What if the biggest thing standing between you and your goal isn't talent, money, or connections, but the story you tell yourself about what success takes?

Back in college, I was given an assignment to write a biography of a grandparent. Because I was born in a different country, I had the option to write an autobiography instead.

At the time, I was going through a rough patch. Before that assignment, I had no interest in writing. It was hard for me. But as soon as I received the assignment, something tugged at me. I was intrigued. Full of emotion, I was bitten by the writing bug. By the time I finished that essay, I knew that one day I would write a book.

A few years later, I made a decision. As a disabled person, I couldn't take the typical path of getting a job, moving up the ladder, hustling, and paying my dues. I needed to build a life for myself in a different way.

Writing an essay was one thing. Writing a book was something else entirely. Surely, I thought, I needed more experience. Maybe even a different degree than my marketing and business degree.

My favorite professor, Jim, introduced me to a family friend who was a budding screenwriter. His advice was simple: hire someone to help you get your stories down on the computer, and then I'll help you shape them into a book.

That advice sounded foreign to me. Surely it couldn't be that simple.

But it was. Hundreds of posts and multiple books later, my process isn't that different from when I started. I get my thoughts and stories down. Yes, I need an editor. Yes, I need to market myself and share my work on YouTube and Instagram. But the heart of it is still just getting the stories down.

I had assumed writing was a mysterious, complicated thing reserved for people with formal training. Thankfully, I didn't let that assumption stop me. Many people do.

That's the real problem. Many people assume that something is too hard or too complicated. They believe they need more skills and more connections before they can even begin. Sometimes that's true. But skills can be developed, and connections can be built, even if your contact list is empty today.

You can see this happening right now with artificial intelligence. Many people are focused on how AI might take jobs or create an energy crisis. Those concerns deserve attention. But if that's the only story you tell yourself, you'll miss how much it can actually help you. I've made learning and using AI part of my life, for my work and even for my fantasy football team.

Success takes work, discipline, a strong mindset, and plenty of other factors. But what stops many people before they start is a wrong narrative about success. They see it as a vague, mysterious puzzle that only a select few can solve, as if the answers are locked in a vault guarded by some exclusive club.

That narrative is a trap. If you don't believe that success is within your reach and largely within your control, and not something reserved for "those people," you'll have a hard time charting your own path.

Where your story about success comes from. Most of us grew up watching a tiny sliver of people go after their goals. One person grows up surrounded by doctors. Another grows up in an industrial town where only a couple of paths seem possible. Just as important are the messages we hear. One person hears that success means working hard in a factory. Another hears that the only path is climbing the academic ladder. Someone else is raised on sales, grit, and hustle. Those early messages quietly shape what we believe is possible for us.

There are different levels of awareness. Just because you know that doctors, lawyers, and rocket scientists exist doesn't mean you believe you could become one. If you want to pursue a path and excel at it, you need a narrative that says, "I can learn this, and I can grow into it."

It would have been easy for me to decide I didn't know how to write a book, or that I needed another degree, or that I needed to work my way up first. I was lucky. The simple advice to "get the stories down" was really just a way of saying start writing. That was enough to shift my thinking. I could have resisted and argued. Instead, I accepted that writing starts with, well, writing.

A positive narrative about success has two parts that work together.

Part one: expanding what's possible for you. You might be aware of many paths to success, like law, entrepreneurship, medicine, or athletics. But awareness isn't the same as believing a path is right for you. When I tell people I write books, they often say they could never do it. But writing is simply getting stories down on paper. To strengthen your narrative, you have to widen your sense of what's possible. When I first came up with the idea of presenting to audiences, I had a built-in excuse: I have a speech impediment. But I also knew that many speakers present through interpreters to audiences who speak another language. That opened the door.

At the same time, it's unwise to swing the pendulum too far. Some things truly aren't possible. A person can be too tall to be a gymnast. And there was no way I was going to be a firefighter or a short-order cook. Nobody was going to trust me with a knife or near an open flame. A healthy narrative is ambitious and honest.

Part two: focusing on your process. Every goal, from losing weight to building a strong marriage, has a process that needs to be done well. Every professional goal runs on dozens of habits and decisions. The better you execute that process, the more likely you are to reach your goal, especially since you're often competing with many other people for the same thing. The problem is that when people hit a challenge or don't get the results they want, they tend to blame everything outside their control. Whenever I hit a wall or want better results, I look at my process first. It would have been easy to treat writing a book as a mysterious endeavor. Instead, I stepped back and saw how simple the process really was.

Rewriting your narrative is the first of what I call the Five Keys to an Amazing Mindset, and it shapes the other four. The second key, improving your processes and habits, depends on understanding what needs to happen and why. The third key, dealing with challenges, requires a narrative strong enough to handle whatever gets in the way, whether that's anxiety, a lack of support, self-doubt, or a major disability like mine. The fourth key, building relationships, means understanding which relationships move you forward and which hold you back, and remembering that people are emotional and everyone has their own quirks. The fifth key, clarity, means being clear about everything you need in order to move forward.

A few more ingredients for a healthy success story.

Be persistent and resilient. Life is never going to go smoothly. If something doesn't work, change your approach. If you need to make connections or learn a new skill, do it. Don't take your foot off the gas.

Embrace change. The world is always changing, and the brain naturally resists change because change is uncomfortable. One lesson I've learned as a disabled person is that the world doesn't adapt to me. I adapt to the world. Technology changes. Economies change. A healthy narrative expects that.

Rethink talent. Talent matters, but many people have a distorted story about it. Nobody is born with everything they need to succeed. Someone might be born with a body built for sports, but they still have to develop that talent. LeBron James has been widely reported to invest heavily in caring for his body, and he wasn't born understanding the business side of his industry. He had to learn it like anyone else.

Pay attention to the small, indirect habits. The way you think directly affects your success, and so do the habits that seem unrelated. Getting enough sleep, eating well, exercising, and laughing with friends all affect your mood and outlook. So do the people around you. A friend group or spouse who encourages you to go for the promotion, write the book, or explore starting a business makes a real difference compared to people who dismiss your ideas or talk you out of growing.

Here's the heart of it. A narrative is simply a collection of stories about everything that influences your life. Having a positive narrative about success means turning up the volume on the messages that move you forward and turning down the messages that hold you back. I don't believe you should turn off the negative voice completely. Sometimes it tells you something you need to hear. But when it gets too loud, it drowns out everything else.

So here's my challenge to you. Think of one goal you've labeled "too hard" or "not for people like me." Write down the story you've been telling yourself about it. Then ask: what's the simplest first step, my version of "just get the stories down"? Take that step this week. And if this resonated with you, share it with someone who needs a better story about what they're capable of.