Psychologists and counsellors aren’t supposed to look like this.
Brian’s thick beard hangs halfway down his chest. He’s jacked too. A heavy set bodyguard turned powerlifter with thighs the size of my waist.
Brian turns to his wife: petite, pretty, with an intense wisdom. Carrie also lifts - it shows - and her tattoos cover the majority of her skin.
Mental health professionals are meant to be plain types who say little. Not … whatever these two were.
“Beliefs,” Brian says. “Beliefs are the reason we have the lives we have. Beliefs are the reason we are the people we are. Beliefs are the reason we’re successful, unsuccessful, happy, sad, conservative, liberal. Beliefs make you, you, Tom.”
Sitting 4000 miles away from the husband and wife power couple, I didn’t even know what question to ask them next.
I stammered.
The software continued recording the podcast.
Little did I know that conversation would be my life’s major inflection point.
Welcome to the Jungle
For years after that point, I mentored under Brian and Carrie. I absorbed everything they had to teach.
I edited their podcast in exchange for a rugged apprenticeship, and began to understand just how fundamental our beliefs are.
Your emotions are sculpted by your assumptions.
Your thoughts are played in tune with your subconscious.
Beliefs shape not just what actions you perform, but the very colour of your experience.
Because your actions never fall out of line with your deepest beliefs, your reality becomes a reflection of the deepest part of you.
To change anything about yourself, you must change your beliefs.
There are four beliefs that hold adventurepreneurs back from more freedom, and more adventure.
Today, I’m going to share those with you.
The Special Snowflake
Louis is a personal trainer with a love of travel.
He moved to London from France to pursue new levels of his career.
But he was held back by his accent. He felt different to the rest of the trainers who had crushing careers.
He stood out and not in a good way.
He felt different and saw that as a reason he couldn’t succeed.
Louis’ belief was “I'm different to everyone else who is as successful as I want to be.”
It was deeply ingrained. It was holding him back. And that belief was untrue.
The special snowflake belief is particularly problematic for adventurepreneurs.
The wrong background, the wrong history, the wrong type of person.
If you fail to get rid of this belief, you will always be internally explaining away other people’s success.
And will never gain the freedom they really want.
Often, your special snowflake belief is actually a huge asset you’re not taking advantage of.
Once Louis figured this out, he leant into his accent and thrived. His weakness was actually his greatest strength.
Louis thought he had a marketing problem. Louis actually had a belief problem.
He just needed to be taught to see his belief differently.
I don’t have the time
When you own six businesses, train every day, look after your family, and ski all winter, it’s easy to say you don’t have enough time to do more.
This was Greg’s convenient excuse.
Here’s the thing about beliefs. They are often true. But they’re also a lie at the same time.
Greg was very busy. But Greg also had plenty of time available.
Because he was running around doing everything instead of doing what was truly important.
On our first call, Greg said to me “I want to do more cool shit.”
Greg has two boys.
3 months into working together he’s just booked the trip of a lifetime with them.
And his business is now ordered, structured, and predictable.
All because he dropped the belief.
You can’t have everything
The hot, sticky, Thai air stuck to both of us. The condensation from a cool beer dripped onto my leg.
I sat in front of this older guy - nice watch, nice tan. You know the type. It was a chance encounter. He was exceptionally successful in business. A traditional, large business.
He had sacrificed everything to get there.
No holidays for years.
Eking out every single penny.
His relationships had suffered.
His health dwindled.
And a personal judgement from me… I don’t think he was actually happy.
But you can’t blame this guy. It was reinforced in his schooling. His family told him about the value of sacrifice.
And to be fair to him, he actually achieved his goal.
But his goal and your goal are very different.
This guy wanted financial freedom only and sacrificed his other forms of freedom to get it.
This guy also believed the “you can’t have it all” narrative. He lived that narrative.
And sometimes, us adventurepreneurs get tempted by that narrative too. Especially in difficult times.
But you’re not trying to have it all. You’re trying to have a good balance of each type of freedom: geographical, financial, and time.
And that’s not impossible, it’s just very fucking difficult.
Which is why you need to eliminate the beliefs that make it even harder.
I haven’t earned it
A clear calendar, a beautiful clear day, a completed to-do list. So why was I feeling so reluctant to do something fun?
It was Thursday morning
I had woken up early every day to nail my essentials.
I was killing it.
Yet still I had to fight the little shit of a belief that wanted me to sit down at my desk all day.
Instead, I went out and played a (mediocre) round of golf.
I practised beating that belief through action.
(which is the only way to really beat your beliefs).
The final belief that is so subtle is “I don’t deserve time off yet.”
We seem to think there’s going to be a magical goal post we will reach where we finally feel like we deserve to take time off to do what we enjoy.
That goal post does not exist.
The feeling of satisfaction just recedes from you like the horizon.
If you let the “I haven’t earned it” belief rule you, you will never actually use your hard won freedom.
Book the trip. Get the round of golf scheduled. Meet your friends.
A final word on beliefs
Your beliefs are mostly unconscious.
Despite the fact that deep down you know what these beliefs are, you will need someone else to point them out to you.
So listen intently for feedback.
The world is showing you what you need to know, you just need to be open to receiving it.
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