“Always the beautiful answer, who asks a more beautiful question.” — E.E. Cummings
Yesterday, I did something I thought I’d never do:
I started writing on X.
In part, because a teacher of mine convinced me to.
But in larger part, because a core part of my personal practice over the past few months has been challenging my own long-standing beliefs — like:
1. Social media is an inefficient way to build a business.
My previous business, EGT, generated 8 figures in sales using only paid ads and very little social media.
But here’s the trick:
Since I’ve never done much social media marketing, I don’t know if this belief is actually true.
It’s just an unverified belief, until I test it for myself.
So that’s what I’ll be doing on X over the next 6-12 months.
2. I’ll never find my partner on a dating app.
All of my relationships have happened organically, in real life, so I never even tried using a dating app until a few months ago.
Which means — you guessed it:
I don’t know if my belief about dating apps is actually true.
So I’m testing it — and so far, the results have been radically different than I expected.
I haven’t met my partner, but I’ve met tons of cool people who could be potential partners.
Score another one for questioning beliefs.
3. My business needs to be aligned with my deeper life purpose.
The work I’ve been doing over the past few years has been a labor of love.
I’ve prioritized creative fulfillment over money.
I haven’t tried to grow aggressively (or at all, for that matter).
I’ve only done work I feel called to do — and ruthlessly avoided work I don’t feel called to do.
I’ve wildly undercharged, to the point of offering hundreds of hours of free consulting to people I like, just because I enjoy it and it feels good.
(Even The Path is probably priced at ~20% of what it’s really worth)
But what if the most efficient way to get where I want to go…
…Is just to build a solid, quality business that helps people and generates cash to finance my larger long-term vision?
(which vastly easier than what I’ve been doing; slowly building a business around a life purpose)
I don’t have a clear answer, yet.
But I know I won’t get an answer until I ask the question.
Which brings us to the point of today’s thinking-out-loud lesson:
Which of your long-standing beliefs might no longer be true?
And, what if you are building your life around a false belief — a fortress on a cracked foundation?
Our beliefs are like tracks our life is grooved to run upon, determining our course, deciding our path…
…And yet most of us never even identify — let alone question — our own beliefs.
My recommendation:
Sit down with a pen and paper (or your laptop), and write the question at the top of the page:
What do I believe that might no longer be true?
Then, begin writing your answer, and don’t stop until you’ve struck gold.
Good luck 🙂
– T
P.S. If you’re interested, come follow along on X.
I’ll be writing short-form insights (like hyper-compressed versions of these emails), and possibly sharing clips from our talks that don’t get posted to YouTube.
And who knows what else.
