NFA Finance

Today’s question was:

What’s a book you never finished but still think about?

I didn’t have to think very long.

Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz.

I never finished it.

But apparently, it finished something in me.

That sounds strange, but if you’ve ever read a book that hit you at exactly the right point in your life, you probably understand what I mean.

Sometimes you don’t need all 300 pages.

Sometimes one idea is enough.

And the idea that stuck with me from Psycho-Cybernetics was incredibly simple:

The picture you carry of yourself matters.

Maltz was a plastic surgeon. He noticed something interesting about his patients. He could physically change someone’s appearance, but that didn’t necessarily change the person they believed themselves to be.

Fix the scar.

Change the nose.

Alter the face.

And sometimes the person still saw the old version staring back at them.

That became the foundation for something much bigger than plastic surgery.

We all carry an internal picture of who we are.

And whether we realize it or not, we tend to live toward that picture.

That’s the part I never forgot.

Your Life Has a Thermostat

Think about a thermostat.

Set it at 72 degrees and the system keeps working to bring the room back to 72.

It gets too cold? Heat comes on.

Too hot? Air conditioning kicks in.

Your self-image can work the same way.

If deep down you believe you’re a $50,000-a-year person, making $100,000 can actually make you uncomfortable.

If you believe you’re always broke, you’ll find remarkably creative ways to become broke again.

If you believe relationships never work for you, you’ll eventually behave in ways that help prove yourself right.

If you believe you’re somebody who quits, quitting starts feeling natural.

But there’s another side to it.

If you genuinely begin seeing yourself as someone who keeps his word, you start behaving differently.

If you’re someone who trains every day, missing a workout feels wrong.

If you’re someone who creates every day, you find a way to publish even when the day goes sideways.

If you’re a builder, you build.

If you’re an entrepreneur, you look for opportunity.

If you’re somebody who gets knocked down and comes back swinging, eventually adversity stops being evidence that you’re losing.

It becomes part of the job.

That’s powerful.

You Don’t Become Something Overnight

I’ve spent a lot of my life thinking about reinvention.

Business.

Money.

Cars.

Content.

Relationships.

Failure.

Starting over.

Building again.

And one thing I’ve learned is that changing your circumstances isn’t always enough.

You can move to another state.

Start another company.

Make more money.

Lose everything.

Get it back.

Buy the car.

Sell the house.

Change your surroundings completely.

But wherever you go, you still bring yourself with you.

That’s why the internal work matters.

You have to become comfortable seeing yourself as the person capable of living the life you’re trying to build.

Not pretending.

Not standing in front of a mirror chanting bullshit you don’t believe.

I’m talking about proving it to yourself through action.

One day at a time.

One promise kept.

One workout.

One phone call.

One video.

One deal.

One uncomfortable decision.

One day where everything goes wrong and you still get something productive done.

Those little actions start producing evidence.

And eventually the evidence changes the picture.

Maybe That’s Why I Never Finished It

I don’t even remember exactly why I stopped reading Psycho-Cybernetics.

Life probably happened.

Something came up.

Another book landed on the nightstand.

Maybe I thought I’d come back to it.

I never did.

But here’s what’s interesting.

I’m still thinking about it.

There are books I’ve read cover to cover that I couldn’t explain to you today.

Then there’s this one.

Didn’t finish it.

Still remember the lesson.

That tells me something about books—and probably about life.

Completion isn’t always the same thing as impact.

We become obsessed with finishing things.

Finish the book.

Finish the course.

Get the certificate.

Check the box.

Move to the next thing.

But maybe the better question is:

Did anything change?

Did you think differently?

Did you behave differently?

Did something stick?

Because if I read 100 pages of a book and one idea stays with me for decades, I’d argue I got more from those 100 pages than somebody who blasted through the whole thing and forgot it a week later.

The Person in Your Head Goes Everywhere You Go

That’s the lesson I carried away.

Before you can consistently build a different life, you eventually have to see yourself differently.

And you can’t fake that forever.

You build that new self-image with receipts.

Want to believe you’re disciplined?

Do disciplined things.

Want to believe you’re a businessman?

Do business.

Want to believe you’re a creator?

Create.

Want to believe you’re capable of rebuilding?

Start rebuilding.

Don’t wait until you feel like that person.

Give yourself enough evidence that eventually you can’t deny that you are that person.

Maybe someday I’ll pick up Psycho-Cybernetics again and finally finish it.

I probably should.

But after all these years, the unfinished copy taught me something beyond what was printed on its pages:

You don’t have to finish every book for a book to change you.

Sometimes you only need one idea at exactly the right time.

And sometimes that idea follows you for the rest of your life.

Stack daily wins.

— Nicholas Francis
Modern Day Dealer