Where do my beliefs come from?

As far as we can tell, when you are conceived you don’t have any beliefs. We don’t know everything, so maybe the sperm and egg do have beliefs. That’s for scholars and academics to debate. And researchers to test and determine. At present there is no evidence either have beliefs or that you have beliefs when you are conceived. 

From having no beliefs there is a point where your beliefs start to form. This is likely from the point in time where you start to develop cognitive ability and become self aware. From conception your cells multiply and you start to form the various parts of your body. As your brain grows, it starts to think. 

When your brain starts to think it needs to filer information. Even though you are still in the womb there is lots to process. Your brain needs some way of interpreting all the information it receives. What is relevant and what is not relevant? You have no way of knowing. A system of trial and error develops to determine what is important and what is not. 

To illustrate think of a child that has never experienced fire being hot. The child picks up an ember from the edge of the fire, feels pain and immediately lets it fall. They have created new neural pathways in their mind. If I pick up the ember, I feel pain. This is the foundation of forming a belief. 

Beliefs come from your sensory inputs being triggered. It’s a cause and effect. You experience something that happens. You give that event meaning and it sows or reinforces neural connections in your mind. From the moment you begin to cognitively process sensory input, you start forming beliefs. You start to give meaning to what you are experiencing. 

As your cognitive awareness grows you are able to make greater interpretations as to what is happening around you. From touch and feel interpretations you begin to develop other communication skills such as language. This helps accelerate your understanding of events. 

You see very dark clouds on the horizon. You have never seen this phenomenon before. You wonder what it is. Then an older more experienced person tells you that those are storm clouds and when the storm clouds arrive, rain will fall from the sky. Understanding language gives you the ability to understand the meaning of the words spoken by the other person. You can learn from their experience without having to directly experience the event. The more you think about, ‘dark clouds moving in this direction means rain’, the stronger that belief will be formed in your mind. Emotion also plays a big part in how quickly beliefs form. The child picking up the hot ember experiences strong emotion (pain) and the belief that the touching the ember means pain forms quickly. 

It’s really important to understand that your beliefs are formed. You don’t just have beliefs. You are not given beliefs. You certainly aren’t stuck with beliefs that are not helpful to you. This is a belief all by itself. I choose my beliefs. Say that to yourself. I choose my beliefs.

It’s the same as a baby elephant that is restrained by a rope with a stake in ground. The elephant pulls and pulls but the stake in the ground is too strong. In doing this the elephant forms neural pathways in its brain that it cannot go beyond the boundary set by the rope. The elephant grows and this belief stays. It knows from experience that it cannot pull the stake from the ground so it stops trying. The elephant does not have the experience to know it has now grown much stronger and could now easily pull the stake from the ground. The elephant is not aware that it can choose its beliefs. 

It’s also important to understand that you do not need to know where your beliefs came from to change them. 

When I was much younger I used to have a belief that there was someone out there that would help make me successful. I have no idea where this belief came from. Maybe from a movie I watched. Many movies have a plot line where a person comes into the Hero’s life, gives them the right tools to succeed and the Hero’s life is forever changed for the better.

This belief that someone would come into my life and make me successful was so pronounced that it manifested many strange ways. In my late teens I’d be driving and notice another car ‘following’ me. I’d turn right and they’d turn right. I’d take the next left and the car continues behind me. My thoughts start racing. This person behind me is going to pull me over and give me the secret to success or give me the resources I need to be hugely successful. Is any of that logical? No. Beliefs don’t need to be logical. 

Of course the car eventually turned right when I turned left and we’d go our separate ways. Then I’d be thinking, ‘if only a person would come in my life to make me successful.’ I was limiting my ability to succeed with the beliefs I held. 

The reality was there was never a person out there who was going to pull me over and give me all the secrets to success. This was just a belief I had developed from some sensory input I don’t remember. I still have no idea today where that belief came from. Nor does it matter. I did not need to know where the belief came from to change it. 

Today I have a very different belief system. My belief is that every event that happens to me helps me quickly get to where I want to go. It’s a very powerful belief to have. No matter what happens in my life, no matter how horrible some might think, it is exactly what is supposed to happen and more than that, it’s there to serve me. 

If I have a meeting with a potential client and it doesn’t go well and I don’t get the account. That’s not a bad thing with my now belief. Maybe that client would have been a difficult client and cost me a lot of time and money. Maybe I need to refine my pitch so it’s much more compelling. It depends on the circumstance as to the specifics of how I think about it. No matter what happens I believe it will always work out because this event is here to serve me. 

I see myself as like Jerry Seinfeld in the episode ‘The Opposite’ In this episode George and Elaine swapping luck. Elaine goes from generally being up to being down and George goes from generally being down to things continually going well. In the middle is Jerry. Things just seem to work out for him. To prove it, Elaine asks Jerry to give her $20, which he does. She takes the money and throws it out of his apartment window. Jerry is dismayed. Moments later George walks in having found $20. They all get ready to leave the apartment, Jerry puts on his jacket and finds $20 in its pocket. 

I’ve found that since I’ve had this belief system things just seem to work out for me. That’s not to say things always go as planned. They certainly don’t. When things don’t go as planned, my belief system stops me getting frustrated. An event happens which could be considered a barrier or challenge. To me it’s an event that is there to help me get what I want. 

Here’s an example of what I mean. I was negotiating a deal directly with a lawyer. The lawyer wasn’t the nice type of lawyer. Every person I have met who has dealt with that lawyer, has used some very colourful language describing this person. I thought we had a deal. He used a minor legal technicality to not proceed with the deal and then immediately lodged an application with the Court against me. 

He’d clearly had this all planned out. There was no way he could have prepared and lodged the application with the Court in the few hours that these events played out. The next email I get states that he will withdraw the application however the price of the deal I thought we had agreed was now $18,000 more. Not a bad position for his client who would make an extra $18,000 for a couple of hours work. I didn’t think this was fair and I contacted a barrister friend who put me in contact with another barrister that was a specialist in that area. He’s reviewed the documents. The lawyer could do what he did and there was nothing I could do about it. What was worse, if I tried to re-negotiate the ‘price’ could go higher. If the Court proceeding continued there was a very real risk I could lose. (The law if funny that way. That’s why it’s called ‘the law’ and not ‘the fair’). I ended up doing the deal for the extra $18,000. 

Many people would be upset by that set of circumstances. I wasn’t. It’s part of the game of negotiation. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Hopefully you learn. Moreover, the barrister I met became very helpful in a number of other matters and also introduced me to many other people that have been extremely helpful in me achieving my objectives. Had those events with that lawyer not happened, the resulting chain of events would never happened. More importantly, the subsequent financial benefit to me from those chain of events has been much greater than the $18,000 extra I paid. 

All this was possible because I changed my belief to one that no matter what happens it is there to serve me. 

How did I form this belief? My first step was to choose the belief. I decided that my destiny was mine to control. I may not be able to control the events that happen to me but I can choose what those events mean to me. 

Between the age of 18 to 23 I lived in Perth. I had the good fortune of being interested in acting and took some acting classes at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. I got to know some of the full time students there and spent time with them. I had the privilege of meeting Hugh Jackman when he was studying there. He wasn’t a big star back then. He was a very nice guy and certainly very talented, so it’s not surprising he went on to become a very likeable star. 

While studying acting also had the good fortune of being introduced to the works of William Shakespeare. The words from Hamlet, Act 2 Scene 2 stayed with me. I kept repeating them over and over as my life moved forward. 

“Why, then, 'tis none to you, for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison. Well, then it isn't one to you, since nothing is really good or bad in itself—it's all what a person thinks about it. And to me, Denmark is a prison.”

It took me a long time to accept what those words really mean. I didn’t need to take a long time. I’ll explain how to speed up this process in a separate chapter. 

When I was ready I was able to choose the meaning that would be most helpful for me. 

I changed by belief. No longer did I believe that my success was subject to lucky events or to people being there to help me or to overcoming obstacles. Moreover events are not positive or negative. Events are events. Any colouring of those events is what I choose that colouring to be. 

I choose that every event that happens is perfectly timed to help me get what I want as quickly as possible. When that lawyer did what could be considered an unscrupulous act which was legal, I didn’t fume and cry about the injustice of the system. I recognised that I would not have met the new barrister had it not been for those events. 

To make this new belief stick, I repeated it over and over again. Nothing is good or bad, thinking makes it so. I choose to belief every event is here to serve me. Now it’s part of my unconscious. Whatever happens I’m always asking, ‘How is this helping me get where I want to go quickly.’

That’s how I changed and solidified this new belief. In the words of Dr Wayne Dyer, ‘A belief system is nothing more than a thought you’ve thought over and over again.” 

I simply said over and over and over again that this event is the perfect event for me right in this moment, to get me to what I want the fastest. The more I said this, the more it reinforced the neural pathways in my mind. 

(Abridged from the book, Be the Black Hole: Become a Force so Powerful Your Goals Come to You - Written by CEO, International Speaker, Philanthropist and Father – Damian Andrews)

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Be the Black Hole: Become a Force so Powerful Your Goals Come to You

Written by CEO, International Speaker, Philanthropist and Father – Damian Andrews

Many people work hard to get their goals. Yet some people glide through life with everything falling in their lap. They are the lucky ones. Or so it seems.

What if it’s not luck? What if they are using strategies and skills you can learn?

In Be the Black Hole – Become a Force so Powerful Your Goals Come to You, Damian Andrews breaks down the steps used by these ‘Chosen Few’ to become powerful goal magnets.

Black Holes are invisible. They are so powerful even light can’t get out. To find Black Holes special telescopic equipment reveals how nearby stars act differently to other stars.

The perceived luck of some, is not luck at all. Like the Black Hole, the force behind this ‘luck’ is invisible. Unless you know what to look for.

Throughout this book Damian Andrews shares stories, experiences and scientific research that dramatically speeds up the process for achieving your goals, with much less effort.

Damian challenges conventional goal achievement thinking. Things can go your way more often. Damian shows you what to look for. You can find the force behind perceived luck.

There is a process to creating ‘Black Hole level goal gravity’. Everything you need to quickly achieve your goals is already right in front of you. You just need to see it.

Using the practical and useable guides inside Be the Black Hole – Become a Force so Powerful Your Goals Come to You, the missing pieces of your goal achievement puzzle become visible.

Damian helps you become the Black Hole. A force so powerful your goals come to you.