untrain your brain

Why Everything You Were Taught About Success Might Be a Lie (And What You Can Do About It)

Why Everything You Were Taught About Success Might Be a Lie (And What You Can Do About It)

Rik

Most people come to me to get their brain untrained. Yes, I untrain conditioned brains that deliver poor results. Because of this and the fact that I’m also a teacher, some think I’m a fan of education. They’d be half right.

I’m not an advocate for education as we’ve come to know it—I’m an advocate for re-education.

Because the truth is, much of what we’ve been taught from the cradle to the grave is not just outdated—it’s outright conditioning. For the most part, it’s operant conditioning, which is conditioning of the worst kind, in that it’s unkind.

We’re raised to believe in a simple formula:
Get a good education → get a good job → live a good life.

But how many people who followed that script ended up disillusioned, stuck, and quietly suffering through a life that feels like it was designed by someone else?

Our beliefs, values, and choices—our entire perception of reality—are built on what we were taught. Yet what if those teachings were never truly designed for our success?

Let’s get real for a moment.

Schools taught us to conform, not to think critically. They were never in the business of creating freethinkers but rather, obedient workers. And who benefits from that? Spoiler: not you.

We were taught to save money and give it to the banks. Remember those little money boxes you were given in school? That wasn’t a financial education, it was an early recruitment strategy into a lifetime of banking dependence. If you believe that the banks care about you, you don’t need your head read. You need your brain untrained.

Then came mortgages, literally derived from the French words mort (death) and gage (pledge). A ‘death pledge’ we sign our lives away to, while the Reserve Bank of Australia (a corporate entity, not some impartial government protector) quietly shifts the financial goalposts through interest rate hikes that most never fully understand.

And if you’re Australian, you may have assumed the RBA was working for you. In fact, the Reserve Bank Act of 1959 claims it’s meant to ensure economic prosperity and welfare for all Australians. So, how is that going? Rising debt, housing crises, increased welfare dependency—not exactly a prosperity plan. Yep, if you believe that, you’ll believe anything. Though I guess it’s half true. They (who advise the RBA) got prosperity, and due to increased interest rates (The RBA lifted interest rates 13 times between May 2022 and November 2023), many Australians had to sell their homes, and some had to go on welfare.

If you feel uneasy reading this, good. That means some part of you knows something is off. And you’re right.

You’ve been conditioned.

This isn’t a conspiracy theory. It’s psychology and economics working together to keep people stuck. And you can’t grow when the foundation of your life is built on inherited lies and defunct strategies. Though it’s not a problem created by corrupt pollies or greedy corporations. We know both of these are facts. The real problem is that your belief systems may still be running off your conditioned education. In other words, part of you knows the system favours the rich but another part of you is striving to be smarter than the rich in an attempt to beat the system. Good luck with that.

Cognitive science supports this: A 2010 study published in Frontiers in Psychology revealed that deeply embedded beliefs—especially those formed in childhood—are resistant to change unless directly challenged and consciously restructured through metacognitive retraining (Schraw, Crippen & Hartley, 2006).

Another key study by Zimbardo (2007) showed how environmental systems shape behavior, often without our awareness, conditioning us into roles we never chose.

Translation? You were trained to play small. But your brain can be untrained.

That’s where I come in.

I’m a Brain Untrainer. I work with people ready to stop playing the game they never agreed to in the first place.

My clients come to me when they realise something fundamental:
“I’ve been living someone else’s version of success.”

If that’s you, if you’re ready to challenge your conditioning, pull apart the lies you were sold, and start rebuilding your life from a place of clarity and truth, then I have something for you.

But it’s not for everyone.

You get one free Solutions Session with me.

If you’ve already had one, there are no second helpings. And if you’re not ready to take responsibility for unlearning what’s holding you back, this isn’t your time yet.

But if you’re sick of being stuck…

If you’re willing to wake up, shake up, and create a powerful, aligned life, then book your free session now. Because real change doesn’t wait for permission. It starts with a decision.

👉 Book your one free Solutions Session here

Remember: this is a one-time opportunity.
You’ve had your conditioning. Now it’s time for your awakening.

Why Coaching Raises Your Standards and How to Get Beyond Standard

Why Coaching Raises Your Standards and How to Get Beyond Standard

Rik

How do you get beyond standard? How to you carve out a new life that is rich in value and lives up to your dreams?

Today I responded to a lovely lady from the UK who needs some help growing her business and came to me for coaching. But she’s painfully sitting on the fence; not making a decision.

It reminded me of where I came from and what I had to do to change my life and get beyond standard. It was 2004 and I was $70,000 in debt and had only $27 in my bank account. Doing the ‘standard’ things just wasn’t going to cut it anymore. I had to do something different.

Here is what I wrote to her after she made no decision:

Hi Sue (name changed to protect her identity),

Okay. Yes, your response is a bit vague. In fact, there is no decision in it. Would it be okay if I shared with you what I’ve learned in my 20 years of coaching? What took me from a massive debt to become a millionaire?

I know you want success, so I’d like to share with you what I’ve found that my most of my successful clients do.

They raise their standards by making a new decision and then four things to gain ultimate success. This is how you get beyond standard.

The decision?

Make a commitment to do whatever it takes to get whatever you want.

Say YES to your dreams, even if right now, you just don’t think you’ve got what it takes. Then…

1. Work out/decide/dream up what you really want from life, then

2. Work on devising the best possible strategy to get you there

3. Work out what you need (skills/tools/systems/connections/attitude) to make the strategy work, and

4. Take massive action on that strategy and remove any neural patterns that gets in the way of that action.

I know that sometimes it’s hard to make a decision because we don’t know what the future holds – and that’s acceptable to most, because that’s how 95% of the population live their lives. It’s standard practice. However, to get beyond standard, to really create a magical life of freedom, you have to do (most often) the opposite to what the large majority of people do.

To be extraordinary, ‘standard practice’ is no longer an option for you

Most people don’t realise that they’re making ‘standard practice’ decisions.

Last week my Singing Coach was whining about a speaker she listened to at a conference that she attended. She loved the speaker by the way but was annoyed that the speaker was paid $10,000 for a short keynote talk. Then she said, “You speak! Do you get paid $10,000 a talk?” I stupidly replied yes at which she immediately said, “And you’re paying me $35 an hour for singing and you get paid $10,000 an hour!” She was obviously offended.

But while she was sitting there stewing, I’m thinking – “I could coach her so she could increase her rates or become a singing speaker. That opportunity is there for her right now, but she’s too busy getting all bent up about it.”

I said, “Money and time are two illusions, and some people do much less for more – but they did much more to get there. And no, it’s not fair.

But everyone has the same opportunities in front of them, though let’s be honest here. Some decide to put up their hands and say, ‘let’s go for it’ while others sit on the fence; standard practice.” She of course sat on the fence and kept doing what she knew to do – and continued teaching me to sing. But she could have been singing a whole new tune.

Does this make sense to you?

Opportunities are all around you, but you won’t see them until you want to see them. So we just keep complaining.

It’s going to take many mindset shifts to get you to sing a new tune too, because we favour our patterns. We love our comfort zones. It’s why the world is getting fatter and sicker.

To get out of our patterns it’s typically uncomfortable, uncommon, weird, different – but ultimately it will become your new normal and your new normal will be what others see as a life beyond limits.

You will be admired, lauded, applauded – and hated by some as jealousies rise. My job as your future coach is to challenge your thinking until we break those old patterns that are keeping you stuck in an average life.

You’ve got to keep untraining your brain, until you become your future you. If you want it, it’s right in front of you… A richer way to think is not standard practice.

If you would like a complimentary consultation with R!k Check out his coaching page here or enjoy a solutions session with R!k here.