Everybody’s heard the expression, You can’t have everything. Well, why not?  Who says? What is the fundamental reason it is not possible for us to have everything? According to Gay Hendricks, it is possible. What stops us is our own limiting beliefs.

To be clear, having everything is not the same as having it both ways. The latter is more like You can’t have your cake and eat it, too. I used to hate that expression. What was the point of having the cake if you couldn’t eat it? Then someone pointed out that if you eat the cake, you no longer have it, so you cannot, in fact, have it and eat it. I’m not sure that’s how most people hear it, but it’s the only way that makes sense to me now.

Dr. Hendricks says we all have upper limits that we are comfortable operating under and it we start to go higher, limiting beliefs pulls us right back down. When we get too happy or too successful, we will start some type of conflict, either within ourselves – by getting sick or injured or just screwing up – or with others – picking fights, for instance. This is what Dr. Hendricks calls your Upper Limit Problem. I don’t know about you, but I’ve run smack into that little bastard so many times he’s imprinted on my forehead.

And that is part of the problem. Our upper limits seems like just part of who we are, so we cannot see them as being something we can get past. Dr. Hendricks’ book guides us in how to do just that. He says that no matter how well your life is going, it could be better. Many highly successful people are operating in their zone of Excellence, but not their zone of Genius. And most of the rest of us are hanging out in our zone of Competence.

Okay, we know our Upper Limits are going to be in our subconscious mind, right? That tells us exactly nothing new. So, what’s the point? The point is Dr. Hendricks shows us ways to discover what those limits are and, more importantly, how they got there and what keeps them there.

I really liked this book. It was really helpful to me. I have one complaint about it, though. All of his case studies are with highly successful people, ones already firmly ensconced in their zone of Excellence. Granted, he charges a lot for his services and these are the people who can afford him. But it left me feeling a bit marginalized. I know this is not true, but it almost felt like he can’t help you until you’re already at that level. I couldn’t relate to their problems.

But I have no doubt this techniques can work for anyone at any point in their lives. Maybe it’ll work for you. And it’s barely 200 pages, so it’s a faster read than a lot of books like it.