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You may have no idea you are carrying a virus.

Choice has been a target of philosophy from the ancient times to current day discussion. So what is the deal with choice? In my opinion, with the super hero concept I coach others with, the most powerful place of we can ever be in is the place of clear choice. However, in order to make great choices we need great information and the reality is that we often fall into habits of making choices based on thoughtless viruses.

Viruses? Yes, they are everywhere and you are a carrier!
Richard Brodie authored the book “Virus of the Mind”. In his work he discusses the the science of memetics. Like viruses in the body, a meme spreads cultural influence in the same way. Memes essentially work like your everyday virus. They infiltrate, duplicate and spread.

A perfect example is the virus that is sweeping across the Middle East and Northern Africa. It started by carriers and spread rapidly into action. This is an extreme and effective example, however there are other viruses that are spread in more subtle ways.

For example, we spread viruses everyday of all different types.

“You don’t have a chance to do that because people who succeed at that are… fill in the blank”.

“Everybody gets divorced in this day and age”.

“It’s hard to get a job in this economy”.

There are billions and billions of memes being spread at every single moment. We all pick them up and we all spread them. These memes settle in and help establish the beliefs we operate off of and often determine the actions that follow.

This is where choice comes in. As self confessed individuals who carry multitudes of viruses, both good and bad, helpful and harmful. We rarely stop and ask ourselves if this is something worth spreading, or something that increases the value of my life. Like mindless sheep, we often walk the same line as the one in front of us. Virus comes in, we become hospitable partners and we ship them on to our friends, families and co-workers without really considering whether or not we actually believe them.

To consciously choose we must stop and ask ourselves if we believe. When we spread information blindly, we spread viruses that influence the people around us in many different ways yielding varying results. When we operate from conscious choice we also have the ability to actively spread viruses that transform nations, for better or worse.

Hitler consciously spread viruses of hatred and evil. Martin Luther King Jr. consciously spread viruses of hope and equality.

As a carrier or millions of viruses, which ones will you choose to spread?

We are going to stick with the discussion of how our beliefs create the structure for which we live our lives. At first I said the key book we would look at would be the Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton, but I changed my mind. The book I’m going to introduce and recommend like crazy is Carol Dweck’s ‘Mindset’.

Dweck is a social psychologist who is a faculty member at Stanford. Through her studies she has developed the teachings around what she calls a ‘fixed and a ‘growth’ mindset. While I recommend you read the book in it’s entirety, here is the gist of it;

We tend to operate off of two mindsets, fixed or growth. 99% of society is raised and taught through repetition what is the ‘fixed mindset’. This mindset is best explained as ‘You Either Are or You Aren’t’. For example, little Johnny comes home from school with a A+ on his test. Mom says, Oh little Johnny you are so smart. Johnny quickly calculates in his head that an A+ on his test = Johnny being smart. Therefore Johnny thinks that anytime he gets an A+ he is smart and fears the time he doesn’t because then he will be stupid… Are you with me?

The second Mindset is the growth mindset. This is best explained as ‘What you do now will determine where you go from here’. For example, little Johnny comes home with an A+ and Mom says, “Little Johnny, you must have worked really hard to get that A+.” Regardless of whether or not he did, he figures out that hard work equals getting good grades and it is not simply something you are or aren’t. As Dweck writes, this gives children a variable they can control rather than being a victim to their circumstances.

So why am I writing this?

Because what we believe has an incredible impact in how we operate. As a young child and a national team athlete I experienced the highs and lows of success and failure. With the same fixed mindset as most of society my confidence went through peaks and valleys every time I was a ‘great athlete’ or a ‘complete failure’.

What we Believe we, and what we are capable of, has a huge impact in how we express ourselves. If we believe that we can work and achieve anything, than we invariably will experience growth and mastery in some form as we are deliberate in the process of what we are engaged in. If we constantly question whether or not we have it than we live in the past misery or future projections, and many times as Dweck indicates, decide not to compete at all rather than face the social and self criticism of being a failure and destined for a life of inadequacy.

If we don’t believe we have control over who we are becoming and let our failures determine our worth… than we life the life the little engine that couldn’t because it didn’t HAVE it.