Insight is not about adding energy. It’s about releasing it. ActivInsight helps you find the parts of your mind that are stuck or contracted and releases that energy so that you can move faster and go farther. You can build your business, get in shape, or find a new job, but with no sense of extra effort.

I like comparing this to sunlight. With motivation, you’re trying to add more sun to your life. With ActivInsight, you’re just learning to remove clouds. The sun is already there. It’s strong enough. It has plenty of energy. Let’s just get the clouds out of the way.

A: I get variations of this question from time to time, mostly from smart, skeptical people who haven’t yet sincerely tried ActivInsight for themselves. Let me answer it with a true story (drawn from the Wall St. Journal).

In early 2000, Bill Gates handed control of Microsoft over to Steve Ballmer. Gates was getting ready to focus on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but he wasn’t gone yet. In the meantime, he didn’t like the strategic direction that Ballmer was heading in. So, during executive committee meetings, Gates would make sarcastic remarks, undercutting the new CEO. They even got into shouting matches, with Gates storming out of the meetings.

The struggle lasted month after month, until an entire year had passed, with board members, executives, and even Gates’ and Ballmer’s wives having tried unsuccessfully to get them to patch things up. Microsoft lost significant ground strategically during the impasse, but nothing would heal the rift.

And then one day, Gates realized that he shouldn’t be in control of the company’s direction anymore because the truth was that he had handed over the reins. And in that moment, everything changed. The two established a clearer understanding of their responsibilities. Gates stopped making negative comments, and started sincerely deferring to Ballmer on important decisions.

People who know how to do ActivInsight will easily spot the belief in the paragraph above (“I should still be in control of the company’s direction”) and the negation. What would have happened if, instead of telling Bill Gates to think differently (and strengthening his defensiveness as a result), the people around him had coached him to challenge his own belief? With the right coaching, he would have been given a framework to get to that insight much, much faster. And the company wouldn’t have wasted more than a year spinning its wheels when they desperately needed to be moving forward.

I know that it can sound simplistic to say that exploring the flipside of your beliefs leads to real insight, but that’s exactly what happens whenever we actually do have an insight. We see that we were fundamentally mistaken, and through that realization, everything shifts. Every insight you have ever had has worked this way. It recategorized your belief from true to false. This tends to happen passively, as it did with Mr. Gates, because we don’t know how to make it happen actively, and because in the meantime we resist seeing something other than what we believe. We think we’re right.

But if we experience frustration or anger, we’re not right. Something is off in our thinking and we just don’t know it yet. ActivInsight gives us a fast way to identify, test, and invalidate these beliefs so that we can return to sanity much sooner. Doing that, once you know how, is simple… but not necessarily easy.

When I explain that stress doesn’t come from traffic jams—it comes from your thoughts about traffic jams—they typically agree.

When I explain that stress doesn’t come from moving, or getting divorced—it comes from your thoughts about moving, or getting divorced—they typically agree.

Stress doesn’t just happen. You don’t find yourself walking along, having a great time, and then spontaneously and for no reason at all, you get angry or upset. Your emotions happen because of something you are thinking about.

And yet it’s often the case that, upon hearing how emotions work, someone will say, “But what about ___________,” and then they insert their extreme circumstance of choice: sexual abuse, death of a loved one, cancer, genocide, warfare. Doesn’t THAT come directly from the experience itself? Isn’t THAT a completely different category of stress?

You tell me. In all of human experience, has there ever been someone who faced those circumstances and didn’t forever carry it as a heavy burden? Has there ever been a child with terminal cancer who remained happy, even if he or she was still dying? Has there ever been a prisoner of war who didn’t find the experience permanently traumatizing? Is it possible to survive genocide and, without condoning it, see it as an opportunity to find deeper meaning as a human being?

We don’t want to answer this question honestly because it exposes the myth that we believe in, and that exposure can lead to more accountability than some of us are ready for. It seems so much easier (and far more popular) to continue as a victim. But is it really easier?

People may always ask me “But what about…?” I think it’s a question worth really asking, and answering.

You want to run faster.

Instead of trying to increase your speed (with motivation, positive thinking, etc.), decrease the resistance.

What are you carrying that slows you down? What should be different in your life? What’s wrong with your world? Write it down: “_________________ should/n’t _______________________” and use the ActivInsight worksheet to challenge it.

Performance is an effect of behaviors, which are influenced by your emotions, which stem from your thoughts, which reflect your underlying beliefs.

You can’t let go of your burdens, but you don’t have to carry them either.

Two weeks ago I attended a presentation given by a famous behavioral coach. During the session, he suggested that when we feel angry or upset about something, we should just take a deep breath, exhale, and let the issue go. Life is too short, he said, to get caught up in negative emotions.

There are many “letting go” exercises—taking cleansing breaths, writing down notes and burning them, or casting them out to sea. They sound so simple and appealing. And deep breathing can relax our bodies, which in turn calms the surface of our minds, which feels good. But let’s take a closer look at how negative beliefs stick around. Find a negative belief you have about your life, such as “I should be more successful,” “I should be in better shape,” or “My significant other should be more loving” (or “I should have a significant other.”)  Make sure it’s a belief that has a charge for you. Got it? Okay, now get ready.

I want you to let it go.

Did you do it? Is the belief gone?

I doubt it. Why? If you look at your beliefs about money, sex, religion, child-rearing, social values, etc., what they all have in common is that you think that they’re true. And if you look at beliefs that other people have about money, sex, religion, etc.—beliefs that you don’t share—what they all have in common is that you think that they’re false. That’s an important clue.

Beliefs “stick” because we believe them—that’s why they’re our beliefs. And the things we don’t believe, the ones that don’t stick, we see as false. So it’s not desire, intention, emotional intelligence, self-love, readiness, or will power that determines whether or not a certain belief takes residence in our heads. It’s truth value. If you think it’s true, it stays. If you think it’s false, it goes.

What this means is that you cannot let anything go. What you can do, however, is look closer at the belief that you think is true and see if, in reality, it isn’t. The more clearly you see that it isn’t, the more the belief automatically dissolves.

But how do you do that when you know that the belief really really is true? That’s what ActivInsight is designed for. It’s a black box where you take what appear to be true beliefs on one end, send them through, and see what comes out on the other side. But you can’t just tell yourself they’re false. You have to do the experiment yourself.

There is no letting go. But there is insight. The more insights you have, the more those negative beliefs fall away.

“But what if someone puts a gun to your head? Isn’t that a stressor?” I hear this question a lot too. This past week I was in a meeting with someone (we’ll call him T) who told me a story about when he was in Cambodia during the Viet Nam war and someone put a gun to his head. T was there on a religious mission, and he says that in the moment, everything slowed down, his mind became crystal clear, and he explained to the gunman that shooting him wouldn’t solve anything, and would probably result in the gunman’s own death because of the people accompanying the mission. The gunman realized this and put the weapon away. T remarked that what was strange about it was there was no stress, only clear attention.

Does that mean that no one would experience stress in that situation? Of course not. We each have different beliefs. Some of these beliefs we have no interest in challenging. And some of them require more skill and honesty to challenge than most of us are willing to develop. But that doesn’t change the facts.

If we visit a planet of people who are all terrified of bananas, they would swear that bananas are stressors. The stress they feel is real (stress is not a myth), but that doesn’t make it true that bananas cause it. On our planet, we believe that our jobs or finances or angry bosses are stressors. That doesn’t make it true either.

There are no stressors. There are only circumstances and beliefs.

You can try to change your circumstances, but you can’t just change your beliefs. Tomorrow I’ll explain why.

At the end of last year, I was invited to train an unusual group of people in ActivInsight: the national trainers for CrossFit. What is CrossFit? Here’s a description from CrossFit.com:

CrossFit is the principal strength and conditioning program for many police academies and tactical operations teams, military special operations units, champion martial artists, and hundreds of other elite and professional athletes worldwide.

CF gyms are outfitted with pull-up bars, medicine balls, jumpropes, gymnastic rings, and kettlebells. There are no elliptical machines. There are no mirrors. The workouts are brief, highly varied, and intense. The workouts are also done for time, which means CrossFit is competitive. Good CrossFitters need to build strength, speed, stamina, flexibility, and coordination across a wide range of movements. It’s an impressive training system.

The trainers I worked with are the master trainers—the ones who compete nationally and travel the country training the local trainers in how to teach CrossFit. Some of them are sponsored (which means they are professional athletes), and many own and run their own affiliate gyms. They are the best of the best. When I first spoke with CrossFit HQ, I wondered: Would a bunch of ex- wrestlers, soldiers, and Navy Seals be willing to sit down and look at their thought processes? Or would they say that all they needed for resilience training was to “suck it up, buttercup” and do another set of kettlebell swings?

It turns out that most of the trainers loved ActivInsight and the session went very well. (One trainer had even read The Myth of Stress before.) CrossFit HQ videotaped the session and is posting clips online, which are now being seen by other people in the global CrossFit community and receiving great feedback. Just yesterday I got an email a from an Airman (USAF) in Iraq who has been watching the videos and is excited to start doing ActivInsight on his own. I’m grateful to Tony, Dave, and Nicole at CrossFit HQ for including me in the program, and to the trainers for helping to spread the word.

I briefly met Coach Greg Glassman, the founder of CrossFit, at the training. Years ago, Coach Glassman wrote a classic article asking, “What is Fitness?” If you’re interested in physical fitness, it’s worth reading for the myths it dispels. But in that article, Coach Glassman mentions mental fitness just once, saying that “Depression is clearly mitigated by diet and exercise.” This may be true, but it’s not nearly enough.

One of the trainers said she was a “headcase,” yet she is one of the fittest-looking people you’ll ever meet. There are plenty of physically fit people who are in poor mental shape. Olympic lifting and kipping pull-ups won’t help you deal with mounting bills, economic downturns, or relationship issues, and they certainly won’t dismantle the mental challenges of being a firefighter, cop, or soldier. They might give you a temporary endorphin high, but that’s not fitness. That’s escape.

For anyone truly interested in fitness, I think it’s important that you take care of your body, but also set aside time to take care of your mind—and do it with the same level of skill and discipline. For the CrossFit trainers and gym owners out there, create a space where people learn how to use their heads as well as their bodies. There are no kettlebells for your head. But there is ActivInsight.

We’ll be offering our first train-the-trainer and affiliate programs later in the year for ActivInsight coaches. I’d love to have some of the CrossFitters become part of the team.

Some people love Valentine’s Day because it’s an annual reminder to express your love. Others consider it contrived and superficial, with seemingly nothing at all to do with the Roman priest beheaded for showing kindness to Christians. I like that, one way or the other, it makes people look at the way they think about relationships. Also, it involves chocolate.

For those who are enjoying Valentine’s day with their loved one, have a great time. And for those who curse the people at Hallmark for manufacturing an international day of loneliness, it might be worth exploring whether unhappiness comes from not being in a relationship or from thinking about not being in a relationship. That insight can bring you a stronger relationship—with the truth. And in a world where finding and keeping someone special can seem hard, honesty is a powerful magnet.

That’s why people who drink too much should choose to get sober. Why bosses who micromanage should choose to trust their employees. Why people who are out of shape should choose to get their act together. Why Egyptian leaders should step down when the people they serve ask them to. We all have a choice.

We think that choice works something like this:

S + A = C

which means that we start with a Situation, we make a clear Assessment, and this leads to a wise Choice.

In reality, it looks more like this:

S + B + B + B  + B + A = C + UC

We start with a Situation, to that gets added one contracted Belief after another, followed by a confused Assessment, and this produces a poor Choice plus Unintended Consequences such as conflict or guilt.

The person who has these contracted beliefs can’t simply ignore them. The drinker drinks for a reason. The boss micromanages for a reason. The dictator dictates for a reason. Changing these behaviors may not be easy, but it’s made easier when someone recognizes not just the desirability of change but also the beliefs that produce the habit. These beliefs are a key part of what drives the choice. (It works similarly for emotions, which are also a product of beliefs, not choices.)

What does this mean? YOU don’t make choices. Choices simply happen based on whatever beliefs the mind takes to be valid. You can’t make a bad choice intentionally (go on, try), just as you can’t fool yourself into making a better choice. But if these beliefs are taken out of the equation, the math improves.

If you want to see yourself making better choices, find the stressful beliefs in your head. You can’t choose to let them go, because they don’t stick through choice. They stick because you think they’re true. So challenge them, and see if they are. Of course, they will always SEEM true. That’s why you believe them.

But are they really?

Post script: Sometimes we don’t want to challenge our beliefs, but the presence of tens of thousands of protestors and other world leaders can give us a nudge toward the truth. It’s still not a choice. It’s insight. We don’t have it until we do.