Italy was truly a dream. We loved the Colosseum and had a private tour of where the Gladiators lived. It was truly remarkable to witness the ingenuity of the Romans. They created elevators to hoist up the animals and Gladiators from the ground floor and when we roamed the halls they would walk through, I couldn't help to think about about their mindset. Fear, excitement, courage, pain, suspense... you could feel remnants of all of it.
Ok now for the good stuff, I have a formula that I believe explains every result you have ever created in your life, and it is this:
Desire + Belief x Expectation = Results
Before I break it down I want to ask you something. When you think about that thing you really want, are you wanting it or are you decided about it? Because those two are not the same thing and the difference between them is everything.
Wanting has a lack energy behind it. It is separate from you, uncertain, and it lives on the one day someday list. You can hear it in the language, I have been trying, I really want to, yes but. That is wanting energy and it will keep you exactly where you are.
Deciding is completely different. A decision is your desire and your belief that you can have it, combined, and when those two things come together you create relentless expected energy, the kind where there is no version of reality where you do not cross that finish line. The thoughts sound like "yes, I'm doing this" because when you are decided you are not negotiating with the outcome anymore, you are just moving toward it.
Desire is the starting point but desire without belief is just a want, its still separated from you, still sitting on the list. Belief is what closes that gap and makes it yours. When you multiply that by expectation, meaning you stop wondering if it is going to happen and start operating as if it already is, that is when everything begins to organize around the result.
Think about it like a dinner reservation. You made the reservation, you get dressed, you get in the car, you drive there and sit down at the table, because you completely expect to be seated. You are not hoping the table is there, you expect it. And that expectation organizes every action between now and then without you having to force it.
Now here is the thing about fear, because I know some of you are thinking, okay but I am afraid, and I want to address that directly. Fear does not disqualify you from the formula. Fear gets to come along for the ride, it just does not get to drive. I think about it like this: you are in the car, you have set the GPS to your destination, and fear climbs into the passenger seat. As you get closer, as you hit challenges and flat tires along the way, fear is going to try to redirect you, try to get you to change the destination, try to convince you to turn around. Your job is not to kick fear out of the car. Your job is to turn up the dial on your belief louder than the fear, because you can always do that, at any point, no matter how loud fear gets.
I have lived this formula my entire life even before I had words for it. At 21 with no diploma, no money, and no evidence that anything was possible, I had a desire to become something more and a belief so deep that I expected to get there, and five years later I had a master's degree and was commissioned as a top ten percent army officer. Nothing in my circumstances changed first. The formula did its work from the inside out, and my purpose was greater than my fear every single time.
And today it happened again.
Today is Friday April 10th, it is about 6pm and I just got off the treadmill, and an idea came through that did not feel like a thought so much as a wave of belief confirmation, big and certain and full, and I knew immediately it was the formula showing up again.
I am going to put on a live event on November 6, 2026 in San Antonio Texas, and it is going to be the most profound event on belief and identity that there ever was!
That is 210 days away and I have almost nothing figured out yet and I am telling you anyway, because that is what expectation looks like before anyone else can see it. I asked myself how I would show up differently if I knew 200 of you were going to be in that room with me on November 6, and something in me shifted in that exact moment because that changes everything about how I move between now and then.
Before I close I want to give you something to take into your own week, because the formula only works if you can actually locate yourself inside it right now.
Ask yourself honestly, where is my belief right now on this goal?
I like to think about it in levels. At the bottom is gas station belief, barely enough to get you started, just a small seed of maybe. Then there is Walmart belief, Target belief, Dillard's belief, and at the top is Tiffany belief, the kind that is certain and full and expects the result the way you expect the sun to rise tomorrow. When I was 21 writing a high school diploma on the back of an envelope I was not even at the gas station yet. Now I am at Tiffany level in some areas and honestly still working my way up in others, because at every new level there is new work to do.
Find where your belief actually is right now, not where you wish it was, and then ask yourself what it would take to move it up one level? That is enough. One level at a time is how the formula builds, and remember, belief is not automatic, it must be created, and you can start creating it right now on purpose.
This is your reminder to do the things that feel scary. Do the things that maybe other people cannot see for you yet, until they are there live and it becomes real for everyone else. And if you are still waiting for your big light bulb moment, the one that comes in as a full body yes, EXPECT it.
I knew something was coming. For me, this is it. And it's going to change everything.
It's all possible.
If you believe it is.
I do.
ps. oh Rome! The food was ten stars! Our American dining is not the same as theirs lol I ordered two plates in every restaurant so I could try more things, along with an app and a dessert. One of the waitresses thought I was kidding and didn't bring my second plate so when I asked for it she wasn't happy, but I was! We were spoiled with the best pasta so much that Joe tried to make it for us when we came home, unfortunately that did not work lol so back to Italy we will go!
FOR THE LEADERS IN THE ROOM
What I just shared is not just a personal story, it is a live demonstration of something I work on with leaders every single day, and that is the relationship between belief and self concept and the results an organization creates.
Most leaders wait until the plan is fully formed before they commit out loud, and I understand why, it feels safer and more certain, but there is something that happens when you declare a vision before you have all the answers. Your brain starts organizing around it, your actions start aligning with it, and the people around you start responding to the energy you are carrying before a single slide deck exists.
The most powerful thing a leader can do is decide who they are becoming before the evidence arrives, because the evidence always follows the identity, never the other way around. That is not a soft idea, it is the formula, and it works the same way inside an organization as it does in a person.