The Growth Mindset Book Podcast: Mindset Mastery Chapter by Chapter

Words, Belief, and the Game of Life

• Michael Fox • Season 2 • Episode 7

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What if every word you say is a command your life can’t help but follow? We dive into three powerful laws—vibration, expectation, and nonresistance—through the lens of Florence Scovel Shinn’s classic, and we get tactical about how language rewires belief and belief steers behavior. You’ll hear real-world examples for money, career, health, and relationships, plus simple scripts to replace “I can’t” and “I’m fine” with present-tense statements that actually move the needle.

We unpack why spoken words carry more force than thoughts alone, how repetition burns identity-level beliefs into the subconscious, and what to do when doubt tries to uproot the seeds you’ve planted. The seed metaphor becomes your anchor: plant with intention, water with consistent language, and stop digging up your progress to check if it’s working. When negative certainty—what we call inverted faith—runs the show, you get more of what you don’t want. Flip it by expecting good, even before the evidence arrives.

We also tackle the paradox of nonresistance. Forcing outcomes tightens the knot; relaxed, aligned action opens doors. From a sales story to everyday moments, you’ll see how letting go of control, while still taking the next honest step, accelerates results. By the end, you’ll leave with a repeatable practice: audit your phrases, replace them in the present tense, pair them with small aligned actions, and use gratitude to quiet doubt. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs a new script, and leave a review with the one sentence you’re committed to speaking this week.

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Over the weekend, I decided to do a little bit of studying, a little bit of reading, and I read a great book by Florence Scovelchin. It's called The Game of Life and How to Play It. When we come here to this world and we're going to school and we're being educated, while we're being taught about math and science and all these other topics, the one topic that no one really teaches us about at all is how to win the game of life. So today, what we're going to do is I'm going to review some of the key elements of that book and we'll discuss it. So we're going to be discussing three different elements which make up the fundamental laws of the game. One is the law of vibration, two is the law of expectation, and three is the law of nonresistance. We're going to get into each one of them and we're going to do one at a time. So under the law of vibration, it talks about your words create vibrations or your words create feelings that reorganize the matter around you. So what does that mean when it reorganizes the matter around us? It means that whatever we speak, we will see in our outside world. So if I say to myself, today's going to be a crappy day, I can almost be guaranteed that what will show up in my day at work, with my spouse, after work, things will show up to make it a crappy day because our words have extreme power. We are creators. We are a part of God. And when we speak, we have this incredible power. Unfortunately, what happens most of the time is we're speaking words of negativity and wondering why life isn't working the way that we want it to work. However, it is working the way that we're wanting it to work because we're speaking words that the subconscious, God, that piece of God within us, believes this is what we want because we're speaking it out loud. We're thinking about it consistently. So therefore it shows up in our world. So that law of vibration comes the way that we feel comes from the words that we speak and the thoughts that we think. So let's talk about that. The power of words and thought. Our words are commands. The subconscious mind processes millions of pieces of information per second, and it accepts every single word you pronounce is literal instructions to be executed. If we knew that, if we were taught that from the very beginning, we would be very, very careful what we would speak into existence, what we would say out loud to other people. How many times do you say the words when someone asks you, How are you doing? I don't have anything to complain about. Not bad. Just okay. I'm all right. When we speak those words, what we're telling the universe is this is what we want. When you say any variation of I can't, your subconscious immediately organizes your perception, your choices, and your actions to confirm that you're right. Let's look at that one more time. It says, when you say any variation of the word I can't, your subconscious immediately organizes your perception, choices, and actions to confirm that you are right. If someone at work asks, can you work on this project? and you say, I can't, I don't know enough to be able to do that. What you've just told your subconscious mind is that you don't know enough. But if you change those words around and you say instead, I've never done that before, but I'll figure out a way and I'll do the best that I can. You just gave a very different command to your subconscious mind. And what do you think happens if you go into that project, having said what you just said? You think you have a better likelihood of things working out? Of course you do, because you just spoke it into existence. Your words are powerful. Your words create, your words are commands. They determine what your experience in the world is going to be. So we really, it's important for us to pay attention when we're speaking. And if someone asks you a question, you don't have to answer that question right away. You can pause, you can think about it, you can say, hold on, let me just think about this for a second. And really think about the words that you want to speak when someone asks you a question. What are some of the words that you speak about money? Are they positive words or sometimes negative? If someone says to you, why don't you get a new car, what would your response be to that? Would it be, well, right now I really just don't want a car? Or would it be, I don't really have the money to do that right now? Things are a little bit tight. When I say I don't have the money for that now and things are tight, what I am guaranteeing myself is that what's going to show up in my experience is more things to be tight about money for. It doesn't mean that we should go out and buy the car if we don't have the money to do it. But our words that we can speak are I don't really want the car right now. I have other things that I'd rather get instead. That's communicating a very different message to the subconscious, to that peace of God that exists within us. And so we really have to pay attention to the words that we're speaking. It'd be very interesting if throughout your day it recorded every single word that you spoke. What do you think, if you got that transcript of your day and all the words that you spoke, what do you think would be consistent phrases that you say throughout the day? And when you saw that, you would highlight there's probably a lot of negative things that I'm saying. And you may be wondering, why am I experiencing that negativity on a consistent basis? And it's because you're speaking the words into existence. You're telling God within you, the subconscious mind that goes into action, giving you what you want. It will give you the things that you don't want if you speak things about what you don't want into the universe. So just understand that you have a ton of power with the words that you choose to speak. And by the way, it's not your fault either, because your parents, your friends, your teachers, they spoke words to you on a consistent basis. And those words became habitual phrases for you or beliefs. So if your parents always were tight with money, maybe they said something like, Money doesn't grow on trees. You better be careful, don't spend so much, you're gonna run out of money. Those words that were spoken to us, not only do they create a program inside of us, but those same words a lot of times become the words that we speak out loud. And then we wonder why not only are we having issues with money, but why are our children having issues with money? Now, it may not be money that you're negative on. Maybe you're negative about relationships, maybe you're negative about your career, maybe you're negative about your health. And isn't it interesting that probably your children are also speaking similar words that you're speaking because the words that we hear consistently get programmed into our subconscious mind and then become our program and our children's program and their children's program. And we wonder why things don't change. It's because no one discussed this process. They didn't discuss the game of life and how to play it. So we have to understand that the words that we speak are commands to the universe. They're saying, This is what I want more of. Oh, my wife, she's always nagging, she's always complaining. If I speak those words out loud, that is a command to the universe, and I can be almost guaranteed that she's gonna complain more and do more things. If I'm talking to a friend and I talk negatively about another friend and how they're always judgmental, I can almost guarantee the next time that I'm around that person, there's gonna be a lot more judgments going on. It's because our words are powerful, our words create. God created in the universe by saying, let there be light. And then there was light. He spoke those words into existence. When we speak our words, our words create. That's very important to understand. And then again, the second piece to that is again, our words are commands, but the programs, when we speak the words often, when we say them over and over, my wife is nagging me, I don't have enough money, I'm overweight, I need to lose weight. If we say those things over and over, what happens is because there's a repetition and the way that our brain works, it gets burned in, it gets burned into our brain and it becomes a program in our subconscious mind and it becomes a limiting belief. And so these beliefs that we have are often created either by someone speaking them to us or by us speaking them to ourselves over and over, then we get what happens is it forms a belief. So again, if I say to myself, I can never lose weight no matter what I do, if I say that enough times out loud, that will become a belief. And it is literally locked in and it's a belief now at this point. I don't even have to think about it. The next time someone says something about losing weight, I'll say out loud, it's very hard for me to lose weight because that is locked in. It's burned in in my brain, it is part of my subconscious mind. Here's the great news. If that's the case, then what we can do instead is we can use the words that we're speaking to create beliefs that will support us. Example, in that same case, instead of me saying it's hard for me to lose weight, he said, when I commit to doing something, I always get what I want. Therefore, if I commit to losing weight, I know I'll lose the weight. Now, if I say that and I mean it and I say it over and over and over again, eventually that will become my new belief because my words are powerful. My words create, and what they're going to create is this new association in my brain, which actually believes that that is the truth. Because the subconscious mind doesn't question whether it's true or false. It just takes it in and believes it to be the case. So whatever I say, good or bad, the subconscious is going to say, okay, Mike, I got you. I believe you. That that's going to be your reality. So if I know that this is the rule of the game, the rule is the words you speak, you speak them often enough, will become a belief, and that belief will be burnt in and it will become your way of being. Then I want to use this rule to my advantage rather than have it use me. So it moving forward, I'm going to look for opportunities to speak words of what I do want to create in the world as if I already have them in the present tense. Let's use an example. Let's say I want to start a new business. Instead of me saying out loud, I really want to start a new business, I'm going to say it in the present tense. I am starting a new business that is really successful and is going to help a lot of people. That's in the present tense. Now, if I say that enough times, based on what we've been saying, what's going to happen? It's going to be burnt in. It's going to become a belief, and the subconscious mind will look for opportunities to give you what you want. Now, something important here. The words we speak are way more powerful than the thoughts that we think. Thoughts, if we think them enough over and over and over again, they definitely have power. But think of the spoken word as our thoughts on steroids. So whatever we're saying out loud, we can be assured that we're going to get more of that in our life. So if you look at your life and you don't like the things that you're seeing, then what I would highly recommend is start changing the words that you're speaking. Even if you don't believe it at first, even if you say to yourself, that's that's nonsense. If you say it enough, eventually what will happen is it will become a belief. And once it's a belief, that will be the truth for you. All of your negative thoughts, all of your negative beliefs, I'm not good enough, I'm not smart, I'm not this, I'm not that. They got locked in either by your parents saying it to you, a friend saying it to you, a family member saying it to you, or you saying it to you. And if you say it to you enough, you're gonna have that, and that is going to rule your life. What do you think about this so far? Are our words really that powerful? Can we use our words to reprogram some of these limiting beliefs that we have inside? And is our spoken word really that much more powerful than the thoughts that we're thinking? Again, the good news there is the spoken word carries concentrated power compared to our thought alone. The vibration of us actually speaking it out loud is just way more powerful. We're putting it out into the universe. Imagine for a second that you have a genie bottle in front of you. And every single word that you speak, it's as if the genie is sitting in front of you and says to you, Michael, your wish is my command. I say, I really don't feel well today. And it may be true, there may be validity, your body doesn't feel good, but if I speak it out loud, I can be guaranteed that I'm gonna have more of the same. What I could say instead is, I woke up and I was feeling a little bit off, but I believe that throughout the day, I'm gonna start feeling better and better. Now, if the genie is sitting in front of us, our subconscious mind, and the genie doesn't necessarily care whether it's good or bad, they're just gonna give you whatever you ask for. If I say that, what do you think is gonna happen? Potentially I'll start feeling a little bit better throughout the day because that's my creation. But when you're not feeling well, what do you always do? Do you if a friend asks you or someone calls you, a parent, and you're not feeling well, what do you say out loud to them? Typically it's I don't feel really good. I feel like crap. I woke up really, I feel something coming on. And then what ends up happening after you say that? It ends up coming on and you end up feeling really bad. Our words are powerful. The problem is we've never tested it in the opposite way. When you were sick, did you ever take the opportunity to say, I woke up feeling a little bit under the weather, but I'm getting better every moment as every moment passes. We have power in our words. We have a choice. We can choose to speak the same old words that we've always spoken and continue to get the same results that we've always gotten and continue to get the same things showing up in our life, or we can say, I'm gonna do it a little bit differently. I'm going to really focus on the words that I'm speaking and what I'm gonna put out into the universe is what I want. If you use this, if you use this power, if you use these, this, this rule, this game, this rule for the game of life to your advantage, what do you think might happen? And I can tell you, I know what will happen. And I'm not just speaking it based on what I've experienced in my life, but with all the clients that I've worked with. When I first told them this, they thought, yeah, I don't know about that. I don't know how that would really work. And then what ends up happening is a few months down the road, it's working really well. And then by six months down the road, it's like night and day. They realize that I really have to focus on the words that I'm speaking because if I speak the words of what I don't want, I'm guaranteed to get more of what I don't want. So rather than doing that, I'm going to speak words of what I want in the present tense. Does this make sense? Can you see how sometimes you can use your words in a negative way? And it's not that you're even thinking about it. These are programmed responses because you've been saying them for so long. So rather than having the program run you, which it's been doing for many, many years, it's time for us to use the game to our advantage and to use these rules to help us. So that's part one. Now I want to talk about something else that's really important here. We talked about these beliefs, and we talked about the importance of beliefs and how beliefs are created, right? The beliefs are created by the words that we speak over and over again or words that were spoken to us over and over again. And the way that we reprogram those is to just speak words that we want, things that we want rather than things that we don't want. And what we'll find is if we do that enough, we're gonna reprogram. In order for us to see what we want in our life, besides speaking the words and creating these new beliefs, we have to have faith and expect that when we speak, these things will actually occur. We have to have a belief and faith. And the beauty is belief comes from speaking the same words over and over and over again. You may not believe it at first, but you will believe it after you speak it for a little while. Just keep doing it and you'll see. You will not be able to prove me wrong if you do this work. If you practice saying the same things over and over, it will become a belief. Most people walk around with what's in what's called inverted faith. And what does that mean? Most people are masters of this inverted faith. They have absolute certainty in the negative that if they don't work hard, they will experience need, or if they don't pay the bills, they will have problems. These negative certainties manifest the same precision as positive ones. So again, we've become masters at speaking about what we don't want. We just need to form a new habit of speaking the words that we do want. And just like we created this faith in these negative words, like knowing that, oh, I woke up feeling sick. So my day is going to be ruined. As long as we believe that, which we do now because we've spoken those words so many times and we've gone to the day, and then we felt worse and worse. We have belief. The belief only came from doing it over and over again, from the speaking those words over and over. Rather than having inverted faith, why not create faith based on speaking the words that we want? Not speaking programmed words. The negative beliefs that you have are programmed. They're words that you've spoken over and over and over again. And all we need to do is speak into existence the opposite. So, what is a phrase that I commonly hear? I'm not good enough to do that. Well, if we say that, we're never going to do the things that we think that we're not good enough for. But if we say to ourselves, every single day, I work and get just a little bit better, or I get 1% better every single day. Well, if you get 1% better every single day in a year, that compounds and that's a significant difference in your life. And the way to do that is just practice doing this. Practice catching yourself. Someone asks you a question, you respond with a negative or a very low neutral phrase, like, yeah, I'm okay. How are you doing, Mike? I'm okay. No, don't answer that. I'm doing really great. And the day is getting better as each moment passes. Why can't we have that? Because we don't speak it. Because instead, what we say is, hey Mike, how are you doing? I'm doing all right. I can't complain. And then this is what we experience in our day is nothing to complain about. What kind of way is that to live? Again, it's not your fault. No one ever taught you the rules. No one ever spoke about this with you. And it's time now to use these rules to our advantage, because if we don't, we'll continue to have another five, 10, 15, 20 years of the same. And the way around that, the first starting point is using words that will support us and that will create beliefs internally that will support us in getting the things that we want in our life. If you don't believe in yourself, if you don't speak positive words about yourself, there's no one else that's going to do it for you. I mean, maybe someone will say something positive to you, but you're the one who has to do the programming of yourself. Now, you can use words to help program other people. Anytime you hear someone say something negative, you correct them and say, no, Joe, you're not, you're, you're not bad at that. You just don't have as much experience as the other person. And you're going to keep practicing and you're going to get better and better. And before you know it, you're going to be really good at what you do. This is practicing using the words to get the things that we want in our life. Now, doubt, doubt is an interesting thing, right? We talked about faith. We talked about inverted faith. And I just want to hit doubt here really quick. Doubt is called the poison that kills manifestation before it's born. When we start doubting, so if I say the words out loud, my day is going to get better each and every moment. And then immediately my thoughts are consistently, that's not true. You can't do this. This stuff doesn't work. That's like taking a seed to plant in a garden. And instead of allowing it to grow, you keep pulling the seed out of the soil and looking at it. And then you put it back in the ground, you start watering it, and it's not growing. And then you pull it out and you look at it again. You put it back in the ground. If you do that, guess what's going to happen? That's the same thing as doubt. Doubt is pulling the seed out of the ground and keep looking at it and expecting that that seed will grow. What we need to do is put the seed in the ground and water it and just allow it to do its thing. So if we trust that the subconscious mind, which is in control of every system in our body, including your liver, your kidneys, your heart, every organ is functioning, you're breathing because of this amazingness that exists inside of you, the subconscious, which is a part of God, then we might as well have faith that when, since the subconscious can take care of all these incredible systems, that if I give this over to the subconscious, that I'm gonna have faith that it's gonna take care of it. I just have to keep planting the seed. I got to keep watering the seed. And the way that I water the seed is by speaking words that are affirming to what it is that I want. And also thinking the thoughts too. Instead of having the doubt, right? I want to start a new business and I speak words that say, I am starting a successful business. And then I would have that immediate thought of I've tried this in the past and it didn't work. As soon as that doubt comes up, what we can do instead, two things. We can go to gratitude and say, I'm so grateful to even have the opportunity to be able to speak positive words and think positively, right? We could be grateful. Number two is we can say, I am grateful for this incredible peace of God that exists inside of me, that's running my heart, that's causing everything to function in my body, that has created all these veins in my body where all the blood travels through and it filters out the bad from the blood and it allows me to keep functioning. If it can do that, we can have faith and we can turn over doubt and have faith to that part that's inside of us that is giving us so many amazing things, and we can be grateful for that, and that will help change the negative tone that we might have, that doubt, that inverted faith that we become so accustomed to. So rather than going down that path, let's try something different and let's do it consistently. Now, you can't plant the seed and wait three days and say, oh, it's not working, the plant isn't growing, and then pull the seed out because you start doubting. No, you just do this consistently and have faith and let the subconscious mind, the peace of God that's in you, do what it needs to do to make sure that you get the ideas, the thoughts, the people, and all the things that need to come into your life to have what you want to have happen. To have the power of your words create what it is that you want in your life. Is this making sense? Do you think you can do this? I know you can do it. I am so sure you can do it because I've watched so many people do this. I've watched people who were in complete doubt, not getting results at all in their business, turn it around incredibly because they started speaking words that were words that they wanted to have in their life. And they started to believe and they started to have faith. And they anytime this negativity would come up, they would just quickly turn it around. They wouldn't pull the seed out. Don't pull the seed out with doubt. Doubt will cause you to pull the seed out. And we want to keep that seed in the ground and keep watering it with faith. And the faith is keep speaking words of what it is that you want. And before you know it, you will now have locked in this new belief. I want to hit one more thing for today. There's a lot we could really continue to talk about, but let's just do a quick review of where we're at. And I want to talk about one more thing. We talked about the power of our words and thought. Our words are commands that we give to the universe, which create. Now, words of negativity also create. And these words of negativity, when we speak them enough, they create limiting beliefs. If we speak words of positivity, they will create things that we want. Our spoken word is way more powerful than our thoughts. Although we want to shift both, our spoken word is very important. We talked about belief. Belief must precede what we see. And we talked about how most people have inverted faith. They have this belief in the negative because this is what they've seen over and over again. And we talked about the role of doubt. Doubt is what causes us to pull that seed out and not get the plant to actually grow. And instead, what we learned how to do is we're going to speak words of what we want, not words of what we don't want. We're going to trust that source inside of us, that piece of God that's there, to give us more of what we want. Now, the last thing that I want to speak about is there's something called the paradox of non-resistance. What does that mean? Resistance feeds the problem. It means when you fight against something, for example, poverty or disease, the more power you give to it, the more you resist something in your life, the more you will have of that thing. Non-resistance is key. And here's what I mean: the more resistance we show, the less likely it will ever come. Let me use it an example. If you're in sales or have ever been in sales, when you're constantly trying to resist, meaning you're trying to control a situation, it must be this way. I can't trust that this piece of God inside of me is going to give me the right words to help me get what I want. And I resist that. What's going to happen is we're going to not get what we want. I was in the mortgage business for a very short period of time. And I was trying and trying and trying to get sales. And I was resisting just being relaxed and peaceful. Instead, I was trying to like too hard and I was trying to control everything to get what I wanted. And I remember finally giving up resistance and saying, I'm done. I'm not doing this anymore. And then I got a phone call. And from that place of non resistance, I got a phone call from a person that was interested in getting information on a mortgage. And I basically, without trying to do anything, just gave them some basic information and said, look, if you're interested, you'll let me know. And you know what they said to me? The first time in all the times I was trying to make the sale, I didn't resist. And immediately what happened? I got the sale. Just like that. I didn't have to do anything. When we resist, it persists. So we really have to be careful and we have to let go and let God. We have to let go and trust that that inner power will handle things. Our job is to speak the words, to have faith, to take action, but to take action from a peaceful place, from a place of non-resistance. And if we can do that, what's going to happen is we're going to start to create all the things that we want in our life. I'm going to pause here because I could go on for another hour, but I think this is a very good place to pause. And your homework assignment for this week is this start paying attention to the words that you're speaking. And just notice when you speak words of negativity, ask yourself, does this often show up in my life? And what you're going to find is the answer is, of course it does. And so what you can do is just shift. And instead of saying that negative things, you'll say a positive thing. You'll say something that you want to have in your life in present tense. And rather than letting your thoughts take over, we're going to have faith. We're going to trust that peace inside of us that's running everything. And we're going to say, I'm trusting you, God. I'm trusting you, subconscious, that you will know the best way to handle this. And you'll give me the thoughts, ideas, and words that I need to get more of what I want. You'll help me take the actions that I need to get what I want. No resistance. We just allow the process to unfold. We can't resist the seed that's planted in the ground and keep pulling it out and looking at it. We have to leave it in and water it. Keep watering your seed, and you will see your life will change. That's it for this week. Have a great week and just keep practicing and doing the work. And when you do that, you'll have more of what you want in your life.

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Michael Fox

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