Beliefs

“The outer conditions of a person’s life will always be found to reflect their inner beliefs.”— James Allen

I didn’t receive much fatherly wisdom from my dad, but when I was a young kid, maybe 7 or 8, I remember him saying to me: “What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”

Not long after that age, he and my mom divorced. He left the state, and a few years later, we stopped hearing from him altogether.

I wouldn’t talk to him again for almost 20 years.

I share that for three reasons as I reflect on beliefs.

First, it’s remarkable how those words, that he doesn’t recall saying, planted like a seed in my young, fertile mind and grew into arguably my most foundational adult belief: our minds shape our reality.

Second, his disappearance from our life helped formed another core belief: the obstacle is the way. That adversity can be a gift.

I now see that my embrace of that wisdom as an adult was shaped by those early experiences. You might say I was primed for it.

Third, I’ve come to understand that when my dad, my hero at the time, left, it created a deep psychological wound I wouldn’t confront until decades later

All of this is coming into focus this week after dinner in Dallas this week with one of my oldest friends Brad. He asked something to the effect:

“You read more than anyone I know. After all the wisdom-collecting you’ve done, what beliefs have you formed for yourself?”

I didn’t have a ready answer. But the question stuck with me.

And as always, writing is how I think best. So here we are.

Dimensions of Belief

There are two categories of belief:

Beliefs about the world and beliefs about ourselves.

Our external beliefs - about people, systems, opportunity, safety - are shaped by culture, family, religion, media, etc..things outside of us.

They help us make sense of the world.

Our internal beliefs - about our worth, ability, and identity - are shaped by how the world responds to us, especially in childhood.

They help us make sense of ourselves.

But both sets of beliefs create the operating system that is our subconscious mind.

It runs quietly in the background, influencing every decision, perception, and reaction — often without our awareness.

The Operating System

From the moment we are born, our brains are receive nonstop input. gathered from our five senses.

Experiences, communication styles, emotions, praise, neglect, expectations…literally every sensory experience acts as inputs that get coded and shaped into our reality and, our subconscious beliefs.

And as children, they are completely out of our control. We need love and safety to survive so we adapt to whatever circumstances we are born into.

Carl Jung said children have no real identity in the early years - no individuated self - so everything that happens gets embedded in the psyche, unquestioned.

We see the world in black and white. We believe “I am as I am treated”

My dad leaving could only mean he rejected me.

Of course my adult brain knows better but that’s the point, our subconscious minds drive most of our waking thought and behaviors. And those beliefs formed in childhood continue on to our adult years.

Belief Drives Behavior

Jim Murphy writes in Inner Excellence: “Beliefs set the boundaries of what’s possible in our life.”

And once those beliefs are in place, we start attracting experiences that confirm them.

Experience creates belief.

Belief filters perception.

Perception creates more experience.

It becomes a feedback loop.

Your subconscious mind is always listening - to what you say, feel, and think - and it’s constantly looking to reinforce the code it’s already running.

So if, deep down, you believe you’re not good enough, or not safe, or that love doesn’t last…

You will keep finding evidence to support that belief, even when it’s not true.

More impactfully, you’ll behave in a way that creates evidence to ensure that is true.

This is why surface-level change often fails.

If your subconscious coding doesn’t match your conscious goals, you’ll self-sabotage, stall out, or burn out trying to override it.

Seeking

Maybe that’s why I’ve been such a voracious reader all my life. A seeker of knowledge. I’ve been looking for something that explained the static in the signal without even realizing it.

I think Brad was asking me what the point of gathering all that wisdom was. Of spending so much time thinking about this stuff

As I’m reflecting today, I’m naming it for the first time. At least a big part of it.

I’ve been trying to understand that gnawing sense of being capable of more.

Even as I succeeded externally, I’ve always felt something felt off internally. I’ve been searching for how to rewrite the old beliefs.

This is why I’ve been drawn so strongly to the philosophies and wisdom of the East.

Buddhism is often referred to as the science of mind because it examines the nature of consciousness.

Meditation has offered a path inwards to get a closer look at things.

As my ability to embrace quiet and stillness has strengthened over time, It’s helped me shine a light inward.

Journeying Inwards

I think of the practice like rappelling inward, deeper into the caverns of my mind. As I shed old vices, the rope lengthens and the light I can shine grows brighter.

That light is my conscious mind.

Shirzad Chamine, founder of Positive Intelligence, puts it beautifully when he describes the process of finding these long buried beliefs.

He says these thoughts and beliefs are like bogeyman that reside in the dark corners of our mind. But “They melt like snowmen under the direct light of our conscious mind.”

And when that happens, when we stop living from outdated code.

We upgrade the system.

New Beliefs

Working with a coach is what helped me start to name this.

It’s also what helped light the fire of passion for this work.

It’s what has me feeling like even at this far into the game of life, I’ve learned a cheat code.

Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t arrived anywhere. There is no destination.

There is and always will be work to be done. More to discover.

It’s about understanding.

There is only expansion, or contraction.

It’s hard work creating new beliefs but it’s also exhilarating to experience.

We are never too old to to experience it. To change.

So as my children become young adults, I can help plant seeds in that fertile mental soil that I once had.

Naturally, they all tend to eye roll at this type of talk.

I’ll need Taylor Swift to sing about it to get a real conversation going.

But I can keep leading my example.

It fills me with a quiet joy that they’ll always know the safety of my presence in their lives- something I didn’t have at their age.

And I will continue to elicit the eye rolls and remind them: “What the mind can conceive and believe… it can achieve.”

And maybe some day down the road, they’ll come to appreciate how that seed grew in their own minds.

#CoachKris