Belief

"The most difficult CEO skill to master is the ability to manage your own psychology." - Ben Horowitz

I’ve always believed I was a hard worker.

It was ingrained in my psyche from a very young age.

See, my family prided itself with hard work. Dad and grandpa preached it (literally) from a pulpit every week, and lived it every day working construction.

Case in point: I remember seeing the steam come off my dad’s back in the early, 6AM morning while shingling a roof, all the while straining to throw shingles at a rate that could keep with his air-nailing pace. And doing this for hours.

Just a machine.

That was my benchmark for the first 23 years of my life.

But recently, I’ve gotten lazy.

Not exactly sure how it happened, but I’ve been shying away from the hard work.

And it’s creating a pulling sensation inside of me. A gap that needs to be closed.

I know what I need to do, but I’m not doing it.

• I know I need to post way more times a day
• I know I need to do outreach 100x a day
• I know I need to firm up my offer

On and on.

The problem is that there are so many excuses NOT to do those things. And there are always a million reasons not to do something (to quote Jan from Season 1 of The Office):

• The family is sick.
• I’m working a full-time 9-5.
• Relationship struggles are draining my energy.

But that is wrong.

The main reason is that this stuff is tough. And will take hard work.

I’m going to have to buckle down and the do the hard stuff for a while.

Make my belief match reality.

So, that is what I’m currently working on: putting the systems in place that’ll help me create and maintain momentum.

So what is the big deal about beliefs?

Well, I’ll tell you in a story.

A long time ago (this morning), in a land far, far away (15 miles away from my house) I was driving on the interstate to an appointment (I’m office hunting).

It was all going well, until I hit a wall of stop traffic.

Well, hit is a strong word. I braked just in time.

It was one of those situations where the leftmost of the 3 lanes was closed a mile up ahead.

So, everyone started getting over way ahead of time, leaving the far left lane open for at least a mile while everyone crowded in.

Which, is exactly the wrong thing to do.

It’s been shown through a lot of different studies that the zipper pattern (where you merge in right at the closure) gets traffic moving quicker.

This data has been out for literally years.

But still people try to get over as quickly as possible.

And most even get mad at people who drive to the end of the lane then get over.

But why?

Because they believe it.

It’s an irrational belief, sure, but that doesn’t matter.

They hold onto to the belief in the face of facts and science. And it affects their actions in these situations.

This is just one example of how powerful belief is.

Until that belief is shattered, people will continue to act on what they believe is true. Even to their detriment.

If you become proficient enough with your ability to influence belief through the written or spoken word, well, that is powerful indeed.

So my exhortation is to find your beliefs.

Some that you hold are good, and help you reach your goals.

But others are limiting. And these limiting beliefs will hold you back from reaching your optimal life.

So, how do you find these beliefs?

Well one way is simply to pay attention to the stuff you say to yourself and/or friends and family.

Usually, they manifest as sentences that start with “I can’t”, “I’m not”, “I am” or “I can.”

These are belief statements.

Each time you hear this come out of your mouth or you catch yourself thinking something along these lines. Write them down in your notes app, record a voice message, or write it in a journal.

After a while of doing this, you’ll become more aware and open to seeing where they manifest in your life.

Once you have this awareness shift, you’ll understand that beliefs can be changed.

You have the power to change your reality.

All it takes is an awareness shift and a willingness to change.

And that is powerful indeed.

Now that you know the why and the how, I figured I’d share a few examples.

So without further ado, ladies and gents, here is the stuff I believe strongly:

• There is a higher power.
• Humans weren't meant to retire.
• Who is more important than what.
• It is not good to be chronically alone.
• Freedom is more important than safety.
• Hard work is the only path to a lasting legacy.
• Nothing good comes from being comfortable.
• There is enough money in the world to be as rich as you want to be.
• Life can be optimized for what gives you energy and makes you happy.
• Dressing well and looking your best will always lead to more opportunities.

I’m not going to get into each. I’ll save that for individual tweets next week.

But I wanted to share these with y’all as an example.

As you craft these, keep in mind that each one should be polarizing. In fact, you probably hear objections to each in your mind as you write them. That’s good. If you have a rebuttal and argument to that objection, great! You’ve already done some hard introspection work.

If you don’t, take a deep dive. Maybe you don’t actually believe it.

But that process of trying to figure it out will guide to a deeper place of truth.

And that is always worth it.

We are all looking for the same thing in life:

Significance.

Some people call this status or clout. It’s the same thing.

When say we want health, wealth, a better career, a new car, etc., this all can be traced back to significance.

So, in your online journey as you…

• Write
• Sell
• Create, etc

…the more significance you bring, the more money you will make.

WHAT you are selling is status, WHERE you are selling from makes all the difference.

And SAFETY is where you are selling from.

It's the foundation.

The better you get at radiating and exuding safety and status, the more people will flock to you.

How people perceive you:

• Safety = your power to protect
• Status = your power to create and destroy

And you are already exuding both of these whether you’re intentional about it or not.

You’re already on a sliding scale in their minds with both of those values.

If you want to curate this, you need to position yourself so that people trust your character (safety) and your ability to affect their competence (status).

How do you create this positioning?

Sharing your beliefs.

Yes, you have to work on your writing skills. This is table stakes: you need the skill and the ability to make people stop and say "what the fuck did I just read?"

But you also need to share your beliefs.

This will create a polarizing gravity around your content.

Some people will be repelled but right people will be attracted.

So, how do you do this?

Jesse recommends the 3 message strategy for establishing a safe feeling with your audience (built around the Character pillar):

3 message strategy

Character (building trust in your character)

• Stories (tell stories to eliminate confusion)
• Philosophy (what do you believe?, what are your principles?)
• Lifestyle (what do you do: show cleanliness, orderliness, or something that you are good at. Talk about the stuff you are passionate about)

In the case of chaos, how do you show up? Tell stories about these situations.

Frame yourself as the safe option. A provider, a protector, not just a contributor.

This will draw people to you.

But you also want to draw the RIGHT people to you. To do this you want people to feel safe, but not comfortable.

So, half of all content should convey peacefulness, kindness, love, calm, and the other half is promoting your competence (situations where you took the leap out of the comfort zone to start your own business, start writing online, etc).

This will feel weird at first. Scary even.

You’re putting yourself out there. All your polarizing beliefs will be in full display.

But that’s good. Lean into it.

When I’m doing something new like this I like to visualize the Ron Gilbert butterfly analogy:

Feel the butterflies, and then get them to fly in formation.

You have got this.

You’ll feel the vulnerability, but you have the power to create your own reality at the end of the day.

Because if you don’t stand for something you’ll fall for anything (Aaron Tippin-reference).

“I don’t think you’ll like being an engineer”

I felt the wind go out of sails when he said that.

I was 18 years old.

And getting some feedback on my direction from a mentor.

Feedback that I basically ignored. But I thought I knew better.

I really liked math, my dad was an electrician, and it seemed like engineers made a lot of money.

So, despite the advice, I went to engineering school.

And was an engineer for 9 years. (still am an engineer, really)

Now, engineering is a great profession.

But, the longer I was in it, the more I realized…

My mentor was right.

He could see the traits and strong suits I had (even at 18) that I couldn’t see myself.

I wish I would have asked him better questions, and knew where to look for answers.

But I didn’t. Because of my beliefs.

• I believed that engineering was the only viable path for me out of poverty.
• I believed that I knew more than an investment banking multimillionaire (i was an idiot).
• I didn’t believe that I could make a living by doing the things that I loved (reading/writing/building relationships).

So, I enrolled in an associate’s degree. I was going to be a lineman for the electric company. Climbing poles and working with high voltage.

Once I was done with that, I transferred to a university and got my bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering.

Then spent the next 7 years working in chemical plants, warehouses, and government facilities.

But during that time, I was still reading and listening to podcasts. This, in addition to a few life changing events led to a series of transformations:

1. I discovered the book Third Circle Theory by Pejman Ghadimi from a friend’s Facebook post. This introduced me to large scale entrepreneurship. And then a podcast guest of Pejman’s introduced me to Tim Ferriss.
2. This opened my eyes up to a new world. Each guest on the Tim Ferriss show altered my reality. I was introduced to meditation, writing as a skill, knowledge management, awareness, etc. I also realized that all of my heroes were writers.
3. I started writing after my dad died. Needed to establish what I believed.
4. Discovered I didn’t want to do engineering my whole life, so I enrolled in an MBA program. Really loved the marketing classes. Which led me to buying a bunch of Seth Godin books and learning even more.
5. While learning how to write on Medium, I discovered Tim Denning which opened up a whole new world of writing online through Twitter and LinkedIn.
6. Seeing people make money online and actually talking to those people, I decided to start my own business. I bought a $5,500 coaching offer (which was WILD) to help me learn how to scale.
7. Got my first 3-4 clients. Now working on scaling.

And these are just the high points.

There’s lots of other turning points in there that has led me to this point in my journey from engineer to marketer.

A few key beliefs I changed during this journey:

• I moved from believing in a predetermined career path (lineman to electrical engineer) to embracing flexibility and entrepreneurship.
• My belief about how money is made shifted from a fixed salary model to understanding the potential of online businesses and entrepreneurship (project/product-based).
• My belief was turned on its head that job security was more important than finding meaning and personal fulfillment through my work.

None of this was quick.

And it sure wasn’t easy.

I knew that going in.

It was going to be a lot of incremental changes, a lot of introspection, and a lot of writing.

And I’m not done.

I’m still doing those things. Probably still will for the rest of my life. Hopefully.

But it all starts with learning what you believe.

That’s an investment that is always worth it.

So here we are.

At the end of a journey through beliefs, hard work, and self-discovery.

But really, it's just the beginning.

Because now you know. You know the power of your beliefs. You know how they shape your reality, your actions, your very life.

And more importantly, you know you can change them.

It's not easy. Hell, it might be the hardest thing you ever do.

But it's worth it.

Because when you start to question your beliefs, when you start to really look at why you think the way you do, that's when the magic happens.

That's when you start to grow.

That's when you start to become who you were meant to be.

So take a moment. Reflect on what you believe. Write it down. Question it. Challenge it.

And then, when you're ready, start to change it.

Remember, your beliefs are the foundation of your life. They're the lens through which you see the world.

Make sure they're serving you, not holding you back.

Because at the end of the day, you have the power to create your own reality.

All it takes is belief.

And a whole lot of hard work.

But hey, you're up for that challenge, right?

After all, that's what you believe.