Your Subconscious Mind Creates Your Reality (It's Ridiculously Powerful)

Welcome to the 10 Minute MBA, I'm your host, Scott Clary. On the 10 Minute MBA, I give you tools, tactics, strategies, and insights that you can use to start, scale, grow, and 10x your business. If you want to listen to the 10 Minute MBA, you can go to 10minambia.com or you can read the 10 Minute MBA via daily newsletter at newsletter.tenminambia.com. Let's get into it. Today I want to spend some time going into a topic that I've researched extensively because I think this particular topic is so powerful and I think we take it for granted as to how powerful it really is. So today I want to talk about your subconscious, your subconscious mind and how ridiculously powerful it is and why it's so important to understand it just a little bit more and today, hoping to achieve that because you might not realize it, but the subconscious mind is running the show, it's not you, it's thoughts and experiences and trauma that are shaping your day-to-day actions often without your permission and if you don't understand how this subconscious mind works can really mess with your success because your subconscious mind works behind the scenes and it shapes your thoughts and your habits and your reactions and it's very powerful and it's very sneaky. So today I want to pull back the curtain to show what's really going on inside that head of yours. You're going to learn why your subconscious mind is the real boss of your actions. We're going to talk about how it can sabotage your success without even noticing. I'm going to tell you why most self-help advice and quote unquote mind hacks are total BS and then all hope is not lost. What you can do to finally take control and make your subconscious mind work for you. If you're ready to take charge, let's get into it. So first, I want to describe what is the subconscious mind? Well, have you ever driven somewhere and then realized you don't remember the trip? That's your subconscious on autopilot. It takes over, it lets you zone out while it handles all the details without bothering your conscious mind. So you can imagine your mind as an iceberg. The small part above the water is the conscious mind. That's the thoughts, the decisions that you're actually aware of, but below the surface lies this massive unseen bulk. That's your subconscious, but it's more practical to think of your subconscious as your silent business partner. What do I mean by that? Sometimes it's super helpful, it steers you in the right direction, other times it messes things up, it leaves you to deal with the fallout. Either way, it works behind the scenes 24-7. It controls your habits, your fears, and reactions, and it stores all of your past experiences, even the ones that you don't consciously remember. It's pretty wild, right? Here's how it works. You touch a hot stove as a kid. Your conscious mind thinks out, that hurt, but your subconscious mind goes to work and files away the experience. The next time you near a stove, it sends a quick warning. Don't touch that. Now, this can be great for survival, but what if your subconscious is filled with outdated negative or just plain wrong beliefs, then it can lead to subconscious behaviors, like you flinch when somebody raises their hand quickly, or you feel nervous speaking in public even when there's no reason to be, or you bite your nails when you're stressed without even thinking about it. These actions are driven by your subconscious mind, not your conscious choices. It's acting on autopilot, and it's trying to protect you based on past experiences. Now, you might not think flinching or biting your nails is a serious issue, but if you want to start and run a successful business, your subconscious mind can seriously mess everything up, because your subconscious mind is powerful, but it's not perfect. It needs guidance and occasional updates to serve you better. In short, it can work for you or against you, because on the bright side, it can help you form good habits. Once you consciously decide to exercise, your subconscious starts to remind you to do it. It keeps you safe by reacting quickly to danger, often faster than your conscious mind can process. Then there's a dark side, because it can hold you back with limiting beliefs. If you fail that something before, your subconscious might tell you you're always going to fail. It can make you react irrationally. Those quick judgments and fears aren't always accurate, but they feel very real. Letting subconscious habits drive your life is a very dangerous game. You might think you're in control, but often you're not. That can sabotage your success without you even noticing. Some examples include, when you avoid taking risks because you fear failure, you doubt your abilities despite your past successes or you procrastinate on important tasks and you sabotage your own progress. For example, let's say you hesitated to launch a new product because you feared it wouldn't sell. That's your subconscious playing tricks. The market might be ready, but your outdated beliefs hold you back. How do you make sure you don't fall into this trap? Well, first you have to know that most advice on how to reprogram your subconscious is BS, because there's no shortage of gurus dishing out advice on how to hack your mind, and while some of the advice will work for some people, I found much of it to be very useless. Let's look at some of the most common examples. First example, positive affirmations and autosuggestions. Because you've probably heard that positive affirmations are the key to success. Just tell yourself you're amazing and everything will fall into place. Sound simple, right? But the truth is that positive affirmations can mess you up, especially if you're struggling with anxiety or depression. Here's why. The affirmations are supposed to work by getting you to focus on your strengths. They're meant to shift your mindset from, I can't to I can. But what if you don't really believe what you're saying? What if deep down those words feel like lies? If you're already feeling low, repeating phrases like, I am worthy of success can actually backfire. Instead of lifting you up, it can make you feel even worse. Now why? Because your brain knows when something doesn't match your reality. When you say, I am confident, but you feel insecure, your mind starts arguing with itself. This internal conflict creates stress, it creates tension. And if you're prone to anxiety or depression, it can actually trigger a self-defeating spiral. The second thing that you may have heard about is hypnosis or subliminal audio. Because there is this notion that hypnosis is the magical tool that can rewire your brain. But if you're a natural skeptic like me, it's not going to do anything for you. That's because hypnosis doesn't work unless you believe in it. It's pure placebo. Let me give you an example. I was actually at a hypnosis seminar and the instructor was guiding everyone through the process. He told the group to relax their eyes so much they couldn't open them no matter how hard they tried. Most people followed along, but one guy didn't. His eyes popped right open. Why? Because he didn't buy into it. He wasn't convinced. So it didn't work. Here's the thing. The mind is powerful. If you're not on board with the idea of hypnosis, your brain will resist. It's like a mental barrier that says you can't make me. And that's especially true if you associate hypnosis with something negative like weakness or loss of control. And it's not just hypnosis. The same goes for subliminal audio. Those recordings that claim to change your life while you sleep, they will not work unless you believe they will. The third thing that I see guru's preach is surrounding yourself with positivity. Because surrounding yourself with positivity sounds great, right? You're just creating an echo chamber. And when you create an echo chamber and when you only allow positive voices, you shut out critical thinking. Think about it. Critically, if everyone around you is constantly telling you how great you are, where's the room for growth? You need to hear the hard truths, not just fluffy affirmations. And I'm not just making this up. Look at the kids who are showered with participation trophies and praised for just showing up. Do they become confident winners? No. Positive environment just produces losers. George Carlin nailed it when he said, there are no losers anymore. Everybody wins. Everybody gets a trophy. But what happens when these kids grow up? They step into the real world and they hear something new. You just lost buddy. You're a loser. Imagine that moment. You've been told you're a winner your whole life, but suddenly reality hits. Your boss isn't going to give you a trophy just for showing up. They're going to tell you to clean out your desk if you don't perform. This false positivity isn't preparing you for the real challenges of life. It's setting you up for failure. The fourth thing that I see people speak about is positive visualization. Positive visualization is just wishful thinking. It's day dreaming about your ideal life instead of actually working towards it. Sure, it feels good to imagine yourself living that dream. You picture the perfect business, the freedom, the success. Here's the problem. Visualization without action is a trap. It tricks you into feeling like you've accomplished something when you haven't done anything at all. You might tell yourself that visualizing success will attract it to you, but the truth is no amount of mental imagery is going to replace hard work. Studies have actually shown that sharing your goals gives you a quick dopamine hit, but it also leads to complacency. You start to believe success is inevitable just because you've imagined it. That is dangerous thinking. You need to be grounded in reality. Your business won't grow just because you spend a few minutes each morning imagining that it will. It grows because you make smart decisions and you put in the work every single day. Consider this. While you're sitting there day dreaming, someone else is out there grinding. They're making calls, they're closing deals, they're pushing their business forward. And the last thing that I see people talk about, gurus talk about online is reframing challenges with euphemisms. Death, euphemistic language is just a way to avoid the truth. It doesn't change reality. It just hides it. And hiding the truth is a very dangerous game. I want to pull out another George Carlin quote or people used to live in the slums. Now the quote economically disadvantaged occupy quote substandard housing in the quote inner cities, but they're actually just broke. They don't have a quote negative cash flow position. They're broke because a lot of them are fired. And it wanted to quote curtail redundancies in the human resources area. So many people are no longer quote viable members of the workforce. Get it? The point is clear. When you dress up the truth with nice words, you're not helping anyone. Sure, euphemism spares discomfort, but at the cost of clarity. If you're struggling with a failing product, don't call it market misalignment. Call it what it is. A flop. Drop the soft language, get real with yourself, your life, your business. It's the only way you're going to make real progress. So you're asking, Scott, if all of this is BS, what should I do instead? Good question. Glad you asked. And since I've torn down the five most common pieces of advice you're going to find, I think it's fair that I equip you with my go to methods are not as glamorous, but they also don't require you to believe in any woo woo. So the first method outwork yourself doubt. We all have moments of self-doubt that just makes us human. It's in those moments that you should remind yourself of your past wins. David Goggins calls it the cookie jar method. The cookie jar is a mental collection of your toughest wins times when you pushed through pain and suffering and emerged victorious. So when doubt creeps in, reach into that jar, pull out a memory and remind yourself of what you're capable of. And you may ask, well, what if you don't have enough or any past wins, then you have to go out there and get them. As James Clear puts in his book, Atomic Habits, every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as a vote's built up, so does the evidence of your new identity. In other words, small actions repeated consistently build undeniable proof of who you are. This is the harsh truth of building confidence, you have to work for it. Alex Ramosi sums it up beautifully. Confidence without evidence is a delusion. You don't become confident by shouting affirmations in the mirror, but by having a stack of undeniable proof that you are who you say you are. Give yourself so much goddamn proof that you are the version of yourself you want to be and you'll become them. Outwork yourself doubt put in the work day after day until the evidence of your success is undeniable. It's not about wishing or hoping it's about proving you have to build that stack of undeniable proof that fill up your cookie jar until yourself doubt doesn't stand a chance. The second thing you should do is be process oriented instead of goal oriented. Focusing on big goals, it's very easy to feel inadequate. The bigger the goal, the more overwhelming it seems. It's very easy to get lost in the sheer size of what you want to achieve and you end up feeling like you're constantly falling short. But here's the thing, the magic doesn't happen in the goal itself. It happens in the process. Break down your massive goals into small manageable steps. Completing each of those small steps gives you that same dopamine boost is hitting a big milestone. Again, James Clear explains this perfectly, achieving a goal only changes your life for the moment. That's the counterintuitive thing about improvement. We think we need to change our results, but the results are not the problem. What we really need to change are the systems that cause those results. So let's say your goal is to build a million dollar business that could be huge, right? But if you obsess over that number, you'll likely feel like you're never making progress. Instead, focus on the systems that will get you there. The daily tasks, the habits, the consistent actions, these are the things that will actually move the needle. I want you to think of it this way. If you love the process, the results will follow. You're not chasing a finish line. You're committing to a cycle of continuous improvement. And that's where the real long-term success comes from. The third thing I want you to do is negative visualization. Life isn't always rainbows and sunshine. Sometimes things go wrong, really wrong, but you can prepare for it. Instead of pretending everything will be perfect, try using negative visualization to imagine the worst case scenario. Why? Because it helps you practice indifference to the chaos life can throw at you. I'm not telling you to be a pessimist, just be a realist. The stoics, some of the wisest thinkers in history, they mastered this technique. They would vividly picture their worst fears coming true, not to scare them, but to prepare them. And when you imagine the worst, it makes it less terrifying. When you do this, you realize that most of your fears are just that. They're fears. Think of it as mental training. Because when the worst actually happens, you're not going to be caught off guard. You're going to be ready. You're going to be calm. You're going to be in control. And you're going to find that your worst fears often aren't as bad as you imagined. And even if they are, you've already faced them in your mind. Your visualization is your shield against anxiety. It's your tool to face whatever life throws your way without losing your cool. The fourth thing I want you to do is practice mindfulness. You've probably experienced your mind constantly racing. You're thinking about that missed opportunity from last week or you're stressing about tomorrow's big pitch. But here's the truth. Living in the past or the future robs you of the present, which is all you truly have. So you have to train your mind to focus on the present moment. This simple practice can reduce regret for the past and ease worry about the future. But most people don't do it because they're too busy being trapped in their thoughts. Eckhart toll explains it very well in the power of now. He says all negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry. These are all forms of fear and they're caused by too much future and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness and all forms of non forgiveness are caused by too much past and not enough presence. The point being when you're stuck in your head, you're not fully alive. You're either reliving what's already gone or worrying about what's yet to come. When you train your mind to stay present, you regain control. You see things clearly. You make better decisions and you experience life fully. And the last thing I want you to do is journal. Now maybe you're already keeping a journal if not. I suggest you start one immediately. It's a great way to collect your thoughts and track your progress. But I've recently come up with a very radical approach to journaling. I want you to start by keeping a rage journal. This is where you let loose. You write down all your unfiltered negative thoughts. Every frustration, every anger, every moment that makes you want to scream. Don't hold back. This is your space to get it all out without judgment. Why? Because bottling up those emotions doesn't make them disappear. It just lets them fester. By putting them on paper, you are releasing that pent-up energy and understand what's really bothering you. Now, at a gratitude journal, here you do the opposite. Detail everything positive you enjoy in life, no matter how small. Shift your focus to what's going right. Gratitude has been shown scientifically to boost your mood and increase overall happiness. Writing down what you're thankful for helps you appreciate the good things and keeps you grounded. Last, finally, compare the two journals. You're going to find that the negative thoughts in your rage journal are just fiction, blown at a proportion by stress or fear. The gratitude journal, on the other hand, flexes the reality of what's good in your life. This comparison gives you an accurate picture of your world, so just to conclude, your subconscious mind is either going to be your best friend or your worst enemy. It is time to take control and stop letting you run the show. It's not easy, but it's worth it. Here's what I need you to remember. Your subconscious can be a bowl in a china shop if it's left unchecked. Most mind hacks are just feel good fluff, don't fall for them. True change comes from consistent action, not wishful thinking, and stay grounded in reality. Face your fears, don't hide from them. You've got the tools, now it's up to you to use them. Take charge of your mind, don't let it take charge of you. That's it for today. I hope you enjoyed. I hope you got some value out of that. Make sure you come back tomorrow for another business lesson on the 10 Minute MBA.