feel like reality because they are reality until you realize they are false.
The good news is that just as you can upgrade the hardware on your computer, you can upgrade your beliefs once you become aware of them. In Vishen’s book, he teaches a codified form of learning and human development that he calls consciousness engineering. The first step of consciousness engineering is to recognize that your beliefs are not who you are. They are simply hardware that was installed in you long ago and can be upgraded or replaced.
Neuroplasticity teaches us that we can swap out a negative or limiting belief for a belief that will serve us better. Vishen says that when people change their beliefs, their lives completely transform because those beliefs inform how they experience the world. For instance, when Vishen got rid of the false belief that his differences made him ugly, it changed his confidence and his entire perspective, and his life and relationships quickly shifted in a positive way.
Swapping out your limiting beliefs is crucial if you want to go from Human 1.0 to Human 2.0, but it isn’t easy. Humans hold on to limiting beliefs without even realizing it. They seem so real to us that we don’t always realize they even exist. To us, they are simply the way things are. Vishen recommends modalities such as hypnotherapy or meditation (more on this later), which can lead to awakening moments that make you conscious of your beliefs. Then you can begin to change them intentionally.
High performers focus on recognizing and changing limiting beliefs because they know that their beliefs will become true whether or not they are based in reality. In fact, helping people discover and correct self-limiting beliefs is one of the primary roles of a life coach or a business coach. For example, if you believe that you are having a lucky day before a presentation, it doesn’t matter whether or not there is any such thing as luck. Your belief in your own luck will lead you to have more confidence and to actually perform better in that presentation. It’s like the placebo effect on steroids.
When I meditate, I tell my nervous system I’m grateful that things happen the way they’re supposed to happen, that there is a conspiracy to help me succeed, and that the universe has my back. (Gabby Bernstein, the author of a great book by that title, inspires that last part. Her interview on Bulletproof Radio was amazing.) It doesn’t matter if any of those beliefs are actually true or even if my rational brain thinks they’re true. I want the simple-minded systems in my body to believe that they are true so they will automatically help me to make things happen with less resistance.
Your positive beliefs can literally bring you success. You can tell yourself the story that you’re successful, and your brain will believe it and act on it. The opposite is also true. Based on thirty years of research on more than a million participants, Dr. Martin Seligman and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania found that optimistic expectations were a significant predictor of achievement.1 When salespeople believed that they would make a particular sale, they were 55 percent more successful than their pessimistic counterparts. Your beliefs directly impact the outcome of your efforts, so it is essential to swap out your negative beliefs so you can reach your potential or surpass what you presently believe is your potential. I spend a substantial amount of energy and time with people who think bigger than I do because it edits my own stories about my potential, and doing so has expanded my life and my company more than I ever expected. (Of course I didn’t expect it; I had a limiting story!)
The second aspect of consciousness engineering is upgrading your systems for living, also known as your habits. Vishen says that your habits are like the apps on your phone. They consist of things such as your diet, your exercise routine, and your sleep hygiene—the patterns that shape your days. He recommends learning new systems through studying the greats and finding out what habits made a difference for the most impactful people … kind of like what you’re doing by reading this book!
To learn more about how to easily create new habits, I sought out Robert Cooper, a neuroscientist and New York Times bestselling author who has positively impacted the 4 million people who have bought his books. Robert effectively combines two fields that seem completely unrelated—neuroscience and business strategy—to help elite performers and top leaders get the most out of their brains, their time, and their performance.
I asked Robert to deliver the keynote address at the third annual Bulletproof Biohacking Conference and sat down with him afterward to talk about how to hack the hardwired habits that can limit performance and build new habits that will burn better programs into the structure of the brain. Robert says that the brain has an embedded performance code for the world of two thousand years ago. You can ignore this outdated programming and hope for the best, or you can upgrade and reprogram (or rewire, in neuroscientific terms) the brain to become compatible with the reality of today’s world.
First, you have to become aware of the brain’s default settings. Our instinct is to do things the same way we’ve always done them. This is helpful on a day-to-day basis, such as when you drive to work using the same route as always without even thinking about it, but constantly reverting to automatic behaviors can shut down innovative thinking. Robert calls this your “hard wiring.” Your “live wiring,” on the other hand, represents your ability to grow and change—the “plastic” part of neuroplasticity.
Robert says that even when you are relying on your hard wiring, your brain is constantly changing. The question then becomes: In which direction are you changing? When you settle in to your default mode and rigidify like a grumpy creature of habit that gets mad if someone takes his or her favorite seat at the table, you are “downwiring.” Many people downwire as they age, but it doesn’t have to be that way. When you lean into possibilities and become different with the intention to get better, you are “upwiring.”
The key to upgrading your performance is to spend the majority of your time upwiring rather than downwiring. Yet, to conserve energy, your brain’s instinct is to downwire. It likes repeating the same things it’s done before and keeping you the same person you’ve always been. This is why for many people it is more comfortable and less scary to stay the same. In many ways, your brain is a scared, dumb organ that fears change. (No offense.) Upwiring requires more effort and more risk. You have to aim your brain away from its comfortable default mode and instead steer it toward intentional choices that support the kind of growth you want to achieve.
To do this, Robert encourages you to identify moments when you can prevent an automatic response and instead guide yourself in a better direction. Many mindfulness experts refer to such a moment as a “meta moment”—a sliver of time between a trigger and a response. For example, when someone says something that bothers you, instead of reacting with anger as you normally would (downwiring), pause to consider why the comment upset you so much and then choose with intention how you want to respond (upwiring). With practice, finding meta moments will eventually become a habit like any other.
It’s exciting to know that your brain, your beliefs, and your reality are incredibly changeable. You decide who you are, and you can also choose your own truth. That is a powerful game changer.
Action Items
Chose one of the methods from this law to figure out which of your beliefs about yourself are actually true. Be extra suspicious about any belief that suggests you “should” be some way or do something, any belief that says you “have to” or “need to,” and any belief that paints people or the world in terms of good and bad. Write down the first three that come to mind:Belief 1: __________________________________________Belief 2: __________________________________________Belief 3: __________________________________________Meditate on things you believe to be true about yourself and the world around you. Do it either in the morning or at night.Journal about the things you believe to be true for a half hour once a week. Start today.Schedule a recurring monthly or weekly appointment with a coach or a therapist who can point out when you believe your own story.
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