E18 The Unseen Battles of Achieving Success and the Role of Belief

Have you ever felt an inexplicable pull towards something greater, yet struggled to find its place in your life? Walk with me, Nico Van de Venne, as we journey through the landscape of faith and fulfilment, traversing beyond the boundaries of organized religion into the realm of personal belief. This episode isn't just about faith; it's a deep dive into how belief, stripped of dogma, can illuminate every corner of our existence—be it in parenting, leading, or simply everyday living.

Success isn't always wrapped in a bow; sometimes, it's a boxing match with our emotions. We share intimate reflections on the rollercoaster ride of high achievement and the after-effects that can catapult us into unexpected states of being. From the enduring thrill of victory to the more nuanced, sobering chapters that follow, we uncover how faith and self-belief are paramount in reaching the summit and cherishing the climb and the evolution it ignites within us.

Lastly, imagine the courage to step from the shadows of a logistics worker into the entrepreneurial spotlight. Through the lens of Jamie Kern Lima's "Believe IT," we celebrate the power of self-belief in catapulting our professional ventures forward. We also dissect the Secret Prayer technique, demonstrating how faith and visualization intertwine to transform desires into reality. So, let's embrace our inner rhythm and dance to the beat of self-belief, faith, and action.

Transcript

Nico Van de Venne: 0:03

Let me invite you to sit back, drop your jaw, tongue and shoulders, take a deep breath and, if you wish, close your eyes for a moment and feel the beat within. In a few seconds, you just jumped from your head to your heart and you felt the beat within, opening up to receive even more value and fulfillment out of your business and life. And today's episode? I'm your host, nico van de Venne, confidant to successful CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs striving to achieve everlasting fulfillment. Welcome to the Everlasting Podcast with today's subject on faith. Today, I want to talk to you about faith, and I am not only talking about the religious kind of faith. I am talking to you about the belief system that is very well known to humanity. Now let me start off by us know a dogma-oriented belief system, which is a system whereby certain rules and regulations are prepared for the persons who believe what is written or what is said.

Nico Van de Venne: 2:12

I've gone through a very long period of of discovery for myself. I am catholic, christ born, I was baptized, I did my first communion, my second communion, I married my beautiful partner for church and I have a form of belief in an old idea that was created. So can I call myself a catholic or a christian. Even now. It's all dependent on perspective, on perspective. So for me, there is a power out there, within, without around us, that has a certain impact on us. It is either creation or elimination, or challenge or lessons to be learned many different things. Now I've spent my time in the most known religious books and there is always kind of a wire, a red wire, going through everything, and one of the things that I've noticed is that there's either a person that others look up to or have in their meditations we can call them prayers, we can call them different things and they expect that person to give them something back. Can be a physical entity or a non-physical entity. So that's that's where I um look at as religion dogma, etc.

Nico Van de Venne: 4:26

There's another story where there is no dogma, where there is no rules, there is no clearly defined path of how things are happening or should happen or have happened. Things are happening or should happen or have happened, and that's what I call more and more freedom of faith. So one of the one of the things that I wanted to discuss today is is how can we use this, this form of faith that is not religion, that is not dogma. How can we use this form of faith as a guide to feel a lot more fulfilled on our path as a parent, as a employee, as a leader, as a politician whatever might be your daily occupation and your occupation in your free time. Where I can talk about my own experience is I have been in several societies who have certain roots in the past that would relate, related much more to a dogma-oriented religious organization, and they have formed a completely different way of looking at at the universe and what happens in the universe. And in honesty, it might sound a little fluffy and a little bit inconcrete what I'm talking about, but I think most of us do know that there is some things that we cannot explain, some things that we cannot explain.

Nico Van de Venne: 6:27

I recently had a conversation with one of my guests about his podcast, which was called that sounds terrifying where he interviews people about the paranormal, and one of the things I discussed in that episode and it was lost really recently is that there's a lot of things that we cannot explain, but it is always good to have a story told that can help or can give us insights into something that we cannot explain, and as humans, we love to explain things, we love to find reasons or find an explanation for anything. Just the other day, I wasn't feeling well and I was a little bit overwhelmed with the steps I've been taking recently the amount of time I've been spending on this podcast, for instance, which I enjoy very much, been spending on this podcast, for instance, which, which I enjoy very much um, and the amount of people that I've been talking to, um, and how many appointments I still have, etc. Etc. And what um, what kind of came up was the, the doubt and all the uncertainties of what is going to happen, and so on, and it came down back to to believing that it is growing and it is. It is inspiring and helping others understand how to be, helping others understand how to be more perceptive to or not only perceptive, but accepting to fulfillment, instead of just going for the peak of the mountain or the gold medal or that high position or high achievement position, and enjoy the path along the way instead of only that destination. Because, in all honesty and I've I've mentioned this several times to people that I that I've talked to in the green room and they ask me what exactly do you do?

Nico Van de Venne: 8:37

I work, um, work with people who are on their way or have been at the top, who have been successful or are really close to becoming extremely successful. And what I've noticed and this is my own experience when you come to a point where you've been striving for years, it can go three ways. It can go towards being completely and utterly ecstatic and enjoying it and and you know, finding all the accolades and all the surrounding things compared to an olympics medalist they get the gold and they are enjoying their, their first place, and they're really enjoying it for a while, for for quite a while. So that's one way of that it can go, and that's that's dependent on your character or who you are. And then another way that it can go is they feel an enormous amount of joy at the moment that they receive either the accolades or the title or the gold medal or anything that can relate to being at the top of their success. Um, and then after that, they fade into a gray area or even a dark area. And the third way that I could go is and it's probably probably more, but these are the the ways that I've I've learned about and that's the ones that I focus on improving for those people.

Nico Van de Venne: 10:10

The third way is that they come to a point where they get the accolades, they get the gold medal, they get really at the top of their success and they're just happy, it's over. They really are just happy it's over, it's done, they've worked for it, it's there, now it's done. They enjoy it for a second and then say, finally, finally, I can let go of the striving, of the growing of every step I needed to make. And either they go into a very dark or gray or dark area or they come to a point where they just say, okay, so I've done it, I've done it and that's it. And now, now I'm off to to doing something completely different. I'm going to pick up something that I enjoy. Uh say, for instance, somebody who's become a high achieving leader just says you, I've earned my accolades, I've made my success. They have a couple of million and they say I'm going to learn the piano and I'm going to be a pianist from now on and maybe even play in a jazz club somewhere in a dark corner, to just enjoy what they really love.

Nico Van de Venne: 11:26

So it can go a lot of different ways and one of the approaches that helps in in enjoying the path is is understanding faith and understanding the belief in oneself in the possibilities and and what can go further than just what you see right in front of you. So when I ask these questions to um, to my customers, or ask them in the past, what are you, what are you really looking at and how are you experiencing it and how does it make you feel as a person? How can you find a way to retrieve all those different steps and look at the opportunities that you've faced or received, or sorry challenges that you faced, or the opportunities that you received, and really look at them as learning points, as breakthroughs or difficult times that have helped you become the person that you are, and use that as as a belief system? Because, for myself, I've been, I've been been very successful in in my whole career and and funny thing is, I've only realized that last couple years, um, I have never had to be out of a job more than maybe a couple of weeks, and usually it was deliberate. The time that I was out of a job was mostly the time that I said you know, let me take a break.

Nico Van de Venne: 13:16

Or I climbed the ladder from being a mere logistical worker and I mean really, I was in a big company moving boxes. That was my first job moving boxes, cleaning out racks, cleaning out or counting the inventory. And my last job as an employee, I was senior project manager, complex environments at IBM. I got the project that nobody else wanted. The customers that were very disappointed or very angry or had a very complex story where they were trying to exit or were moving an enormous amount of data from one country to another and nobody within the company wanted it to happen. So there was a lot of politics and a lot of difficult situations, which made it very interesting to experience those steps.

Nico Van de Venne: 14:32

And then finally, I jumped into the final destination of being an entrepreneur, being completely independent. I have no boss within my company above me. The only bosses I have are my customers and they're not even my bosses, because I actually choose my customers. I choose to work for them. I'm very selective for whom I work or with whom I work. Let's put it that way. Way, and why have I become? Why have I come to this point? That is because I have. I received the opportunity and insight about faith and my personal faith. So I got a, I got a book here. That's that kind of also supports why I was able to create such a belief system in myself and in what I do, and I hope that you might be triggered by it as well.

Nico Van de Venne: 15:29

And it's a book about self-worth. Um, funny thing is, I've been building a long time on on realizing what self-worth is and this book has only come out this year. And it has been, I could call it. I could have written this book for a part not the stories of the person who wrote it or or or any of her customers or any of her experiences, but more about the, the theoretical side of it and and the insights that she, she, also receives. And and this is a book about, from, from jamie kern lima, called um, called worthy. It's a bit special, you know. It's got a very shiny cover, um, and she has. She has an amazing way of writing down what I've been experiencing in the last couple of years, where believing in yourself and not being um.

Nico Van de Venne: 16:27

It's not about being macho or saying that I'm all knowing or anything like that. No, it's. It's about the basic, simple thing of saying I truly believe in myself. And all these years, while I've, I've been stepping up the ladder towards becoming a very important and very wanted person within a company. The day I resigned, my boss was telling me he was putting me up for another promotion. So I was evolving within that company, but the work was no longer attractive to me. So that's the moment I started about leadership and to spread my experiences dealing with negotiations and difficult situations and highly confidential stories and conflicts between high-level executives that were secret and could have affected a lot of financial stories and so on, and how I treated those and how I used my skills to you know, get, get stability going on. So that's that's.

Nico Van de Venne: 17:52

One of the things that I've learned is that I have grown. I have been the person that's always grown by learning, by having an open mind, by evolving towards the next solution, by being the person that I am, just simply by being the person that I am, just simply by being the person that I am. And it took me a long time to realize that it was between brackets, really seriously that simple, that I am who I am and that I believe in who I am, and that I believe that I have a serious impact on each person that I meet. And even if it's a slight impact, it's still an impact and you also will have impact on all the, all the people that you meet in a certain way, how you believe. But how you believe, how you have your own beliefs and how you have faith in your own capabilities and steps and who you are does have an impact on others.

Nico Van de Venne: 18:54

So look at your life or your career and try to notice how you made all those different steps to the point where you are right now. Because you might not have all the things that you think you wanted, because it's usually what you think you want, or somebody else has given you an indication of what you should need or what you should have. But think about what you have right now, what you don't have yet, and compare the reality of what you actually you yourself really want, and you will find at some point that it is believing in yourself. That is the most important thing, because everything that is outside is first of all, comes from the inside, and if the inside knows and it trusts what's happening, the outside will change. It's like if I ask you for the coming two weeks, do not search or do not look for, or you will never notice a red Ferrari. I guarantee you in a couple of coming days you will notice a red Ferrari. It's how we change our perspective.

Nico Van de Venne: 20:21

If you stop believing in yourself, if you have more self-worth, and if you take those steps to reflect on that, it will have a major impact, just by the form of belief that you have with yourself. Now, with faith, there is also a little thing called ego, and ego is Latin for I, it's for the self, and ego is a voice within your head, or a form of communication within your head, because not everybody thinks with a, with a voice in their head. That's something that I've learned, uh, years ago. I have an actual thinking voice in my head and I have a visual, visual, um thinking method as well, um, so apparently that's not that common. Just to remind you, it also entails that sometimes you need a prayer, and I'm not talking about saying grace or, you know, looking up Quran or Bible or the Bhagavad Gita or the Zohar or the Qibbalion, in whatever stream of religion that you might have grown up into.

Nico Van de Venne: 21:54

I'm not talking about those kind of prayers. I'm talking about prayers that praise yourself, your self-worth, your self-belief, your self-worth, your self-belief, and these last years, I've been using a form of prayer that has three, three very clear steps in them, and you'll probably notice if I explain those three steps, um, that they are. They are actually things that are discussed these days and, um, yeah, there's just something. It's the things you'll. You'll notice what, what I, what I mean. So when you write down the this prayer and you start creating it yourself, the first, the first part of a prayer is is pure, unlimited gratitude gratitude for everything that you have, that you are, that you, um, that surrounds you, that's maybe out there that you even don't know. So I have a saying called thank you, thank you, thank you for all I see and I do not see that supports me.

Nico Van de Venne: 23:05

This comes from a book from Joe Vitale. Joe Vitale is known for At Zero and a lot of different books that are to me. They're very interesting to read. Um, there are very, very interesting, uh, concepts within them, um, that can, can help you in your leadership or in your, your day-to-day task, even as a parent or as a, as um, as a partner or, uh, in any in any way. And so that's the first step being grateful. Grateful for everything that you have, everything that you are and that surrounds you, and the things that you do not see. Like I said in the beginning of the of the episode, there are things that we see and the things that we do not see. The spectrum of the human visual possibility is limited. You know there's a light frequency that we can see and outside of that light frequency we cannot see. You know there's other things. Cats and dogs see other lights, flies and bees and so on see even more other lights. So just the science is very solid there, and then the science is is very solid there, and then the, the second part is um, actually that's where you create your ideal world. So, like I said earlier, there are things that you, you are striving for, that you still don't have. Well, in the second part, really actually describe in. And this is this is this is the difficult part, because you have to really jump into this.

Nico Van de Venne: 24:46

You will write this as if it has already happened, and I'm not saying in the present tense, I'm saying in the past tense, as if you are writing down a memory. So say, for instance, I dream of having a I don't know a walking desk. You know one of those walking desks where you have a treadmill beneath it and you can continue working. I want one of those, and maybe I don't have the budget for it. Well then, I will write that part of the prayer, as if I've experienced using a device like that and it's it's pretty simple to do in. In essence, if you just put your mind to it, it's as if you are experiencing the walking on the treadmill and working at the desk.

Nico Van de Venne: 25:43

If you're listening to this podcast, you know you might be driving in a car or you might be running or you might be in the office or whatever. But some of some experiences you already have and you want to add to that experience. So why not experience it? And even if you're not sure, you can even go somewhere and experience it. For instance, when I wanted to buy my car, I had a whole discussion about this with my partner about which car should I get.

Nico Van de Venne: 26:16

When I started the business, I wanted to see what car I wanted and so on. So I went for I was thinking about getting a Tesla 3, because those were very, very hyped cars and you know, fiscally stuff and so on. It was very interesting and at some point she asked me so how do you want to feel in that car? What do you want to feel in that car? What do you want to feel in the car? How do you want to experience sitting in a good car and I had a certain vision of it because I used to have a car that I loved driving. I had to let it go because the company was was bought by another company and you know we all switched cars so.

Nico Van de Venne: 26:57

So I went to a Tesla shop and sat in one of the Teslas and experienced sitting in the car I didn't even drive it yet, but just sitting in the car. I was looking around and was like this is not what I want. There was a conflict of the feeling and then I went off and I went off to another garage, which is a Toyota garage, and I saw one of their high-end cars. And I went off to another garage was that which is a Toyota garage, and I saw one of their high-end cars and I said, okay, let me go and sit in one of those cars. And I drove that one and it was like, yeah, this is the feeling I want. This is the feeling I want. I I always dreamt of having a Merc. You know nice cars and very good experience, long lasting, etc. But that Toyota gave me exactly the feeling that I wanted in the car and the sense of how it drove and how the reaction and so on. So that whole experience was what I wanted, and it was a long time before I actually ordered it.

Nico Van de Venne: 28:01

So I searched for the feeling and then what I did was, I clearly said in my mind this is the experience I've had. So I had the experience. That's the advantage I had at that point. So I described that experience very detailed, so how it went into corners, how I was able to turn on the automatic distance system towards other cars and stuff like that. I described it really in detail.

Nico Van de Venne: 28:26

That's what you do in the second part, and the second part is really something that you would really want and keep focusing on that until you get it. That's a key there. And then the third part of that, of that prayer and and as you listen right now, it's not really a prayer as everybody knows it, it's not something that you go to a higher power or a certain entity or a person or whatever, asking for something. No, you are generalizing. You, you are thankful, you are describing what you would want, and then the third part is confirming that it is already there and that you are grateful that it's already there and you release it. You just say I know that's there, I know I will get it when I will be able to get it when it's the right time, and I'm grateful Period, and that's the right time and I'm grateful Period. And that's the three steps, and that's the text that I write. It could sometimes be long, but it could be very short. You could actually make the three sentences. You say thank you, you say the experience I had with X was beautiful, and then I will have that experience again. Thank you, boom, that's it.

Nico Van de Venne: 29:40

So the Secret Prayer is the book that Joe Vitale Three Step Formula for Attracting Miracles. This is his book. It's very interesting at that level to go through and understand how you could strengthen the faith within yourself by doing this, because you kind of change your perspective on the world, you become a little bit more grateful for what you have and you might even experience the fact that, um, that middle part of the tree you're, that you might even change it. You know, you're gonna find out what you you really really want. And this also helped me on my journeys not my destinations, my journeys. I had the opportunity, by changing these, these wants into a completely different thing that eventually came out and and was what I really wanted, like not a tesla but a toyota, um, so yeah, um, and that's one of the things that I wanted to contribute to today is how faith and believing it's the belief part in the faith part, and it's not about if you want to go into religious stories, go right ahead. I am not talking about that in this case.

Nico Van de Venne: 31:12

But as a leader, as an entrepreneur, it is very important that you believe in what you do and that you believe in the impact that you make and that you are to the world, in whichever form you are, and that at some point, you realize that it is how you step out every day.

Nico Van de Venne: 31:40

That's important, and not how you finalize everything that you've done. It's important to finalize things Absolutely. Get a go for the gold medal, go for the CEO position, but make it more than that position. Make it because you believe in yourself. So that's what I wanted to to talk to you today. So I want to thank you for listening to to the podcast today about faith, and it's it about your faith, your personal faith, believing in yourself and the path that you're taking. So I want to invite you to check out my new website, nicovondofendercom, and you can find all the podcast episodes on that site and you can find the one that I have had with Nick on his podcast, which also has a couple of very interesting parts of the conversation. And, more than anything, I would love to thank you again to listen today and remember to jump from head to heart and keep feeling the beat within. Have a good one, bye.