On this episode of the Investing for Freedom Podcast, Mike discusses his thoughts on Henry Ford’s quote “whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, either way, you’re right.” Mike encourages you to take stock of the thoughts in your head and make sure that you are acknowledging the positive ones.
“If you start off by thinking about some big vision that you have in your life, and you’re just sitting there going through the doubt, thinking that you can’t, you’ve already lost the battle.”
HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 – Intro
0:11 – Mike shares Henry Ford’s quote: “whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, either way, you’re right”
1:18 – Mike mentions how if you start off thinking you can’t achieve something that you want, you’ve already lost the battle
2:41 – Mike speaks about a line from the bible
3:05- You need people in your life that will help you sort through your problems
4:12 – Mike mentions how we put so much weight on ourselves through our way of thinking
7:41 – Mike states how you can’t run from the thoughts that are in your head so you have to figure out what thoughts are not serving you
8:32 – Mike advises you to also acknowledge the positive thoughts you’re having
8:56 – Mike suggests that the reason we put so much weight on ourselves is because we don’t listen to our positive thoughts enough
9:44 – If you are interested in one-on-one coaching with Mike the word ‘MENTORING’ to (480) 531-7519
FULL TRANSCRIPTION:
Thank you for joining me on the Investing for Freedom podcast. Today I’m going to spend a few minutes talking to you about something that I’ve been thinking about recently. And it’s the quote that was quoted by Henry Ford, back in the day, and he said, “whether you think you can, or whether you think you can’t, either way, you’re right.”
And I think this is so powerful, because so much of what we accomplish or don’t accomplish in life, really starts out from the place that we come from. When I am, you know, having a conversation with anyone who’s doing anything amazing in the world. I’m really blown away almost always at the things that they’ve accomplished. And I’m like, I’m always asking myself the question, and I’m always asking them the question like, how did you know that you were going to be able to succeed and do this? And 9 times out of 10, the answer is, well, I didn’t know exactly how I was going to get there. But I knew that I wanted it bad enough that I knew that I was going to see it through.
And even though a lot of times, you know, people with huge visions, they didn’t know exactly how they were going to get there, they knew they were going to persevere through it, they knew that they were coming from a point of thinking that they could. And literally, I believe this quote by Henry Ford is one of the most powerful, amazing things for us to adjust our mindset because the reality is whether you think you can, or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.
And if you’ve started off by, you know, thinking about some big vision that you have in your life, or some big, amazing accomplishment, and you’re just sitting there, going through the doubt, thinking that you can’t, you’ve already lost the battle. And by the way, all of us live in doubt, I don’t care how successful somebody is, we all need someone in our life, we all need someone who can get us off the couch and coach us through things and really help just reframe the way of thinking. And so again, whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.
And we spend a lot of time talking about this, but you really got to be careful of the voices that are in your life. And I’ve been really cognizant of this lately, just listening to, you know, clients that I’m coaching, listening to my coach talking to me, listening to just people around me whether we’re in a mastermind, or whether we’re just in a dinner setting with friends. And there’s so much that you can tell about someone, and really what they’re stuck on and what they’re going to be able to accomplish and not accomplish, just by the way that they’re talking about it because there’s a scripture in the Bible that says out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
And I’m not saying that this is the case always. Because sometimes when we’re sorting through a problem or a challenge, you know, sometimes I think the things that we’re speaking or we’re just talking through, we’re just looking for, you know, we’re looking to talk through answers and outcomes. And a lot of times I get my answers just by talking through things. But the reality is from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
And again, I’m not saying when somebody’s sorting through a problem, but most of the time you can really tell where someone is and what they truly believe in their heart of hearts, you can truly see whether they think they can or whether they think they can’t. And there’s a couple of powerful lessons that I think we really need to look into on this or around this. And number one is, you know, we need people in our life, whether it’s coaches, mentors, friends, whatever it is, that will sort through those problems with us. And not easily just shut us down. Because we do a good enough job of doubting ourselves and whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right. Because the position that you’re coming from, you know, it’s funny, Kara and I were sitting at dinner, and I think this is actually in Jamaica, we were on an investor cruise, and we were sitting with a good friend of ours. And he was just talking about the doubt in his mind. And this was like five years ago, and it was so funny because he’s sitting there. Yeah, it was totally in Jamaica. We’re sitting at this Jamaican restaurant, and he was talking about how we go through these seasons of doubt, where we’re just doubting ourselves and he’ll get, you know, it’s almost like, we’re schizophrenic.
Like, you got this person on this shoulder that’s like, you’re going to accomplish amazing things. And then on this side, it’s like, no, you’re not, you’re not. And he’s kind of talking to the story. And he’s like, you know, my highest version of me, my best self will be like, Nick, you’re going to write a book and then, you know, my doubter, my low side will be whatever, bro, you’re never going to write a book. And it was just so funny listening to this because that’s how it goes, isn’t it? I mean, we all go through this. And we put so much weight on ourselves through our way of thinking. And again, just coming in and sinking into this, whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, that is where the battle is actually won.
And when I talk to successful people, you get into any interaction with people that have achieved any level of success. And you can, if you just ask them the question, like, how did you know that you were going to succeed in this and they’re going to tell you, look I was never, I didn’t actually know exactly how it was going to go or whatever. But I knew that division in me had to come to pass and I knew that I could get it done. They didn’t know exactly what was going to happen. They knew it wasn’t going to be smooth sailing. They knew that they were going to, you know, run up against roadblocks.
A lot of times we think that one of my mentors says that, yeah, I’m an overnight success 25 years in the making, right? Like you talk to somebody, like Elan Musk or something and talk to him about Tesla and man, how did you get so successful overnight. And it’s like, you don’t see the 20 years of blood, sweat and tears that they put into their vision and planning and how many times they hit roadblocks and, you know, challenges on capital raising and how many times they were turned down and how many times you know, like the story about Michael Jordan and getting turned down so many times not even making the high school basketball team. Anyway, like, this is such a valuable lesson in our own mind. Because whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.
And I want you to take inventory, I want you to just think about this for a minute, like what thoughts in your life are not serving you? I want you to become cognizant about this. And I want you to just take a piece of pen or paper, your journal or whatever, and just write yourself the question, What thoughts about my life? What thoughts about me? What thoughts about, you know, my future self, what thoughts about my past, what thoughts are no longer serving me, and I want you to just keep a journal, I want you to sit down for you know, 15-20 minutes in the morning and just think through that. But also, I want you to keep that journal there. And every time maybe it’s notes on your iPhone, I don’t really care. But every time you have a negative thought, I want you to become cognizant of this. And I want you to think through this, I’m going to keep this super short today. Because this is where the meat of it is. Every time that pops up, I want you to write it down. What’s the thought that’s not serving you, you’re not good enough, you’re not successful enough, you’re not skinny enough, you’re not pretty enough, you’re not smart enough, you don’t have enough leadership experience, you don’t have enough money. You don’t have enough charisma, you don’t have any sales experience, you don’t have any operations experience. You can never go out and start your own business. Because you’ve never ran a business before, you don’t understand accounting, you don’t understand bookkeeping. Whatever you think, whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.
And we put so much weight on ourselves. And really, all we need just need to do is just reposition that. Because when somebody got started in whatever it was that they did. When I left my plumbing and HVAC job with my partner to start our own plumbing and HVAC company, I didn’t know either. But you know what? There was no question in my mind that we could deliver a better service, a better customer experience than what my competitors were doing in the market. And there was no question in my mind that even though I didn’t know accounting, even though I didn’t know sales, even though I didn’t know marketing, even though I didn’t know anything about running a business, there was no question in my mind, that I could find the resources and the people who could coach and mentor me, and I could get it figured out.
And so whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right. And there’s no way out of this, you can’t run from the thoughts that are in your head. And so what you really got to do is just lean into this. And you’ve really got to, again, take that notepad and just talk about these thoughts that are not serving you. And then I really want you to dig into why. Why are you thinking this way? What’s the programming, and by the way, if you need some help, go to your spouse, go to your business partner, go to a friend of yours, hire a coach, whatever it takes to sort through this, because sometimes we need outside influence to help work us through these problems. I have a coach that I meet with every single Monday morning, I will always have a coach, I don’t care how successful I get, I don’t care how advanced I get, I will always, always, always have a coach. And so I want to leave you with this.
Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right. And what I want you to do is just take inventory, and even do this in the positive thought maybe just you know, take some of the positive thoughts about you know what you think about what you can do too. Because I can almost guarantee you that your positive thoughts are way lower in terms of the amount than your negative thoughts. We need to shift that. We need to start taking these negative thoughts and start taking the inventory and figuring out why they exist. Why we think that. And by the way, I’ll leave you with this, why do we put so much weight on what other people think?
It’s because we don’t spend enough time in our positive thought process to counteract that we actually spend so much time in the negative thought process. So usually when people are saying negative things about us, it’s actually probably a portion of what we’re projecting. And so if you’ve got somebody saying the same types of things about you over and over and over, I would just encourage you to just lean back into that. And the reason why it’s probably so hurtful to you is because maybe you’re projecting that and maybe you’re seeing that in your own life. And that’s why you put so much stock into it.
But again, at the end of the day, we put so much pressure and stuff on ourselves. We don’t need the additional pressure about what other people are thinking around us and all of that. So whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.
And by the way, as a side note, one last thing I want to leave you with, I do have the opportunity for one, possibly two more one-on-one coaching clients. This is a one-year commitment. This is something that I’m super passionate about. I don’t spend a lot of time doing it, but I do carve out some time because it really energizes me. And I’ve just been able to really help some people, you know, make some serious progress. So, if that’s something that you’re interested in, text the word mentoring to 480-531-7519. Again, text the word mentoring to 480-531-7519.
