One afternoon in Byron Bay I collected my thoughts about ‘core beliefs’ and ‘identity’ and how they make ‘useful beliefs’ work even better.

I pulled into the parking lot at Wategos Bay. I had presented at a conference in the morning and decided to take some time this afternoon to write and to enjoy this magical part of the world. Travelling around Australia is pure joy. It is such a beautiful and wonderful place to live my life, and though it would once have seemed so unlikely that I would end up here, I am so grateful.

I had just been up to the lighthouse, the easternmost point of Australia, and had spent 45 minutes staring out over the ocean. The sun was shining and the water was electric blue, a colour I couldn’t even begin to describe. Walking around the lighthouse I felt like I was a part of something incredible. I felt in awe of the world around me and had a sense of gratitude about the journey that had shaped my life. It is joyful to be awake and aware of the awesomeness around us.

Sometimes I worry that we are losing our ability as a society to be in awe of natural things. It may be a cliché to say that we need to stop and smell the roses, but it is worrisome that most people don’t take enough time to take in the beauty that surrounds us. It’s not easy, though. Why does it seem so hard to stop, look around and take it all in? Why is it so hard to pull ourselves away from our continual technological stimulation?

Firstly, we are busy. We love to tell each other how busy we are. It is usually the first thing out of our mouths when we see someone we haven’t spoken to in a while. Of course, most people are incredibly busy. Society is busy. From the hustle and bustle of modern traffic to meetings, schedules and deadlines, most people are often on the verge of overwhelm from the sheer amount of activity they need to keep abreast of.

Secondly, we communicate all the time, and at record speed. Our dependence on social transactions through text, email, messenger, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter means that we are constantly thinking about sending, receiving, responding and seeking feedback on our communications.

Thirdly, we are physically, literally, looking down more than ever before. Looking down a train carriage, it is normal to find the overwhelming majority of passengers staring down at their phones. Very few people are interacting directly with each other, and fewer still are consciously looking out of the window and taking in the surrounds. Don’t get me wrong, I am doing the same thing. Mobile phones are absolutely amazing, incredible mini-computers. We have more technology in the palm of our hand than Apollo 11 had for the first moon landing. It is not easy to pull yourself away from that.

And yet there is a case to be made that this has not brought us happiness, and that most people are more miserable than ever.

Is it not the case that we all need to cut a little of this noise and take more time to connect with the awesome world around us? That we need to get less connected, and by doing so, become more connected to who we really are? How many people have a core belief that they are truly connected to nature? How many, I wonder, would like to? If you identified as a person who was truly in awe of the beauty around you, how would that help you start your day differently?

At Wategos Bay, I grabbed my towel and a notebook from the back seat and went down to the beach. I splashed on some sun cream, though I was pretty sure I hadn’t done a very good job. I walked up the beach, the warm sand squishing between my toes. It was busy but I found some space and spread out my towel. I had a few ideas that I wanted to jot down, so I got out my notebook and prepared to write. I wanted somehow to draw this connection between appreciating each day and the busy-ness everyone feels.

In the first five minutes, I found that I had written down only two ideas:

1. Core beliefs
2. Identity.

Then it hit me. Core beliefs and identity are the final step in cutting the noise.

There is so much media noise telling us what to believe in. Everyone has an opinion and the media just turns up the volume and creates debate in which the loudest voices often get the most attention. Buzzwords are used recklessly by media and political grandstanders who are bent on making a name for themselves and in the process inflaming extremism and intolerance.

With the media today pressing us to pick sides and react emotionally to almost every topic, we need to be wary of getting sucked into confrontational thinking. Young people often tell me they want to connect with a cause or purpose so they can make a difference. But under this confused media bombardment they can become less clear about what they really stand for as they search to make an impact in the world. It is essential to sift through the extreme messaging to find clarity about your viewpoint. At the same time, being open to other people’s ideas has never been more important.

We are all influenced by the noise around us. I too can be sucked into the media messaging. I enjoy social media, news broadcasts, reality television and debates about health, religion, politics and social issues as much as anyone. Like most people I have been sucked into emotional reactions to heated exchanges with stubborn people whose views I disagree with.

It is important that we do not lose our ability to seek out common ground with one another. Concession and compromise are an integral part of creating a society in which we can all communicate with, appreciate and love one another. However convinced we are of being right, we should never stop listening to and sharing ideas with others. 

It is critical to identify the core beliefs that drive your life. They will help you decide how to make decisions about how to deal with all the noise.

This is a subject that receives too little attention in these times. When I ask people about their core beliefs, people often don’t know how to respond. If they do respond, they may cite their circles of importance — family, work, friends, health, community and personal time. That’s not it.

Core beliefs are the fundamental principles we live by. They shape our useful beliefs and help form our identity. They shape us into something nobler, more beautiful. Here are examples of five core beliefs that could improve the trajectory of your life and approach to each day:

1. We are the truest version of ourselves when we focus on love, not fear.

Fear makes us irrational and prone to exaggeration. It leads to our stereotyping people and situations and focusing anger on isolated incidents and events. Fear makes people act with simple-mindedness and base judgement that ends up putting them on the wrong side of history. In contrast, you are the truest version of yourself when you focus on love.

Authenticity around being that true version of yourself is such an attractive quality. One of the things I love about Generation Y (Millennials) is that they will not tolerate anything that is not authentic. They know if you are not genuine. My advice today is to be knowledgeable and authentic. Be real and know your stuff. The quickest way to make yourself expendable today is to be incompetent and inauthentic.

Focus on the love in the world. In business, you will do the right thing by your customers. In life, you will form a wider worldview that serves people.

2. Gratitude produces more to be grateful for.

I have so often thought about the sliding door moments in life. Walking through one door can change your life completely. I really did not know anything about Australia when I met Lucy in a bar in Manhattan Beach, California. We were married seven months later and I have ended up living almost half of my life downunder.

How different my life would have been if I had decided to go somewhere else that evening! Could Lucy and I have met somewhere else? Would I still live in California? Would I be a professional speaker? The trajectory of my life could have been totally different. Sometimes it is fun to think about where the other sliding doors could have led us. Regardless, I love the door I walked through. I am very grateful that Lucy and I get to raise our three boys in this beautiful country. It is home for me now and I don’t take the beauty for granted.

The more that you are able to tap into your gratitude and focus on the opportunities you have, the more of those opportunities you will begin to see. It is the same with the world that surrounds us. The more grateful we are for the natural world, the more beauty we begin to notice.

I live in Melbourne and people around Australia like to give my fine city a hard time about the weather. The great thing about Melbourne weather is its distinct four seasons. It is such a beautiful time in the garden when the promise of warmer weather is upon us and the spring buds first raise their heads. The more you notice the signs of spring, the more life and colour surround you. Gratitude produces more to be grateful for.

3. Forgiveness is critical to maintaining our personal health.

Much of the noise in our lives is not external but internal, and sometimes that internal noise can eat us up. So often we are trying to stifle the chatter of insecurity, regret, disappointment or anger towards someone who has hurt us. That noise can manifest itself in our identity and create a pattern of victim behaviour that is paralysing or destructive.

Bad things happen to everyone. We have all known pain and had experiences that left us feeling resentful towards someone. Those painful experiences will vary widely in intensity and in the damage they cause. I don’t want to start a competition on degrees of suffering. Rather, I want to state simply that when we are able to forgive people, we feel better.

When we stop attributing blame, we are free to focus on becoming the best version of ourselves. It is very useful to recognise that other people can only do what they were capable of at that time. Managing your expectations of other people can help you manage your own ability to let things go. Give some thought to how you could do a better job of maintaining your personal health using forgiveness, managing expectations and letting go.

4. Giving to others is the key to our full humanity.

It is widely accepted that giving makes us far happier than receiving.

When we were children, receiving gifts was one of the most exciting things in the world. Holidays and birthdays were all about us. There was nothing quite like that feeling of opening our presents. Children, of course, are self-indulgent by nature. As we evolve into contributing adults, this need to receive should diminish.

Giving to others is the key to our full humanity. As adults, it is the giving that makes us happier, that makes us whole. This is going to mean something different to each person, but it is a good core belief. Guided by the idea that giving to others is the key to our wholeness, we find opportunities to contribute and make a difference to others.

And that makes us happy.

5. Life is purposeful.

Earlier in the book we discovered that having a purpose helps us eliminate guilt because it increases our conviction and confidence around making decisions. But it is much more than that. If you believe life is purposeful, you know life is important. Even if you feel like your purpose is not being fulfilled right now, believing that life is purposeful encourages you to find that purpose in your own life.

Sometimes I see speakers and facilitators get carried away on this subject. I see them challenge an audience about their purpose. I recently saw a presenter challenge a mother of three about what her true purpose was. The woman said, ‘Paying the bills so I can raise my three children’.

This wasn’t good enough for this presenter, who was clearly searching for a more idealistic answer. ‘That’s what you do,’ he said. ‘What is your purpose?’

She looked at him and shook her head. ‘You clearly have no idea. My purpose until I get my kids through school is to pay the bills and be a good mother.’

She was right. That is absolutely what the driving purpose is right now. It will change in the near future, but let’s live in the reality of now.

At the same time, studies show that most Millennials seek purpose in the company they go to work for. They want to make a difference in the world and to work for a company that has a positive social impact. Millennials want to learn, be mentored and spend time in organisations that have a greater vision and greater purpose. That is a good starting point to have as a core belief.

To believe there is purpose in life is to believe that what we do every day is important. That is a great core belief.

Identity and behaviour

These beliefs will help you find the true version of yourself. Our useful beliefs work better when they are aligned to a set of core beliefs. These beliefs are aligned to the rhythm of the universe and the wonder of being human.

They also help us find our identity and who it is we want to be. It is widely recognised that we behave in accordance with our identity. How you describe yourself determines how you behave. If you believe you are a fit person, you find your way to the gym. If you see yourself as a top salesperson, your behaviours will support this belief: you prospect, you pick up the phone, you create opportunities. If you see yourself as a good friend, you pay attention to what is happening in the lives of your friends.

This is especially apparent with parents. When they see themselves as responsible parents, they take the role more seriously. They spend time with their children. They get involved and attend their activities.

It is even true of confidence. At a nightclub a confident person who believes they are worthy of attention will attract more attention. How we see ourselves determines our behaviour and also how other people respond to us.

Recently my son PJ had to draw a self-portrait as part of a Year 6 project. He did a great job on the picture, but it was the next part of the activity that interested me most. At the bottom of the sheet of paper, he had to pick a word that best described him, while his classmates got to pick out a word they thought best described him. It was wonderful to look at this collection of portraits and see the positive adjectives picked to describe each child, wonderful affirmations that were so consistent with how these children saw themselves. It is no different for adults.

The opposite is also true, of course. If people describe themselves negatively, their behaviours will tend to match this self-description. They will often take the easier road. They won’t push themselves and will look for excuses to take their foot off the accelerator. If they see themselves as unlucky, they will take fewer risks and stop pushing themselves towards a better life.

In fact, people who identify themselves in unproductive ways — as unattractive, uneducated, unlucky, unfairly treated, poor, unintelligent, a failure — will usually behave in ways that match these self-descriptions.

This is all noise. Cut the noise.

If you want to change your behaviours, it is important first to tap into the identity of the person you want to be.

For years, I have taught the concept of ‘Act as If’. If you were going to be that person, what behaviours would you manifest? What would you focus on? What would you learn about? What would you read and watch? What would you start doing?

By the same token, what behaviours would you no longer demonstrate? What would you stop doing or focusing on? What would you stop giving energy to? What would you no longer read and watch? What noise would you cut so you could focus on the things that help you create the person you truly want to become?