I once read a quote that said that every day you should stand guard at the door of your mind. You alone decide what thoughts and beliefs you let into your mind and your life. For they will shape whether you feel rich or poor, cursed or blessed.

How you communicate with others matters. But what matters even more is how you communicate with yourself, and whether or not you allow popular lies and other people’s biases to be accepted as truths by you.

One of the popular lies is that upward mobility is a rare occurrence,
a lie used by the rich to steal money from the poor.

The success stories like yours and mine, and bigger stories, are painted as fairytales inaccessible to greater masses.

So what they are saying is a person who was born in the United States, spoke English as their first language, and had access to almost all the knowledge in the world through the public library system, is somehow at a disadvantage to someone such as me? 

A girl from the former Soviet Union who timidly immigrated 3 times to finally have the privilege of living in the United States, after over a decade’s journey to get here. 

Who’s degree was not recognized in the West. Who had to go back and get another degree while working full time plus having part-time jobs in parallel.

Who had to translate almost every word of every book to understand my university books when starting university studies in the West. 

The girl who stunned herself when she got all A’s because she thought she would be lucky just to PASS, given her knowledge of the English language. 

A girl who was scared of her own shadow because of attacks and kidnapping experiences before immigration.

“Frightening” and “humiliating” are
inadequate adjectives
to describe my journey to this moment. 

If someone like that could experience substantial upward mobility, then someone starting out at a much higher “floor” of that “dark staircase” we are all climbing has a much easier pathway upward. 

Be careful about listening to lies about you. 

You are not a poor parent because you are putting the financial success of your family ahead of spending more time with your kids. 

If you and they get to have more opportunities because of your financial success, I would argue you are a much better parent than a parent who can’t afford to create such opportunities.

You are not a greedy person just because you want more for yourself and your family. 

You are not selfish because you want to spend more time working, and more time on your professional development, so you can make a bigger impact in the world.

Of course, you will have to work hard, manage politics, and push yourself nearly every day. 

But when you move up, the whole of society benefits. 

No one benefits from complacency. 

Don’t allow people to suppress your ambition. 

Don’t listen to people who tell you that the game is rigged. That success is not in the cards for most people.

The real reason success is inaccessible to most people is because 1) they don’t realize it is accessible because they believe in popular lies and they are not well informed about the options they have, and 2) if they do realize, they are not willing to do what it takes to access it. 

At the end of the day, business is about creative value creation.

It is about delivering far more value for your clients than the money you ask for in exchange. 

If you do this in a corporate setting as an employee or while running your own business, you set yourself up for a substantial upward movement. 

If you do it as an employee, your organization will not want to lose someone who is like a magnet for clients. And you can leverage that reputation for higher responsibility roles and greater compensation.

If you do it for your own business, upward movement is even easier. The market will reward you for the value created. 

Want not to be climbing those “dark stairs” alone?

Jump into the last compartment of the Speak Without Limits (aka Executive Presence and Communication) training and coaching program train. Learning how to communicate (with yourself and the world) is the most important skill you will need while climbing those “dark stairs.”

We had 2 hours 36 minutes introductory results clinic, but the deep training starts this Saturday. So you can STILL jump in, catch a replay of the onboarding call, and roll over your sleeves to join us and a group of impressive like-minded leaders in the climb up. 

Learn more about the program here. Apply here: (VIP or Elite).

Take care,

Kris