“The future you that you want to be is only as far away as you put it.”

This is something I wrote to a dear friend at the end of a long series of text messages. She asked me to be her business consultant, so we spend a lot of time talking about branding, business strategy, mindset, and so forth.

Branding and business strategy are important, of course, but something I’ve observed many times is a sort of “putting the cart before the horse” behavior with this. People instantly get lost in the minutiae of what shirt to wear on camera, what typeface to use in their social posts, and what logo style really conveys their personality to clients.

This is not what makes or breaks your entrepreneurial venture.
Mindset must be the beginning of your journey. If it isn’t the beginning, it will definitely be the end.

Spending your time looking for the latest way to “hack” the system and get runaway success without doing any real work, without growing as a person, is foolishness.

Let me be the first to admit that I lived up to my eyes in foolish thoughts for the majority of my life. I spent a lot—and I mean a lot—of time, effort, and money on failing at things. These were all learning experiences, and a cost that I had to pay to learn what I know.

Sure, it’s possible that I could have been a better student of life and learned the same lessons at a lower cost. But in practice, stubbornness has manifested itself strongly in me. I do not regret these failures; I am thankful for them.

If you are unwilling to pay a high price, if you are unwilling to face suffering and then ask for more, you have three options: Give up now, give up later, or change the way you think.

It gets easier. You build resilience. People start to associate you with success in your field. Problems that used to scare you become old news.

But again, you don’t get the easy part without the hard part.
One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned is what I call “Informational Hygiene.”

It’s a term I borrowed from Neal Stephenson’s novel, “Snow Crash.” Here’s what I mean: Our perception is shaped by the information we internalize. Usually, this comes from an outside source, but we make it a part of ourselves.

It can be positive or negative. To your creative subconscious, it doesn’t matter at all if you call yourself a failure or call yourself a genius. It just reinforces what you already believe.

For example: If your parents told you all your life that you will never amount to anything, it’s very likely that you still believe this. Those comments were reinforced for years. Those neural pathways are deep. You probably tell yourself that you will never amount to anything, perhaps without realizing why. (That’s your creative subconscious at work!)

There’s only one way out of that, and it’s to confront that part of yourself. And it’s going to hurt, a lot. It make take years, even decades.

Then again, the alternative is to continue being cut off at the knees in every new project you start—not by circumstance, not by competition, but by your own abused (and self-abused) self!
Informational Hygiene, then, is only allowing information in that supports your growth.

That means:

- You can’t watch movies that make you feel like a victim.
- You can’t listen to music that weakens your emotional state.
- You can’t read books that contradict the positive habits you are trying to form.
- You can’t think thoughts that compromise your growth.
- You can’t say things that reinforce the old, negative vision of yourself.

At the beginning, I mean none of this. If all the music you ever listen to is a problem, then find new music. Maybe music without any lyrics, if that’s what it takes. When you say destructive things about yourself, have a go-to reset behavior.

For example: Say “Stop. I’m better than this.” And then do something unrelated until your mental state is reset. (You must frame it positively! You can’t say “I am so terrible at this!” and expect to get any better. You’re literally telling yourself you are bad at it!)

The dominant image in your brain has to be the ideal you. If you can replace your unhealthy self-image with a complete vision of your new self, your brain will work day and night to catch reality up to your mental picture.

So: find movies, shows, books, and music that inspire you to the kind of greatness you seek. Little by little, you will become the characters that you look up to. This can be entrepreneurial greatness, patient motherhood, genuine forgiveness, anything. Whatever traits you need to work on. (And if you ask yourself, you know what they are.)

When you are self-critical, stop yourself. You are better than that. Revisit a song or story with the right message, and get back to it. Don’t apologize for it. If it comes up, just say “I am focused on becoming a better version of myself.”

If you do this, you will transform your life in ways you could never imagine previously.

Someday, you won’t be phased in the slightest by things that used to leave you an emotional train wreck.

I’m rooting for you.

(This post was originally made on Facebook. The date has been set to match the original.)