Beating the 1% Odds: How I Created a Future Others Told Me Couldn’t Happen

Have you ever felt like you should be further ahead in life?

That you’ve had all of these dreams, and visions, and plans… but not very many of them seem to be working out the way you want?

If you walk up to any random person on the street, nine out of ten will tell you that they feel the same way. Frustrated. Disappointed. Maybe even angry about it.

They say stuff like, “I don’t know why, but it seems like no matter what I do, I just can’t seem to get ahead.”

Or, “When’s it going to be my turn?”

You’ve dreamed about what the future could look like. The big house, the nice car, the fulfilling job with a huge paycheck, the family vacations, the fun-filled weekends with friends, the new wardrobe, and so on. Maybe your dreams even feature you with amazing six-pack abs that are the envy of everyone at the beach.

Regardless of what your dream life looks like, most of that stuff seems to annoyingly stay just that: a dream. You work hard to get ahead but it often feels like the kind of progress that is “two steps forward, one step backward.”

And that gets really old, really quick.

Years ago, when I was a sergeant in the US Army, I had a desire for more impact as a leader and the ability to lead a team with more influence. Along with that, I also wanted a much larger paycheck, because that would make life more comfortable for my family.

One of my senior leaders told me about an opportunity called the Green to Gold Program, and suggested that I look into it. It was a highly selective program that allowed enlisted Soldiers to complete their undergraduate degree and then return to service as a commissioned officer.

Having recently returned from a combat deployment to Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne Division, I went down to the Green to Gold liaison on Fort Bragg and chatted with him about options.

During our conversation, he encouraged me to apply for the program since I met the minimum requirements, but warned me that the program option I wanted to apply for had less than a 1% acceptance rate at the time. Meaning more than 99% of the people who applied for it were rejected. He said he wanted me to have realistic expectations.

After taking all the information home and talking over it with my wife, I decided that it was what I really wanted to do in my Army career. So I put together everything necessary for the application packet and submitted it.

Several months later, when the review board convened, I was selected for the program option I wanted and given the opportunity to complete my undergraduate degree at Texas A&M University. The day I received my Bachelor of Science diploma in Leadership was also the same day I raised my right hand and swore in as a Lieutenant in the corps of commissioned officers.

I achieved something that everyone told me was statistically unlikely to happen.

And I did it by doing three specific things.

First, I got absolutely clear on what I really wanted.

As I mentioned earlier, I have a passion for leadership and team development, and I wanted the opportunity to do more of that at a higher level. Becoming a commissioned officer would give me the chance to do that.

But the decision I had to make at the time required a choice. I was eligible for promotion to Staff Sergeant and was currently working a great job, entrusted with a position rated one step above my current pay grade. My promotion points were nearly maxed out, and staffing trends indicated that I would get promoted soon.

If I applied for the Green to Gold Program and got selected, accepting admission into the program meant immediately giving up my promotable status and never becoming a Staff Sergeant. It also meant giving up my projected assignment slots in both an Army leadership school and Air Assault School.

After weighing all of my options and opportunity costs, and discussing everything with my wife, I decided that what I really wanted was to become a commissioned officer.

I had absolute clarity.

The next thing I did was activate a key mindset element. To achieve the clarity I needed for my vision of the future, I had to believe two things. First, I had to believe that it was possible for me to get accepted into the program I wanted and successfully complete it. Second, I had to believe that I deserved to have what I wanted.

Without getting too deep into the meta-physics and psychology behind it, one of the things we need to understand is that everything in the universe is connected by energy and things exist at different frequencies.

If you remember back in the day when you were in high school science, they talked about this. Electromagnetic bonds holding atoms and molecules together, visible and invisible light being on different frequencies, energy waves having different wavelengths, and so on.

The point is, the future I wanted existed at a specific energetic level and to achieve it I had to exist at the same energetic level. Like Dr. Maxwell Maltz discusses in depth in his book Psycho-Cybernetics, I had to program my subconscious mind with the belief that I was both capable and worthy of the future I wanted.

While many people believe that they can accomplish things, I’ve often seen people struggle with the idea that they deserve the things they want. Many times this comes from mindset limitations introduced when they were younger, or unresolved mental/emotional trauma that is impacting their self-value perspective.

Dr. Maltz explains in his book that the mind is like a computer that can be programmed – or reprogrammed in the case of limiting beliefs – to produce whatever you desire. The one thing you’re focused on and truly believe is the energy you will extend to the world around you.

And that energy will resonate with and draw certain things toward you, as well as causing dissonance (or an energetic mismatch) with other things, based on what you believe to be possible and available to you.

In short, even if you believe that the future you want is possible, but aren’t convinced that you deserve to have it, then your subconscious mind will protect you from what it perceives to be a threat (or an energetic misalignment) and prevent the future you want from occurring.

If that’s you and you realize that you struggled with feeling worthy or deserving of the future you want, I share practical ways to overcome that limiting belief at the end of this article.

So, after I got clear on what I truly wanted, and believed that I could and deserved to have it, I moved on to the third and final piece of the puzzle. I identified the top actions that would move me closer to the future I wanted, and focused on doing those consistently.

For me, this included taking proactive steps to compile multiple parts of the Green to Gold application packet, including medical evaluations, multiple letters of recommendation, and personal essays. It also meant staying consistent with my physical fitness regimen, and continuing to diligently perform well at my current job. I also reached out to several senior leaders I was connected with to seek out mentorship and advice for when I became an officer.

Because I truly believed that I would get accepted into the program – regardless of the odds – I began taking actions as if it was a done deal. I also began to reflect on my mindset and paradigm, and asked myself what thinking or perspectives needed to change and uplevel since I was going to become an officer and have more responsibility in the future.

And as you already know from earlier, I beat the 1% odds and manifested the future I truly wanted. You can do the same thing in your life.

Here’s how you do it.

Start by sitting down with a piece of paper, your journal, or a blank document on your computer. “Mind dump” and write down everything you want out of life. There are no wrong answers and they don’t need to be in any certain order.

Don’t try to organize your thoughts at this point, because that takes you out of creative thinking and puts you into analytical thinking, which will stop the reflective process we need.

Once you’ve got a big, messy, potentially jumbled list of ideas and things you want, look through it and identify anything that has been framed from a negative perspective. As neuroscience has shown us, our brains are incapable of perceiving and conceptualizing in negatives, so we need to reframe these from a positive perspective.

For example, if you said “I don’t want to work as much,” then what do you want? Is it to work fewer hours, or is it really that you want to spend more time with your family?

Once you’ve reevaluated your list, go through it one more time and answer the question: Which of the things on this list, when accomplished, would have the greatest positive impact on my life? If you’re not sure or having trouble deciding, ask yourself what one thing would actually be exciting enough to make you want to jump out of bed with enthusiasm to work toward each day.

Once you’ve decided on the one thing you’re going to prioritize and focus on first, circle it or underline it. The next step is to program this into your mind as your primary focus.

Get a 3” x 5” notecard, and write your goal on it in the present tense. It’s important to hand write it, because the process of physically writing it activates a different part of your brain than just typing it on a device or computer screen does. For example, if the goal you’ve decided to focus on is achieving a major promotion at work, you can write:

“I am the [desired position title] of [company name], and I earn a minimum of [desired salary] each year.”

Underneath this, write the following statement.

“I am enough. I am worthy. I attract everything I desire from the universe. Good things come to me in abundance.”

Once you’ve written your goal and these mindset programming statements on your notecard, keep the card in the pocket of whatever you are wearing. Every day, pull this notecard out a minimum of three times (just like taking a prescription medication), and read the statements aloud to yourself.

Your mind is programmed to believe what it hears you say out loud, and will begin to energetically align you with the future you desire. That’s why it is important to speak it aloud, and not just passively read it silently to yourself.

Just like the science project you did in school where you made the floating cork and needle compass by stroking the needle with a magnet, you have to recalibrate your mind to align with the direction you want to go into your future. Using your note card will help you do that.

The more often you reinforce your belief each day, the more powerfully you will magnetize yourself, and the more rapidly the things you want will be pulled toward you.

Benjamin R. Lueck
Nashville, Tennessee, USA