Some of you know my history and some of you don’t, so I’ll share part of it here. I used to work for Tony Robbins. I used to be one of his coaches. What that means is if you called up Tony’s company saying, “Hey, I want a coach,” you’d get me or someone else like me.

The reason why I say that is because I had a chance to meet him face to face and have a few conversations with him.

A few years ago I was at one of his events and he said when he was first starting out, he would play other people’s music in order to find his own notes. Today, I’m paying tribute to him for some of his music and I’ll share it with you.

Tony says,

Beliefs aren’t necessarily real, meaning that you just have a feeling that it’s real, but it’s not necessarily real. Like you used to believe in Santa Claus. You used to believe in the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy

You used to have so many things you believed, but it was just a feeling of certainty about that belief because you had references to back up that belief. That’s all.

I’m a speaker. I speak in front of people all the time, audiences as small as 20 to as big as 1000. Sometimes, I go to places where people don’t want me to be there. The might say things like: “They don’t want the training” or “They already know this.” or “I’ve already got it.” or “I don’t need this.” So sometimes I have negative beliefs about going into certain situations. I’m sure you’ve been there. Maybe not for a speaking engagement, maybe it’s for a presentation at work or a difficult conversation with a loved one.

We’re on the heels of the Black History Month. Consequently, I saw a great documentary on HBO about Martin Luther King Jr. and it really made me think about you and finding a way to win and performing under pressure and finding better references.

How does this all tie together? Remember what Tony Robbins said, a belief is a feeling of certainty about what something means. He uses a great analogy to illustrate that a belief is simply like a tabletop.

If you put your belief on a tabletop with no legs and let go, what would happen? Of course the tabletop would fall because it had no legs. Therefore following the metaphor the belief would fall. But if you can prop up this belief with some really strong legs, what would happen? The legs of the tabletop act as better references for the belief. Now the tabletop won’t fall because it’s got legs or references underneath it to support it. Does that make sense?

So if your belief is, “Oh my gosh, I’m training a company today and they don’t want me to be here,” that’s a reference. Phrases like: “They don’t want me here.” “They already know this.” “Look how negative they are.” are also references. All of a sudden the belief that “they don’t want me to be here” has a certain effect. I’m supporting this belief “they don’t want me here” with these different references.

So, what I want you to do is start to change your references.

How does this tie together with MLK Jr. and Black History Month? Martin Luther King Jr. is fascinating because in 1955 he became the head of the Montgomery Improvement Association. He had four kids and he was 26 years old. He became the voice of the Black community and the Civil Rights Movement. Several people didn’t want him there; they really didn’t want him around. He got all kinds of negative feedback. For me, MLK became a new reference. He had the courage to be outstanding even when he was facing massive resistance.

How could I honestly go into a company and feel like, they don’t want me to be here, they’re being negative, condescending and I might get five out of six or eight out of ten on a review. Martin Luther King Jr., had an entire country against him. Think about that for a second.

Or think of another example, Jackie Robinson, the baseball player. He was the first African American player in Major League Baseball. There was a phenomenal amount of the resistance, hostility and negativity that he received and he kept going. They didn’t want him there and he kept going anyways.

So, what am I trying to show you here? By stacking up new references you can begin to change your limiting beliefs.

There’s no limit. You can apply as many references as you need to really shift your idea. Does that make sense?