Which ONE Thought Can Change Your Whole LIFE?

I got into a debate recently about whether or not the world was getting better or getting worse. And we had our list of facts and our list of reasons about whether or not the world was improving or it was degrading. Is the world getting better, more prosperous, safer, cleaner, or is it getting more divided? Is there more inequalities there? More suffering? Is there more pain? The answer to all of these questions is yes. The world expands. That's what it does. The universe expands. Economies expand, governments expand. And as the world expands, the menu of options expands. The amount of opportunities expands. The amount of data, the amount of information, the amount of distractions all expand. And that will continue on forever. Oftentimes, we look at what we call the good old days and think of simpler times. Every previous time was a simpler time because there were fewer options, there were fewer distractions, there were fewer opportunities. Today, we're accelerating faster than ever. So as a result, we have more data points. We have more of an ability to compare and to contrast and to find evidence for the things that we want to find true. If you're curious about why so many people believe so many weird things, it's because today you can pick a belief and find evidence for that belief, no matter what the belief is. We have access to more information, access to more data, access to more people than ever before. So is the world getting better? Yes. And is the world getting worse? Yes. It is simply a matter of which one you pick and find data for. And we could compare our data points all day long. It wouldn't matter. All that mattered was what you believed, because what you believe determines which data points you see. It determines which people you trust. It determines which pieces of information you determine to be true. If you don't believe me, put two people on the opposite side of the political debate in the same room and listen to who they quote and listen to who they discard. We, as human beings like to think that we are logical and rational. And we like to believe that we find information first and then we come to our conclusions. But the brain and the body don't work that way. We make our decisions emotionally. We come to our beliefs emotionally, and out of that emotion, we start to find evidence to justify that being true. This is also true with our excuses. So if you believe that you were dealt an unfair hand financially, you will find evidence to support that. You will find all the reasons to justify your financial situation, and then you will judge those who had different situations for your own. Now, is this right or this wrong? It's neither. It's your own belief. And from that place, you then find information to justify that belief. So when we put people into groups and we judge those groups, or we analyze how people got wealthy and then we judge whether or not it was ethical, these are not objective observations. They are justifications for the beliefs that we already have about the situation. When you find yourself in a life situation that you do not want, the judgment that you have about it perpetuates you staying in it. You being unhappy with your business, with your finances or your relationships, you judging how bad it is, and then comparing that to other people simply keeps you stuck in that same perspective. And in that same belief, you're actually finding additional evidence to support you being in that situation. The irony of that is your own perspective and judgment of it stops you from ever finding your way out. And so you want something different, you want something to change, but you're actually building additional thought loops over and over and over again that just make it faster and easier for you to justify staying exactly where you are. This is what some people call a comfort zone. A comfort zone is simply a lot of beliefs that continue to find more evidence of why it's safer for you to stay where you are. This is what some people call complacency. One thing that I like to do when I find myself in one of these situations is say, simply try on different beliefs. What if I believed that things could be different? Or not only different, but what if I believed that the situation that I was in was perfect? What if I really believed that the financial situation that I'm resenting right now was actually my ticket to financial freedom? What if I believed the person in my life was the one? What if I believed the opportunity that I wasn't pursuing was the thing that would change my life? When I try on that belief, it allows me to see evidence for a different belief. It allows me to consider evidence that I'm currently blind to. It allows me to look at things from a different perspective that I'm not able to see because I'm blinded by my own beliefs. We all have beliefs, and none of them are right or wrong. But your brain continues to find evidence to justify them, which is why yesterday looks a lot like today and will probably look a lot like tomorrow. So how do we change now? Let's look at a situation like money. We look at someone who is successful. A billionaire, perhaps. Now, there's a couple of camps. When you look at a billionaire, One group of people will look at them and they'll say, it's unfair. It's unjust. They got more than their fair share. And that belief will find other evidence, like crooked billionaires who are caught cheating people out of millions of dollars. But it's really not about the billionaire. It's really not about the other person. It is about your belief that your own situation is permanent. What if we tried on a different belief? There's another group that will look at a billionaire and see inspiration. They'll see overcoming challenges. They'll see hard work, creativity. Your judgments about people and your judgments about the world aren't about the world and people at all. They're about the beliefs that you have that are keeping you stuck exactly where you are. The two primary emotions that we experience as human beings are fear and love. Fear is about survival. Love is about growth and contribution. When we feel judgment about something, it's usually a reflection of a fear that we believe to be true. What if it wasn't true at all? What if we are walking around with beliefs that are keeping us operating from a place of fear and it's a completely irrational, untrue fear? When you question your beliefs like that, you can much more effortlessly move to a place of love, creation, and service, which is where most of us, all of us, want to be. So when you hear someone or yourself come up with excuses about their life or justifications about why their life is the way it is, it is almost always rooted in a fear that has now become a belief that is now finding evidence to support that belief. And so instead of debating them with facts and logics and reason, the best thing that you can do is listen for the belief behind what they're saying. This will do a couple things. One, it'll make them feel heard. And when they feel heard, that thought can resolve. But the second is it will reflect back to you the beliefs that you have, the excuses that you make, the justifications that you put on your life that are making it harder and harder for you to move forward. But when you can look at the world and find evidence for what it is that you desire, for what you want to create, for who you want to be, then you're in a place of creating your own life. And that's freedom. Freedom is more than money. It's more than time. It's your ability to consciously choose the life that you want. And we don't get that at all until we're in control of our thoughts and our beliefs.