5 Insights for My New Friend

Sometimes I forget that not everyone knows this work.

I spent a weekend with a new friend who wasn't familiar with me or the way I teach. As we talked, I wanted to share ideas that had changed how I experience my life.

You can't teach someone the entire Model in a quick conversation. It takes practice to understand and apply it. But you can offer an insight they can consider and test.

In Episode 385, I shared five from that conversation. Each one opens a different way to look at something we often take for granted.

1. Rich people aren't evil

We have been socialized to associate wealth with corruption, wrongdoing, or being a bad person. That belief can quietly stop you from pursuing money.

But money is neutral. What people choose to do with it can be judged as good or bad.

If you are generous, excited, and fun, having more money gives you more ways to express those qualities. It doesn't automatically turn you into someone you don't want to be.

I have always been a generous person. More money has given me opportunities to exemplify that generosity.

I want more money in the hands of good people. If you believe becoming wealthy will make you evil, step back and examine the logic.

Do you think money will corrupt you? Or could it allow you to be more of who you already are?

Consider what you would need to believe to receive abundance and share it with the world.

Money won't solve everything. Your life will still be 50/50. But having it doesn't make you less of a person.

2. To receive love, love yourself

You are already 100% lovable and 100% worthy.

Someone else's ability to love you determines whether they experience love for you. You don't have to improve yourself to become more lovable.

Receiving their love is a different part of the experience. You create your experience of it through your own thoughts.

Their emotion doesn't jump from their body into yours. You need to be willing to open your heart and believe you're worthy of the connection.

If you think you're damaged, or that your secrets would make you unlovable if someone knew them, you may disconnect from love that is available.

Work on understanding and forgiving yourself for what you've decided makes you unworthy. Nothing you've done removes your worth as a human being.

We often lead with appearance, accomplishments, or a presentation of how amazing we are. What if we also allowed the truth that we are human?

You can bring all of yourself into the connection, including the vulnerable places. Loving yourself isn't self-indulgent. It opens more capacity to love and receive love.

3. Don't let a negative past define you

The way you tell the story of your past is a choice.

You can describe a former job, relationship, or experience in a way that keeps creating anger and bitterness. You can also interpret it in a way that empowers you.

Sometimes people tell the negative story and then explain what they learned. That's better than finding nothing to learn. But I want you to consider rewriting the story itself.

What if you were the hero? What did you do? How did you recover? What can you create from the experience?

If you make past heartbreak the reason you can't show up fully now, you let the old story define your future.

You get to be defined by where you're going, who you want to be, and how you want to show up.

We carry an idealized story of how life should unfold: perfect parents, the best education, the ideal partner, perfect children, and growing old together.

Then we use that story to torture ourselves when our actual lives don't match.

A perfect life isn't the point. Challenges and obstacles are part of the experience. You can use them to create the best life you can instead of treating them as evidence that yours went wrong.

4. Become aware of your attitude

You may think you have a positive outlook and still have an unconscious negative narrative running underneath it.

That narrative affects what you feel, how you show up, the dreams you pursue, and the opportunities you take.

Coaching helps expose your mind to yourself. Without someone there to point out the thoughts, journaling can help you see them.

Do a thought download. Empty your brain onto paper and look at what is actually there.

Even now, I can be surprised by how many painful, mean, and unnecessary thoughts show up in my own mind.

Without awareness, we can spend our energy proving those thoughts true so we can feel correct. We miss the opportunity to create something different.

Negative self-talk doesn't stay contained in a private corner of your life. It affects the version of you other people experience.

You don't need to cover the perceived shortcomings with a performance. Tell the truth about who you are. The human part that struggles is part of what lets us connect.

Acknowledging the negative thinking doesn't mean believing it or continuing it. It gives you the chance to change it.

5. Actions matter more than words

There are thoughts you want to believe and thoughts you actually believe.

The difference shows up in action. An activated thought creates emotion that drives behavior and produces a result.

Thoughts create feelings, which drive actions and results. Look at the whole sequence rather than stopping at the sentence someone says.

Someone may say they want to build a business, spend time with you, move in together, or create something important. Listen, then look for the action.

Is there evidence of that belief in their life?

The result may not be finished yet. But if they're working toward it, you can usually see evidence of the work.

This isn't only a question about someone else. Ask it of yourself. Do your actions reflect what you say you believe?

A person can want to believe a thought so much that they don't recognize they aren't believing it yet. They may be telling themselves and you something they haven't activated.

Words matter. Actions show whether the words are actually being lived.

Put the insights to work

You don't need to understand every part of the Model to begin noticing these ideas in your own life.

Examine what you believe money would mean about you. Notice whether you let yourself receive love. Listen to the story you're telling about your past.

Write down the thinking you may not have noticed. Look at what your actions reveal about the thoughts you believe.

Each insight gives you a place to become more aware, tell yourself the truth, and choose how you want to show up.