Decide things will work out (and they will)

Today's my last day in Palm Springs.

My buddy Justin David Carl and I have been doing the vacation half of this trip, after cramming in as much knowledge and networking as humanly possible at FinCon.

And this morning I was sitting here trying to figure out what to write to you.

Then I remembered a note I saved a while back for exactly this kind of occasion:

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"Science says the moment you decide things are going to work out for you, they actually do start working out for you."

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I’m a big believer in the power of belief.

But I also like to have logical explanations for how and why things work (I don’t know… that’s just how I’m wired).

The usual version of this story goes something like… your brain has a filter called the “Reticular Activating System”, and the moment you decide things are going to work out, that filter starts showing you all the opportunities it used to hide from you.

Turns out that part is mostly coaching-world folklore.

The RAS is real, but it's closer to a bouncer for wakefulness and raw sensory noise than a personal assistant who knows your goals and your vision board.

But the idea underneath it held up better than I expected.

Researchers who study outcome expectancies (Carver and Scheier) have found for decades that people who expect things to work out start more things, put in more effort, and stay with them longer when they get hard. There's separate research showing that when you feel a sense of control over a situation, your body's stress response is measurably smaller than when you feel trapped by it.

So maybe decisions do start to bend reality a bit.

But at the very least, they change what you do next. And when I look back at the last few years, that’s exactly what happened.

I said ‘yes’ to more things. I booked the flight when I otherwise wouldn’t have. I reached out to people I would have talked myself out of talking to a few years ago. I stopped treating every good thing that showed up like it was a fluke.

A lot of that I owe to working with Justin from Fit Rich Life as my money and mindset coach this past year (on top of us just being friends, and business partners on a couple of things).

Anyway, I don’t remember the exact moment I decided.

Maybe there wasn’t just one moment. Maybe it’s the kind of thing you decide again and again every morning. And some morning you’re better than others. But it’s been a long while since I’ve traveled, networked, stayed in nice hotels, and felt like my life and work were actually moving somewhere.

And I think that's because I finally decided it was about time things started working out for me again.

Maybe they will for you too?

Hope this helps.

All the best,

Kevin Hood

P.S. When I get back next week I’ll be putting together a workshop series on AI-powered second brains and content systems using Notion and Claude/Codex. If interested, and you haven’t replied back yet, just reply back “I’m Interested” and I’ll make sure you’re the first to know.