Positive Thinking: How Changing Your Mindset Can Change Your Life Feat. Garrain Jones
Here are the top 10 key takeaways from Ed Mylett's conversation with Garrain Jones about transforming your mindset and creating lasting change in your life.
1. True freedom comes from internal liberation through forgiveness
True freedom isn't achieved through external success but through internal liberation from resentment and negative energy. Jones describes creating a list of 250 people he had negatively impacted or held resentment toward, reaching out to apologize regardless of their response. This process included forgiving the men who murdered his father and apologizing to people who had wronged him, recognizing that holding onto resentment was affecting his own life.
The act of forgiveness isn't about the other person but about freeing yourself from stored negative energy. As Jones discovered, when you release hate and resentment from your heart, you create space for positive energy and opportunities to flow into your life. This internal work directly correlated with new business opportunities appearing in his life, suggesting that clearing emotional blockages allows you to operate at a higher vibrational frequency.
2. Voluntary discomfort builds resilience and character
Intentionally putting yourself through uncomfortable situations develops the mental toughness necessary for success. This concept goes beyond physical challenges to include making difficult phone calls, having tough conversations, and taking actions that feel scary or uncertain. The practice of voluntary discomfort prepares you for the involuntary discomfort that life inevitably brings.
When you voluntarily choose difficulty, you build confidence in your ability to handle whatever comes your way. This isn't about seeking suffering for its own sake, but about developing the resilience to push through obstacles when pursuing your goals. The muscle of discomfort tolerance becomes stronger with practice, allowing you to take bigger risks and pursue greater opportunities without being paralyzed by fear.
3. Energy transmutation redirects destructive patterns toward success
The same intense energy that drives destructive behaviors can be redirected toward positive outcomes through conscious effort. Jones explains how the energy behind his previous negative actions was identical to the energy that later drove his success in music and business. The key is recognizing that you're already operating with powerful energy but may be channeling it in the wrong direction.
This principle suggests that people struggling with addictions, destructive relationships, or self-sabotaging behaviors already possess the intensity needed for success. The challenge isn't developing more energy but learning to transmute existing energy toward constructive purposes. This reframe helps people see their struggles not as weaknesses but as proof of their capacity for powerful action when properly directed.
4. Vulnerability creates safety and connection with others
Creating safety in your presence happens paradoxically through vulnerability rather than strength or perfection. When you're willing to share your authentic struggles and imperfections, you give others permission to do the same. This openness taps into the voiceless parts of people that haven't been acknowledged or expressed.
Jones discovered this when he posted his darkest truths on social media, including his debt, homelessness, and relationship failures. The response wasn't judgment but gratitude from people who felt less alone in their struggles. Vulnerability becomes a service to others by showing them they're not uniquely broken or struggling. This authentic sharing creates deeper connections and allows you to serve people at their point of deepest need.
5. Reconnecting with childhood passions reveals your authentic gifts
Your truest gifts and sources of fulfillment are often found by returning to what brought you joy as a child before external influences shaped your choices. Jones uses the example of a successful woman who felt empty despite having money, marriage, and career success. When she returned to dancing, which she loved as a child, her entire life began to transform.
The activities that made time disappear when you were young contain clues to your authentic self and natural talents. These aren't necessarily meant to become careers but represent aspects of yourself that need expression for wholeness. Spending even small amounts of time reconnecting with these childhood loves can restore energy and clarity to all areas of your life.
Your inner child continues to seek acknowledgment throughout your adult life. Ignoring these core parts of yourself creates a sense of something missing, regardless of external success. By honoring and nurturing these aspects through regular engagement, you align your spiritual and physical selves in a way that enhances overall life satisfaction.
6. Winning requires embracing the dark side of success
True winning involves accepting the lonely, difficult, and sometimes cruel aspects of high achievement rather than romanticizing success. The most successful people live with constant visitors of doubt, fear, and pressure that never fully disappear. These internal struggles aren't obstacles to overcome but permanent companions that fuel continued excellence.
Winners don't achieve balance in the traditional sense during their climb to success. They become comfortable being uncomfortable and learn to shake hands with their fears rather than trying to eliminate them. This acceptance allows them to function at high levels without being derailed by the psychological challenges that stop most people.
The obsession required for true winning often appears unhealthy to outside observers but represents a different way of being rather than a problem to solve. Understanding this reality helps potential winners make informed decisions about whether they're willing to pay the full price for extraordinary achievement rather than being surprised by what success actually requires.
7. Heart power drives sustainable motivation more than strategy
The heart generates electrical current 50,000 times more powerful than the brain, making emotional investment more important than intellectual strategy. Success comes from caring deeply about outcomes that matter to you personally rather than pursuing goals because they seem logical or impressive to others. Jones transformed his life when he started caring about retiring his mother and funding his daughter's education rather than abstract success.
When you align your efforts with what genuinely matters to your heart, you tap into sustainable motivation that doesn't depend on external circumstances. This heart-centered approach provides fuel during difficult periods when logical reasons for continuing aren't sufficient. The combination of heart power with strategic thinking creates unstoppable momentum.
Most people fail not because they lack good strategies but because they haven't connected their goals to something they care about deeply enough to sustain effort through inevitable obstacles. Identifying what truly matters to your heart provides the emotional fuel necessary for long-term success.
8. Contrarian thinking creates competitive advantages
Success often requires thinking and acting opposite to what everyone else is doing rather than following popular trends or conventional wisdom. This principle applies to investments, business decisions, and life choices. When everyone is buying, the smart money sells, and when everyone is selling, opportunities emerge for those willing to think differently.
Contrarian thinking doesn't mean being difficult or contrary for its own sake but rather developing the ability to analyze situations independently of group consensus. This requires confidence in your own judgment and willingness to be temporarily wrong or misunderstood while waiting for results to validate your decisions.
The biggest opportunities and profits exist outside the pack mentality where most people operate. Developing contrarian thinking skills allows you to spot opportunities others miss and avoid following crowds toward predictable outcomes that benefit no one in particular.
9. Self-awareness enables strategic delegation and focus
Understanding your genuine strengths and weaknesses allows you to hire people who complement your abilities rather than trying to become good at everything. The most successful people spend their time in areas where they have natural gifts while delegating or avoiding areas where they struggle.
This requires honest self-assessment without the ego protection that causes people to overestimate abilities in areas where they're actually weak. True self-awareness includes recognizing not just what you're good at but what you enjoy doing, as sustainable success requires both competence and engagement.
Building teams of people who think differently from you prevents the echo chamber effect that limits growth and innovation. Surrounding yourself with diverse perspectives and complementary skills multiplies your effectiveness far beyond what you could achieve alone, regardless of your individual talents.
10. Staying in touch creates long-term business relationships
Building lasting success requires maintaining relationships over years and decades rather than focusing only on immediate transactions. The most successful people plant seeds through consistent communication that may not bear fruit for years but eventually create substantial opportunities.
Many people celebrate short-term wins and then disappear, missing the compound effect of sustained relationship building. The real profits come from being present consistently over time, staying connected with people during periods when there's no immediate business benefit. This long-term approach separates those who build lasting success from those who experience temporary victories.
Relationship maintenance requires viewing business as a series of ongoing connections rather than discrete transactions. This perspective shift leads to thinking about what you can provide to others rather than what you can get from them, which paradoxically results in greater long-term returns.