Our brains have collections of neurons and they fire together and are wired together to act in a certain way. Many people live unconscious lives. They repeat the same thoughts and behaviors: living their lives in loops. They don’t even notice that they are on autopilot; they do not have a clear window into their thoughts. They just live, existing in a loop that can sometimes be damaging to them. Eventually, life calls them to change. Some event happens. They get a diagnosis. A family member stops tolerating who they are. A life-shattering crisis occurs. Then they’re forced to change. To rewire their brain, to learn new skills, to reshape the core of who they are… and so they are thrown into the river of change.

The river of change is not an easy place to be in. It can be painful. It is one step forward, two steps back. It is three steps forward, one step back. It is fours steps forward, three steps back. Those who are rewarded are those who are persistent. Those who are rewarded are those who can set a target for who they want to be next and consistently force their brains to fire in new ways until those new ways solidify. Remember, actions in the brain are networks of neurons collaborating together in sequences. The old self’s collections of neurons fire in the same sequence of patterns. The new self’s collection of neurons fire in a new sequence of patterns. The more we fire the new patterns, the easier it becomes to embody the new self.

The mind holds certain beliefs about the way its life is. Certain ‘facts’ it holds true about how the world works. It can think things like, ‘Business is supposed to be hard’ and ‘having followers and telling my story and is supposed to be hard’ and ‘I am not enough for a beautiful woman with a kind heart’. We often unconsciously act to confirm these truths in our lives: in other words, the beliefs we hold in our minds shape our reality unconsciously. We often don’t notice it, but we use our minds to shape our realities.

When we become conscious of our programs, or the beliefs, in our lives, we can start to change them. When we change the programs in our minds about how life is supposed to work, we can actually influence the ways our lives are unfolding. We can use our minds to shape our realities consciously.

I’ll give you an example of programs I am changing:

• Business is hard
• Getting people to use my app is hard
• Hero’s Path isn’t working
• I don’t know how to organize information for talks and my mind is moving in too many directions
• Encephalon will never hire me

To:

• Business is easy
• Everyone loves using Hero’s Path, they just haven’t discovered how to yet
• Hero’s Path is an easy business that gives me freedom
• I’m very good at architecting information and giving talks
• Encephalon is looking for me

Again, the body follows the mind. The body activates the genes and produces the proteins that the mind tells it to produce. If in our minds we tell ourselves we are strong, we produce proteins that make us stronger. If in our minds we tell ourselves we are weak, the body produces genes that tell it that it is weak.

This nuance is so important. Some people won’t believe it, but it’s true. For the past few years, I thought that since I drank too much in my early youth, my body was damaged and broken and that I could never build real strength again. My body created evidence for this belief and I was not as strong as I could be at the gym. I barely jogged. Now I shifted this belief, healed my body, created a new pattern of neurons firing, and now am sprinting like a madman, enjoying life, and lifting more than I ever have before. I am in the best shape of my life.