by-Josh Bryant

Your mind isn’t some southern frat boy in a pastel polo and Crimson Tide blazer, loafers dangling off a country club barstool, sipping vodka tonics or some weak spritzer, bragging about daddy’s boat. That’s passenger-seat energy.

Your mind belongs in the arena—on the field of play. It’s the fullback on 4th-and-1, elbows and assholes at the goal line. You lower your shoulder, drive your legs, and smash it up the middle until the chains move.

That’s the difference: weak-drink sidelines chatter, or violent forward progress when it counts.

Proof That Belief Drives Physiology

This isn’t motivational chatter—it’s science. Researchers ran an experiment where participants drank the exact same milkshake on two different days. One day it was labeled indulgent, the next sensible. The shakes were identical, but the body didn’t react the same. When people believed it was indulgent, their hunger hormone ghrelin dropped significantly more. Belief rewrote the body’s chemistry.

Another study, referenced in Lipton’s Biology of Belief, looked at hotel housekeepers. They were told their daily work—vacuuming, scrubbing, hauling laundry—counted as exercise. They didn’t change routines at all. Four weeks later, their blood pressure dropped and other health markers improved. Nothing new but belief—and physiology followed.

From Snakes to Strength

This extends far beyond the lab. In the hollers of West by God Virginia, the backroads of Letcher County, and down into Harlan County, Kentucky—where my own family roots run deep—there are still small congregations that bring venomous snakes into their church services. Most often it’s rattlesnakes—timber rattlers being the classic choice—but copperheads, cottonmouths, and other venomous snakes sometimes make their way into the boxes too.

Picture a one-room church, wood floors worn smooth, and up front—the rug at the altar. The band is cooking in the corner—fiddle, guitar, tambourine, hand claps. Call-and-response preaching rolls like thunder. The whole place vibrates: stomping feet, voices raised, hands stretched to heaven. Folks make their way to the altar, where hands are laid one after another. People collapse weeping, shout, sway, shake—because in that moment they believe beyond doubt that they’re touched, healed, and protected.

But here’s the key—it’s belief that sparks the change. The music, the movement, the laying on of hands—that’s just the primer. It lights the nervous system, gets adrenaline flowing, dulls pain, and puts the body in position to obey belief. By the time the boxes open—timber rattlers coiled around arms, copperheads flashing, cottonmouths gaping, strychnine sipped from Mason jars—the state is already set. By all statistical logic, there should be funerals every week—but the survival rate doesn’t differ much from the population at large, even without medical care. Their state—driven by belief—overrides fear and blunts what would normally be lethal.

The same thread runs through stories of hysterical strength: a teenage girl lifting a tractor off her father. No belt, no chalk, no cues—just adrenaline, necessity, and belief flipping the switch. Or firewalkers strolling barefoot across coals. Or men chewing glass.

Even Scripture speaks to it: “According to your faith be it unto you” (Matthew 9:29). Notice—it is belief that causes the activation. Belief drives physiology, for better or for worse. This is a universal law, like gravity. And if you want to argue Scripture on it, turn to Proverbs: “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7).

There’s no debate about the physiological side—we know how it happens. The nervous system is primed, adrenaline surges, fear gets overridden, and the body obeys belief. The debate is in the theology: is this divine intervention, or just human biology playing out? I can’t answer that for you. I’ll only say this—I don’t know how there would be physiological laws without a Lawmaker.

The Identity Protocol

So how do you bottle that power for everyday life, without venomous snakes and strychnine? Simple: identity comes first. Action follows. Evidence stacks last.

Close your eyes for sixty seconds. Imagine your end state as if it’s already true. See the room. Hear the sounds. Feel your body in that finished position. Shoulders square. Breath steadies. That’s physiology obeying the narrative.

Then take one small action that proves it’s real. Doesn’t matter how small—it’s the micro-proof that matters. At night, write: “I am the kind of person who ___.” and list three moments where you lived it today. Those reps hardwire the loop: identity → action → evidence.

Rename. Reframe. Dominate.

Words shape the way the body responds. Call it a “workout” and it sounds optional. Call it building physical resilienceand it becomes essential.

You’re not “quitting smoking.” Who wants to be a quitter? You’re enhancing your ability to breathe, to perform, to live stronger.

Budgeting? Don’t frame it as sacrifice. Budgeting sounds like scarcity. Instead, see it as your Path to Prosperity—being smart with your money is how you build wealth.

And forget the idea of “working a room.” That’s empty handshakes and fake smiles. Call it building bridges that hold weight.

Even resistance becomes reframed—it’s not punishment, it’s deposits in the strength bank. Focus isn’t strain—it’s sharpening. Same actions, new language, new results.

Burn Down the Weakness

It’s not enough to build the new—you’ve got to clear out the old. Bad habits are condemned buildings you’ve been squatting in for years. Sometimes you remodel, sometimes you call the demo crew.

If you’re pounding six sodas a day, taper to lemon water—that’s remodeling. But if booze is wrecking your health, you don’t wean—you burn it down. Pour it out, toss the glasses, salt the earth where the bottles stood. Extreme? Absolutely. But habits are extreme forces, and they don’t go quietly.

Replacement is the secret. Swap backward pulls for forward pushes. Doomscrolling becomes reading. Chips become carrots. Snuff becomes gum. Keep your hands busy while your brain rewires.

The New Operating System

Don’t expect lightning bolts on day one. Expect subtler but more powerful shifts: a calmer baseline, a sharper yes and no, less wasted energy on noise, more firepower for what matters. Over time, your filters change, and your life starts showing you only what aligns with the narrative you’re telling.

That’s how you get from belief to biology—from snake handlers dodging venom to teenagers lifting tractors. The human system is built to obey the mind. The only question is: are you feeding it garbage, or feeding it destiny?

Tap in. Toughen up. Train for real with one of Josh’s programs.