Many years ago, I worked for a boss who was abusive to his employees, and to the company's suppliers, and was, in my opinion, unethical, too. These were later conclusions, but I was a young man and I wanted to make an impression and get on in the company. I tried to gain the respect and appreciation of this man, my boss.

The more I tried, the more disrespect I seemed to get from him. And the worse he treated me, the more hurt I became. I began to doubt my own competence, my own ability. It was a very trying time for someone who wanted to progress and I felt thwarted at every turn. My self-esteem was being chipped away.

Do you ever feel that? Do you know someone who is in that situation?

One of my problems was, I had been brought up in a working-class family and was taught that you must respect your boss and try to please him. He is the boss, after all - he pays you your wages. So, I had a belief system that said, if you work hard and please your boss, you will get ahead. And if you don't work hard and don't please your boss, you won't get ahead and will feel disappointment and pain.

Thus I felt disappointed and hurt when I was not able to please my boss, and began to feel that I was incapable of working hard enough to succeed. And it all might have ended right there!

But I was lucky. Over the course of about a year, I slowly began to lose respect for my boss. He was my boss, and I respected his position, but I began to notice things that I felt were not quite right. At first I just assumed I didn't know the whole story - I didn't know how business worked - and the bits I saw I was just misunderstanding. Gradually, though, these things that I felt weren't quite right, took on a more unethical flavor, until I realized I had reached a point of thinking the worst of this man and totally disrespected him.

And, surprisingly, as my disrespect for him grew, so my feelings of hurt caused by his treatment of me diminished. His abuse and disdain for me didn't change, only my feelings changed. Why was this?

Well, if I held him in low regard, why would I hold his opinion of me in high regard? If I thought he was a disreputable person, wouldn't I automatically consider any opinion he had as disreputable, too? If he was such a bad person, his opinions must be bad. If he did wrong, his opinions would be wrong - wouldn't they?

After much thought, I realised that my belief system had changed. I started off believing that my happiness was dependent upon the good opinion of my boss. I finished up believing that my happiness depended on my good opinon of myself.

I later learned that this is called Personal Power, and it was a new love for Personal Power that led me eventually into the world of coaching and mentoring.

The moral of the story is that our beliefs are subject to change. Think back! Is there anything that you believed a few years ago that you feel differently about now? Aren't there some things that you were absolutely certain about, that you believe differently today? In fact, our belief system not only changes over time, it is in constant change, slowly modifying itself with each new experience, and each new fact or idea that is presented to our brain.

I took a full year to change my belief about my abusive boss. If I had been able to change my belief quicker, I could have been without the pain and hurt sooner. I have since learned that I can change my beliefs as quickly as I choose. Sometimes I choose not to. But sometimes, it is very useful to be able to change one's beliefs.

We are sometimes admonished by so-called Realists to accept life as it is. Some people consider themselves optimists, some call themselves pessimists, but just about everyone thinks they are a realist. I no longer look on life like that - "That's how it is," or "That's how I believe life is!"

You see, I used to say, This is how life is, you just have to be a realist and face up to it. But that is only belief - you believe that is how life is. What if you believed, Life is not like that, Life is better than that. Wouldn't that be a more empowering belief?

No longer do I say, That is how I believe life is. I now say, does this belief serve me? Because, if it doesn't serve me, I can change it. And I don't have to wait a year for it to happen.

My book, Keep Your Eyes On The Prize, is about discovering your Life Purpose which deals with your beliefs and values.