There is no way he can win, I thought.

That’s what many American’s who supported Donald J. Trump thought. In my own mind, I had just become so disillusioned with politics that I viewed Trump as the last chance to restore America, and push back on the creeping Marxism and identity politics from the Obama years, and the dark path he set forth. Anytime we had gotten close to electing an outsider, his hopes were crushed by sabatoge or the media. I thought if life was fair, he could win. That he should win. But I didn’t think he would win.

I didn’t think they’d let him win.

He won.

A good underdog is a flawed. But what makes him a hero is how he answers the tests that are constantly thrown his way. He doesn’t become “the hero” until he shows how he can answer the setbacks or skepticisms we might have. Each step of the way, as the new test is answered, people gain confidence that the protagonist is up to the challenge. As more and more challenges are answered, we begin to think, this guy has what it takes.

And More or and more people join the cause.

We thought, he couldn’t win. The odds are against him!

A limiting belief. And limiting beliefs are solved by answering “The How Question.”

Here’s a list of limiting beliefs that people had, or the fake news media was deliberately pushing on people:

He’s not serious. He stayed in. They said Primary Voter’s will come to their senses. They voted for him. Trump can’t possibly overcome this gaffe. He overcame them. Trump can be impromptu, but he can’t give a speech. He gave great speeches. Trump has no serious plans. He issued serious policy proposals. Trump may have the GOP base, but general election polls are a different story. He started to lead the general election polls. Then they changed the polling methodology because they didn’t want to show him winning. Trump can’t be diplomatic. He met with the Mexican President. Trump made another supposed gaffe. It’s the end. It wasn’t the end. P****gate Tape dropped. This will surely stop trump. It didn’t. Trump handled it. Voters will come to their senses. He won.

Each step of the way, Candidate Trump showed HOW he handled a setback. In doing so, he showed people who were thinking about voting for him that their concerns about him not being ready, or polished, or being able to withstand the attacks were wrong. Even the act of fighting back against the establishment showed people that he wasn’t a quitter. This in itself gained him converts.

Whenever a person is considering taking a chance on a unknown product or person, limiting beliefs pop up in one’s mind. Perhaps they are media manufactured. Perhaps they are real. What’s important to selling that person or product is how the challenge is met. A salesman needs to show he can handle a common concern without hesitation. A doctor might need to show a skeptical patient that he can diagnose your problem without hesitation to make a patient comfortable. Confidence matters.

Fake it till you make it.

Outsider senate candidate? Limiting belief? Nobody thinks he has a shot. What should he do? Buy a poll showing himself ahead. Real or not, people will think: Maybe he does have a shot. Maybe I might consider voting for him. It doesn’t matter that the poll might not be accurate. That’s not the point. The point is to show people he is for real. People wont vote for an outsider that has no shot. People will vote for an outsider who has a shot in their minds. Remember, President Trump was accused of hiring actors during his initial primary announcement. Now he packs massive rallies with no problem. To start a fire, you need a match.

A salesman might not think he can sell a certain product. Then one day he shadows a great salesman who sells five of the product. Suddenly, the rookie salesman knows how. Maybe the rookie just needed to change a few words up. Or some body language. Perhaps it was the act of seeing something done that the rookie thought was once impossible that destroyed the mental barrier. Trump winning, for example, has given the rise to more outsider candidates. Many people now understand its possible to be elected for office while not being the typical boring politician. Where once they saw a path, they now know how to walk the path.

Limiting beliefs are in the mind.

They are answered by showing HOW they can be overcome. In Candidate Trump’s case, the ultimate limiting belief was that he couldn’t win. That he wouldn’t win. That the establishment wouldn’t let him win. We all wanted him to win. But would he?

How would he show us that he could win?

He wasn’t afraid to fight back:

So, to my friends on the Left – and the #NeverTrumpers as well — do I wish we lived in a time when our president could be “collegial” and “dignified” and “proper”? Of course I do. These aren’t those times. This is war. And it’s a war that the Left has been fighting without opposition for the past 50 years.

And that’s what mattered. Him fighting back. He showed how he could win. Even if we all thought they wouldn’t let him win. If Candidate trump was going to throw down and get into a street fight until there was only one man left standing — the least voters could do is show up and reward him with our vote. Because he fights.

America wanted Trump to win. That he should win. But they didn’t think an outsider could win. Trump showed us that — however minute the possibility — it was possible to win. He showed us how he could win. The how is what got us to the polls. When I cast my vote in 2016, I thought it was basically over. The fake news media gaslighting was working, but I had still had some faith, small though it was.

There was no guarantee of victory, but the act of going forth and acting is what created the faith. When the P***ygate tape dropped right ahead of the second debate, though I thought it was nonsense and vulgar, I didn’t think it should be career ending. But conventional political wisdom said it was career ending. There were calls for his resignation. Republicans were caving left and right. The prognosticators had said: It was over.

On the night of the second debate, a bunch of us got together to watch the debate. Spirits were down. We all felt uneasy. They just weren’t going to let him win. Despite Trump surviving this long and overcoming one thing after another, my pessimism in the system had returned. We knew that what Trump said, while it may have been vulgar, it wasn’t how the media was portraying it. They were claiming it to be sexual assault! Not what it actually was: Exaggerated Alpha Male Bragging (EAMB) that happens all across America every single day. Inappropriate? Sure. Vulgar. Yes. Something most men are guilty of? Absolutely. But career ending? No. But the media was working overtime to make us all think so.

The debate started. Anderson Cooper started attacking immediately, and Trump apologized for his comments. You could tell he was angry, and apologizing to all of America on live television has to make even the toughest uneasy. This was the final setback before the climax. A question was asked of Hillary, and Hillary started going on about laws and trump.

To Which he said: Because You’d be in Jail.

At that moment, the entire room of men and women I was with that night got off the couch and were cheering. It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t calculated. It was a visceral reaction.

It was at that moment Trump won the election.

Nothing that came in the 3rd debate or in the 2 weeks after mattered. People made up their minds that night — at that moment. For those that were going to vote for Trump, what mattered was not what he stood for. We all knew what he stood for at that point. We needed to see he could rise to the challenge. That He Fights. Before the public hires you for the most important job in the world, it’s a good thing if we can see you can take the heat.

That’s what the 2nd debate showed. It was as if, at that moment, a flatlining heart was hit with a defibrillator, and suddenly the patient was alive and kicking. This was the “How” question for the P****Gate challenge. To answer this particular challenge, all that was required was to show he wouldn’t accept the pundits declarations that he was politically dead, and he would keep coming back for more.

Sometimes all that is required is to show you have a pulse.

-SDL🍋

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ADDENDUM: Now that “Candidate” Trump is now President Trump. There are new limiting beliefs that have cropped up amongst supporters and observers. Trump has major work to do in these areas. I see the problem. I see the solution. But will they be solved. Is trump capable of solving them? He needs to show us he is because demoralization can happen.

Can Trump get control of the administrative state? Is it even possible? They are 90 percent democrats, and almost 100 percent opposed to him. How does he fix? Can Trump get a handle on immigration when there is so much he has opposing him? Is it even possible? So many people and interests seem aligned in the cause of open borders against actual american’s wishes. How does he fix? Trump isn’t in control of his DOJ. He certainly doesn’t act like it. This is unprecedented, wrong, and frankly the actions coming from Rod Rosenstein and company are not just atttacks on him, but everybody that voted for him. It’s persecution. But while democrats skate, republicans are unfairly punished (not to mention the investigation being completely BS from the beginning). How does he fix?

ADDENDUM 2: When you develop a limiting belief, it is good to think of it as a “Problem Frame.” You have a problem. Or “Failure.” When you have a problem, you want a solution. The solution comes by answering “HOW” you overcome this problem. If you think of these Problems not as problems but in terms of The “Outcome” you want, it’s easy to reframe your thinking into solutions. When you run up into limiting beliefs, don’t dwell on the problem; ask, what is the the outcome I want? When you begin to start thinking like this even more, you start noticing that solutions are not hard to find.