One new belief can change a life.

Your “I CAN” is more important than your IQ.

In the Jewish creation narrative, God spoke the heavens and the earth into existence. In the Biblical Proverbs, words are said to have the power of life and death. In Christianity, Jesus is introduced as the Word that God sent to manifest his power on the earth. Ancient cultures keenly understood the connection between words and the events that took place in the material world. The words of the Creator were of the utmost important. Kings, generals, and commoners sought out divine oracles by which to govern their lives. They labored in temples, churches, mosques, and prayer rooms expressly to persuade God to utter a word in their favor. It was also said that man was created in the image of the Creator. The belief was widespread that a man’s destiny would in some measure be determined by his own words.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.

Genesis 1:3-4

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:27

Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

Proverbs 18:21

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:1-2

The truth is that your life and my life up until this point are the manifestation of words that we have spoken and words that have been spoken over us by others. The seed of every word is a thought. A dumb person may go an entire lifetime without speaking a syllable, but the power of words operates in his own mind. And not all words have equal power. A man may think 70,000 thoughts in a day. But only the thoughts he believes take up root in his mind, reproduce themselves, and have a powerful effect on his material reality. This is something that Jesus Christ understood.

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

Mark 11:24

The thoughts we believe are the source of everything else that happens in our life. They are the prism through which we interpret reality. In every moment, the brain is flooded with far more information than it can possibly make sense of. The brain has what’s called a reticular activating system, whose job is to filter information from the environment by only holding on to information that confirms existing beliefs. This is why someone who believes, “I am successful,” constantly finds evidence to support their belief in the same manner as someone who believes, “I am not good enough.” There is a famous sequence that captures the powerful impact thoughts (and the beliefs that empower them) have on our lives.

Watch your thoughts. They become words. Watch your words. They become deeds. Watch your deeds. They become habits. Watch your habits. They become character. Character is everything.

Experts estimate that human beings think between 60-80,000 thoughts and speak between 10-25,000 words in day. If words are the building blocks of life, it follows that every human being is constantly creating their life. And they are doing so at an incredibly prolific rate. We often don’t see it this way because our brains are on auto-pilot and many of our thoughts are repetitive. The bottom line is that the key to all self-improvement is changing the way we think.

Abracadabra. We’ve all heard this word before. It’s what magician’s say when they perform a trick. It’s from Aramaic and means “I create as I speak.” Abracadabra is the main takeaway of this article. And the main takeaway of this website. Remember it if you remember nothing else.

Beliefs influence how people think, act, and feel; they are based on interpretation of lived experience and have everything to do with perspective. Beliefs are typically not “true” or “false;” they are simply more or less resourceful. Many beliefs that were once resourceful continue to exert an effect long after the circumstances that motivated them have evolved. Enter the elephant-and-the-rope illustration.

Some of you are already familiar with this story. When the elephant is a baby, the trainer ties a small rope around its leg and fastens it to a peg to keep it from wandering off. The elephant repeatedly attempts to free itself but fails due its small stature. Once the elephant is grown, it can easily break the rope and gain the freedom of movement that it craves–but it doesn’t even try. By then, the elephant has internalized the belief, deep-seated and uncontested, that the rope is stronger.

It takes courage to try where we’ve failed in the past. But sometimes that is the only way to create new evidence without which the brain is loathe to abandon old beliefs.

Today, I’ve transcribed a short YouTube clip that expands on the elephant-and-the-rope story. (FYI, it’s a text-only video). Reality or fiction, I hope you find it as thought-provoking as I did!

Transcript:

Failure isn’t fatal, but failing to change might be (John Wooden).

One of my friends was passing by the elephants and suddenly stopped. He saw that a huge elephant was held by only a small rope tied to his front leg. It was obvious that the elephant could break away from the rope but he did not. My friend asked the trainer why the elephant just stood there and made no attempt to get away.

The trainer said, “When the elephant was very young and much smaller, I used the same size rope to tie him. As he grew up, he was conditioned to believe he could not break away. He still believes the rope can hold him, so he never tries to break free.”

My friend was amazed. Like the elephant, how many of us go through life hanging on to a belief that we cannot do something simply because we failed at it once before? How many of us are being held back by old, outdated beliefs?

Many cultures across time and space practiced ancestral worship. Some still do today, as we see manifest in African tribal religions and Japanese Shintoism. These cultures hold that ancestral spirits continue to exist and exercise influence over human affairs. There is also typically a reverence for ancestors that transcends immediate self-interest. This reverence is based on the recognition that ancestors, in general, and one’s ancestors, in particular, were in large part responsible for creating the world that their descendants inherited. Ancestors also deserve credit for having completed the universal challenge that is life. As a result, descendants owe ancestors a debt of gratitude and honor.

American society today places little emphasis on ancestors. Our society is founded on the enlightenment value of individualism–the idea that the individual is supreme. In theory, the individual has the power to create their destiny and bears sole responsibility for their success or failure. An individualistic worldview diminishes the role of parents, grandparents, siblings, and relatives, and pays even less attention to ancestors.

However, even in a country as individualistic as the US with the least theoretical underpinning for ancestral reverence, I see it all the time. Millions of Americans use the services of Ancestry and 23andMe and are greatly eager to discover information about their relatives (especially if any one of them was the least bit famous).

I always remember the instance when a friend in grade school told me that his ancestors were kings and queens. I had no reason to doubt his story. I have heard my own family members make similar claims. The only difference is my family members tend to go further back in time since the more recent evidence on our family lineage suggests otherwise.

Human beings seem to have a need for a strong self-image–call it identity. In individualistic societies like the US that have relatively weak family networks, many people find their self-image lacking in meaningful ways. People turn to sports teams, political parties, musical groups, and social causes as a source of identity. Some resurrect nationalism, nativism, and xenophobia. And yet others swear allegiance to gangs and mafias. When people find these avenues deficient, they may even go further back in time like my friend, my family members, and the countless Americans suddenly fascinated by their ancestry.

The myriad ways people craft their identity betrays the fact that identity is socially constructed. If identity is individualistic, it is so in the sense that every individual ultimately chooses how to self-define. Some people even lie or delude themselves in the process, as I alluded to earlier, but their misconceptions may form as strong a foundation for their lives as someone who only operates with cold hard facts. For me, the truth is important. I have a hard time ignoring evidence or believing something in the absence of it. And when people realize the truth they built their life around was actually a lie, then a second-order identity crisis is usually the end result.

When I first started writing this article, I wasn’t sure where I was going with it. But now I think I do. It all goes back to the power of the mind. Just as words have the power to create, they also have the power to change. Somebody who lacks identity has the power to develop a positive one that situates them as a meaningful, contributing member of a community. Similarly, someone with an identity built on resentment, exclusivity, or lies has the power to radically reform it. But there is only one captain on every ship. I can’t do it for you the same way you can’t do it for me.

Telling somebody it’s possible may sound like cold consolation. But the biggest obstacle to change is the belief that the way things are is the way things will always be.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is known for many things. His former status as Mr. Universe, his role as the main character in the Terminator series, and his charming Austrian accent. He is also known for his in-your-face style that every competitive athlete and gym junkie can appreciate. Arnold has the success for people to trust what he’s saying and the passion to inspire them to take action. I’ve transcribed a YouTube compilation in which Arnold talks about the mindset of a champion–having a clear vision, an unwavering self-belief, and an insane work ethic.

Transcript:

When I used to do seminars on how to become a champion, I would always ask people, why do you want to be a champion? Or what do you want to accomplish? Why are you training? And if a guy would get up and he would say “Well, I want to train because I think that if I get muscular and I feel like I’m getting the kind of definition, then I maybe can enter a bodybuilding competition.” I said “Sit down. Because if you think this way, you’re going to be a loser. You’re never going to make it. Because there’s no maybe. You’ve got to get up and say ‘I want to be a champion. And I’ll do whatever it takes.’The amount of hours it takes, the posing, the this, the that, the visualization. Looking at training footage, looking at motivational books, reading this and that. Whatever it takes. I will do it. That’s the answer I want to hear from you.

You can detect right away those that are going to be shaky and that will fall behind and that will not go all the way, and those that are very hungry. And that hunger you have to develop because you have to create a goal for yourself whatever that may be. A short-term goal, and a long-term goal. You got to go after it and if you do not see, and if you do not believe it, who else will? . .

Experiencing pain in your muscles and aching and just then go on and go on and go on. And those last 2, 3, or 4 repetitions, that’s what actually makes the muscle then grow. And that divides one from a champion and one from not being a champion. If you can go through this pain period, you make it to be a champion. If you can’t go through, forget it. And that’s what most people lack–is having the guts, the guts to go in and just say “I go through and I don’t care what happens.” You know? If it aches and if I fall down, I have no fear of fainting in a gym because I know it could happen. I threw up many times while I was working out. But it doesn’t matter because it’s all worth it. . .

Every one has a problem with time, but the day is 24 hours. And we sleep 6. Now I know there are some out there “Woah, woah, woah. I need 8.” But I say just sleep a little faster because the bottom line is we have 6 hours of sleep, 24 hours available, so you have 18 hours now available. Do your work, your family, your hobbies. And also to learn something new or to do something new, which could easily be that you want to learn a new language. Or that you want to read–as a new year’s resolution–I have to read a book every day. Or you say I’m going to go and reshape my body. So you’re going to go and take this hour out of your schedule, “I’m going to train an hour every day.”

So this is for most people a huge challenge, but it is totally doable. And I can tell them because the kind of things that I did when I came to this country. I went to school, I was working construction, I was working out 5 hours a day. I was taking acting classes from 8 o’clock at night to 12 midnight. I was doing all of those things. I wanted to make sure that out of the 24 hours in the day that I don’t waste one single hour. Those hours are too precious. I just want to tell people don’t give me this thing, “I have a difficult time–I don’t have time for this.” None of that. You have time. You make the time.

I had this need of coming to America. I mean when I started learning about America at the age of 10, taking geography lessons. I learned about America, I remember photos in the textbooks but also in super 8 mm film footage that they showed in the classroom. About the Golden Gate Bridge and the Empire State Building and the six-lane highways. I said, “What am I doing here in Austria with these little roads. I want to go and be a part of the big deal.”

So I always had this desire that the only way I would get to America–because in those days it wasn’t common for you to buy yourself a ticket, no one could afford that–I had to kind of accomplish something big that takes me to America. And then I read about this guy Reg Park, who won Mr. Universe three times and then became a star in Hercules movies, and then was in Italy filming, and then in Hollywood filming. I felt that could be the ticket. I should become Mr. Universe, I should become a second Reg Park.

Of course, no one really bought into that. My parents thought it was totally insane, but I think my parents really thought that there was something terribly wrong with being that driven. Because I would come home at lunchtime and instead of having lunch I would do 200 sit-ups. And at night I would go to the stadium and I would be lifting weights. I would come home at 10 o’clock at night and I would be continually lifting weights. So it was like this insanity and in the military I would continually lifting weights no matter how the training was, and how tough the basic training was, I would always then lift weights afterwards. . .

I think the most important thing is that we have a very clear vision of where we go. A goal–where do we go. Because you can have the best ship in the world, you can have the cruise line but if the captain does not know where to go, that ship will drift around the world, and out in the sea and will never end up anywhere. This is exactly the way it is in real life. If you don’t have a goal. If you don’t have a vision, you just drift around. And you’re not going to be happy. This is why it’s so important to have that vision.

Now I created that vision in Austria because I grew up after the Second World War. Austria, right along with Germany, lost the Second World War. The problem was everyone was so depressed that we lost the war, there was alcoholism everywhere. There was depression, there was a terrible economic situation. There was famine, there was starvation, and all of those things. Also, it was kind of a little place and narrow. I felt I wanted to get out of there. I wanted to escape. And I couldn’t see myself really doing work there. And to stay there, to work in the factor, to work in the farm or even to follower in my father’s footsteps and become a police officer. I couldn’t see that either, but that’s what my parents wanted me to do. But that’s not what I saw, this was the vision of my parents, but not mine. . .

You got to work your butt off. If you think that you’re going to accomplish something really special and be the best at anything in the world, and you think you can do it without working, you’re making a big mistake. Because no matter what I did, if it was in bodybuilding or in acting or if it was in the political arena–it always took a lot of lot of work. You have to put out, and you have to sometimes make a lot of sacrifices. If you’re not willing to work hard, forget about it. It’s another rule that is very important. . .

Don’t be afraid to fail because if you’re afraid to fail, then you’re always holding yourself back because you’re afraid that if you go all out, you may fail. In weightlifting, we learn that very quickly. The only way that you can break a record is if you’re willing to fail. You put more weight. You tried. Sometimes you may not be able to lift it which has happened to me many times. But eventually when you train hard enough, you will lift it. Don’t be afraid of failure, I mean, how far can you fall?

Sun Tzu, the famous mind behind the Art of War, studied war throughout his life. As a general, victory wasn’t something he could afford to be glib about. It was literally a matter of life and death. Tzu observed that all victories had one thing in common: they were never won on the battlefield. They were won in royal courts, military tents, and training camps where strategizing and preparation took place. And the best victory was the one in which no blood needed to be shed.

Life has many parallels with war, even in peacetime. Life is a struggle between good and evil. Life is a struggle between love and hate. Life is a struggle between selfishness and nobility. Life is a struggle between success and failure. And wisdom must be brought to bear if outcomes are to be favorable.

An exam isn’t passed or failed when the teacher hands out the paper. An athletic competition isn’t won or lost when the referee blows the whistle. An interview isn’t aced or bombed when the hiring manager asks the first question. A business doesn’t prosper or go bankrupt when the doors are open. A marriage doesn’t succeed or fail when the vows are recited. Health isn’t had or lost when an individual turns 40. Anger isn’t controlled or given free reign when someone utters an insulting word. And temptation isn’t overcome or indulged when the impulse to do evil appears.

If outcomes are predestined, they are predestined in the mind, well in advance of their materialization.

Note to Reader: I wrote the following article a few weeks ago and had it scheduled to post at a later date. In view of Kobe’s tragic passing, I think it makes more sense to publish it sooner rather than later. (Sadly, I had to go back and change some of the verbs from present to past tense.) As seemingly senseless as Kobe’s death was and the death of all 9 members aboard the helicopter–including his 13-year-old daughter Gianna–if there is any silver lining, it is what happened in the aftermath. We got to witness people all walks of life come together, honor his legacy, and strive to do a better job in the future of cherishing what truly matters in life.

A lot of the same skills are needed to be successful in any area of life. Take the sports world as an example. Nothing is ever achieved without work ethic, leadership, discipline, and self-belief. Few people amassed as much hardware as Kobe Bryant did in his career, who was known for bringing his A-game on a nightly basis. He earned the nickname “The Black Mamba” for his aggressive, take-no-prisoners mentality. Off the court, Kobe is a lot more philosophical. After his retirement in 2016, Kobe made inroads in business and entertainment. Bryant founded and operated as the CEO of Kobe Inc, a distributor of Kobe-branded products. In 2018, he won Best Animated Short Film at the Oscars for “Dear Basketball.” In it, he expressed his lifelong love for the game that made him a household name around the world.

I’ve transcribed a YouTube clip in which Kobe shares the factors he believes were responsible for his success. He talks about the unconditional love of his father, a second-to-none work ethic, and the resolve to learn from both victory and defeat.

Transcript:

Interviewer: What’s your definition of greatness?

Kobe: I think the definition of greatness is to inspire the people next to you. My parents were great. Growing up, they instilled in me the importance of imagination. Of curiosity. And understanding that if you want to accomplish something, I’m not just going to sit here and say “Yes, you can do whatever you want.” Yes, you can, but you have to also put in the work to get there. You grew up as a kid thinking all things are possible if you put in the work to do it. You grew up having that fundamental belief.

My father was really influential at a really critical time where I had a summer where I played basketball when I was like 10 or 11 years old. And here I come, playing, and I don’t score one point in the entire summer. I scored not a free throw, nothing. Not a lucky shot, not a break-away lay-up. Zero points. I remember crying about it, being upset about it. My father gave me a hug and said, “Listen, whether you score 0 or you score 60, I’m going to love you no matter what.” That is the most important thing that you can say to a child. That gives me all the confidence in the world to fail. But to h*ll with that. I’m scoring 60.

From there I Just went to work. I stayed with it. I just kept practicing and practicing and practicing. I think that’s when the idea of understanding a long-term view became important because I wasn’t going to catch these things in a week. I wasn’t going to catch them in a year. So that’s when I sat down and I said “OK, this is going to take some thought.” I started creating a menu of things. When I came back the next summer, I was a little bit better. Open shots–not miss open shots. To be able to shoot it with speed because those kids were so much more athletic.

It’s a simple thing of math. If you want to be a great player. If you play every single day 2-3 hours, every single day. Over the course of a year, how much better are you getting? If you’re obsessively training 2-3 hours every single day over a year, over two years, you make quantum leaps. Get up every single day, do the work. They’re looking at me like “This kid is soft. He’s from the suburbs of Philadelphia.” They felt like they could try to be physical and try to intimidate me and do all this other stuff, which they couldn’t. Now I’m saying “OK, you’re trying to attack me, how am I going to attack you.” One of the things that I would do when everybody would be at the cafeteria eating and doing all this other stuff, I would just go back to the gym. Yeah, I may be from the suburbs, but you’re not going to outwork me.

I look at things at their smallest because a lot of times the game starts moving really fast. But if you train yourself to watch hours and hours of film, the game is not moving that fast anymore. It’s an obsessiveness that comes along with it. You want things to be as perfect as they can be, understanding that nothing is ever perfect, but the challenge is to try to get them as perfect as they can be.

So how can we teach our children what it means to work hard? Well, you do it through training. So when I get up in the morning, my daughter goes with me. At 4 AM my 15-year old comes with me. It becomes a daddy-daughter thing. Through that process, she understands the value of hard work. So it’s through those behaviors that I find the motivation to do it.

Interviewer: What does losing feel like to you?

Kobe: It’s exciting because it means you have different ways to get better. There are certain things you can figure out, that you can take advantage of. Certain weaknesses that were exposed. There are answers there if you just look at ’em. It’s a constant process. It’s exciting when you win. It’s exciting when you lose because the process should be exactly the same. The hardest thing is to face that stuff. I think it’s the fear of starting anew. You play for 20 years–I played for 20 years–you reached a certain level, “OK, wait a minute. I have to start again at the base of a mountain. And try to climb to the top of this mountain.” First of all, what mountain am I climbing? I don’t even know what the h*ll I’m going to be doing.

The thing that helped me was hurting my Achilles because that forced me to sit there and say the day could be today that your career is over. The first question I asked [after retirement]– which is the wrong question–is what’s the biggest industry I can get into? I said OK, stop thinking about it that way, you’re thinking of it the wrong way. Why did you start playing basketball? Because I loved it. What do you love to do? I love to tell stories. Alright, let’s do that. I think stories are what moves the world. Nothing in this world moves without story. I think that is the root of everything and if we’re going to try to make the world a better place, story is the right place to start.

A quote from one of my English teachers at Lower Merion High School named Mr. Fisk. He had a great quote that said “Rest at the end, not in the middle.” That’s something I always live by. I’m not going to rest, I’m going to keep on pushing now. There are a lot of answers that I don’t have. Even questions that I don’t have. But I’m just going to keep going and I’ll figure these things out as I go. You just continue to build that way. So I try to live by that all the time.

Everything is created twice, first in the mind and then in reality.

I define greatness as the joy of self-mastery, which is commonly termed fulfillment. How often do we postpone our fulfillment in life to a future date? When I’m older, when I complete my degree, when I have more money, when I’m married with kids, when I meet the right people, when I master the next best self-help technique–then and only then can I live life to the fullest. Anyone who’s lived long enough will tell you that the promise of future satisfaction is an illusion. Finding fulfillment has everything to do with changing attitudes and ways of being, not relying on people or things in the external world. That raises the question–what do I do if I cannot locate fulfillment in the future and haven’t been able to attain it in the present?

There are many who say, “Who will show us some good? Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord!”

Psalm 4:6

The title of this post is a Native American proverb. It captures the same inspiration my mentor gave me several months ago. The proverb is powerful because it demolishes the notion that there is something lacking in the present. It prevents us from fostering the illusion that the answers we seek are found outside of ourselves or in an imaginary future. We do strive to grow in knowledge and ability–that is the primary motivation of this site–but what is even more important is realizing that the seeds of fulfillment are within. They are found in our person, not in anything external to us. Self-help is about discovering the best tools with which to water those seeds, but growth begins and ends in the mind.

You have the power today to walk in greatness using no other resource than your own mind. And that is the most powerful realization you will ever come to.