In this solo episode, I'm getting more personal than usual. I'm talking about some of the things I used to believe about myself - not because they were true, but because they were repeated enough. Either I was repeating them to myself internally, or I was taking things other people were saying and internalizing them, creating my own narrative in my head.

I think it matters because a lot of what we think is "just who we are" is actually something we learned really early on and never questioned. When I think back to my childhood, a few themes stand out: figuring things out on my own, being independent way too early, not always feeling fully seen or understood (I was one of five kids), and learning to read the room instead of expressing what I needed.

But one of the biggest beliefs I carried for a long time was that I was not smart. I didn't learn to read early like the other kids. I faked it for way longer than I should have. There wasn't a lot of support at home around school - no one reading me books, no bedtime stories, no one making sure I did my homework. I got pulled out of class a lot for remedial help, and while that was meant to support me, it just made me feel different. Dumb. Like everyone was looking at me.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How childhood beliefs follow you into adulthood: figuring things out on your own, being independent too early, learning to read the room instead of expressing what you need
• Why I believed I wasn't smart for years: I didn't learn to read early, faked it for way too long, got pulled out for remedial help, and felt dumb every time
• How that belief shaped my entire life: "I'm not academic. I'm not the type of person who goes to college. That's not meant for me. I'll have a job, not a career."
• The neuroscience of why these beliefs stick: your brain wires itself based on repetition and experience - if you repeatedly feel behind or not enough, your brain builds a pattern around that and keeps running it even when your life changes
• The distinction that changes everything: "What I thought was 'this is just who I am' was actually 'this is what my brain has learned', and if it's learned, it can be updated"
• Why rewriting doesn't happen overnight: it looks like letting yourself learn without judging how long it takes, trying things you would've avoided before, trusting your thinking instead of dismissing it, allowing yourself to grow into something you didn't think was for you
• Why your brain prefers what it knows (even if what it knows isn't ideal): familiar feels safe, and when you start doing something different, your brain doesn't go "this is better", it goes "this is new" (and that's where most people stop)
• How to keep going: if you keep choosing the new response, if you give your brain new experiences to work from, it starts to update (slowly, but it does)
• Why old patterns still show up sometimes: "I still catch myself defaulting to 'I'm not smart, I'm not enough', but now I notice faster and I have a different response available"

If you've ever thought "this is just who I am" or "this is how I've always been," I want you to question that a little bit. There's a really good chance it's not who you are - it's just what you've learned. And if it was learned, it can be rewritten.

Connect with me:Instagram: @vandercreativeco and @itsjamievander