EP47: Is BELIEF the Answer?

Good day, my friends.

So, here we are at the beginning of yet another year.

Have you made a plan?

Are you in control of your future?

For many of you, the answer is going to be no!

I mean, look, here we are on the other side of 2021.

Barely…

We're hardly two weeks into the new year, and here I am asking you if you already have all your ducks in a roll.

Right?

Well, hold on a second…

Actually, I only asked if you have made a plan and if you're in control of your future?

It's OK if the answer is no.

In reality, I would be surprised if it were anything else!

Sure, just last week we talked about these two all-important questions.

Remember?

How far can I go?

And

Is this where I stop?

We ALL know, I cannot expect you in one week, or so, to all of a sudden have everything all figured out, now can I?

It would be great, but unrealistic.

So…

How do you go about getting your life all figured out?

How do you put a business plan in place that will transform your entire life?

And…

How do you, simply, keep putting one foot in front of another, day in and day out, looking for the good in all things, rejecting the bad?

BELIEF

That's the answer.

Belief is magical.

Belief can perform miracles.

Belief can keep you moving, long after you have thought about giving in or giving up.

Is it easy?

If you want it to be!

Let me tell you a story.

I can still remember, after smoking for 25 years, how I felt.

I had started smoking quite early as a young kid. And it had taken its toll. I was miserable. I had that smoker's cough.

You've heard it before, right?

It felt like if I didn't do something [soon], it was going to kill me.

And I'm sure it would have if I hadn't made my mind up to change.

I mean seriously, how far CAN you go if you're dead?

So I got one of those stop smoking programs. It was a fancy hand-held device that you pressed a button every time you smoked a cigarette for a two-week period.

After those two weeks, it took control.

It started telling me when to have a cigarette.

Seriously, I had to smoke when it told me to.

In the beginning, I got to smoke almost like normal.

But…

Over the course of a few weeks, it slowly but surely weaned me from over a pack-a-day habit to my very last cigarette.

Was it easy, even with this program telling me what to do?

No!

Because nicotine is one nasty drug. Some even say it's harder to stop smoking than to stop taking heroin.

I believe it to be true.

This was NOT my first time trying to quit. I had stopped for three years and got stupid enough to talk myself into thinking one cigarette wouldn't hurt me.

Wrong.

I was right back on that saddle taking nicotine for another ride.

This was the second [and last] time quitting.

This time it was easier, but it was still difficult.

I still had to believe in myself.

Belief is a funny thing.

It is slippery.

If you don't hold onto it right, it will slip away, leaving you all alone with those little self-defeating thoughts we all have quite too often.

You have to know you are a human being, and you're in control of your life.

Then you MUST believe it to be true.

It has been 29 years since I smoked that last cigarette, and honestly, I still think about it all the time. Smoking is THAT bad.

But, if I did not believe in myself, I would probably be already dead.

Belief…

It can keep you living, even when you aren't paying attention.

Whether you have a habit you want to kick, or you just want to start doing something great, the secret to succeeding is belief.

But let's not fool ourselves.

Believe does not make you stop being afraid.

Doing great and wonderful things can be scary.

Deciding to be an entrepreneur can be scary too.

Becoming a first-time parent is really scary as well.

Knowing you have a little one depending on you is intimidating.

Starting a business, and putting yourself out there in the world to be judged, can make you lose sleep at night.

Ever done that?

So the answer to the question about how do you start creating a plan for yourself, and how do you build a successful business, is wrapped up in belief.

Nothing good will start happening in your life…

Until you start believing in yourself.

You are quite capable of doing anything you set your mind to do.

So if you're still on the fence, wondering if you should or shouldn't start that thing you've been thinking of doing; might I suggest, give it a go?

You cannot get through this life without making mistakes.

No one gets it right on their first go-around.

We ALL fail…

We look at what went wrong…

We regroup…

And

We iterate our way to success.

Sure, wouldn't it be great to be successful from the get-go?

But that just isn't how life works for the majority of us.

At least not for me and I imagine a bunch of you as well.

So, I truly hope, in some way I have been able to motivate you to take a chance on yourself.

Even if you're already doing some amazing things, try taking it to the next level.

YEAH, there is always the next level.

Like those “mountains”.

There are ALWAYS more mountains to climb.

Keep asking yourself “how far can I go?”

And

Don't let anything make you stop until you have reached the goals you have challenged yourself to do.

That's it for me.

This ends another exciting and action-packed podcast.

See you next time.

Until next week, be safe, be happy, be strong.

James "Still Believing" Brown

P.S. - In the event, you DO find that once an episode has been produced and posted, that YOU really would like more information, just let me know. Use the Podcast Questions link, click on the link here. Or you can just leave a voice message here.