The Alchemy of Self-Concept: Believing Before Doing – What Are You Cooking With?
......is the ability to see a blessing or boon, where others see calamity. This is why you can have all the skill, talent, and ability in the world but still fall short repeatedly of your goals.
As a business solutions entrepreneur, I understand that the vast majority of people who seek my assistance are looking for answers on how to achieve a specific goal or set of objectives. Or they’re seeking technical advice with drafting a document, implementing a specific sales strategy, or building an onboarding process to improve client service or employee retention.
These expectations are akin to walking into an investment advisor’s office and saying, “I want to make $100,000. What should my investment strategy be?” without providing any additional context.
In both cases, the end goal isn’t unrealistic or whimsical, it’s just that these intended outcomes are often less a reflection of the business consultant’s or advisor’s acumen and more about their ability to help people become the people who can achieve their own goals.
The alchemy is predicated upon a base understanding that when you meet people, they are already achieving to the extent that their current abilities and knowledge base allow. Their ways of thinking and daily habits are key performance indicators. Readers read and thus become more knowledgeable. Speakers speak and thus become more confident articulating themselves. Thinkers think, resulting in better decisions. Doers do and become more able.
Changing Self-Concept
The key is to change the person’s self-concept, or the story one tells themself about who and what they are, impacting how they think and what they think about. Improving self-concept leads to improving daily habits and achieving favorable outcomes.
If a person is committed to being someone who crushes candy bars multiple times a day, it doesn’t matter how spectacular or thoughtful the diet plan you suggest to them is. It won’t be effective until the person stops believing they are someone who eats candy bars.
Likewise, if a person cannot see themselves gratefully and enthusiastically executing their business plan, or implementing the savings plan and winning investment habits, it doesn’t matter how brilliant the business plan is or how sterling the reputation of the investment firm.
People’s mental self-concept and daily habits behave much like the physical body pursuing homeostasis. Your body is always regulating the amount of minerals and hormones flowing through the body to achieve its optimal homeostatic level. Similarly, you can think of your mind as constantly shaping your actions and daily habits to align to the beliefs you hold about yourself. Start by developing a self-concept and set of beliefs that serve you. Then focus on changing the granular actions and behaviors.
We are human beings, not human doings. We will be who we believe ourselves to be. That is the input. When we achieve, that is the output of the “being.”
Poor Is Not A Place
Poor is a state of mind. The state of mind results in Passing Over Opportunities Repeatedly. When your self-concept is flawed, you cannot conceive, or more accurately see opportunities for growth, achievement, and investment. It’s because your self-concept impacts your reticular activating system. What is that?
The Reticular Activating System (RAS) is like a master air traffic controller in your brain. Just as an air traffic controller filters and directs countless planes, deciding which ones land safely, the RAS filters the flood of information we encounter daily, allowing us to focus on what’s truly important. In business, this is crucial for success—when your mind is trained to focus on your goals, opportunities, and key decisions, you navigate the chaos of the business world more effectively, just like planes moving smoothly through busy skies.
Or think about your RAS like a spotlight operator in your brain. When you buy or start thinking about a specific car, it's like telling the operator to shine a light on every car of that type on the road. Suddenly, you’re seeing that car everywhere—not because there are more of them, but because your brain has been primed to notice.
Well if your spotlight operator is primed poorly you’ll see failure in everything. You’ll Google a subject matter and become hyperfocused on reviews or outcomes that feed your fears, anxieties, and self-defeating beliefs. If your spotlight operator is primed for success you’ll fixate on an abandoned building that others passed by, and curate a 5-bedroom bed and breakfast instead.
In other words, one of the primary differences between entrepreneurs who succeed and those who fail is the ability to see a blessing or boon, whereas others see calamity. This is why you can have all the skills, talents, and abilities in the world but still repeatedly fall short of your goals. Think about your thoughts, self-concept, beliefs, and habits as ingredients in a dish you’re consuming. The alchemy is in the fact that the successful are cooking with different and better ingredients.
What are you cooking with?
Take the first step towards elevated performance by scheduling your consultation with JSB Business Solutions. Click this link and schedule a day and time that works best for you.
The world around us wasn’t built by the exceptional. It was built by everyday people who were willing to do exceptional things. Go build something.
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I find that creating optimal working conditions is key for me, for personal reasons and practical reasons like increased efficiency.