John Assaraf explains that beliefs are neural patterns—‘‘pillars’’ formed by experiences, upbringing, and genetics—that shape how people behave and what outcomes they achieve (income, weight, relationships). He argues beliefs are not absolute truth but learned certainties that can be questioned and changed by consciously choosing goals and intentionally adopting new beliefs (a process he calls "conscious deliberate evolution"). The talk emphasizes early childhood formation of many beliefs and gives a practical prescription: decide desired outcomes, select supporting beliefs, ingrain them to change habits and identity.
Chapters
Hey, this is John Assaraf. And in the series of videos that we're doing right now, I'm answering a whole bunch of questions that take about two to five minutes each time to answer that people ask me all over the world. And one of the questions that I get asked a lot about is beliefs. And why specifically beliefs are so important in earning income or maintaining the weight that you want or maintaining the relationship that you have. And what most people don't recognize or understand is what is a belief? Where is a belief? Where are your beliefs? Are they in your finger? In your brain? Where in your brain? Where in your finger? And before I answer what a belief is and why they're so important, think about this. What beliefs were you born with? And the answer is, I don't know. Are we born with beliefs? Well, the truth is we're born with certain genetic propensities based on our heritage from our mothers and fathers and grandparents, etc. But then we learn to believe certain things. Beliefs are nothing more than feelings and patterns in the brain of certainty because of what we've been told, what we've heard, what we've seen, what we've experienced, what we've read. And all of these life experiences create these patterns in the brain that we call beliefs. So we have thousands upon thousands of beliefs based on what we learned from birth to 6 years old and from 6 to 12 years old. Now, here's the problem. Some of what we believe is real and true, but how do we know what's real and true versus what isn't and isn't true? And the answer is, we have to question all of our beliefs. And whether you believe you're smart enough or worthy enough or good enough, those are all based on old experiences from childhood. Whether you believe you can earn $5 an hour or $5,000 an hour that comes from all of your melded experiences. But what I can share with you is a belief is nothing more than a set of pillars that are happening in your brain. The neural patterns or pillars that once you start to break down some of the reasons, some of the experiences, some of the associations you have around those beliefs, you can set a new set of beliefs for yourself to achieve more wealth, better health, better relationships, more of whatever you want. And the reason I say that is your beliefs. What you believe, not on the outside that you tell your friends and people that are acquaintances with you, but what you believe on the inside. What you believe you're capable of achieving, what you believe you're worth, what you believe about how smart you are or aren't, what you believe about your stories and your past. These all create the construct of how you see the world. These are what create the construct of your opinions. Beliefs are what create the construct of your habits and behaviors. And so when we talk about beliefs, beliefs are not the truth. They're the truth you believe right now because of the references and the pillars and the experiences you have. But the beliefs you have can be changed. And one of the things I learned many years ago was that I could change my beliefs, I could change my paradigms, what I thought about things. And the way you do that is by first choosing what it is that you want to achieve, and then you decide what beliefs you need to have in order to achieve whatever it is you want to achieve, have, or be. And so one of the leading concepts in the world right now is something that we coined is conscious deliberate evolution. Conscious awareness, conscious and deliberate evolution. What that means is that you make a choice. You make a decision to deliberately and consciously evolve yourself. And you do that by choosing the beliefs that you want to have. You do that by choosing the vision and the goal that you want to achieve. And don't act ever again as if your destiny is some predetermined part of your life that you've just fallen into. Set your goals, develop the beliefs. Ingrain your beliefs into the implicit part of your brain. And once that happens, you start to be the master of your daily thoughts, your daily habits, your daily behaviors. And most importantly, you start to evolve as a human being, and you become the person who you are meant to be. If you like this type of information, just click on the link before or below, not before, and you'll find some great information for you to follow. Some of the work that we're doing. Have an amazing day.
