Useful belief leads to useful actions.

Two years ago I wrote my second book, Useful Belief: Because it’s better than positive thinking. It was a great success. The premise of the book is that positive thinking doesn’t work, but useful beliefs and actions do. This is the first part of the process of cutting the noise.

If you have been in a rut for the past 10 days, 10 weeks or 10 months, and someone admonishes you to ‘be positive’, you would probably want to punch them! Trying to be positive won’t get you out of the rut. The real question is, what are the most useful actions for getting you from ground zero to two, from two to five, from five to eight and so on? Useful actions are pragmatic, practical; they are about executing a plan for success.

The idea of useful belief also ties in with what we see and perceive about the world. The book discusses the Reticular Activating System, which may be the most important part of the human brain when it comes to success. It is this system that filters the millions of pieces of information we receive every day.

I call this the Red Toyota Theory. Why? When you last took a drive, how many times did you see a red Toyota on the road? Answer? Probably zero. That’s because you were not looking for red Toyotas. Now, if you decided to buy a red Toyota, where would you see them? Everywhere! The Reticular Activating System is the filter in the brain that determines what you pay attention to.

Your brain will find what you tell it to look for. The bottom line is that when you have a useful belief about something, your brain opens up so you see opportunities. If you believe this is the best time in the history of the world to be a parent, you will be a better parent. That’s because you are focused on this year, right now, not on your own childhood. If you believe there are opportunities everywhere in your business, your brain will go find those opportunities. If, on the other hand, you believe these are tough times, your brain will find exactly that. Tough times.

Here are a few examples of useful beliefs:

• This is the best time in the history of the world to be alive.
• This is the best time ever to be in your industry.
• This is the best time ever to be at your company.
• This is the best time ever to be a parent.
• This generation of young people are exciting to be around.
• You had the parents and the childhood you were supposed to have.
• Everything that happened in your life happened for a reason.
• Life begins at … [insert your current age].

There are obviously many more. This book was a game changer for a lot of people because it helped them deal with their reality. Two things will stop you from growing and getting better:

• complaining about things you can’t control
• complaining about things you will not change.

You have created a certain life for yourself. You could change many aspects of that reality. As for those aspects that you’re not going to change, you may as well have useful beliefs about them.

The example I often use on stage is the huge amount of travel I do. Last year I gave 153 presentations, which required 127 flights. That’s a lot of flying! I could change this if I wanted to. Living in Melbourne, I could make the decision to restrict myself to Melbourne gigs. But that would affect my income and my lifestyle. So, if I’m not going to change it, I may as well have a useful belief about it. What’s my useful belief about air travel?

I love planes! I love airports. I love airplane food. I am in hotels a couple of nights a week. I love hotels, hotel sheets. Being on the road I am alone much of the time. What do I love? Aloneness! If you are feeling lonely, don’t feel lonely, dial in to aloneness. There is power in aloneness.

What aspects of your life are not going to change? Instead of complaining about them, create a useful belief about them. Then create some useful actions to follow through with.

I want to share with you two stories off the back of a couple of emails I have received.

The first was from a 28-year-old woman who had suffered from anxiety and depression all her life. As she told it to me, her family had urged her to be happier and more positive her whole life. But she didn’t feel happy. She didn’t feel positive. Then she told me she saw me on stage and I said, ‘Positive thinking doesn’t work’, and she said she felt the weight of the world lift off her shoulders. She no longer had to be positive.

Three months later she called me and told me that an amazing thing had happened. She wakes up every day now and asks herself, ‘What are the most useful things for me to do today to get through the day?’ The result? She does those things and feels better about the process. ‘Now I’m happier than I’ve ever been!’

Happiness isn’t something to try to be; it is the result of living a full life.

The second email was from a man who had suffered an accident a year before that left him with burns covering a third of his body. He told me how he had spent the last year grieving over his injuries. Who could blame him?

The photo that accompanied that email showed him just out of surgery and holding a copy of a book he had been given — Useful Belief. He said that he was done grieving now. The grieving process was normal and had been useful. But there was nothing he could do to change what had happened, and now it was time to move on and to work on a useful belief for the rest of his life.

This is the first step to cutting the noise. We all have bad things happen to us in our lives. Some are devastating, like my email friend. His life will never be the same. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be amazing.

So many people allow themselves to be distracted along the way. They let their ‘first world’ problems get them down, losing perspective and getting sucked in by the everyday noise.

Useful belief is also a useful concept for teenagers to hold on to. Recently my son Jake had an opportunity to travel to Rwanda and Uganda as part of a school trip. It was an amazing experience for a 16-year-old boy. They were given the chance to visit schools, meet children at orphanages and visit museums to understand the horror of the civil war in Rwanda.

When Jake touched down in Uganda after the long trip from Australia, his bag arrived in baggage claim. Somehow it had been ripped open and his clothes were spilling out onto the conveyor belt. This would be stressful for a seasoned business traveller at Sydney airport, much less a teenager making his first overseas trip.

I got a text message from Jake that simply said:

Dad I arrived safely in Uganda. A little hiccup as my bag was ripped open. No worries though. Was able to tape it up. No bags here at the airport. Will get a new bag when I can. #usefulbelief