Belief's Big Contradiction, and Why It Works

In this series, professionals share how their beliefs have shaped their careers, businesses and the workforce. Join the conversation by writing a response (please include the hashtag #Belief in the body of your post).

Whenever I've talked with highly successful people, belief has always played a major role in their rise to the top. But what they believe in divides into two camps. One camp says, "I believe in myself." the other camp says, "I believe in God" (or a higher power of some kind even if the word "God" isn't how it's named). The reason the two camps are divided is that believing in yourself is associated with labels like ambition, drive, competitiveness, ego, toughness, and self-reliance. Belief in a higher power is associated with almost the opposite terms, like surrender, devotion, trust, submission, community, and communion. 

This seems to pose a contradiction: How do opposite uses of belief both lead to success? I'm not discounting the successful people I've met who manage to bridge the contradiction--in fact, that's the whole point. Finding a way to believe in yourself and a higher power can be one of the most remarkable achievements in anyone's life. (For the moment, let's leave aside the casual or social belief in God that the great majority of people have. We're dealing instead with deep belief, even core beliefs, which are the deepest of all.)

Believing in yourself winds up being ego-based whether you label ego a good or bad thing. A label isn't as important as actions, thoughts, and behaviors that are generated by our beliefs. Activating any belief is how it gains power. Hidden beliefs also have power--a great deal, in fact--but when a belief is strong enough that it guides your actions, its power is conscious and often life-shaping. An ego-based belief system leads to the following tendencies:

You see yourself as always needing to be strong.

You hide or turn away from any show of weakness and vulnerability.

You attend to the demands of the ego, putting a lot of energy into status, money, possessions, and power in a drive to acquire the external trappings of success.

You engage in “us versus them” thinking. 

You protect yourself from feeling lonely and isolated, yet deep down you are isolated.

You depend on no one as much as yourself.

Your daily life is guided by duties, demands, and challenges.

You measure your self-worth by how much you have achieved and accomplished.

These behaviors are empowering, and they can be learned. Believing in yourself is a mental skill, and some people bring considerable self-awareness to their actions and choices. The big problem is finding a foundation for believing in yourself, since ultimately each of us is limited in ability, intelligence, creativity, and opportunities. An empty belief in yourself will go nowhere if the belief isn't grounded in reality and a sound sense of one's boundaries.

 From this perspective, belief in God or a higher power, when deeply held, looks quite different. Such a belief leads to the following tendencies:

You see yourself as an expression of universal values that reach far beyond everyday existence.

You seek agreement, conciliation, and cooperation.

You don't join in “us versus them” thinking, protected from it by a desire to find common ground.

You look deep inside for solutions, certain that they exist in any situation.

You approach challenges with an open mind and remain receptive to input from many people.

You don't resist or oppose, having enough patience to adopt a wait and see attitude.

You look after the needs of others.

Your self-worth comes from aligning yourself with love, self-awareness, creativity, and the world's wisdom traditions.

Most people would automatically look at this second list and assume that it describes someone who'd be attracted to the clergy, charity work, and other selfless occupations. In other words, these don't seem like the traits of a successful person rising to the top in a hard world. But the opposition of worldly and unworldly is an illusion. I lived my adult life believing that pursuing spiritual values, the kind on the second list, lead to the greatest success in real-world terms. In fact, you can display all the tough, ego-based behaviors on the first list and still be acting from the level of the higher self, or the true self as I call it. What matters is the values you identify with far more than anything else.

The bridge that resolves the contradiction between believing in yourself and believing in God is simple and appears in all the world's wisdom traditions. It comes down to a self that no longer identifies with the ego and its endless, insecure, obsessive demands. Instead, you identify with the boundless creativity and intelligence that exists at the level of the mind where the soul or true self is real. You connect with this reality--through meditation and other contemplative practices--and learn to recognize how it solves problems, finds creative answers, and brings an unshakable sense of self-worth. In other words, the great flaw in ego-based living, the absence of a real foundation, is resolved.  All of existence is grounded in the same pure being and intelligence as you yourself. This has been the great lesson belief has taught me and by far the most important thing anyone can learn who wants to be empowered by belief. 

The Ultimate Truth - A conversation with Deepak Chopra and Kyra Phillips. Courtesy of Youtube/The Chopra Well

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To further explore humankind's ongoing search to connect with something greater than ourselves, watch Oprah Winfrey's interview with LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner below and tune into Oprah’s groundbreaking television event “Belief” at 8 p.m. ET/PT tonight on OWN.

Other posts in this series:

• The World's New Product — Is You by John Hope Bryant
• Belief’s Big Contradiction — And Why It Works by Deepak Chopra
• 6 Reasons I’ll Never Stop Believe (and Neither Should You) by J.T. O’Donnell
• Conviction in the Power of Altruism, Cooperation and Transformation by Matthieu Ricard

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DEEPAK CHOPRA MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation and co-founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation, and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism.  He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and a member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. Chopra is the author of more than 80 books translated into over 43 languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. Super Genes co-authored with Rudi Tanzi, PhD will be available on November 10th, 2015. www.deepakchopra.com