‘We simply do not have time anymore to think so small.’1
ELIZABETH GILBERT
I’m blessed to have been brought up by parents who truly did believe that anything was possible for their children. They encouraged us to find out what really drove us and lit us up. I was taught things like ‘do what you love, and the money will follow.’ At Christmas my parents gave us books like The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teenagers, The Purpose Driven Life and Chicken Soup for the Soul, so personal development and the betterment of one’s self was always a part of my reality.
But after I gave up my spot at Northwestern University and stayed in Ohio, I was depressed and stuck and felt like a failure. I didn’t have the clarity I was longing for and my life didn’t resemble anything I wanted. I was confused about how I’d ended up in that place. Was I dreaming too big? Was I being silly, or unrealistic? What was wrong with me? I couldn’t see the possibilities. Everything was cloudy.
For a while I worked at Starbucks (I had to apply three times before I actually got the job!), then at the local children’s hospital. I even took chemistry classes, thinking I wanted to become a doctor. (That was short-lived – I actually left my Quarter 1 chemistry final in tears, knowing that it wasn’t for me.)
All I could do was hope that my heart hadn’t led me astray. There had to have been some reason I’d turned the car around, right?
If that’s where you’re at today – living a life that you no longer recognize, or waiting for your life to get good – it’s crucial to understand that your current reality isn’t your forever reality. Your present circumstances are no indication of what’s possible for you. You have to continue to hold tight to your inner knowing that anything and everything is possible, because it is. So, regardless of how you grew up or what your current reality looks like, this chapter is about expanding your belief in possibility.
‘We went to the Moonnnnnnnn!!!’ Brendon Burchard screamed from the stage during his ‘High Performance Academy Live’ event in September 2016. James and I were in the audience, and just like the rest of the room, we burst out laughing as we watched the theatrics before us.
Brendon was so right. We went to the Moon! We defied all the odds, yet for some reason, we make building a business, going for our dreams, creating a website, asking for a raise, ‘hard.’ We stay inside the box and focus on what seems realistic. It’s like we were given a Realistic Handbook in childhood that we’re meant to abide by.
Yet if you look around, more people than ever before are breaking down barriers, inventing new products, traveling the world, and becoming millionaires – and at a younger age.2 We all have the ability to create our own reality. And yet…
Most people are asleep at
the wheel of life and don’t
realize that opportunities
are there for the taking.
Most of us are addicted to ‘realistic’ without knowing that realistic focuses on restrictions – it basically says that you should just be happy with what you have, that your dreams aren’t possible, and that aiming high will only lead to disappointment.
I entirely disagree with that approach. Telling yourself to ‘be realistic’ doesn’t empower you – it doesn’t inspire you to aim high, or to explore possibilities, or to dream big dreams. And who truly wants to live life like that? Is that even really living? I don’t think so.
At the outset of our IHML courses, we ask our students to imagine that anything can happen. Specifically, we invite them to do a brain dump of what their ‘anything can happen’ wildest dreams consist of. The point of this exercise is to get the juices flowing and to engage the imagination and heart and silence the ego (the voice inside that puts limits on us and our dreams).
Even if you don’t see yourself as capable of achieving your wildest dreams, you don’t have to look very far to see cases of regular people doing extraordinary things. For example, not so long ago, it was believed impossible for a human to run a mile in less than four minutes – there was a concept of ‘a four-minute barrier’ that couldn’t be broken.
But then, in 1954, the British sprinter Roger Bannister proved everyone wrong by running a mile in three minutes 59.4 seconds, setting a world record. And the funny thing is, his record was broken just 46 days later, and many other athletes began to run sub-four-minute miles shortly thereafter.3 As you can imagine, it wasn’t a sudden change in human physical capability that made this a reality – it was a change in the perception of what was possible.
And of course, we don’t need to go back to 1954 or to 1969 and the first Moon walk to see stories of human potential – we have modern-day superhero tales featuring people like Sara Blakely (founder of Spanx and in 2012 the youngest self-made female billionaire), Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook), and Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon) to name just a few. My point? Greatness is all around, and it’s possible for you too.
When you let yourself dream ‘unrealistically’ big dreams in spite of what other people may tell you, not only will you knock your own socks off, you’ll also be showing everyone around you what’s possible, and we all know the world needs a new version of a reality check.
Try this exercise yourself right now: put on a timer for five minutes and brain dump a list of your wildest dreams. Don’t censor yourself; in fact, challenge yourself to dream even bigger.
The truth is, even if someone else hasn’t done what you desire to do, it’s still possible! Think about the smartphone or the Internet – neither of those technologies seemed possible, but with imagination they were brought to fruition.
Albert Einstein said that ‘imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.4 Einstein believed that in order to increase the intelligence of our children, we should tell them more fairytales. Now, I don’t know about you but there are a lot of people out there who believe we should tell our children fewer fairytales. That they shouldn’t grow up believing in things that aren’t realistic. They shouldn’t have their head in the clouds. They shouldn’t get their hopes up.
Now even I can see the value of a little girl not relying on that prince on a white horse to save her, and maybe you feel that way too. But I don’t think that’s what Einstein was talking about. This is about using your imagination to create the life you desire – whatever that may be. Everything that is now real was once imagined, and that’s incredible when you think about it.
Dr. Wayne Dyer, one of my favorite authors, illustrated this beautifully when he said: ‘Everything that you can experience with your senses was once in someone else’s imagination.’5 So that iPhone you’re holding, the computer you’re working from, the home you’re living in, the Uber you request every day, the train you travel to work on – all of these were at one point imagined. And if those things can be imagined, what’s stopping you from imagining your perfect life? You should be able to, right?
But the reality is that most people have been taught that dreaming too big is wrong and dangerous, and that we’re setting ourselves up for disappointment by living in that space. My goal is to help you reignite your imagination, and it starts with possibility.
Look around the room you’re in right now. Which of the things in it were once imagined? Allow that to inspire you today.
Let’s take a look at possibility from the perspective of the Universal Laws. You’re probably very familiar with the Physical Laws – the Law of Gravity or the Law of Motion – from science class as a child or teen. However, most of us don’t learn about the Spiritual Laws, which are governed by the Universal Laws and are concerned with energy. Because they technically can’t be seen, most people discount the Universal Laws, or just don’t learn about them while growing up.6
As with the Law of Gravity, which you quickly came to believe in as a child when you realized you couldn’t fly, putting the Universal Laws into practice is key, because you’re a spiritual and energetic being having a physical experience and you need to know how to work with them to create ease, flow, and transformation in your life. We aren’t going to spend too much time here, but I do want you to understand some key elements of the Universal Laws.
The most well known of the Universal Laws is the Law of Attraction, which you may have heard of. This states that you’ll attract into your life whatever you’re offering vibrationally – in other words, you get what you’re focused on. The Law of Attraction is just one of many Universal Laws, however; the Law I’ll be covering most in this book is the Law of Polarity, which will help you understand how anything you desire is possible for you – even if you don’t physically see it in your life this second.
The website TheLawOfAttraction.com states that ‘according to the Law of Polarity, everything is dual – so things that appear to be opposites are actually two inseparable parts of the same thing. Think of hot and cold… although they’re opposites, they’re actually on the same continuum and you cannot have one without the potential for the other.’7
So when it comes to your desires, wealth, and the life you want to create, there may have been a period of time when, for example, you couldn’t afford to take that dream trip; yet, in terms of your potential, if you can’t do something, it means you can do something at the same time.
According to the Law of Polarity, you can’t have a back without a front, or a yes without a no, or be broke without wealth being around the corner. Neither would exist without the other. You wouldn’t know what dark was unless light existed, right? Would you know what wealth was unless you had something to compare it to? No! Therefore both exist together in the world and in your life.
I also think about the Law of Polarity in terms of human potential in general, because sometimes it’s easier to see possibility in others before we see it in ourselves. For example, before I ever stayed in a 5-star hotel, I knew they existed and that they were often fully booked, so someone must be staying in them. Someone must be enjoying the drinks from the mini bar (otherwise, why would they put them in hotel rooms?) So, even though I wasn’t yet staying in luxury hotels, I knew it was possible for me, even before the money was in the bank.
I focused on the fact that even though some of my desires weren’t my current reality, there were people out there doing them all the time, so the potential was there for humans in general. And since I’m human, that meant the potential was there for me too. (That’s where my ‘why not me?’ philosophy comes from; if someone is out there doing something you want to do, just ask yourself, Why not me? You’ll start to see that there’s no valid reason you can’t do it, or have it, too!)
I hope this is sinking in for you today. What I’m saying is: even if you don’t have everything you desire this second, it can be right around the corner because it literally already exists!
I think the fact that everything you desire is already in existence deserves a Celebration Break. Let’s do it!
The Titan Summit is a gathering of some of the world’s best international speakers and thought leaders. The event is hosted by Robin Sharma – a huge presence in the coaching and personal development space – and is attended by billionaires and successful, driven people.
At one of the Titan Summits I attended, I met Lisa Bentley, a triathlete who at the time of writing, who has competed in 33 Ironman triathlons and won 11 of them. This would be an impressive accomplishment for anyone, but when you consider that Lisa has cystic fibrosis, it’s a miracle.
During her presentation to the audience, Lisa shared something that really stood out for me: she said that one of the major things she’d recognized throughout her experience is that attitude is more important than fact. For example, even though she was aware that some of her competitors were (on paper) better sprinters, swimmers, and so on, she didn’t put stock in those ‘facts.’ Instead, she focused on believing that anything was possible for her.
Lisa reminded herself to think the best of her capabilities, and to aim to be the very best version of herself. She declared that a true champion finds success despite adversity, and that so much of our success relies on retraining our brain to truly believe that anything is possible.
To me, Lisa’s story is such an important illustration of the power of the mind when we put it to good use and stop believing the perceived limitations and ‘facts’ around us. Your attitude and thoughts truly do have the power to shape your reality and your future, in ways that will enable you to exceed expectations and falsify those facts. Lisa put it best when she said that you have to be your own biggest fan.
You need to cultivate an
attitude that anything is
possible, and that your desires
for your future have no limit.
You need to trust that you have what it takes to make big things happen in your life, regardless of your current reality or what the ‘facts’ are telling you.
As Robin Sharma has often said: ‘We were born into genius, but we were hypnotized into mediocrity.’8 Meaning that we’re all born as big dreamers with a limitless concept of what’s possible for our lives, but along the way our social circle tells us that we’re dreaming too big or that we need to ‘face the facts.’ But here’s the good news: those ‘facts’ don’t have to limit you any longer.
We’re far more capable than we’re willing to give ourselves credit for. We stop too soon; we hit the pause button; we slow down when things get just a little too tough. No, this isn’t meant to make you feel bad: it’s just meant to help you raise the bar on your own capabilities.
One of my favorite stories of mental strength and possibility concerns Ross Edgley, the ‘World’s Fittest Strongman,’ who spent 157 days (or five months) swimming around the UK, being in the water for 12 hours each day. Ross is a scientist at heart who studies human performance and is obsessed with mental capability.
He claims that we’re only using 40 percent of our potential when we stop doing something.9 This means that, when it comes to the workout that feels impossible, the business deal that feels too risky, the video that you think you can’t film and deliver, you actually have 60 percent more willpower that you can access to make those a reality! In other words, your mind has been programmed to stop at 40 percent.
Ross explains that this reaction – to quit when things get difficult – is a primitive mechanism that’s meant to protect us from harm because the human body likes comfort and will try and keep us at the habitual level where everything is ‘okay.’10 (We’ll look at this topic in more depth in the Mindset chapter.)
The truth is we all have a lot more in us that we think. (I mean, this is a guy who swam miles with a jellyfish on his face without even realizing it!) I see this all the time in my industry (in a less extreme way). For example, I’ve had coaches who had lost their business and gone bankrupt, but rebuilt and got back to the seven-figure mark just one year later; I’ve seen a coach speak on stage nine hours per day for five days straight with a broken foot; I’ve seen my clients overcome divorce, emotional abuse, drugs, alcohol, and self-harm. Anything is possible.
I’m not asking you to do any of those things (or swim 1,791 miles like Ross Edgley) – I’m asking you to go for your dreams. I’m asking you to raise the bar when it comes to possibility, to not stop right away, to keep going.
So, if the sky were the limit (and it is), what would you want? What would your perfect life or reality consist of ? What’s the new normal that you want to create? What if everything you desire to create, be, or do in your life (maybe all imagined at this moment) could also become real? Did you ever think about it that way? What if ‘realistic’ isn’t meant to be your default setting?
What if you’re capable of more, and by not using your imagination, you’re actually holding yourself back from everything you’re really meant for? What if you began to use your imagination every day? What if you envisioned the life you want and believed it was possible for you and meant for you, instead of shutting it down? (By the way, you can still show gratitude for what you’re experiencing now and at the same time, desire more. We’ll cover that later on in the book.) What if you believed that everything you wanted was already on its way to you?
I’m trying to get your wheels turning – is it working yet? It’s time to reignite your imagination if the flame has gone out; to allow yourself to dream; to decide what it is that you desire; and to believe it’s already yours. Because anything is possible for you. It’s happening. It’s on its way. It’s meant for you.
Tap into your imagination. What do you envision for your life? What if the sky were the limit? What would you create, what would you do, who would you be? Take a second now to answer those questions.
If, while doing so, and dreaming about your new normal, you find that your mind is reminding you to be ‘realistic,’ I invite you to try what Dr. Wayne Dyer suggests and put up a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign at the entrance to your imagination. As he says, ‘Never, and I mean never, allow anyone else’s ideas of who you can and can’t become to sully your dream or pollute your imagination.’11