Episode 679 · Jun 5, 2023

How to Change Your Reality by Choosing Your Perspective

Listen

George Wright III, host of The Daily Mastermind, dedicated this episode to one of the most practical ideas he took away from a keynote by bestselling author Robert Greene at a mastermind event. Greene, who wrote The 48 Laws of Power and The 50th Law (co-authored with 50 Cent), spoke about the nature of reality and how your perception of it shapes everything. George broke down those ideas with a simple, memorable illustration that could change the way you face every obstacle in your path.

The core message is this: reality is not a fixed thing. It is a perception, a perspective you choose. And the sooner you accept that, the more power you have over your own life.

The Creek Metaphor: Four People, One Obstacle

Imagine you set out on a hike through a beautiful meadow. In the distance, you can see a hill with a breathtaking view. You are excited. The day is warm, the birds are singing, and you are moving with purpose.

Then you reach a creek.

Four different people arrive at that same creek on the same day, with the same destination in mind. What happens next reveals everything about how each person perceives reality.

The first person spots the meadow on the other side, locks onto the goal, and jumps in. They stumble, get soaked, and laugh it off. They reach the hill and have the experience they came for.

The second person crosses carefully, noticing every slippery rock. They make it across, but they spend the entire time on the hill thinking about the creek they will have to cross again on the way home. They arrive at the view but never fully enjoy it.

The third person focuses entirely on the creek. The rocks look slippery, the water looks cold, and fear takes over. They get halfway across, fall in, and retreat. Their day is ruined by something they were never truly stopped by.

The fourth person does not even try. They are angry at the creek, angry it was not mentioned, and they start looking for reasons the view probably was not worth it anyway. They go home having talked themselves out of an experience they actually wanted.

Same creek. Same path. Same view waiting at the end. Four completely different realities.

Why Your Brain Fights This

The human brain craves order and certainty. Chaos is uncomfortable, and the world right now offers plenty of it. When circumstances feel unstable, the brain defaults to focusing on obstacles rather than destinations. That is not a weakness; it is wiring. But you are not required to stay wired that way.

The question George poses is worth sitting with: which person at the creek are you? Do you leap forward with momentum? Do you move forward but carry the worry with you? Do you hesitate until fear wins? Or do you retreat before you even begin?

Most people toggle between all four depending on the day, the situation, and how much mental energy they have. Awareness of which pattern you are in is the first step toward choosing a different one.

Perspective Is a Choice You Make Actively

George points to a simple example: two fans at the same football game watching the same touchdown. One is devastated; one is ecstatic. The event is identical. The experience is completely different. Reality, in any meaningful sense, is the story you tell about what you see.

As Wayne Dyer put it, and George quotes him directly:

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

That is not a platitude. It is a description of how perception actually works. The facts of a situation are one thing. What you do with them is another.

Attitude as the Lens You See Through

George closes with an analogy he plans to develop further: attitude is like the aperture of a camera. Narrow the aperture and you zoom in on the problem, making it larger and more menacing. Open it up and you see the wider scene, with context, with options, with space to move.

Your attitude is not a personality trait you were born with. It is a lens you can adjust. Fearful attention shrinks your reality. Open attention expands it.

The follow-up conversation George promises is about two specific attitudes: fearless versus fearful. Both are choices. One serves you; one does not.

Action Steps

Identify which of the four creek personalities you default to when you hit an obstacle. Be honest with yourself.
When you face a challenge today, deliberately shift your focus from the obstacle to the destination. Ask: what am I actually trying to reach?
Practice the aperture shift: when anxiety narrows your focus, consciously try to widen your view. What context are you missing?
Recall Wayne Dyer's words when you notice your perception narrowing: when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
Choose one area of your life where your current reality is defined by fear or frustration, and commit to reframing it with active daily steps.

You cannot always control what creek appears in your path, but you can control where your eyes go when you see it. Your reality is built from what you choose to focus on. It is never too late to start living the life you were meant to live.

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT

Welcome back to The Daily Mastermind. George Wright III here with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. So I hope you're having a great week. Today I wanted to kind of follow up on a conversation I had with you earlier in the week about a mastermind event I had the privilege of going to called the Arate Syndicate. And at that event there were some amazing speakers and And one of those speakers was Robert Greene. He's a, I believe it's a six-time bestseller, international bestselling author. He wrote The 48 Laws of Power as well as several other books. He also wrote The 50th Law, which is the book he did with 50 Cent, the rapper. And pretty interesting background. He has an amazing background, but he has some great concepts and principles. And he talked about specifically reality and your perception and perspective of reality. And so I wanted to talk with you about a few notes I took on this subject and some ideas that might inspire you and help you to gain some perspective. And why is it so appropriate? Well, what is your definition of reality? Reality can be so many different things, but at the end of the day, reality is just your perception or perspective of how you see things. and it's really interesting right now with the world in so many you know different chaotic states that I think that focusing on what your reality and your perspective perception is is super super important so what I want to do is I want to give you an illustration that he did that I thought was a really good way to really analyze and look at reality so what I want you to do is I want you to take a trip with me and just kind of imagine or visualize you can close your eyes as long as you're not driving. But imagine with me that we're going on a little hike. And we're going on this little trip because we know that if we go through this beautiful meadow, we're going to find this cliff or this hill that we can have that has an amazing view. And you've heard about it. You've heard that this is the most amazing view. And you just can't wait to check it out. So you get up one day and it's gorgeous outside And you start walking down this path And you walking down the path and you kind and I hear the birds chirping and the sun shining It definitely a warm day out And all of a sudden you come to this creek And this creek is kind of an obstacle in the way between you and the meadow the hill you looking for In fact, you can see it in the distance. And you come to this creek, and all of a sudden, you're faced with a choice. And let's imagine that there are four different people that have come to this creek, and they all respond to it differently. so the first person the first person notices on the other side of the creek they see the hill and they see the meadow and they see where they're going and they're like wow this is gonna be great and they see this destination and they're so anxious to get there that they just jump into the creek they they they jump in they stumble through it and the momentum of them going just simply carries them through and they get to the other side they're all wet and they kind of like you know shake off and they're just laughing and like man I can't believe I just did that and but they just continue on and they go to the hill and they have this amazing experience. Then there's a second person. The second person and maybe some of you are like this. The second person gets to the creek and they're a little more cautious. Now they see the meadow and the hill that they're going for in the distance but they're focused on the rocks. I mean they're starting to think wait a minute these look a little slippery and so they're really cautious but they still cross the creek and they almost slip a couple of times but the bottom line is they get across very cautiously and they continue on but they're already focused on that creek that they're going to have to go back through on the way home and instead of really enjoying the meadow and the hill they're like man i i'm gonna have to go back through that thing i might fall i might slip and they're thinking about that the whole time and missing out on the experience the third person the third person one it's it's it's sort of a different different mindset right they want across the creek but they're more fearful they're much more fearful they they see they they don't really see on the other side of the creek all they see is the creek and they focus on the rocks and the moss and how they look real slippery and you know they're just they're just they're not sure they're really fearful and so they're halfway across and they and they kind of hesitate and they fall into the water And they immediately get up and go backwards and get out of the creek and their day is just ruined They just so upset that the creek was there and that it ruined their trip and nobody mentioned that when they were going to go on this trip in the first place. And then there's the fourth person. The fourth person comes to that creek and they are just pissed. Like they're angry that nature would even put it there, that nobody even told them about it in the first place. They kind of notice that there's maybe some clouds in the distance and they start to rationalize. You know what? Maybe this isn't such a great idea. I don't really want to go anyway. You know, how good could the view really be? And so they come up with tons of excuses and they just turn around and they're just angry and upset and they go back. So here's the thing that I want you to think about. Same exact reality, same obstacle, same objective and goal, and same reward at the end of this beautiful view and this on this path, but completely different vision and completely different focus of how they see the reality. There are four different versions of reality. And so what's the point of this? The point of this is we're living in some really crazy times and marketplace, and it's probably always the case, but more so than lately, especially with the COVID and things that we've had over the last couple of years. It's unprecedented, right? But the human brain doesn't really handle chaos very well. Like we hate that. We crave order. We want to have certainty, even though deep down, if you really think about it, we need to have some level of uncertainty in our life. And so the question becomes, how are you dealing with your reality? How are you dealing with life? How do you handle the circumstances in your life and your perception? How do you look at things? How do you look at every situation? Are you choosing to look at it a certain way? Do you choose to perceive and handle the situations in a productive way or an unproductive way? Or are you just not even thinking about it? Do you leap across obstacles in your life with energy and focus on what your goal is? Or are you cautious and calculating and you're moving forward, but you just can't help but focus on problems as well? Or are you overthinking and hesitant? Or maybe you're just simply afraid and you retreat Probably not most people that are listening to this podcast that are trying to But you know sometimes in our life we do that The bottom line is this You can choose how you perceive your reality I mentioned this many many times on the podcast. People go to a football game and they both see the exact same thing happen, but they have a completely different reaction to someone scoring a touchdown. It might be really bad. It might be really good. The bottom line is you can choose how you handle and how you view the situation. Your reality is based on what you choose your reality to be. And the sooner that you can decide this, the better off you'll be. The bottom line is this. You have to decide that you're going to focus on creating your reality. And second, you have to take active steps in it every day. And tomorrow, what I want to do, we're kind of out of time today. I want to finish up some thoughts. And he gave some great strategies and some great tips on how you can deal with this. And we're going to talk a little bit about attitude because attitude is the lens you look through to view your life and circumstances. It's kind of like attitude is like the aperture of a camera, right? You can focus in and you can narrow down into the problems and be more afraid or you can focus out. You can change the aperture on a camera to focus out so that you open it up and you see everything around you and you get more perspective. Like Wayne Dyer says, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. so those are the thoughts that I have for you today what I'd like you to do is join me tomorrow we'll talk about attitude and we'll talk about the two attitudes you need to have being fearless or fearful right and which one are you and and we'll let that a little bit more but I hope that today you'll take into account in your life your reality your perception of reality and really start to focus in on how you see things and change the way you look at things that's my message for today do me a favor if it's your first time listening hit like and subscribe so you don't miss any episodes and then also share this podcast with at least somebody that you know we don't do any ads on the show right now and don't plan to and so the only way we can really get exposure is for you to share the show so if you'll share the show that would mean a lot to me and I think it'll mean a lot to someone else that might need it in their life and that's message for today have an amazing day and I'll talk with you tomorrow Thank you.

About the host

George Wright III

George Wright III is an entrepreneur, investor, and the host of The Daily Mastermind. Over more than two decades he has founded and scaled several multimillion-dollar companies and built a renowned seminar business that put some of the world's biggest names and brands on stage. With 25+ years across marketing, sales, and executive leadership, he's made a career of turning bold ideas into results — and momentum into lasting growth.

Today his mission is singular: empower driven entrepreneurs everywhere to master their mindset, unlock their potential, and live their ultimate destiny. Through The Daily Mastermind, George shares the Prosperity Principles and strategies that help people create massive change — in their business and in their life.

MORE ABOUT GEORGE→