[PapayaTapper]

The Power of Belief

I remember reading the story of Roger Bannister as kid and its one of the many anecdotes that has informed my POV and served me well and I thought I'd share it here in the hopes that catches on with some or even one of you younger guys.

Most people probably know the story behind the iconic sports image



Roger Bannister was the first man to ever break the four minute mile. Before Bannister broke the four minute mile on May 6th, 1954, on Iffley Road Track in Oxford, physiologists, doctors, and athletes themselves had contended that running a mile in under four minutes wasn’t only impossible, it might actually lead to death. The human body simply wasn’t equipped to accomplish such a feat, they said. On a deeper level the message was clear: there are certain limits about ourselves that must be observed, certain limits that we simply can’t surpass. Bannister had a different belief. At the time, himself studying to be a physician, Bannister didn’t just think that the human body could, in fact, run a mile in under four minutes, but that he was the one to do it. And after he broke the record that day in Oxford, running an amazing 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds, just 46 days later, the record was broken again.

Again and as incredible a physical triumph as this was for a specific individual what's even more amazing is a feat that was once universally accepted as impossible was duplicated again just 46 days later. Moreover it was achieved again 115 times in the next two years or so. Its now done hundreds of times a year*. Once people knew that it could be done it became easier Such is the incredible Power Of Belief

Oh I know some of you will say "Oh well here goes PT again with his boomerism,Tony Robbins, inner dialogue, fear and desire, spiel again. He doesn't realize that the world has changed and our generation was fucked before we got started etc..."

We Are Meant To Self-Actualize

The trouble with thinking that we can’t do anything is that these imposed glass ceilings simply don’t fit what human beings were meant to do. Abraham Maslow, the American psychologist who created Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, defines self-actualization, the highest need, as the need for every person to realize his or her full potential, to reach a level of “self-actualization.” Maslow believed self-actualization wasn’t just a vital component of a healthy life, but a biological need for mastery. To prove his theory, Maslow studied mentally healthy individuals instead of people with serious psychological issues. Focusing on self-actualizing people, Maslow noted that they often have “peak experiences” or high points in life that correspond with recognizing their potential – often potential they didn’t know existed. These peak experiences fulfill an inherent need to grow, improve, and stretch beyond our limits, to achieve a sense of mastery. People, Maslow believed, are wired to see what they are made of, to push themselves past limits, past the four minute mark, the two hour mark, and any other self-imposed limitations, because it is this very process that makes us human. And it’s not a stagnant process. What we achieve today, we will want to better tomorrow. That’s the way of mastery – it’s not a destination. It’s a journey. A journey that we take every day, because it’s who we are. And yet when we impose preconceived limitations on ourselves – believing that there are things we simply can’t do – not only do we rob ourselves of the journey, but of the joy in finding out just what we are made of.

Fixed Ceilings and Fixed Mindsets

Carol Dweck, Stanford Psychology Professor and author of "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success" says that there are two types of mindsets we can have: Fixed or Growth. The first, a growth mindset, sees our abilities as malleable, and directly linked to the effort we put in. To get better, we simply need to try harder, and if we are not getting the results we want, we can improve by committing more effort. Further, what Dweck found is that when people with a growth mindset experience failure, they actually try harder. Is this not the very cornerstone principle of this forum? It certainly is what drew me here 5 years ago

Those with fixed mindsets, on the other hand, see their abilities as predetermined and unchangeable. When they don’t get the results they want, it is not because they are not trying hard enough, it is because they are not equipped with the right skills, provided the right opportunity, etc.. (Does this sound familiar?) And no matter how hard they try, or how much effort they put in, their abilities are fixed. Setbacks, for people with fixed mindsets, don’t make them try harder, they make them give up. Having a fixed mindset, is like having a glass ceiling. There is only so far you can go, and no matter how much you try, you will never pass that point. Once you believe that, you simply stop trying to go any further. There is only so much you can run, write, invest, work, and do, and only so much you are meant to accomplish. And most importantly, you don’t imagine anything more. But the problem is, as Sir Ken Robinson, creativity expert, and author of the bestselling book, "The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything", says, imagination lies at the heart of every great human achievement. In short, when we stop imagining more, we stop achieving more.

Fixed or Growth?

Make a decision because no decision is a decision...Unknown

The Gift Of Uncertainty

There is one thing that glass ceilings may do very well. They make life certain. When we know exactly what we are capable of and what the future has in store, we also know exactly what to expect. There are no surprises, and we take comfort in the idea of knowing that we know. And where there are no unknowns, there is no uncertainty. The problem is, a world like this doesn’t exist. From Christopher Columbus first crossing the Atlantic on a flat Earth, to Danny Way jumping the Great Wall on a skateboard, people have been breaking barriers that were never thought possible. But these barriers were self-imposed. There was no rational reason to think that a person couldn’t jump the Great Wall on a skateboard, except that it had never been done before. And that is just the problem with imposed limits. They tell us that just because we can’t imagine it being done, it can’t be done.


But doing anything starts with imagining it: The Power Of Belief. Another anecdote that illustrates this "power" is the Jane Elliot A Class Divided experiment might have thought as much when she famously told the blue eyed children in her class that they were smarter than the rest of the children in her class. By the end of the day, the blue eyed children performed much better on class assignments than the rest of the children. When Elliot reversed her position the next day and told the brown eyed children that she had been wrong and that, in fact, they were the more intelligent children, it was the brown eyed children that performed better on class assignments. Elliot’s work has since been replicated in numerous studies and sheds light on a powerful truth: what we believe about our abilities becomes our abilities.

When we believe that we can’t run a four minute mile, try as we might, we won’t break that barrier. And when we believe that we can’t write a book, start a business, get the hot girl , buy a home, or lead the sales for our company, we also won’t break those barriers. Like glass ceilings, our beliefs will hold us down, and we become hostage to them.

And while life may be more certain when we know exactly what to expect from ourselves, it is in the uncertainty – in the not knowing, not being sure, and not having answers – that the extraordinary happens. It is when we don’t know what to expect, but we try anyway, that we find abilities we never knew existed. We find strengths we never realized we had, and we reach heights we never imagined possible. It is then – in that uncertainty – that we might realize out true potential. That is, until we reach into the vast unknown again.

The saying goes "Knowledge Is Power" But I say when Belief is betrayed by one's knowledge it is weakness, not strength

Every day there are young men out there in the real world that will achieve what they want because they believe they can or blissfully dont know they cant.


Happy Saturday Gentlemen

*RVF Bonus: No woman has yet ever run a sub 4 minute mile

Edit: Citations-


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/04/obitu...-dead.html

https://www.spiked-online.com/2018/03/08...nute-mile/

https://www.mindsetworks.com/science/

https://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/his...am-maslow/