This week's book: "Beyond Belief" by Nir Eyal with Julie Li.
"You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."
Marcus Aurelius
Most of us are running on beliefs we never actually chose. They were handed to us early, by our parents, our teachers, the family and friends around us, and we've been believing them ever since. It's time we stop, take a breath, and question them, to figure out whether they're truly ours or someone else's.
That's the underlying theme of this week's book. It isn't another book about habits or motivation. It's about the beliefs that quietly shape our decisions, our behavior, and the whole direction of our lives. Eyal and Li challenge us to examine the stories we tell ourselves, and to notice which ones are holding us back rather than moving us forward. They treat a belief not as a fact we're stuck with, but as a tool we can set down and replace.
I'll tell you why this one hits home. For a long stretch of my life, I believed that success meant making money, and that if I just made enough of it, the rest would follow. I chased that belief through the trading pits and into the money world. I got a version of what I was after, and I found it hollow. It took me years to understand that the belief itself was the problem. It wasn't mine. I'd absorbed it, and I'd never once questioned it.
Here's my promise for the week: by Saturday you'll have a way to spot the beliefs steering your life, a sense of where they came from, and a practical way to start trading a limiting one for something better. As always, I'll give you my honest take on the book, the good and the parts that don't hold up.
Quick question to start the week: what's one belief you carry that you've never actually examined? Hit reply, I read every one.
I'll go first: mine was "success is money." I believed it for decades, and it cost me a lot before I finally set it down. It was never really a core belief of mine, it was one I'd borrowed. Success, I've come to believe, is knowing your purpose and doing your best to be true to it.
Reading ahead?
Next week we're reading "The Wisdom of the Bullfrog" by Admiral William H. McRaven. If you like to follow along, now's a good time to grab a copy so it's on your shelf by Monday. Forgot to order in time? The Kindle version is instant.
If someone forwarded you this, you can get the daily insights free at www.allstarmentors.com.
Talk tomorrow,
Mike
Practical wisdom for the life you're building