3 business beliefs to live by....

Recently I watched a YouTube video of Will Smith being interviewed and there was a piece of the interview that struck me. It was where he said 'you may be better looking than me, you may talk better than me, but you will never outwork me, I'll die on the treadmill if I have to. Will's belief in his abilities to work as much as he needed to in order to succeed shines through in congruent fashion.

Beliefs are like the foundations of a house; you can't see them, but you can see the consequence of them. If there is a strong foundation, the house can stay up for as long as necessary. If the foundation is weak, it is only a matter of time before the house crashes down like dominos.

So what is a good belief?

Well a belief is what you see to be true in the world you live in. I say 'see' because your belief's ultimately have an effect on what your brain filters through to your conscious awareness.

A strong belief is one that will focus your awareness in achieving your goals and hold your conviction in the face of set-backs. You can probably see that this definition holds true equally for someone like Hitler as it does for Ghandi, so what would a strong belief look like that would put you in good stead in business and on your life as a whole.

Here are 3 to get you thinking:


Learning is a lifelong process

When something is a lifelong process, you activate your curiosity on what else is out there and how you can get even better on what you already know. There is a legend in martial arts called Dan Inosanto, a close friend of Bruce Lee. He holds multiple black belts, but when he starts a new art, he puts on his beginners white belt like everyone else.

Having a belief that learning is a lifelong process washes away any bull**** about whether you are an expert or a guru and allows you to focus on the question "what can I learn today?" Let other people call you an expert, focus on being a learner.



I accept failure when it occurs

By deciding to go into business on your own, you are deciding to fail multiple times. You can call it something else; messed up, ****ed up, set back, 'didn't go according to plan', but ultimately it is a fail. Yet having the belief that you accept failure when it occurs, means you are not going to curl up in the foetal position crying a river.

Instead you:

- deal with it,

- learn what needs to be learnt from the situation to ensure you reduce the chance of it happening again

- Plan and implement your next move.

For this belief to be implemented one of the first steps is to redefine what failure means to you; see it as an opportunity to learn and you will learn something. See it as a signal to stop and you will stop.


I have everything I need to succeed

Anyone that has done well in business or life has done so with everything you currently have already. They may have more knowledge than you, more money than you or more connections that you, but strip them naked (metaphorical of course!) and they have exactly what you have.

The knowledge, money, connection is the result of how they have applied what they have. Having the belief you are no different than someone wealthy, someone successful, someone happy means you can believe you are capable of being in the position they currently are.

One of the biggest restrictions on someone's chance of success is the belief you don't have what you need to succeed; it simply is not true.

Beliefs are as part of you as your arms and legs. The only difference is you can change your beliefs and if doing so increases the impact you have in your business, isn't it worthwhile spending the time to have a belief spring clean?

What beliefs do you live by?

Aaron Morton