Today, when I woke up in the morning, I thought to myself, “Today will be a magical day. I will have phenomenally powerful sessions with my clients that will meaningfully and positively impact their lives. I will get crucial writing and editing work done that creates tremendous value. I will move important projects forward more than I thought was possible. And I will get unexpected great news.”

I do this on purpose.

I am programming myself to have an impactful and enjoyable day… and life.

How are you programming yourself?

What have you told yourself this morning?

The world around us, even the people closest to us, often subtly or not so subtly diminish us, criticize us and guilt us.

They have their own agendas. Their feedback to us is often biased by manipulations, jealousies, or self-serving resentment. I think of all the spouses I see diminishing their partners for working too hard and not spending enough time with the family. Have they tried to be the sole or main breadwinners for the family? Do they have any idea what it takes to be exceptional and “move mountains” in the competitive world we are living in today?

I even saw it in my own family growing up. Constant diminishing and criticizing, which then stays with you and runs in your head unless you intentionally change the programming.

And changing the programming is not for lazy or unmotivated people. It’s brutal. It requires deep work.

I used to have a “friend” in school. Once, we were getting ready for a school event. As we both were from poor families, we didn’t have many clothes, and we wanted to wear something different. So we agreed I would wear her clothes and she will wear mine.

I brought my clothes to her apartment. She put on my best pieces of clothes, and I put on her clothes. She told me I looked terrible in it and that I should wear what I was wearing when I came in. I trusted her, although I thought I looked lovely. Years later, she told me about this event and that she gave me that advice because “I looked too good,” and she didn’t want me to look so good.

This is such a great example of what is happening to us every day. Almost everyone is acting in their best interest, not YOURS. And what they tell you is usually biased.

You are not a bad father or mother because you are spending evenings working on breaking out of your orbit. In fact, one of the most beautiful things you can do for your kids and spouse is to be successful so they can have more opportunities to realize their dreams.

You are not a bad husband or wife because you dedicated hours over weekends to build for the long term.

When they tell you diminishing things, if you accept it even a little bit, the evil will advance to claim its territory. Evil moves from little to big to dominant.

Think about some programming you have running in your own mind that is significantly holding you back.

It all started small.

Often a little comment from someone. Then it grew to something big, and then to dominant programming that is running in your head and holding you back like a heavy rope over your neck with a stone tied to it.

Whatever evil you permit grows bigger. It expands its influence over your life the more you allow it.

This past Saturday, we had Speak Without Limits program results clinic that was supposed to be 1.5 hours and ended up running for 4 hours and 48 minutes. There are so many monsters to slay. The same with The Masterplan program. I make no secret of working a lot and at an intense pace. If it was easy to break out of our orbit, everyone would do it.

What others tell you means little. What you tell yourself about yourself has tremendous power.

Start changing your programming. If you want resources to help you think differently, you can access powerful resources via the Legacy membership (the next Legacy coaching call is this Sunday at 12 pm PST) or even just Insider membership. You can enroll in both on StrategyTraining.com (scroll to membership options).

But if you want to personally work with me, Michael, and a group of successful peers, you can apply to join The Masterplan (2.0) coaching program. For clients who previously did the Masterplan coaching program in 2022 and want to enroll in the 2.0 version of the program, the focus will be on iteration, implementation, and further shedding of anything that is holding them back. For clients who will be going through the program for the first time, the focus will be on designing your Masterplan and slaying the monsters that are holding you back.

Learn more here.

Apply here: VIP or Elite.

Have a happy holiday and a wonderful time celebrating.

Kris