Meet William
William has over 10 years of consulting, coaching, sales, leadership, and workforce development experience. His calling is to help individuals and businesses awaken their hidden potential by educating them on the mental success principles that have been articulated by all major cultures over the past 5000 years. He has infused these universal truths into his educational materials and personal philosophy because we must learn from our history.
How do you define success?
My definition of success is becoming the best version of yourself. For me, I believe that in life, we don’t have problems or challenges, we have opportunities, and being successful is simply meeting every single challenge and making it an opportunity to learn and to grow. As opposed to seeing it as an impediment or barrier, seeing it as an opportunity to catapult us or to be a leg up, to go to the next level in our lives and whatever endeavor that we’re going after. So success is deeply personal and it can only be defined by self, but a small still voice will always lead you on the road to success.
How does mindset impact our ability to network effectively?
Yes, so I think when it comes to mindset, and networking, one thing that I’ve heard so much because I was in workforce development for about three years before my most recent role. The biggest challenge that I saw with our interns in this workforce development firm that I also faced early in my career was the fear of saying something wrong, the fear of not being good enough. I think when it comes to the mindset component of this networking game, it’s really about making sure that before you walk through the door, or turn on the zoom chat, that you have it within your mind that you are good enough to do anything and any question that you’re going to be asked, you can be able to answer it articulately. A lot of times when you’re meeting someone, you have to ask and answer questions. So asking questions isn’t necessarily that hard, but answering them if you get nervous, and your mind shuts down can be tough. So overall, what that boils down to is having an unshakable belief in yourself. Do you believe that you are worthy of the best because life has to offer? And if so, when you go into a networking event, you bring that confidence in with you, and you have the ability and the courage to simply let it flow. Let that confidence, let that knowledge, let that wisdom flow, let the personality flow. The biggest thing that we tend to do in our personal lives, networking or otherwise, is that we tend to stop the flow of our own what I like to call divine intelligence which is the ability to create something from nothing, the ability to have answers when you didn’t even understand what the question was. There’s something deeper within us that allows us to be to tap into that. We have to trust ourselves to access it. We’re putting our foot on the holes of the Divine or the energetic flow in our lives when we operate in fear and doubt.
Why do we operate in fear and doubt? Why is that our natural behavior?
So I think overall, this may be a very esoteric answer. But I think when it comes to fear and doubt, I think it’s been embedded into our culture worldwide, for hundreds, if not thousands of years. If you look back in history, there was always to whatever degree some kind of mythology or religion or whatever else around, something that is fear-based, an entity or energy that will affect you and hurt you and cause you to do things that you don’t want to do. What I would say is what I’ve learned, as I’ve gotten deeper in my spiritual and faith journey, is that I realize that the only enemy we have is the inner meat. So take the word, enemy, and the “e-n-e” and enemy just replace it with inner, “i-n-n-e-r”. The inner me, the unresolved issues, doubts, and feelings of unworthiness and unforgiveness within ourselves cause all the problems in our lives. It’s not something on the outside of us to start to get us, it’s our negative subconscious programming, which is our habitual behaviors and beliefs. Many times that are not our own, because the subconscious mind is programmed and put into default mode within the first seven years of life because that’s our default settings that allow us to survive in our environment. But if we’re around negative fearful people, then chances are more than 50%, that we’re going to be negative and fearful. Not because we want to, not because we made that decision, but because it was taught, it was trained to us. So that’s the nature versus nurture thing and it’s so true. But as adults, we have the responsibility to begin to review and assess, why do I think that way? Why do I feel that way about myself or other people or the opportunities in my life? It’s not giving me anything, it’s not making me feel good, it’s not making me feel empowered, or worthy, you’re loved, but I’m constantly thinking and feeling this way. I just encourage people, if you don’t like the results that you’re getting, you need to do something different. The question is, what is that, and that’s why I teach on the subconscious mind. Because that goes into root cause analysis that you can do on your own. I’m not saying you shouldn’t seek therapy if you need it. I’m not saying that. I’m all for that as well. But we have the ability to go into our own deeper mind, identify the negative thoughts, feelings, and ideas, and then be able to say, wait a minute, 95% of these things, is crap that I picked up growing up, that I don’t really like the way that my influencers believed and thought, it doesn’t make me feel good. Now, it’s tough for me to do something different. I no longer think that I have to work twice as hard because I’m a minority, quote, unquote, in this country. Because the idea and the etymology when you think about working twice as hard, what does that tell your subconscious mind? What is that informing your life energy? Give me more struggle, because I must work twice as hard. As opposed to saying I can do whatever I want. I can be whomever I want to be in this life and I demand success. The universe tends to give you what you believe to be true for yourself in your life.
Can you go a little bit deeper into how the subconscious ties into what you do and why it’s so important to you?
I will say, first and foremost, the reason why I concluded after years and years of study, is this: In my personal life I had many challenges to that face, like everyone else. So when I thought of difficult things, it was just my challenges that I thought were hard and tough and difficult and all that stuff. As I began to come through those and begin to learn from our mistakes, and to grow personally and professionally, the one promise I made to myself is that once I get to the deepest root cause understanding of why this needed to happen in my life, I will never go through this again. These things wouldn’t happen again. I felt the pain and the frustration and the fear long enough. Once I get this stuff figured out within myself, I will never let this happen again because I’ve already learned my lesson. I don’t have to do it again, right? So from a subconscious perspective, the reason why that is a core teaching of mine is, first of all, I learned what is called a psychologically The Law of Mind. Many great thinkers have talked about this in different ways, but The Law of Mind can be summarized in this phrase: What you think you feel, what you feel you imagine, and what you imagine you become. So what it does is give you a roadmap to how manifestation occurs in your life. First and foremost is thought. Second is your feelings or your emotions, your emotional nature and we all know if you cannot control your emotions. You can’t be successful without having control of your emotions, being able to be patient, and be able not to respond to every negative thing that people quote, unquote, try to bring at you. The last piece is imagination. Albert Einstein, one of his most famous quotes, and I’d never heard until about two years ago, states, “Imagination is more important, the knowledge, knowledge is limited but imagination circles the globe.” What he was blatantly saying was that when he could not find the answers, he had to go and tap into the infinite ocean of possibility, which is his imagination, that can create something from nothing. To go and pull something from this invisible place, and bring it into his awareness, write it down on paper, work it out in his lab and create something that never existed before. So I want to go back to thought quickly, thought is so important, because thought, as Dr. Joseph Murphy stated, his first cause in our lives, meaning. If we want to see the root cause of any issue in our lives, based on who we perceive it to be, check your thoughts. It’s a guarantee that if you check your thoughts, your thoughts have been in the equivalent, negative or fearful or doubtful. Because you thought it and went into your emotional nature, which began to impact your vision for the future, or your regrets of the past, in your mind’s eye, your visual faculty, and that is causing the results in your life to perpetuate you doing positive outcomes or negative outcomes. So when we know that, then we can become conscious creators. That is why people need to know how not why. If you have some negative subconscious programming, those negative words are going to say, yes, that’s exactly it, you’re not good enough. But the truth is, once you understand how our mind works, thoughts, feelings, imagination, follow the trail, identify these areas in your life, and you will get the answers to almost every problem. It’s so important because once you know, then it takes away fear. You don’t have to be afraid of the things that aren’t working out. Check your emotions, get them under control, stop being so impatient, stop being so scared, being afraid, is never giving you anything. When you calm your emotion, now you can think clearly and then you can begin to say, I’m going to control my imagination on what I see. I now decide to see myself in a better place than I am because I’m calm and now I can hear the intuition and now I’m beginning to get that insight. Then you get that Albert Einstein effect where imagination is more important knowledge and that you are creating or manifesting what you want. It’s not magic, it’s science.
Can you share with our listeners one of your favorite networking experiences that you’ve had?
Yeah, I would say one of the best networking experiences that I ever had was when I was still living in Houston, Texas, where I grew up. I was at a networking event, while I was in a program that was offered through the Greater Houston African American Chamber called the Houston Black Leadership Institute. So they always had great business leaders come in to talk to us at all kinds of events, like black state senators from this from the state would be there. I just remember my first networking event, I walked in there, and I saw at the time was state representative Sylvester Turner. I saw Sheila Jackson Lee there, I saw senator Boris Miles. People that I’ve seen on TV only and I even knew who they were already especially the ones that I named others had no research, we were researching all these photos. I was like, “I’ve learned all these things about who they are, but I don’t know what to ask them.” What I wanted to ask them was how they were so successful, but of course, I had to kind of synthesize that and figure out how to ask that to them and have a good conversation. So I did okay the first time around, but what it showed me is, is that no matter who is in the room, the networking event, either I believe in myself, and I believe that I deserve to be in that room or not. If I believe I deserve to be in that room, virtually or in person, I’m going to go in there and make some great connections, and have some follow-ups. If I don’t go in there with the inner belief and confidence, then I’m not going to go in there and be my best version and make as many connections as I could. So that experience taught me that fear could not be a part of my networking experience, or it would be a waste of my time, or simply just not as effective as it could have been. Not just to get something out of it, but I could be connecting with people who I can help, or who could help me learn and grow. That’s what it’s all about, relationships are king. Your network will always be very closely aligned with your net worth. If you are friends and associated with highly successful people who are multimillionaires, over time, you will naturally flow into that because you have an energetic connection with those kinds of people who think in a certain kind of way, which results in financial success, peace of mind, harmonious relationships. You have to get your energetic connection or harmony with the state of being or reality that you want in order to get it. Networking is a great way to do it because there tend to be people who are further ahead than you, that are closer to where you want to be or where you want to be, and if you can connect with them, you’re also connecting with your future vision, because it’s an opportunity to learn what it is to be in their operation You see how they’re calm or how they’re kind of fitting in or whatever else, and you begin to mimic that which is retraining your subconscious mind. So networking is not just to meet people, networking is harmonizing towards your future vision, especially when there are individuals that are in alignment with that. Make sure that when you’re networking that you have at least five people that you are making your business connect with before you leave there. You may not get all five, but if you get three of them, and they’re in alignment with where you want to go, and what you need to learn, wow, what could that mean for you? You do that five times in a full year, that’s 15 new connections that are going to help you go directly towards where you want to go, or at least point you in the right direction. What could that mean for you in a year’s time? That could be a promotion, starting a business, start investing in real estate, you’d have no idea, there’s infinite potential out there. Remember what Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” So you don’t have to know everything, just believe that is possible and go in there with that intention, and let it flow. You’ll be in good shape.
How do you best stay in front of and nurture this community in your network that you create?
For me, it’s been interesting since COVID. Before I was just having coffees and or breakfast meetings, I’ll just say connected with people that have become friends, or that I want to cultivate relationships with. What I would say what I’ve had to do is to create one on one zoom chats. So LinkedIn has been key to just reach out to people because it’s for business purposes and it’s for business setup. If you don’t have their contact information, LinkedIn is great, but if you do, of course, you can reach out to them directly and set up coffee meet-ups. A lot of times what I’ve noticed that there have been mastermind groups and things like that, which are just groups of people who are like-minded, who truly jam out on growth mindset type of ideas, or, or investments or business or whatever. As you connect with those individuals, you will find out over time, I can promise you that mastermind groups and other little small groups that are meeting stay connected. Once you get invited into those circles, once again, it would be the equivalent that was happening in person. So that’s a way to kind of stay in front of people.
Can you look back at your 20-year-old self right now and let me know what would you tell yourself if you do more or less of or differently with regards to your professional career?
I would probably be telling myself to keep your head up and to trust yourself more. I would say around 20 years old was when a lot of the tumultuous learnings began to happen in my life. That time of my life showed me that who I truly was was formless and I had no limitation. It just took me a while to see that, as I would simply just tell myself to relax, and trust yourself. Things are not just going to be fine, but they’re going to be amazing. I probably would have also written down the Law of Mind. What you think you feel, what you feel you imagine, what you imagine you become, and say, “I want you to read this five times a day, for the next two months, every single day, read it and continue to meditate on it, and continue to let that phrase resonate with you. What does that really mean for you?” And I won’t even give them the answer. Let that resonate because that once again, who was the key to seeing the path to peace of mind, and mental and emotional freedom which is unlocked so much greater success in other areas of my life, relationally and professionally. Now I can believe in myself and I can check myself when I need to get back in gear as opposed to having to blame other people to argue other people down or point the finger at other people. No, it is me that needs to change, not anybody else, because I can’t control them, but I can control me.
Do you have any final words of advice for our listeners?
I would just say final words around networking in general, put yourself out there, take the risk. It’s a risk to get out of bed, you can roll your ankle, it’s a risk to go outside and hop in the car, you can get into a car wreck. But once again, you’re not thinking about that, you’re living your life. You’re doing the best you can with what you have and you’ll continue to expand your knowledge and experience to be able to be better and better and better. Put yourself out there, nothing bad is going to happen. The best thing that will happen quote-unquote or the worst thing that will happen is that you learn. Good, better, and different, you will learn. These are opportunities so the more you put yourself out there, the more opportunities you have to learn from the good and the quote-unquote bad. But remember, look at those as opportunities to get better and before you know it, you will begin to master that practice and the more authentic self that you bring to the table each and every time that your network, the more you will connect with the right people who have the right context, who will take you to the right places to get the right results. And you’ll be able to do the same thing for other people. That is when what they call serendipity or being in flow happens is when you stop thinking about it and just trust yourself and let it happen. Take action consistently towards your goal to what you want and you will see such a drastic change in your life, you will think that either it’s magic, or you got lucky. It’s not luck though, it’s operating under universal law and that starts first and foremost with trusting yourself. Networking is just an extension of who you are becoming so let that be a part of the amazing powerful being in result.
Connect with William
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/williambdeck/
Website: https://www.mindbusinessllc.com/
Instagram: @william.b.deck