The ONE Mindset Hack That Will Change Your Performance
Transcript of the episode recording:
Hey, big f*cking dreamers. So pumped to be here with you today. And we are going to be talking about this one tool that has fundamentally changed my life. And I don't say this lightly, but this is a tool that I've had to keep going back to over and over again, especially as I've tried new things. When I launched my business, I relied very heavily on this tool. I read books, I reread books about it. I went back. And that tool is Growth Mindset.
Now, if you were, lot of tech companies have Growth Mindset built into their ethos. So Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Growth Mindset is a huge tenant of theirs. It's then filtered down into LinkedIn. And the first time I was ever exposed to any theory about Growth Mindset was I was in Singapore and it was something that LinkedIn calls Emergen and it was, it's a program for, it was selected high performers who had a lot of leadership potential. This is when I was still an individual contributor. And so we went to an offsite in Singapore and this offsite facilitator, And this Sean Kenny, who's absolutely amazing. And he also has really influenced my career in terms of doing this type of coaching and consulting that I do.
But he took us through this exercise and we got put into groups. And he gave us this piece of paper and he gave us this puzzle and the piece of paper,the prompt said something like, and you didn't know what the other group got, but the prompt said something like, OK, this puzzle is an indication of creativity. It's an indication of fun. There is no pressure to solve this puzzle. Work with your group to solve it. So we actually solved it. It was quite easy. It was fun. And then we came, we presented it to the group.
Then another one of the groups got the same puzzle and a different piece of paper. And it said, this puzzle is actually a demonstration of your intelligence. Really smart people can complete this puzzle. Those that like don't have a high level of intelligence have a really hard time completing it. And you only have a few minutes to do it. And though it was interesting because all of the groups that actually had that puzzle prompt didn't actually complete the puzzle. They couldn't do it.
And what he was trying to demonstrate was growth mindset versus fixed mindset. Now, this is Carol Dweck's theory. Carol Dweck is a psychologist. She is a researcher. And she really noticed growth mindset by going, like actually looking in terms of children's fundamental learning. And she noticed that there were two types of children in terms of learning and capability. One type of children where you gave them a puzzle or an exercise, and then if they couldn't complete it, they then thought they were stupid. They then thought something was wrong with them. They then thought it was like a perceived fear of failure. They got really upset about it.
And then there was another type of children who actually really loved the challenge. And if they couldn't complete it, they were like, you know, how can I get more of these? Some of those children were like, can I have more time? Like, I find this really fun. Some of those children actually said, can you tell my mom where to buy this puzzle because I want to practice it at home? And those type, those children actually already innately had a growth mindset where they thought that the skill, any type of skill can be developed through learning.
So where I see this happening today in high performers is that typically, if there is, especially in new skills acquisition, so let's say you're in a new job or you're pivoting careers or you are doing anything that's new for the first time, typically, if you have a very fixed mindset, you will think that any type of “failure” any type of thing when you don't do something that succeeds, you will think that you are a failure. You will think that you are not good about it. This is sometimes I'm gonna go into imposter syndrome a little bit later. I've been touching on that a lot, but there are some similarities between fixed mindset and imposter syndrome. But it's any type of new skill that's required.
And I remember someone that I worked with, an old colleague of mine, and he actually said,I would never go for a job that I knew I wasn't going to get. Like I would never even put myself out there. And that is an indication to me of a very fixed mindset. So you think that you have to succeed at something the first time that you do it. Now, the trouble with that is that if you don't succeed at something because you are learning something, then your whole sense of self-worth does get impaired. You then start to think that your whole self-worth is tied up intrinsically in your performance and that the fundamental belief is that you should innately know how to do things and that if you don't know how to do things, you're a failure.
And I wanna be clear, I had a very fixed mindset. And when I learned this theory, it blew my f*cking mind because I was like, holy sh*t, I have gone through the world with such a fixed mindset, thinking that if I didn't know how to do something, that that meant it wasn't good enough. didn't necessarily have, even though like I'm a little learning addict and I love learning in any sort of capacity.I didn't necessarily understand that if I wanted a new skill, it would take time and it would take development and I could actually finish that.
And so when I started my business, I was really insecure in so many different areas because so much was new to me. There was so much new about copywriting, about running programs. The coaching side of things, I never struggled with the actual coaching side of my business. I feel like I've always kind of been quite innately good at coaching people. And of course, I've developed skills and I know like a ton of different modalities and did a lot of training around it. But I was never really quite insecure about being able to transform people or being good coach. But I have been very insecure about the business side of things. And so I thought because like even in the first year, it was like, my God, I don't have a million dollar business. Like I'm a failure. And it was like, what the f*ck? You obviously don't have a million dollar business your first year. I mean, some people do, but I would say that's definitely the exception. It's not the rule.
And what I had to do was I actually had to go back. I had to read Carol Drugs book mindset, which I highly, highly recommend reading if you're interested in this. And I had to relearn all of these principles and all this theory. So understanding that like growth mindset is really someone that is really gets that. OK, all a new skill is something that you can learn. Nothing. Your intelligence is not fixed. You can actually learn this. And this is quite true. If you like there is research on neuroplasticity that you can actually start to change your brain. I mean, as we enter into as we are in adulthood, it is it is harder and harder to do that. But you can definitely do that. So it's all understanding that new skills, it's all about new skills acquisition and thinking that. If you don't know something, then you just need to understand the skills you need to get the mentorship you need to take the course in order to learn that skill. But just because it's not good the first time doesn't mean that it won't be good and doesn't mean that you won't you won't actually get it. So a huge thing in growth mindset is focusing on the process.
And if we think about atomic habits, James Clear's work, I bet a lot of my listeners have read atomic habits, practiced atomic habits. But James Clear's work is very rooted in growth mindset. So it looks at, OK, What are the processes and what are the systems that you need to do in order to complete some goal? Not necessarily focusing on the goal. It's not outcome focus. It's very process focus. So how do you make the process quicker and clearer? How do you become more efficient with it? How do you develop the fundamental skills you need for doing the type of activity?
So let's say, for example, for me, like running master classes. I've run master classes a lot. My first master class,I don't know what the f*ck I was doing. I just like presented a whole heap of content. It was on boundaries. It was actually like a really great attended master class, but I was just like, here's all this sh*t of boundaries. Here you go. Dump it out at the end. I pitched my program that really had nothing to do with boundaries. And it was like a weird thing. But if I had then just said, okay, I'm just not good at master classes, that's actually not true. I just didn't actually have the fundamental skills that I needed to run a great masterclass. Now I run really phenomenal masterclasses, even if some are big, even if some are small. I know that they're great in content. I always get clients after, like it's working. But what I had to do, I actually took a course on how to run a masterclass as a coach, how to run really effective webinars so that people come away with takeaways, so that people also want to engage my programs even more.
I mean, very similar with this podcast. had to take our, took Jenna Kutcher's podcast course. I didn't know anything about starting a podcast, but if I just said, I don't know anything about starting a podcast, I'm a f*cking loser. I'm never going to learn it. That would be absolutely terrible. But it's like, why would I be born innately understanding how to start a podcast? This is a skill that I have to learn and develop.
And a lot of my clients, they will think that these skills should be innate. So I should be a great leader without any type of leadership development or any type of coaching. I should have very strong retention without looking at leadership techniques or I should have really strong relationships without necessarily even working on relationships when relationships weren't really modeled to you.
So in any time someone thinks like what they should be doing, it is to me, there's a little cue of like, ooh, okay, do they have a fixed mindset? Do we need to be like getting deeper on that? Like what's that should? What's that kind of internally shaming thing that they're telling themselves? So if you're looking at, how do I kind of increase this? I would say focusing on really small goals. And a lot of times, especially with high performers, what I see is people tend to have kind of like the big, really grandiose goals.
I'm thinking of one of my clients.Actually a lot of my clients have this tendency.But one of my clients, she's just got this super strong entrepreneurial mindset. And right now we're making, yeah, I won't say what we're making, but she's doing something really cool in the neurodivergent space. She's got this concept and this business idea. She's bringing it to light. It's totally f*cking bad ass. But she thinks on a huge scale. And what I've had to do with her is actually this is a technique in NLP, Neurolinguistic Programming, like she tends to chunk up a lot. So think like highly, you know, like huge vision wants to change the world. Whereas I then what's called chunking down, I then bring her into, okay, let's actually say what's the next action point that you need to take. So with growth mindset, it's really looking at what's the process behind it? What is the next right step that you could do? Or if you don't know the process, who can teach it to you and what's that skill? Not that this thing could be absolutely innate because these things aren't innate. A lot of skills aren't innate. They have to be learned. So it's understanding, okay, looking at the small steps, looking at the process.
And I would also say that growth mindset can be applied to relationships. They can be applied to your career as well. Like I know for me and my partner, there was one area of our relationship that we actually had to work on.For whatever reason, it didn't come very easily to us. And so we got a specific coach in that area. We worked through that. We worked with her on a very specific problem, a very specific solution. And now we're really great in that area. But it was also like, OK, I didn't just necessarily throw the towel in with my partner, who's like now my fiance. I wasn't just like, OK, this one area isn't great. So like, f*ck it. Let me just try to find someone who's going to be perfect for me in every single way. That's just not how relationships work. So it's understanding that relationships can be changed. And also this can look at, you know, relationships with parents. Like what are the relationship dynamics that you have with your family? How can they be adjusted in order to best suit your life versus just kind of blanket saying, saying like, you know, that's just the way she is or she's an asshole or whatever it is, not actually doing that, but thinking, okay, if I want to continue this relationship, if this relationship is really important to me, this is actually two weeks straight or a two way street, how can I improve it? How can I, what are the steps that I can take? How can I get help around this? How can I get support around this? Is this person willing to also get help and support with me?
So I would ask yourself do I have a fixed mindset about something in my life? Like what is something that I think, okay, that's just the way it is, or I don't have this skill and therefore I'm just not good at that thing? Like if you're like, I'm just not good at that thing. That is an indication that you have a fixed mindset. It might be something that you don't actually care about. Let's say you're just not a great cook, but you don't really want to be a good cook. But if you're like, I'm just not a public speaker and you actually want to be, then really challenging that and really saying, OK, what do I need to do to learn these skills? Who can teach me the skills? So in growth mindset, who is a really great question? Who can guide me on this journey? Who is the mentor? Who is the coach? Who is the peer? Who is the manager that can teach me this fundamental skill that I need in order to change my life and in order to change my career?
This is why, so in the life and work transformation, I baked in something—actually, today is one of them—and I baked in something called the courage day. And so we have them once a month, and each courage day, people in my program, they take action on something that is in accordance to their ideal life, but it should really push them out of their comfort zone. So it should be, it could be like putting in a boundary. It should be like having a vulnerable conversation with your boss and saying to your boss, maybe you don't have performance reviews and saying to your boss, how am I doing? I wanna understand my performance or saying to my boss; actually, I really need to work from home a few more days a week. It would help me concentrate more. Or even saying to your mom the way that this relationship dynamic is playing out isn't really working for me. Here's what I need from you. I need more contact. I need less contact, whatever. Or it could be saying to your partner, it really hurts my feelings when you speak to me like that or when you don't do the dishes or when every, all the chores will live to me, whatever it is. And so it's understanding that you can change the way that your brain reacts and responds to things, but you have to put yourself out of your comfort zone. And I know for me, especially in running my own business, I've had to do this again and again and again.
And I've had to say, okay, if I don't succeed at something, first of all, it doesn't mean I'm an intrinsic failure at it. It doesn't mean that I will never succeed. It means that I don't have the fundamental skills. I need to go learn the skills. Who can teach me those skills? Do I need to ask my coach something? Do I need to take another course? Whatever it is. And I have seen clients that have really transformed in this. This isn't necessarily something that I kind of overtly teach… but it's more just infused in all of my coaching where it's like, how can you put yourself out of your comfort zone? How can you stretch? What's the skills acquisition? And so when we think about imposter syndrome, so imposter syndrome is kind of adjacent to having a fixed mindset. And so it's thinking that, you know, somehow you're like fraudulent, somehow people are going to find out about you. Somehow people are all going to recognize rather than thinking, Okay, let's say you are in a new job or you've just started a new business or you are in some way that's really uncomfortable. Where is the skills development here? How can I learn those skills rather than thinking I'm a failure? I'm a fraud. I'm a fake. so imposter syndrome tends to go hand in hand with a fixed mindset, but it's really getting that you can change that you can get the skills that you need. You just have to know where to look.
So in summary, I would just ask yourself like where are you holding yourself back? Is there an area of your life where you feel like you're not necessarily taking the risk, you're not necessarily taking the challenge because you think that you're not going to be good at it or you're afraid of rejection, you're afraid of failure, you're afraid of looking dumb, looking stupid. Where is that area of your life and how can you just push yourself into your comfort zone or outside of your comfort zone just a little bit? What's that conversation that you can send? What's that meeting that you can ask for?
One of my clients recently, it was so beautiful. She said that there was a senior director that she's always really admired. And so she just asked to put time on her calendar as a career conversation. The woman didn't respond at first. So then she just asked again a second time and then the woman responded. And it was such a beautiful moment. So was again, she put herself out of her comfort zone in order to grow.
And it's called growth mindset for a reason, because again, you want to push yourself, you want to grow. If you want to stay stagnant, if you want to stay stuck, if you want to stay in victim mode, victim mode is another thing that often goes with fixed mindset as well, thinking like, pour me, I'm never going to be good enough. It's not happening for me because of my boss or because of I work remote or because, you know, something that happened to me as a child, like blah, blah, blah, whatever stories that we're telling ourselves, that then keeps you fixed and that then keeps you stuck. So it's like, what are ways that you can become more empowered when you really cultivate a growth mindset thing? It's an extremely empowering thing because you are telling yourself, I am here for me. I'm going to learn. I'm going to figure it out. I'm not going to just like leave myself behind. If there's a skill that I really want to know, I'll figure out how to do it.
And that's then cultivating self-trust. So ask yourself, you know, what would change if you really viewed failure as just a step toward mastery and you were like, there actually isn't such thing as failure. It's all just learning. I made a mistake. is that mistake? Okay, great. How can I not do that next time? That's when you're really going to start to cultivate mastery in these areas.
So let me know what you thought about this. I really want to hear from you. Send me a DM. I would absolutely love that if you resonated with this. Also, if you want to be a big f*cking dreamer of the week and send me a DM about that, there is a link in the show notes where you can apply. You're featured on social media. If any of these principles, you've set them into practice. I want to hear from that. I want to hear from the audience. I want to hear from my community. What's working? What's not? What do you want to hear more of?
And my big f*cking dreamers, I will see you next week, and I hope you live your big f*cking dreams.