Welcome to Episode #187 of NLP Around You.
🧠 Thoughtful Thought
“Belief draws the boundary. Evidence redraws it.”
For your daily dose of Thoughtful Thoughts, get your Thoughtful Calendar here.
💬 NLP Quote Corner
“The great tragedy of science: the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.” – Thomas Henry Huxley
⏳ One Minute NLP – The Power of One Counterexample
Think of a belief that begins with “I can’t”, “People like me don’t” or “That’s just not possible”. Notice how solid it feels, almost like a law of physics.
In NLP, we see a belief as a generalisation: a conclusion drawn from a handful of experiences and then treated as true everywhere, for everyone, forever.
Generalisations are useful. They save us from relearning, every morning, that fire burns. But they come with a quiet bodyguard. Once the mind believes something, it notices whatever fits and deletes whatever does not.
This is why arguing with a belief rarely works. Evidence does. And you do not need a mountain of it. In Sleight of Mouth, we call it the counterexample: one well-chosen exception that puts a crack in the wall.
Do this today: write down one belief that is holding you back. Then find one exception. One time you did it anyway. Or one person, with no better circumstances than yours, who has already done it. Write their name next to your belief, and read the two together.
Beliefs are built on examples. They are loosened by counterexamples.
🔮 Meta Magic
A Few Runs Short
For thirty-five years, one-day cricket had a number nobody could reach. Since the very first match in 1971, no team had ever scored 400 runs in an innings. Nothing in the rules stopped them, and at eight runs an over, the arithmetic said it was perfectly possible. Yet season after season, team after team, the number stayed out of reach, until everyone quietly agreed it was simply the limit.
Then, on 12 March 2006 in Johannesburg, Australia scored 434 against South Africa. The wall had fallen, and surely the match with it.
The South African dressing room went silent. Nobody spoke, not even the captain. Then one of their senior players, Jacques Kallis, walked in, looked around and said:
“The bowlers have done their job, boys. I reckon they’re 10 or 15 short.”
For a moment, nobody knew what to do with that. Then the room started laughing.
Not a pep talk.
A frame.
A few hours later, South Africa chased the target down and scored 438. A record that had stood for thirty-five years was broken twice, in the same match, on the same day. And once broken, it never held again. Teams have crossed 400 around thirty times since.
So what changed? Not the grounds, not the bats, not the length of the game. What changed was the evidence.
The antidote to belief is evidence.
For thirty-five years, 400 was a belief dressed up as a fact. In NLP, we understand a belief as a generalisation, built from past experience and then defended by everything we choose to notice. Australia handed the world a counterexample. And Kallis did something even more useful with it: where his team saw a mountain, he saw a total that had fallen short. Same scoreboard. A completely different meaning.
Most of us carry a 400 of our own. A number on the P&L we have never crossed, a role that “people like me” don’t get, a fee we don’t dare to quote. Because we have never crossed it, we assume it cannot be crossed. Very often, someone already has. We just haven’t let their evidence in.
So let me ask you…
Which 400 in your life are you still treating as a wall, when the evidence says it is only a number?
📖 Hook from the Book
“Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours.” – Richard Bach, Illusions
🎬 Movie Motivation
“If he’s a good hitter, why doesn’t he hit good?” This dialogue from the movie Moneyball reminds us that a belief, however popular, must sooner or later answer to the evidence.
🏆 Popular Post of the Week
KYC: Keep Your Calm | Discover Your Calmness Quotient
📢 Announcement of the Week
100 Days | Season 2: RECODE Your Life
One tiny experiment a day, every day until 31 December 2026. Each one is a small piece of evidence that you can do the thing you have been telling yourself you can’t.
You do not need to start from day one. Pick it up today and run the experiment.
👉 Watch and subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@mehernoshw3?sub_confirmation=1
Missed the past issues of NLP Around You? Find them all here.
Thoughtfully Yours,
Mehernosh Randeria
Your W3 Coach
Continue Your W3 Journey
The conversation doesn’t have to end here. Explore, reflect and continue your journey across Wealth, Wisdom and Wellness.
What’s Your W3 Quotient?
How balanced is your success across Wealth, Wisdom and Wellness?
Take a few minutes to discover your W3 Quotient. You may find that the results reveal something worth thinking about.
Never Miss a New Thought
Enjoyed this article?
Subscribe to W3 Coach and receive new articles, reflections and ideas directly in your inbox whenever they are published.
Discover the Magic in the Mundane
NLP is all around us, in our conversations, choices, behaviours and everyday experiences.
NLP Around You is my weekly exploration of these fascinating, often unnoticed patterns. Subscribe and receive each new edition directly in your inbox.
Outwardly Successful. Inwardly Stuck?
Sometimes, knowing what to do isn’t enough.
If you find yourself overthinking, procrastinating, reacting in ways you later regret, or repeating patterns you already know aren’t helping, join me for a free 90-minute live webinar:
OUTWARDLY SUCCESSFUL. INWARDLY STUCK?
The NLP Approach to Real Change
Discover what may really be happening beneath the patterns you want to change.
Discover more from W3 Coach
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
