Asking this question can change your life

“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.
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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?
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Our beliefs are like tracks our life is grooved to run upon, determining our course, deciding our path…
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…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:
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​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 🙂
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– T
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​P.S. If you’re interested, come follow along on X.​
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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.