Aloha,
Many of you who have read The Voice Said “Obey” recognized that I had literally lost everything… every possession… every friend… every family member… my physical health… my mental health… everything.
One of the things that is harder to see is that I had lost my foundation of beliefs. You see that struggle with beliefs about God in the book a bit. You also see it with beliefs about society.
I think this was one of the most pivotal parts of my later success. In fact, the Salvation Army’s textbooks on recovery often described their role in helping us through recovery as a “re-parenting” process.
You see… most of us have the foundation of our belief system transmitted to us by our parents. That is why poor families tend to remain poor over the generations and rich families tend to remain rich over generations. It’s not genetics. The same thing happens with religion (Catholics remain Catholics, Muslims remain Muslims, Buddhists remain Buddhists) and politics (in the U.S. Democrats tend to remain Democrats and Republicans tend to remain Republicans across many generations).
Losing everything (including my belief system since I had to admit that my old belief system simply didn’t work and I had to confront an actual visitation from God throughout that first night of recovery and what that meant to me) meant that I had to rebuild everything from scratch.
God sent me to “His servants” and didn’t even identify them. In fact, He set me up to receive service from Catholics, Baptists and the Salvation Army. I couldn’t simply adopt the belief system of the groups He sent me to because He sent me to three groups that had widely distant belief systems.
It was then that I started an exercise that I want to tell you about. I think it is a critical exercise that helps me to this day to be more successful in every area of my life. It is an exercise that I use to refuse to automatically adopt anyone else’s belief system without first having gone through this exercise.
It is the basis of my observation about TV, but it goes far beyond TV. It is also the basis of my decision not to hang out with people who are inconsistent or dishonest (with themselves or others), but it goes far beyond that.
The exercise is very simple… or at least it seemed to be when I had no foundational beliefs to build on in those early days. It seemed the only option. But, I have noticed that somehow 98% of the population doesn’t do this exercise automatically. I have also noticed that the 2% who are successful (whether they be rich or leaders or famous or in whatever area of success) do naturally perform this exercise.
I have no name for the exercise, so I’ll just have to name it now. I’ll call it “word replacement.”
The foundation of your belief system is contained in emotions that are associated with specific words. It is NOT contained in how you define them. It IS contained in the emotions that are automatically evoked when you hear a word or phrase.
We actually learn about this a bit as we learn copywriting in this business. If you have Glyphius, you can see that the exact same message using different words can be used to evoke a buying decision (based on an emotional response).
But I’m not talking about the messages that you are trying to convey to others. I’m talking about the messages that others are conveying to you.
Although your belief system was established as a youngster (unless you went through an experience like I did and had to re-establish it), it changes daily. That is one of the reasons it is so dangerous to watch TV. TV has the very most power to reprogram those beliefs to 98% beliefs.
I saw it clearly with the OJ Simpson trial. I wasn’t watching TV at the time, but I was still working in a J.O.B. It was the topic of discussion every day at lunch. I watched with fascination as everyone in several different groups completely agreed on ______ and were discussing animately some tiny little tidbit where they were completely polarized.
Even more fascinating is that it changed every day. The ______ where they had all agreed the day before had changed. They all now believed the exact opposite. The polarizing subject also changed and they were now all agreed on one side or the other of the previously polarizing subject.
I could clearly see that they had been programmed. It was a 1984 moment. I thought we were at war with Oceania? No. We’ve always been allies with Oceania. Europa is our common enemy.
TV and original parentage are two areas where you can see this effect most, but it actually happens in every day life. Your friends and business associates all participate in reprogramming your beliefs.
There is a way to keep that from happening though. In fact, there is a way to turn that around so that even a negative influence can actually be a source of positive reprogramming to success oriented beliefs.
I should warn you that it is mentally exhausting, so you should only try it for short periods at a time (I can do about an hour with a negative influence before I’m mentally exhausted). That means TV is still out and you still have to control who you spend your time with. Several hours of every day have to be spent with people without performing this mental exercise because it would just be too hard to continue it for very long.
However, it does become automatic once you get started. If you can clear out TV and negative friends… and start actively performing this exercise when you are forced to be in a situation where there is a negative influence (perhaps an inlaw), you will start doing it automatically. You will also feel the exhaustion and back away when you have had enough and can’t continue the exercise.
Here is how to get some practice:
1. Choose a very controversial topic from the news. Perhaps the election if you are in the U.S. Perhaps the Iraq war anywhere else. Perhaps the FLDS saga if you know what that is.
2. Go read a news article on that subject. After each sentence, identify the emotion filled words. Replace them with other emotion filled words that evoke the opposite or at least very different emotions.
When you read #1 above, did you automatically see those emotion filled words and replace them in your mind? I did. I’ve noticed that most successful people do it too. You can tell because they will often repeat what you say back to you using different words. The words that changed are often the emotion filled words.
If you didn’t, go back and try to do it with the sentences in #1 above before you actually go try to find a news article about one of those topics.
War.
Election.
Saga.
Play with those words.
What if we say “aggression” instead of “war?” What if we say “kidnapping” instead of “saga?” How about “rescue” instead of “saga?” What if we say “contest” instead of “election?”
Restate in your head (or out loud) the above sentences with the new words. Come up with some other new words.
Do you see how that interacts with your belief system?
Do you see how it also starts to reformulate your belief system? You start to question all of the automatic input and see things in several different perspectives before adopting a purposeful belief system… instead of allowing others to program you.
Terrorist or freedom fighter?
Civil war or revolution?
Rebellion or revolution?
Abortion or murder?
Tissue or baby?
Drugs or supplements?
Job or slavery?
Disclipline or abuse?
Latino or hispanic?
Lady or woman?
Mother or mommy?
Communal or nationalized?
Righteousness or correctness?
Protestor or fanatic?
Fundamentalist or orthodox?
Traditional or old fashioned?
Play with the words. Words are very powerful. We know that when we use them in copy. Start to recognize how they are being used on you and choose to control that.
Don’t watch TV or listen to broadcast radio. Don’t hang around failures or dishonest people. Choose the material you read and read it critically and use this exercise until it becomes automatic.
When you read the news (especially), realize that it is impossible to have unbiased reporting. Find those emotion loaded words and do the word replacement exercise. Make each emotion loaded sentence say the exact opposite and then choose which you will accept into your own belief system.
Also realize that there isn’t much point to even following the news. You will never know the facts. You will only hear the emotion laden words that are designed to get you to feel a certain way about a topic. The written news is a great place to practice performing this exercise though.
This is something I have noticed that all successful people do automatically. I have also noticed that most failures can be given two emotionally loaded sentences in a row that are in conflict with each other… and the failure will accept both without question.
Which do you want to be?
Regards,
-Diego
Tags: Internet Business
