14.3 | My Own Experience with "Believing You Have Received"

7. My Own Experience with "Believing You Have Received"

Now, I’m going to open up a bit and share how I personally practiced this state of "believing I had already received."

And look, when I say "received," I’m not just talking about stacking up cash. It’s much bigger than that. It’s about:

• The kind of person you intend to become.
• The state of being you want to live in every day.
• And yes, eventually, the wealth that naturally manifests in your physical world as a result.

This is a long-term process. It’s a discipline. Here is how I fought my way into the "Already Received" state.

My Youth: The "Already Received" State Born from Imitation

It started when I was just a kid in a small Chinese town. Where I grew up, there weren't many "big players." There were no high-level societal benchmarks to look up to. My parents were incredibly kind and hardworking people, but they didn't have the capacity to hand me a clear blueprint of what a "world-class leader" looked like.

But I had one thing: I was a voracious reader. Since I couldn't find my role models in my neighborhood, I found them in books. During that stage of my life, the figure I looked up to most was:

• Mao Zedong.

Now, let me be clear—this wasn't about agreeing with everything he did later in history. It was about the environment I was in. In the Chinese educational system of that time, his life was the most documented, most accessible, and most deeply analyzed material available. I read every biography I could get my hands on.

So, I did something incredibly "youthful"—I decided to imitate him completely. I didn't just read about him; I lived like him.

• I found his reading lists and read exactly what he read.
• He loved swimming, so I started swimming.
• He famously swam across the Yangtze River. My home was right on the banks of the Yangtze, so I swam across that massive river almost every single day.
• He practiced cold-water baths to harden his will. I kept up that habit of cold showers for over ten years.
• He had a motto: "Civilize the mind, make savage the body." I followed it to the letter.
• As a youth, he spent his vacations traveling through rural villages to conduct social investigations. I did exactly the same thing.

At the same time, I mirrored his way of thinking and his personality traits:

• Ignoring trivial formalities.
• Putting the most critical tasks at the absolute top of the priority list.
• Thinking in ways that were completely different from the crowd.
• Obsessing over facts and ground-level investigation.

Whatever he did, I did. That was the reality of my youth. At its core, I was doing one thing: Imitating.

What Does "Believing You Have Received" Actually Mean?

Looking back, what I was doing as a teenager was exactly what we’ve been talking about in this chapter: Living in the "Already Received" state.

It’s almost identical to the story of the Russian entrepreneur. I wasn't saying to myself, "I hope to become that kind of person one day." No. Deep in my bones, I had already decided: "I AM that kind of person."

Because I held that identity, I naturally lived according to it:

• I spoke like that.
• I walked like that.
• I trained like that.
• I thought like that.
• I made decisions like that.

Whether I eventually became a figure like Mao was never the point. As a kid, I wasn't dreaming of being a Chairman or getting into politics. My goal was much simpler: To become a person of immense willpower, sharp judgment, and independent thought.

And that goal was validated over and over again in my later career. In terms of those specific qualities, I did indeed approach the character traits I admired as a boy.

But later, my reflection on the "power" I once worshiped—and the inherent dangers of that power—is exactly what drove me to eventually turn toward Jesus. That is where the ultimate shift happened. But that earlier stage was my first real masterclass in the state of "already received" and the massive results it brings.