourself making harsh judgements on yourself, how do you snap out of that?

Ken:
Use computer technology. Say, Do I want to save this? No. Delete it!

Matt:
Teaching others about food and exercise can be a challenge. Should you use visuals or information - what's the best way?

Ken:
I'm a visual person so I learn by seeing things. But one of the tricks is to be aware that we all learn differently and bring in a bit of hands-on stuff, some visual stuff etc.

I try to use myself as an example. Not because I've achieved something other people haven't, but particularly if I've failed. I tell people what I did and what I did to overcome it.

You're proving that you're trying to walk the talk as well and you can learn from them. We're all learning together.

Matt:
So you can learn from the client?
Yes. Tell me how it worked for you, Fred? This is Fred's experience. You're validating and valuing at the same time and embracing adult learning principles.

Matt:
How does it affect someone's self esteem?

Ken:
I helped people! I was able to do something. Being able to help people is a great thing for self-esteem.

Matt:
Tell me about how talking about self esteem has impacted on your life.

Ken:
It's made a huge impact because I actually go to work knowing I'm going to have a great day. It's a revelation to value myself. Because once I value myself as a human being (which is not indulging the ego) I'm far more able to help other people meet their own challenges.

It works from the outside in, not the inside out.

Matt:
Thanks Ken, you've boosted my self esteem already.

(C) Matt O'Neill & Ken Fraser, 2004

For details of Ken Fraser's workshops and seminars contact him on:

Tel: (02) 6296 3034
Email: kfraser@webone.com.au

Useful links:

International Council for Self Esteem

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