And how do you know if you're one of them?
There's a "fact" that I've been falsely spreading without knowing it. And I'm pretty pissed to learn this fact is, in fact, an "alternative fact".
What fact? That Donald Trump, in a 1998 People magazine interview, told a reporter:
"If I were to run, I’d run as a Republican. They’re the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they’d still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific."
I'd seen that quote dozens of times. Maybe hundreds.
And I believed it.
Problem is... he never said it.
The whole damn thing was fabricated. People magazine has no record of the interview. Fact-checkers had debunked the quote years ago.
TBH (to be honest), I was so fvcking mad when I found out.
Not because someone had finally proven me wrong about Donald Trump.
But because I'd been fooled. I'd believed something without questioning it, simply because it confirmed what I already thought.
And here's the embarrassing part.
I've spent decades teaching people how to recognize their unconscious programming. How to become more aware of the beliefs and assumptions that shape their lives.
And there I was, caught in my own.
Which left me with one deeply uncomfortable question:
Where ELSE am I being misled without even knowing it?
Welcome to Your Matrix
Remember The Matrix? The Wachowskis' seminal movie where people go about their everyday lives, completely unaware that the reality they're experiencing has been constructed for them?
Well, welcome to yours.
I'm not suggesting we're all plugged into machines harvesting our energy. But we are living inside invisible systems of beliefs, assumptions, expectations, and conditioning that shape how we experience the world.
And the most fascinating thing about a Matrix?
You don't know you're in one while you're in it.
MAGA is a Matrix. Political parties are Matrices. Our families, our college culture, religious communities, even corporate cultures are their own echo-chamber Matrices too.
Not because everything inside them is wrong.
But because we can become so immersed in a particular worldview that we stop questioning it.
We surround ourselves with people who believe what we believe. We consume news that reinforces what we already think. We follow social media accounts that confirm our opinions.
And when someone challenges those opinions?
Well, obviously, they're the ones who've been brainwashed. (wink wink)
Here's the kicker: they're most likely thinking exactly the same thing about me, you and us.
The Most Dangerous Lies Are the Ones We Want to Believe
Psychologists call it confirmation bias. It's a real scientific thing. Not some set of made-up politically weaponized words. Confirmation bias means we tend to favor information that supports what we already believe.
But knowing that confirmation bias exists doesn't mean we're immune to it.
Exhibit A: Me and that ridiculous Trump quote.
Think about how easily something becomes a fact in our minds.
Someone says it. Someone else repeats it. We see it in a meme. A friend shares it. We hear it again on a podcast.
And somewhere along the way, we stop remembering where we first encountered it.
We just know it.
Or do we?
Today, we have political campaigns, media organizations, social media algorithms, and increasingly sophisticated AI-generated content competing for our attention.
And here's what makes the whole thing so effective.
The information that feels most believable is often the information that tells us we're already right.
We don't have to be stupid to fall for it.
We just have to be human.
The Millisecond That Changes Everything
One of the foundational tools in my BetterHuman app is called The Millisecond Technique™.
Its premise is beautifully simple.
Pause before you choose.
Most of us move through life reacting to things before we've even recognized that we're reacting.
Someone cuts us off in traffic. We're furious.
Someone says something that rubs us the wrong way. We're offended.
Someone shares a political claim that confirms what we already believe. We hit share.
All before we've stopped to examine what's actually happening inside our own minds.
The Millisecond gives us that opportunity.
A tiny interruption between what happens and what we choose to do next.
And in that space, we can ask a question that might change everything.
Whose idea was this to begin with?
Did I arrive at this belief through my own examination? Or have I repeated something so many times that it now feels like something I know?
And here's the really uncomfortable part:
If someone else planted this thought in my head, would I even know it?
That's what the Millisecond gives us. The opportunity to examine what's behind a thought before we turn it into a belief, a reaction, or a decision.
Because when we skip that pause, we can end up acting on someone else's thinking without even realizing it's not our own.
Before You Make Your Next Choice
Elections. Where to go to college. Who to follow. Who to marry. What club to join. Where to work.
We make potent choices every day. From the mundane to the substantively important.
What content we absorb. Whose voices are on repeat. Who we hang out with. The culture of our family of origin, AND our family of choice.
Here's what's fascinating. The people, places, and things we surround ourselves with influence what we believe. And what we believe influences the choices we make about the people, places, and things we surround ourselves with.
It's a cycle. And if we're not paying attention, it can become a Matrix of our own making.
I'm certainly not here to tell you who to vote for, listen to, or date.
I'm not even here to tell you to change your mind.
I'm asking something much more personal.
How many of the choices that shape your life have you made consciously? And how many were shaped by beliefs you never thought to question?
I'm here because I discovered that something I'd believed for years was complete bullsh*t.
And it made me wonder how many other things I've accepted as truth without ever bothering to question them.
Maybe you've done the same.
Maybe we all have.
So before you vote, before you make your next big decision, or the next time you find yourself absolutely certain that someone else is wrong, give yourself a millisecond.
Pause.
Get curious.
And ask yourself:
Am I choosing this because I believe it, or because I've never questioned it?
You might discover that your beliefs are exactly where you want them to be.
Or you might discover something that changes everything.
Either way, wouldn't you rather know?
Because freedom isn't just the ability to make a choice.
It's knowing that the choice you're making is actually yours.
Susanne Goldstein
Creator of EnergyOS™ | Founder, BetterHuman