reality is not what we think it is

Introduction and overview

00:00All right. Hello, and welcome to this training. As you can see from the title, what we're gonna be covering today is reality is not what we think it is. And as you can see from the overview, what we're gonna be talking about the constructed world, the perception filter, engineering your reality, the review, and your action items for the day or the next few days.

00:18Before we get started, if you wanna work with me one-on-one, book a call from the link in the description. If you want this document along with its respective training, then make sure to join the free community from the link in the description.

00:29And if you want weekly newsletters helping you improve every aspect of your life, join the free newsletter, from the link in the description.

The constructed world

00:36With that said, let's talk about the constructed world. So the world you're experiencing right now, everything you see and hear and feel and believe to be real isn't, or at least it's not the full picture. Your brain is constructing a version of reality based on past experience, belief, expectation, and pattern recognition, and then presenting that construction to you as though it's objective truth and reality.

01:01The reason this matters so much for your life is that if reality is constructed, then the version you're currently living in is just one of many possible versions, and the one you're getting is almost entirely determined by what you already believe.

01:14So your brain doesn't actually observe the world and then react to it. It predicts what the world should look like based on everything it's learned up to this point, and then projects that prediction outward. Which means what you experience in any given moment is less about what's actually happening and more about what your brain expected to happen neuroscience has actually shown that the brain is fundamentally a prediction machine, almost as if it's AI.

01:38So something like 90% of what you perceive is generated internally based on prior data rather than constructed fresh from incoming sensory information, which means you're essentially living inside a model of reality that your brain built from your past.

01:53And so those predictions carry all your biases with them. Every assumption you've absorbed, every fear you've internalized, every limitation that you've accepted about yourself, gets baked into the prediction and presented back to you as the way things are.

02:06So when you expect things to be hard, your brain literally filters for evidence that confirms that expectation and discards the evidence that would contradict it. And so you walk through your day collecting proof for a belief you didn't even consciously choose.

02:19And the whole thing runs on autopilot, most people never really become aware of this process, so they just accept the projected reality as the only reality available to them, and they build their entire life around it Now, the deeper implication here is that you're never really perceiving reality directly.

02:36So you're perceiving a constructed version of it, shaped by everything from your childhood to your last conversation to the mood you woke up in this morning. And so your brain selects which pieces of information to include and which to leave out, and that selection process is really driven entirely by what it already considers relevant, which means new and contradictory information gets filtered out before it even reaches your conscious awareness.

02:59Even the information that does make it through gets interpreted through the lens of your existing beliefs. So two people can witness the exact same event and walk away with two completely different versions of what happened, and both are absolutely convinced their version is the real one.

How memory distorts your reality

03:14Now, the raw material that your brain uses to build this constructed reality is memory. Memory itself isn't a reliable recording of what happened. 90% of what we read we've forgotten about the next week. So every time you recall a memory, you're actually reconstructing it, and each reconstruction introduces subtle changes based on your current state, your current beliefs, and what you currently want to be true.

03:36So the way a memory gets actually stored in the first place is already distorted by your emotional state and your attention at that time. So what gets encoded isn't the objective event. It's your subjective experience of the event filtered through however you were feeling in that moment.

03:51And over time, those distortions can compound, where each recall slightly alters the memory, and then the altered version becomes the new baseline. After a few years, the memory you have of a major life event might be dramatically different from, what actually occurred at that time, and you would never know.

04:08Your brain uses those distorted memories to reinforce your current beliefs about yourself and the world, which creates a closed loop where your past, as you remember it, keeps confirming your present as you perceive it, and the whole system stays locked in place.

04:22And beyond individual memories, your brain creates networks of association where one experience links to another, and these chains run in the background shaping how you interpret new information before you've even had a chance to actually think about it consciously.

04:35a single sensory input, a sound, a phrase, even a room temperature, can trigger an entire chain of associations that shift your mood, your behavior, and your perception of what's possible in that moment. most of the time, you have zero awareness that it's happening.

04:49these layers of association build up over the years, and they get thicker and more entrenched with every repetition, which is why long-held beliefs feel so solid and true, even when they're just well-reinforced patterns of interpretation that you've never questioned.

Cultural conditioning and shared reality

05:04there's another layer to this, the social layer, which is that we collectively agree on a shared version of reality, and then we treat that agreement as proof that that reality is real. So your culture, your family, your peer group, they reinforce a particular version of what's normal, what's possible, and what's true, and stepping outside of that shared agreement can feel threatening to most people even when the evidence supports it.

05:28And so the cultural frame you grew up in installed a massive set of assumptions about how the world works, what success looks like, what is actually achievable, And what your role is within it. And most of those assumptions were absorbed before you were old enough to evaluate them critically, which means you're operating on software you never even agreed to install.

05:48Now, that cultural conditioning runs so deep that it feels like your own thinking, and the beliefs you absorbed from that environment feel like conclusions that you arrived at independently when they're not, which makes them hard to identify and harder to change.

06:02even the language you use shapes the reality you perceive, because language creates categories, and categories create boundaries, and those boundaries determine what you can conceive of. So if your language and culture don't have a frame for something, then you'll struggle to perceive it even when it's right in front of you.

06:17And underneath all of it are the unquestioned assumptions, the things that feel so obviously true that you've never once thought to examine them. And those are often the most powerful shapers of your reality because they operate completely below the radar.

06:32the most powerful assumptions are the ones that you don't even know you have, the ones that feel like gravity rather than belief, right? those invisible assumptions set the boundaries of what you think is actually possible for your life more than any conscious goal or intention can.

06:47And many of those assumptions were inherited from people who were themselves operating within a limited frame, which means you might be getting a limited frame of a limited frame, and living inside the boundaries of someone else's unexamined life without realizing it, so with that said, let's cover the perception filter.

The perception filter

07:02So if your brain is constructing reality from predictions, memory, shared agreement, then the obvious question is: how does it decide what to include and what to leave out? Well, the answer is something I call the perception filter. It's the mechanism that sits between raw reality and your conscious experience and decides what gets through.

07:22most people don't realize this filter is almost entirely programmed by your beliefs. Now, your brain processes something like 11 million bits of information per second, but your conscious awareness can basically handle roughly 50, which means 99.9% of reality is being filtered out before it reaches you.

07:41your belief system decided, and it made that decision without even consulting you. It's automatic. that massive reduction from 11 million to 50 is happening constantly and it means the reality you're aware of is an extraordinarily thin slice of what's actually available.

07:59And the composition of that slice is determined by what your brain considers relevant based on your existing program. And the implications of this are crazy because it means that there are opportunities, connections, ideas, and solutions all around you right now that you literally cannot perceive, and you can't perceive them for no other reason than your current belief system hasn't flagged them as worth noticing So your brain does this for efficiency.

08:26It would be overwhelming to process everything. So the filtering is a survival mechanism, but the problem is that the filter was set up to keep you safe and functional, and safe and functional is a very different optimization than growing and thriving.

08:41Sometimes it's the opposite.

How your brain decides what matters

08:43And so there's a part of your brain called the reticular activating system, and its job is to flag things in your environment that match what you're focused on or what you believe to be important. And this is why when you decide to buy a certain car, you suddenly see that car everywhere, and it's the same mechanism that determines what you notice in every area of your life based on what you've told your brain to look for.

09:05the programming of this system is largely unconscious, shaped by years of experience, conversations, media consumption, and emotional events that you've long forgotten about. But the filters they installed are still running in the background and still determining what you see.

09:19the good news is that the system is updatable, and when you deliberately change what you focus on and what you believe to be true, the reticular activating system begins flagging different information, and your perceived reality shifts accordingly, sometimes faster than you would expect.

Beliefs and confirmation bias

09:34this is really the core of it. Your beliefs are the filter. They determine what information gets through to your conscious awareness and what gets discarded before you ever really have a chance to consider it. a belief that money is hard to make will filter out every easy opportunity that crosses your path, and a belief that people can't be trusted will filter out every trustworthy person standing right in front of you.

09:57it's that powerful. once a belief is in place, the confirmation bias kicks in and starts collecting evidence that supports it while dismissing evidence that contradicts it, which creates a self-reinforcing loop where the belief generates the proof, the proof strengthens the belief, and the cycle repeats indefinitely until you consciously interrupt it people always say, "I'll believe it when I see it," but the actual mechanism works in reverse.

10:19You'll see it once you believe it, and everything you currently see in your life is downstream of a belief you hold, whether you're aware of that belief or not. And so the confirmation bias is incredibly resistant to contradictory information, meaning even when you're presented with clear evidence that your belief is wrong, your brain will find ways to rationalize, minimize, or dismiss that evidence in order to protect the existing beliefs, and it does this so smoothly you won't even notice it happening.

10:46And in conversations with actual people where they present evidence as to why your belief might be wrong, you will argue and rationalize and pretend that you didn't hear it, and you will dismiss it, even if it's objectively true. And so beliefs don't exist in isolation.

11:01They stack on top of each other, and they form belief systems where one foundational belief supports secondary beliefs, and the whole structure becomes a lens through which you interpret everything that happens to you. So if a foundational belief changes, everything above it can change, too, which is why a breakthrough realization can reshape large sections of your life very quickly.

Belief systems, identity, and rapid transformation

11:23And this is what happens when people reach rock bottom. They realize that the way they've been living their life is based on a belief that is wrong, because otherwise they wouldn't have gotten to rock bottom. And it explains why people experience rapid transformations that look impossible from the outside afterwards.

11:42the flip side is that entrenched belief systems become extremely rigid over time, where the weight of stacked beliefs makes the whole structure feel so permanent and true that you're identifying yourself with that belief Your identity is the belief.

11:56questioning any single belief feels like threatening the foundation on which your identity is built, which is why most people resist examining their beliefs, even when their lives aren't working, even when those beliefs are wrong, and even if there's evidence to show them those beliefs are wrong.

12:12And so at the deepest level, your beliefs become fused with your identity, where you stop saying, "I believe X," and start saying, "I am X." the belief feels like a fact about who you are rather than a thought you once adopted. As a result, you become very close-minded.

12:27This makes it the hardest kind of belief to change, but also the most transformative when it does change.

Belief-based blindness

12:33And so the final piece of the perception filter is what I'd call belief-based blindness, which is the phenomenon where you literally cannot see, perceive, or process things that your belief system has categorized as impossible or irrelevant.

12:48You genuinely don't see them. You can't process them. They're invisible to you And that has massive implications for your life. In psychology, they call these scotomas, basically blind spots in your perception, and everyone has them, and the ones created by belief are the most consequential because they can hide categories of possibility from you for years or decades, right?

13:10And there are people walking through the same city, the same industry, the same social circles as you, who see opportunities that are completely invisible to you. And the difference has almost nothing to do with intelligence or information and everything to do with what their belief system allows them to perceive.

13:26the scariest version of this is when belief-based blindness hides your own potential from you. you become close-minded to your own potential, where you genuinely can't see what you're capable of because the filter won't let that information through.

13:40you operate at a fraction of your actual capacity while being convinced that you're doing everything you can. The only way out of a belief-based blindness is awareness of the filter itself, meaning you have to know that the filter exists and it's operating before you can start questioning what it might be hiding from you.

13:58And that awareness opens up a crack that allows new information to start getting through And once you're aware of the filter, the practice becomes constant and gentle questioning of your own perception, asking yourself what you might be missing.

14:13Maybe you're not always right about everything, right? What you've assumed without evidence, what, what would change if a particular belief turned out to be wrong? over time, that questioning practice expands your perception where the filter loosens and more information starts getting through, and your experienced reality becomes richer and wider and more full of possibility than it was before, and it happens incrementally, but the cumulative effect is enormous.

Engineering your reality

14:36So with that said, let's cover engineering your reality. if reality is constructed, if your perception is filtered by belief, and if changing your beliefs changes what you perceive, then the next step is to start doing that deliberately. engineering your reality, is the practice of consciously choosing the beliefs and perceptions that are useful and shape the world you experience rather than letting them be chosen for you by your past, your culture, and your conditioning.

Building an inventory of your beliefs

15:03the first step is awareness, becoming conscious of the beliefs that are currently running your filter. Because you can't change a program that you don't know is installed, right? Most people have never examined what they believe about themselves or about money or about relationships, about what they're capable of.

15:18And that's exactly why those beliefs have so much power. They operate entirely in the dark So getting your beliefs out of the dark and onto paper is one of the most powerful exercises you can do, where you literally sit down and write out what you believe to be true about every major area of your life without editing or filtering.

15:35And what comes out will often surprise you because you'll see beliefs that you didn't even know you were carrying. And so the exercise requires brutal honesty because the beliefs that matter most are usually the ones you're least comfortable admitting to, the ones that sound harsh or limiting or embarrassing when you say them out loud.

15:53those are the exact ones running the show. once you see a belief clearly, it's worth tracing where it came from because you might find out something you were told as a kid, or something you absorbed from a painful experience, or something your culture installed without your consent.

16:08understanding the origin can strip the belief of its authority and make it easier to release. beyond that one-time excavation, building an ongoing inventory of your beliefs through regular journaling or reflection can create a living map of your perception filter.

16:23the more detailed that map becomes, the more precisely you can identify which beliefs are helping you and which ones are keeping you stuck. Over time, those patterns will emerge in the inventory, where you'll start to see the same limiting beliefs showing up across different areas of your life, said in a different way.

16:40And so recognizing the pattern will let you address the root belief instead of fighting its symptoms one at a time. And the inventory also will let you track changes. when you deliberately install a new belief, you can watch over time as your perception and your results start shifting in response, which creates a feedback loop that strengthens your confidence in the whole process.

16:58the deeper you go with the inventory, the more foundational the beliefs you uncover become. And those foundational beliefs are the ones that produce the biggest shifts when they change, because they affect everything above them in the belief stack that we talked about.

Installing new beliefs through evidence

17:13So once you've identified the beliefs that need to change, the next step is the deliberate choice of new ones. And I wanna be clear here, this doesn't mean just repeating a positive affirmation and then hoping your brain buys it. Real belief requires evidence, repetition, and emotional engagement.

17:31So your brain needs to be convinced, and it won't be convinced by words alone. the most reliable way to install a new belief is to create small pieces of evidence that support it, meaning you take actions that prove the new belief is true, each piece of evidence weakens the old belief and strengthens the new one.

17:49after enough evidence accumulates, the brain's default shifts, and the new belief becomes the operating system the action doesn't have to be huge. It can be very small and, symbolic If the new belief is that you're disciplined, then one completed deep work session is a piece of evidence.

18:04It could be a 10-minute deep work session, but it's completed it can be one honored commitment. It could be one morning where you follow through. It could be anything. It could be stepping outside for a walk. Stack enough of those, and the brain has no choice but to update its model.

18:19And the evidence creates its own momentum, where the first few pieces are the hardest because you're fighting the old belief's resistance. But after a certain threshold, the new belief starts attracting its own evidence automatically, and then the shift accelerates on its own Now, alongside evidence, you need repetition, meaning the new belief needs to be reinforced daily through journaling, visualization, affirmation, or whatever practice resonates with you.

18:41repetition serves two purposes. It keeps the new belief active in your awareness, so the perception filter starts adjusting. And two, it gradually overrides the neural pathways that supported the old belief. the consistency of the repetition matters more than the intensity, neural pathway formation is a gradual process that rewards sustained input over time.

19:00repetition becomes more powerful when you engage emotion with it, where you don't just think the new belief, but feel what it would feel like if it were already true.

The daily perception practice

19:09the final piece is daily practice, because engineering your reality isn't something you do once. It's something you need to live. It's a daily commitment to running your perception filter consciously instead of letting it run on autopilot. the practice itself is pretty simple once you've done the awareness and the installation work.

19:25It's a matter of showing up every day and reinforcing the new program. starting each morning with an intentional review of the beliefs and the states you want to operate from that day is one of the simplest and most effective practices there is, 'cause Where you spend a few minutes before the world starts pulling at you to consciously set your filter the difference between a day that starts with intentional perception and one that starts on autopilot is night and day.

19:48think of the morning practice as priming your perception filter to what you want to notice and attract that day. when the filter is primed intentionally, you'll find yourself noticing opportunities, connections, and possibilities that you would have typically ignored, and they would have been invisible to you on an unprimed day.

20:06the morning practice also creates an anchor for the rest of the day, a reference point that you can return to when external events starts pulling your state and your perception off course. that anchor becomes more stable and more reliable the more consistently you use it.

20:19closing each day with a reflection on what you perceived, what you created, and what beliefs showed up uninvited creates a feedback loop that accelerates the whole process, where you catch old patterns before they re-entrench you, and reinforce new patterns while they're still fresh.

20:34the evening review is also where you collect evidence for your new beliefs, where you look back through the day and identify moments where the new belief was active and producing results logging that evidence makes it cumulative, so the case for the new belief gets stronger every single day.

20:48And so the review also lets you adjust in real time, where you notice which old beliefs crept back in during the day, and how they affected your perception and your behavior, and what you want to do differently tomorrow. And ending with genuine gratitude for what already is changing or has changed is actually a functional practice here because gratitude locks in the emotional state that supports the new belief and trains your brain to look for more evidence of things working out, and it implies that it has happened because You can't be grateful for something that hasn't happened, which further

21:18adjusts the perception filter in the direction you want it to go.

Review and action items

21:21With that said, let's cover the review. We talked about the overview, the constructed world, the perception filter, engineering your reality, the review, and your action items for the day or the next few days. sit down tonight and write out every belief you hold about yourself, money, relationships, and your potential and notice which ones you didn't even know were running.

21:38choose one limiting belief from your list, write the replacement belief next to it, and create three small actions this week that produce evidence for the new one. build a daily ten-minute morning and evening perception practice where you intentionally set your filter in the morning and review what showed up in the evening and run it for 30 days straight.

21:56if you need help book a call from the link in the description, and we can work one-on-one on this. if you enjoyed this training, let me know in the comments, like, subscribe, et cetera. If you want this training along with its respective document, join the free community from the link in the description.

22:10if you want weekly newsletters helping you improve every aspect of your life, join the free newsletter, from the link in the description. thank you for being here. Thank you for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.