No one likes to think of themselves as “infected”.
Nevertheless, infected we are.
When you arrived on this beautiful blue planet, you were a blank canvas awaiting the oil and brush. Unfortunately, the hand picking up the brush could only paint as it knew how to paint.
To use a more effective analogy, in technological terms, you arrived as an empty hard drive, waiting to be programmed.
And programmed you were.
To the hilt.
Every thought, every spoken word, every myth, misgiving and belief was installed by the programmers around you…
…the programmed programmers.
Your software was second hand, inherited, a hand-me-down. You had no ability to assess whether it was fit for purpose. You had no means of evaluating it’s usefulness.
You didn’t have the capability to reject or neglect an idea….
…all you could do was accept it.
Every time.
By the time you were six, the majority of your programming was complete. Your self-image was formed. And you were the perfect product…
…of other people’s habitual way of thinking.
They told you what to think about money. That “filthy” lucre is the root of all evil…and it doesn’t grow on trees.
They told you what to think about people who had a lot of money. Those “filthy”, stinking rich…there’s one rule for them and one rule for us…”it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God”.
They told you what to think about success. You’ve got to be born into wealth…have a first grade education….get more than your fair share of “luck”…success is for the privileged few.
They told you what to think about you and your potential. Don’t get too big for your boots…who do you think you are anyway? You’ll never amount to much…just get yourself a steady job.
They told you what to think about God…you know, the judgemental, vengeful, punishing and angry God depicted by the world’s man-made theological constructions, the God that gave you free will and loves you, yet will cast your soul into an eternal fiery pit of torture if you don’t play by Her rules (oh, and there’s another thing they taught you to think – God’s male).
They told you as they were told…and crippled you in the act.
You’ve been taught what to think not how to think. Rarely, if ever, were you taught how to think for yourself.
After all, children should be seen and not heard. What a horrible idea that is.
Your parents told you what to think.
Your relatives told you what to think.
Your teachers told you what to think.
Religionists told you what to think.
Your peer group told you what to think.
And everyone of them had been taught what to think by someone else.
Make no mistake, these unsubstantiated ideas and their derivative thought processes, all inherited from the authority figures in your life, play out in your day-to-day reality today. And for most of the time you’re not aware of them.
They’re there all the same.
You think you think for yourself. Sometimes you do. Most of the time you don’t. Most of the time someone else is doing the thinking for you…and they’re probably not around today.
This doesn’t make you an idiot. It doesn’t mean you’re stupid. It only makes you programmed.
Welcome to the human race.
So if you ever wonder why you do what you do…
…and if you ever wonder why you don’t do what you should do…like grasp opportunities that represent growth, expansion and deliver on the promise of greater success in your life…
…understand who’s calling the shots.
Because you’ll never outperform your self-image….until the day you wake up to the need to change it.
Christian Simpson is the UK’s leading coach and mentor to business owners and entrepreneurs. For COMPLIMENTARY ACCESS to tried, tested and proven entrepreneurial success strategies, click here
