The Possibility Bar: Why You Can’t Learn to Succeed from Successful People (and What to Do Instead)

I just got back from vacation and I read this book called The Third Door by Alex Banayan. He’s this 20-year old guy who was lying in bed at college thinking about what he was going to do with his life. He didn’t want to just go work for some big corporation.

And so, he asked himself, “How can I find out how THE most successful people become successful?”

To find out, he decided to get interviews with people like Warren Buffett and Lady Gaga and Sugar Ray Leonard and some of the most well-known musicians, artists, politicians, investors and entrepreneurs of all time.

This turned into a 7 year journey for Alex. In many cases, he failed to get the interview or it took him years and years to get it but — overall — he got to talk to a whole bunch of successful people.

Here’s what he learned: It wasn’t advice from these famous people that would unlock his whole life and make his future roll out before him like a red carpet. It was how he changed in the process of getting those interviews that mattered — how he had to uplevel his actions and beliefs to talk to interview someone like Bill Gates and Quincy Jones.

These changes created a new sense of possibility for him.

Alex realized that he could give people the world’s BEST success advice from the world’s most successful people but they’d still feel stuck, if their possibility bar isn’t high enough.

Success happens when people get to the top of their possibility bar – when they uplevel what they feel is possible, what they believe is possible.

That’s when they really start to change their lives.

Every single one of us has the ability to make new choices in our life at any moment of the day. We don’t have to stay stuck in the realm of what we believe is possible now. We can constantly uplevel what we believe is possible.

Those choices that you make every single day impact your life AND have the power to skyrocket your success.

In his book, Alex remembered this great quote by Dumbledore from Harry Potter…

“It’s our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

 

-Dumbledore

When you change what you believe is possible, you change what becomes possible and all of a sudden, your possibility bar gets so much higher.

All of a sudden you’re reaching new heights.

So, here’s a question for you – are you reaching high enough?

Are you taking actions aligned with your beliefs?

Are you upleveling your beliefs… and upleveling your actions?

Because if you don’t spend any time reflecting on what’s possible – upleveling what’s possible – you’re going to end up with what IS and not what CAN be.

So, what do you think is possible for you? How high can you set your possibility bar?

Think BIG and share in the comments below!