Carry Yourself Like a King Before the Crown Arrives.
Imagine that I just came back from the future, and I told you that ten years from today, you're already a millionaire, or even well on your way to becoming a billionaire. Everything you've imagined yourself having today is already yours. You have more money than you can spend in a lifetime, a huge home, your dream car in the garage, and you're waking up next to your dream woman every single morning. You are the king of your reality, and you believe my testimony without a shred of doubt in your mind.
What would you do with this revelation? Would you spend the next few weeks racking your brain trying to figure out exactly how and when it's all going to happen? Or would you start carrying yourself like the king you already know you will be?
You see, when it comes to your identity, the order of your actions is the part that matters most. The identity you assume comes before the experiences you manifest from it. The experiences you crave today will not make you feel a certain way about your life tomorrow. It's the other way around.
Carry yourself like a king today and people will treat you with respect and adoration tomorrow. Stay in that lane long enough and you'll be the man who magnetizes money to him without the struggle. Stay there a little bit longer and you'll be the king every queen out there is searching for, and she'll feel it the moment your eyes meet with hers.
You have to see yourself as the king of your reality before the crown ever arrives, and not every man is willing to do this, which is exactly what makes it worth doing. This is where you stand back in the pocket, scan the field, and set the target you want to hit. Then you picture yourself as the man who's already done it, and make damn sure your daily behavior matches that man on the other side of that goal.
Even with that kind of certainty handed to him, the average man would still rather spend his days hyper focusing on the details of how it's going to happen and why it's not happening faster. The path from here on out is going to take some grit, but you'll succeed because you're ready to do what most men can't.
Here's what I'm offering you in this article: liberation from fear and doubt. By the time you finish reading, you'll carry yourself in a way that puts your identity in front of the proof in your life’s ambitions.
The First Decree: Stop Trying to Figure It All Out
It's common online knowledge that identity comes before the rewards in life, but the information on how to activate that identity is scarce. I'm going to assume that you've dabbled in this niche of self improvement already, and you understand the principles on an intellectual level. That's the first bottleneck I want to address with you. True understanding doesn't come from intellect alone, it comes from knowing, and knowing only shows up through the behavior and actions that demonstrate the knowledge you've absorbed.
You can read every book on identity and self improvement and still be the same man you were last year, because reading about other kings and carrying yourself like one are two completely different operating modes. And if you're one of the many queens reading this article, swap the titles, because all of this applies to you as well.
You're here to learn how to BE, not to gather more information on how to become.
When you assume your own king energy, there will be some pushback, because you've been used to being another piece on the board for most of your life. Let's say a pawn. But now you want to assume the identity of a king, so naturally the people around you will doubt your ambitions. It will feel like some of them are going out of their way to reject this new and improved version of you. And you'll be even more surprised when one of your closest friends insists that you stay comfy right where you are, because it's tough out there and you might embarrass yourself if you fail.
All of these people are manifestations of your old identity and the fears he used to carry. They've unconsciously agreed to assume different forms of the resistance within you, to trigger your greatness. This is actually where you cultivate your power, instead of complaining about your circumstances. Resistance builds muscle in the weight room, and your identity is a muscle that grows the same way, one rep at a time.
So let's jump into the deep waters. As of right now, you are the king of your reality, and here's the first decree to adhere to as you assume the throne. As king, you will not try to figure out the how or the when of any experience you're consciously manifesting. Trying to figure it out is the resistance itself.
Yes, you are who you said you are, but the problem I see most often is that the people I've worked with immediately concern themselves with how it's going to happen and how fast it's going to happen, to the point of micromanaging their own coronation.
As king, the how is not your job. Your physical mind is built to operate the identity, but it is not engineered to map out the entire process of how everything is going to come together. You know how to chew and swallow your food, but your thinking mind doesn't know how to digest it and deliver the nutrients to your organs and your muscles. Unless you're a scientist studying these things, why should you care? This is the role of the unconscious mind, which already knows its job better than you ever could.
You don't need to know how a car works under the hood to drive it through your city. You don't need to understand how the internet works to send an email. In the same way, I want you to master operating your identity before you concern yourself with how it's going to deliver the perks of it, and the way you do that is by focusing on your whats and your whys.
Name Your What, Then Find Your Why
I want you to name a goal right now.
You're already successful, but you want a higher title or a higher income? Then say it.
Do you want to move from single and bored to connecting or reconnecting with the woman of your dreams? Then say it.
Do you want to leave your job behind and step into being your own boss? Say it.
And I do mean say it, out loud. Put this energy out into the universe before you read the next line.
Your title is the what. CEO, CFO, Captain, Supervisor, President, Partner, Best Seller, Founder, Husband, Father. These are your ‘whats’.
Now I have an important question for you. WHY?
Take your time with this one, because this is the reason you're going to tap into in order to stay on your throne when times get tough. In some of the darkest days of my own life when I was pushing my limits to hit the biggest goals, the money wasn't always enough to keep me going. The love wasn't always there to pull me through when my relationship hit a rough patch. When the resistance crashes the coronation and the goal itself starts to lose its appeal, your why is the only thing that will keep you on your throne.
Your old why was to make more money. Your better why is to deliver even more freedom into your life and to be the source of that freedom for the people you love. Your old why was to get your queen back or to find a new one. Your better why is to express the love you have for yourself and project that out to others, in the role you were cast for as a husband. These are just a couple of light examples, but apply this same mindset to what matters most to you. Pick a why that matters to you more than the goal itself ever could.
Fake It Till You Make It, the Mature Version
Let's move on to a phrase that gets thrown around constantly in this space: "fake it till you make it." The reason it has a bad reputation is because it's corrupted advice masquerading as wisdom.
When the average guy hears "fake it till you make it," his mind goes straight to lying about his qualifications, pretending to have money or knowledge he doesn't have, or overexaggerating his resume to land an opportunity. That version of the advice is fraud, plain and simple, and it collapses the second you get put into a real situation that requires the actual skill that you claimed to have on paper. The fake crown gets challenged, and if you have nothing underneath to back it up, it'll fall right off your head.
Assuming the identity before you achieve the goal is an internal way of operating in order to acquire the external skills and knowledge it takes to be this new self. It's not a way to shortcut the journey by pretending you already have the skills and knowledge.
The reason this motto falls apart most times is because it's working on the wrong layer of identity. It's trying to fake the external results on the surface while the internal identity at the foundation stays the same, and anyone who's someone can see through that mind game.
The more mature version of this advice is the one I'm installing in you now, and it operates on the level of identity and integrity before needing proof to back it up. In your daily life, you're adopting the behaviors of your future self, instead of waiting for the perfect conditions to do it. It looks like practicing your craft every day and taking on things that scare you even when your insides are doing back flips. It looks like taking on a challenge that's way past your comfort zone, so the identity has room to stretch into its new shape and lock in.
Marcus Aurelius wrote in his journals that the soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts. The identity you rehearse in your mind, in your daily speech, in your daily behavior, is the identity that operates your life on autopilot. That identity is the upstream cause of every result you have today and the ones you'll receive tomorrow. Acting as if is the practice that develops the attributes of the new identity faster than any amount of waiting for the right moment ever could.
This brings us to the act of carrying yourself like a king on a daily basis, in the little moments that compound into the lifestyle you're assuming.
The Daily Practice: Anchoring to FEELINGS
Holding the king identity through your daily action is the part that turns the new self into a permanent self. Without the daily action behind it, the new identity is just a costume you put on for the big moments and take off when life gets hard.
The daily action you take while holding the new identity is what turns the new self into a permanent fixture in your life. The identity holds steady in your mind, and the action you take each day stays connected to it, so the two start moving together as one rhythm instead of two separate efforts.
The new identity has to be lived through the small choices you make every day, and the way you do that is by anchoring it to a feeling state. The feeling I want you to lock onto is: MAJESTIC, and its root word MAJESTY.
You remember having to study all of the different forms of royalty in human history in grade school, right? Let's refer back to those memories. Think about how majesty operates as a feeling. It's the energy of being adored and respected without having to struggle for either one of those things. It's given to royalty by birthright, and they carry this programming in life knowing the respect and adoration is already coming. They don't chase it. From this point forward, I want you to refer to this feeling in your mind, in your inner conversations with yourself, and in how you describe your life when you sit down to script your future.
I was a big fan of the Game of Thrones show, and my wife watches Bridgerton and all of those Netflix shows that cater to that niche. If there's one thing I remember about royalty from these shows, it's that they do not tolerate disrespect. In your kingdom, your crown won't be respected long if you don't respect it, and if you allow others to disrespect it.
Your subconscious mind isn't watching the big moments to decide who you are. It's watching the way you handle the ordinary ones. It's watching how you respond when someone disrespects your time, how you carry yourself when you walk into a room of people who don't know you, and how you talk about yourself to others. These are the small moments where the king either shows up or stays in the shadows, and your subconscious is taking notes on which version is winning more often throughout the day.
Holding the identity you choose in place means that you have strong boundaries. You make promises to yourself and you keep them come hell or high water. The old self might want to complain or shrink under pressure, but the king meets the moment with the same confidence, whether the day is going his way or not.
The Daily Action: Boundaries Over B.S.
Next up is the daily action you take, because visualization without action is just a fancy way of day dreaming. Your thinking mind requires daily evidence that its new identity is real, and the action you take each day is the evidence your subconscious uses to lock in.
The action you take from this new identity is the part that locks it into place, and the simplest way to think about it is this. When you believe yourself to be the king of your own reality, you treat everyone else like they are the king and queen of theirs. As a king, you'll say no a lot more than you'll say yes, because most of the offers and situations coming your way won't match who you are. You'll have to be selective through your new way of seeing the world.
Saying no to your old habits while also saying no to accepting any form of disrespect from others is the daily boundary work that builds the new self faster than saying yes too much ever could.
Now, think back to the beginning of this article, where I was fresh off my trip from 10 years into the future. If you truly believe the testimony I gave you, how would you respond to the circumstances in your life right now? Would you accept the disrespectful treatment from someone who doesn't respect your value? Would you take low ball offers from people who try to underpay you for what you do? Would you chase after a lady who doesn't respect your time and presence? Would you let the fear of one bad day stop you dead in your tracks, knowing that no matter what happens between now and then, you still win in the end?
I want you to answer all of those questions as if you knew the ending of your movie, because you do. I just told you.
Operate from that identity right now with the same confidence the future version of you already carries, knowing that the movie of your life has an epic ending no matter what scene you're acting in today.
Executing this framework gives you a way of moving through your life that magnetizes the goal toward you on its own, instead of you spending your days chasing it down.
The Final Word
If you sit around waiting for the crown to arrive before you start carrying yourself like a king, you'll end up waiting on it forever. The crown doesn't make you a king in the first place. The crown is recognition from the world around you, and that recognition only shows up after the identity has already been claimed in the privacy of your own mind.
Start carrying yourself like a king today, and the world will begin to respond to you over the coming weeks. The respect from people who used to downplay you, the money showing up with a lot less struggle, the queen who finally recognizes you the moment you speak to her, all of it is ready for you to experience.
So lock in, king.
