Here’s a question that comes up a lot once people start rebuilding their money foundations: how do you develop the parts of yourself you’ve never been allowed to use?
To answer it, you first have to get your head around something most people never question.
You’re Not One Thing
We always talk about ourselves in the singular. I. Me. Myself. As if there’s only one of us in there.
There isn’t. There’s a whole crew of selves — different parts of you that show up for different jobs.
Now look at how you were raised. Every culture on earth trains its people to become a good example of that culture. Work hard. Be good. Get the job. Get the mortgage. Consume. It trains the selves that keep the system running, because the system needs a lot of people doing the work so a few people at the top can keep their wealth.
The entrepreneur in you? That one got pushed down. If everyone developed it, who’d do the work?
So it’s not missing. It’s disowned.
Name It. Give It A Job.
Here’s the practical bit. Whatever self you need, you give it a name and you write it a job description. Just like you’d hire someone.
- Worker self. Most of us already have this one — the system built it. Turns up. Grinds. Gets it done.
- Opportunity self. Its job is to see the world differently. To spot opportunities. To understand how money actually moves through the world — who pays who, for what, and why.
- Enterprise self. Once opportunity self spots something, enterprise self learns the skills to turn it into money.
- Entrepreneurial self. Takes those skills and scales them — so you’re exchanging your knowledge with lots of people, not just your time and labour with one boss.
You won’t find these in a textbook. You make them up, on purpose, and then you train them.
How You Know They’re In There
Simple. If a self exists in other people, it exists in you. You’ve just been suppressing it, ignoring it or leaving it on the bench.
It’s the same on the mat. Every fighter has different modes — patient, explosive, defensive, relentless. The good ones don’t pick one. They train all of them and call on the right one at the right time.
Your Move
Write a one-paragraph job description for your opportunity self. What’s its job this week? What should it be looking for? Then give it thirty minutes a day to do that job.
Mitch LingardMoney Mentor at Black Belt Results. Former representative rugby league player, martial artist and dad — now putting other people in the room with black belts in wealth. Get In Touch or Book A Call.