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Why do we sabotage ourselves?

Read time: 4 minutes

Welcome to David Beats Goliath—for founders who refuse to live small stories.

Dear Founders,

Tony likes to say, almost proudly:

It’s his armor.

Here’s what most people don’t know:

Tony finishes one or two dense books a week.
Heavy ones. Philosophy. History. Biographies.
He reads more than many Ivy League graduates I know.

Tony is smart.

But somewhere along the way, he decided:

I am just street smart.

And now that story protects him.

It also limits him.

We all have a version of this.

• The founder who says, “I’m just a hustler, not strategic.”
• The executive who says, “I’m not creative.”
• The parent who says, “I’m bad with money.”
• The student who says, “I’m not academic.”

Sometimes it’s humility.

Often, it’s fear disguised as humility.

​Carol Dweck calls it a fixed mindset.

I call it a ghost.

A ghost that whispers:

And so we shrink ourselves to match a past version of who we were.

Even when reality has changed.

How do you break it?

Three movements.

1. Recognition

Pay attention to your introduction.

“Hi, I’m David. I’m a _____.”

Notice how small that sentence is.

We reduce ourselves to a title because it’s socially convenient.

But socially convenient identities often conceal deeper longings.

Ask yourself:

• Is this introduction complete?
• Or is it safe?
• If you were fully honest, what part of you is being left out?

Once you see the ghost, it’s difficult to unsee it.

2. Imagination

This is where most people stall.

They can name the ghost.
They just can’t imagine life without it.

There’s a bestselling book called The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker.

At the end of each chapter, you’re instructed to declare:

You repeat it.
Out loud.
With conviction.

Here’s the problem.

If you cannot imagine how a millionaire thinks…
how they decide…
how they handle risk…
how they relate to money…

then repeating the phrase is just theater.

Your nervous system knows you don’t believe it.

Your body has no evidence.

And so the ghost stays in charge.

Affirmations without imagination feel like lies.

Imagination, however, is different.

When you can vividly picture:

• How you would show up in a room
• How you would negotiate
• What you would tolerate
• What you would stop apologizing for

…motivation changes.

You’re no longer chanting.

You’re rehearsing.

Imagination is rehearsal for identity.

Without it, change feels fake.

With it, change feels inevitable.

3. Enaction

We’ve all heard it:

Mind over matter.

But that phrase is incomplete.

Your mind does not float above your body issuing orders.

We are embodied creatures.
The mind records what the body repeatedly does.

In the age of AI, this should make intuitive sense.

An AI model cannot generate anything without training data.
It learns from inputs.
Patterns.
Repetition.

Your mind works the same way.

It interprets the world through your body.

It gathers data from:

• What you physically do
• What environments you enter
• What conversations you participate in
• What risks you take

If you never speak publicly, your mind gathers data:
​“I am not a speaker.”

If you never negotiate, your mind gathers data:
​“I am not powerful in rooms like this.”

If you never ship work, your mind gathers data:
​“I am not someone who finishes.”

Mind over matter is not domination.

It is iteration.

The body acts.
The mind records.
The identity updates.

If you want your mind to believe a new story, you must feed it new evidence.

Run before you feel like a runner.
Write before you feel like a writer.
Lead before you feel like a leader.

The body supplies the training data.
The mind recalibrates.

No data.
No update.

In that sense, “mind over matter” is actually a loop:

Matter informs mind.
Mind influences matter.
Repeat.

And slowly, the ghost loses authority.
Not because you argued with it.
But because you outgrew it.

So three movements:
1. Recognition.
2. Imagination.
3. Enaction.

Simple structure.
Lifelong work.

A Closing Invitation

If this issue resonated, I’d invite you to come.
Not as critics, but as cheerleaders.

In my first Story Swagger cohort, one member was stuck in this invisible story:

Their past success had quietly become a ceiling.

Not because they lacked talent.
Not because they lacked opportunity.

But because they were still negotiating with a ghost.

Over the past weeks, I’ve watched something shift.

Recognition.
Imagination.
Enaction.

You can see it when someone stops introducing themselves by who they were.

You can feel it when someone speaks from who they are becoming.

At the end of February, we’re hosting our first Story Swagger Showcase.

It’s not a pitch event.
It’s not polished theater.

It’s a room where people:

• Imagine beyond their past
• Enact a new identity publicly
• And beat their ghosts in real time

Sometimes the most powerful role you can play in someone’s transformation is witness.

Reply “Showcase” and I’ll send you the details.

David still beats Goliath.

But only when he refuses to stay the shepherd boy forever.

Yours truly,
David

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