Loud Isn't True
The most dangerous thoughts don't sound like lies. They sound like you.
In this newsletter: the proud sentence that ran my life for more than a decade, the question that separates what’s true from what’s just loud, and this week’s video on the seven filters behind all of it.
For years I introduced myself the same way on every podcast, every video, every stage. I’m Gerry from Wild Eye.
I was proud of it too. We built something that changed the way people see the world. That’s literally the tagline. Good work, good people, good years.
But somewhere in all the saying of it, the sentence changed jobs. It stopped introducing me and started containing me. And the label was never even planned. It just happened, podcast by podcast, video by video, until I’m Gerry from Wild Eye became this is my lane. I never believed I had permission to grow past it. Nobody took that permission away from me. I just never heard myself grant it.
Everyone warns you about the dark thoughts.
Nobody warns you about the proud ones.
There’s a bumper sticker for what I want to say. Don’t believe everything you think. I know. But it took me ten years to learn what believing everything I think actually costs, so stay with me.
Your mind was never built to tell you the truth. It was built to keep you safe.
Those are two different jobs, and when they clash, safety usually wins.
The lies you know are the catastrophes. Too late to start. They’ll laugh. You won’t make it. Loud and ugly and familiar. Most people think fighting those is the whole war.
Then there are the fantasy lies. The other life. The job you didn’t take, the place you didn’t move to, the person you could have been. I’ve written about that one before. The mind builds you somewhere painless to live so you don’t have to be here. Same liar, different direction.
But the ones that get you are the expired ones. Because they were true once.
I’m Gerry from Wild Eye wasn’t false. For years it was dead accurate. Then times changed and I changed and the belief just sat there, still running. The mind doesn’t put expiry dates on beliefs. It keeps serving them long after they’ve gone off. And expired is worse than false. False gets caught. Expired gets believed.
You know these. The full-time parent whose kids don’t need one anymore.The scrappy underdog who’s now the one in charge. The fit one who hasn’t trained since the injury. The one who learned young, the hard way, that you can only rely on yourself. The realist who’s actually just scared now. All true once. All expired. All still running.
If you want to change and grow, the belief has to change first.
Not after. First.
Why does the mind do this? Protection. The catastrophe keeps you from risk. The fantasy keeps you from pain. The expired belief keeps you in a lane where nothing can surprise you. Different lies, same instruction. Keep him where it’s safe.
Some of these beliefs earned their job harder than others, and those take longer to retire. That’s not weakness. That’s just a deeper groove.
On the ice I watched the liar work at full speed. Every morning it told me my feet were done and the day was impossible. Every day, by mid-morning, it had been proven wrong. Twenty nine days in a row. Out there a lie gets tested against reality within hours, and it loses, in front of you, again and again.
Back home is different. Normal life has slow feedback. Nothing forces the check. A thought like this is my lane can run for ten years because no glacier ever calls its bluff.
Mine only got caught when the whole world stopped. Covid took away the trips, the stages, the introductions, and in that quiet the belief finally got read properly instead of just repeated. Not a lightning bolt. A slow arc, years of it. And the strange part is where it pointed. Not somewhere new. Back. Coaching and psychology was the road I was on long before Wild Eye ever existed. The label didn’t just keep me in a lane, it kept me off my own road. Then the road found me again. The uncomfortable part: the belief didn’t fall apart under questioning. It had simply expired, and I’d been too busy saying it to notice.
And this is the part that costs you. I’ve written before that performance is the gap between what you’re capable of and what you actually do. The lies are what live in that gap. Hesitating. Playing small. Staying in the lane. That’s the tax, and most people pay it for decades without knowing they’re being billed.
The high performers I coach don’t have quieter minds than anyone else.
They have faster fact-checks. That’s it. That’s the difference.
Three moves. The ones I actually use, not theory.
Name it. Out loud if you need to. There’s the catastrophe. There’s the expired one. A thought you’ve named is an opinion. A thought you haven’t is an instruction.
Ask one question. Is this true, or is it just loud? And here’s how you check: look for evidence newer than three years old. Beliefs run on old data. If everything backing this thought comes from a version of your life that no longer exists, it’s not a fact. It’s a habit.
Then do one small thing against it. Send the email. Do the rep. Go for a walk. Have the conversation you’ve been dodging. You won’t win an argument inside your own head. A body in motion ends the debate faster than any amount of thinking.
These three don’t silence the liar. Nothing does. They just shorten how long it runs unopposed.
In this video I go deeper. The brain has seven specific filters it uses to distort what you see, and labels, the one that had me for more than ten years, is on the list.
One more thing. Earlier this week, I wrote about the last unreachable place, about how there’s almost nowhere left the noise can’t find you. I left something out. Even when you find that place, you walk in carrying the liar.
The bush is out of reach for WhatsApp. Nothing is out of reach for your own head. Which is why going somewhere quiet only helps if you’re willing to argue with what you hear there.
The loud ones you catch in the moment. The expired ones you have to go hunting for.
So this week, one question. Take your time with it.
What belief about yourself has expired but is still running your life?
Is it true, or is it just loud?
And that’s it for this week.
The focus this week is behind the scenes momentum on the road to the South Pole. Emails, admin, planning, the unglamorous stuff that makes a coaching business, keynotes and expeditions actually happen. Nobody takes photos of the admin, but the road still runs through it.
Training wise, I’m back lifting and loving it. The feet still won’t allow real leg work, no walking, no rucking, no hiking, and the tyre drags can wait a while longer. And yes, every session the voice tells me they’re fine, push it. This is me, out loud, not believing everything I think. The podiatrist gets the vote, not the liar.
I’ve also picked up a few new bonsai. Turns out they’re the perfect hobby for a man being taught patience against his will. There’s a pace to them, a focus, an almost zen thing that I didn’t expect to enjoy this much. I might get properly stuck into this one.
Saturday I’m off to Mashatu for a private guided trip. Really looking forward to that one. And in between, just processing the lessons learnt in May, and keeping an ear on the voice in my head. Old habits.
You can always reach me directly, email or WhatsApp or my website. If you have any questions or comments, I’d love to hear from you!
If any of this landed, share it with someone who might need it. Would really appreciate it.
Do good work.
G.