The Six Identity Levers
Beliefs, thoughts and actions — and the three overlaps that quietly run your life.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 85%
Trucks breaks identity into six pullable levers arranged as a Venn diagram. The three core circles are beliefs, thoughts and actions. Their overlaps produce the other three: beliefs plus thoughts give mindset, actions plus thoughts give habits, and actions plus beliefs give personal pride and ego. Knowing the levers is what makes architecting a new identity possible rather than aspirational — you interrogate each lever for the version of you that already has what you want. The shift from 'I think I could be a podcaster' to 'I believe I'm a podcaster because of X, Y and Z' happens on these levers.
Origin
Trucks and his team developed the lever model as the architecture component of the Shift Method, after finding that clients could describe visions and dreams but had no idea what to actually pull on to get there.
Core principles
- 01Identity is not mystical — it is composed of adjustable levers.
- 02Beliefs, thoughts and actions are the three core levers.
- 03Beliefs overlapped with thoughts produce mindset.
- 04Actions overlapped with thoughts produce habits.
- 05Actions overlapped with beliefs produce personal pride and ego.
- 06You cannot architect an identity until you know which levers exist.
How to run it
- 1
Map the three core circles
Write out your current beliefs, thoughts and actions in the life area you want to change — health, wealth or relationships.
Pro tip Use actual evidence from the last month for actions, not intentions.
- 2
Derive the three overlaps
From those circles, read off your mindset (beliefs + thoughts), your habits (actions + thoughts) and your ego/pride anchors (actions + beliefs).
Watch out Habits are what you do, not what you want to do. Be honest or the map is useless.
- 3
Interrogate the target identity on all six
Ask of the person who already has what you want: what do they believe, think, do, habitually repeat, how is their mindset anchored, and what are they proud of?
Pro tip Concreteness is the whole game — 'how do they organise their schedule' beats 'they're disciplined'.
- 4
Architect the actions that install it
Design the actions you will do habitually so that, in time, the target answers on all six levers become your own.
Watch out Architect before you activate — pulling levers without a design is back to operating off emotion.
In the wild
Trucks contrasts the tentative statement 'I think I could be a podcaster' with the lever-backed 'I believe I'm a podcaster because of blank, blank, blank'. The second is only available once the beliefs, actions and habits levers have been architected and pulled.
→ Identity claims become evidence-backed rather than aspirational.
Common mistakes
Listing accomplishments instead of levers
Asked who they are, people recite achievements. Achievements are outputs; the levers are the inputs that actually produce them.
Skipping architecture and jumping to activation
You must craft the zone identity on the levers before trying to live it, or you are just pushing hard with no target.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone doing the Shift phase who needs concrete inputs rather than abstract aspiration.
Not ideal for
People wanting a philosophical or spiritual account of self; this is deliberately mechanical.
From the transcript
“the base core ones are beliefs thoughts actions mindset habits and ego and all those are kind of like a venn diagram”
“overlapping beliefs and thoughts or mindset overlapping actions and thoughts are habits overlapping actions and beliefs are your personal pride and ego”
“the first part of it is understanding the levers and then once you understand what they are now you can create something that allows you…”
From the episode
Anthony Trucks: Transform Your Identity
Anthony Trucks