What exactly is Mindset? The word has been used so much lately that it has started to lose its meaning. Paul covers mindset and how you can develop a strong and dependable mindset, so you can detach yourself from life's inevitable shortcomings, and power through them!
Transcription:
Hi, my name is Paul Jordan, and welcome to my LDM Channel, Learn Digital Marketing Expert channel. In the video today I'd really like to talk about mindset. Now, mindset is a term that is used very widely in business. Many gurus talk about it, and many of your friends and colleagues will probably talk about it. But, Mindset is a great word - but what does it actually mean? Now I actually learned about mindset very late in life. When you go to school they don't teach you this stuff, well, they didn't in my day. I actually had to read a book by Dr. Carol Dweck to discover the definitive meaning of mindset and it's been one of the most helpful things that I've had in my life and my business career.
When you actually understand what it's about, you can take positive steps. And I'm not talking about meditation or psychology, you can just make a simple decision in your head about how you're going to deal with the outcome of an expectation that wasn't quite as good as you expected. You know, you may have an expectation of this, but the actual reality is you can feel disappointment which is quite natural. You know, we all go through life and we set ourselves aims, we have targets, we have objectives. Now it's really important in business to set those targets and have those aims but you have to disconnect yourself emotionally because inevitably we always push ourselves hard, and when we don't always meet our targets. Sometimes we can feel despondent and disappointed. We put so much hard work in, and we're exhausted. We didn't meet the target may be the target was slightly below, maybe it was way below and you know we can't always help it we've done the very best job that we can but some people will rise up from that and plow on forward and continue to be successful.
So, what I'd like to do is I'd like to take a simple scenario that actually illustrates what mindset is in very very simple easy terms. Let's take the example of two guys one is called Fred, and one's called Bruce. They sit in a maths exam, same day, same room, same math paper. A few months later they get results through, Bruce goes to the board, and fred goes to the board: fail, fail. Fred is really disappointed really upset, "oh gee I'm a real loser, I'm really rubbish at maths. I'm not going to do that again. I'm going to give up and do something else". Bruce sees his result: "hmm well a bit disappointed by that, but clearly, i didn't work hard enough so next time i'm going to work a lot harder and put a lot more effort in, and pray perhaps, if i dedicate some more hours to revising, i'm going to do better". So here we are two similar people: same exam, same room, same results, both of them failed, but look at the different attitudes. One guy he's given up, the other guy you know he recognizes he's he hasn't got the result they expected, but he's gonna take steps to do something about it. He's already said he's gonna do it again. He recognizes that he needs to work harder and he recognizes that you need to spend more time. Fantastic!
When we deal with failure in life, it's so easy to get despondent and let our emotions overcome our feelings, or be our feelings. Now, this has happened to me so much in my early life and so much in my career. I haven't always got what i wanted, i haven't got what i expected and i felt very despondent, i felt very sad, i felt quite low, sometimes a bit depressed, but that happens in life. No, this is part of life we have challenges presented to us all the time but the important thing is that when we don't always get the result that we want or the result that we expect, we learn to deal with it in a positive way instead of beating ourselves up. You have to be kind to yourself and recognise that things didn't go quite as planned. Learn. Learn from the situation and carry on. You only actually fail at something when you give up. If you keep trying, and you keep trying, and you keep trying, and you keep trying, eventually you're gonna succeed. Just look back to when you were a baby and imagine those first steps as a toddler. One wandering around the room falling over, your parents they're ready to catch you if you fall. If you fell over a few times did you give up? No of course not! You just carried on. You carried on. You may have taken 100 attempts at walking before you made these first three steps. Maybe it was 105 attempts before you walked all the way across the room or to that first piece of furniture without falling over. You kept trying. Now that is a fantastic mindset to have because you'll just keep going, you'll keep going. No baby ever stops walking. Who says: "do you know what i can't walk on rubbish at walking i think i'll give up."? it just doesn't happen. if you can maintain that mindset going forward in your life in your career you'll do so well you will always succeed.
Now i speak from a place of authority here because I've been through some real challenges in my life. A lot of people have. I've been through divorce, i've suffered from depression, i've had businesses that have failed, i've lost a ton of money, i've been stressed to the hill, i've nearly lost my house- um that is a long story. But i've been through some really emotionally challenging situations and i've been very very low and i haven't always known how to deal with these situations. And i think a lot of this depends on on the upbringing that you've had with your parents and your schooling because nobody explicitly teaches you stuff and you might find that you naturally have a positive mind where you naturally think about always recovering from a situation that didn't go as planned and just carrying on. You might have been taught that or just encouraged you may have picked all that up from the environment that you spent your childhood in. from your parents from the people that you were surrounded with, from your school friends. but you may also have been in an environment where you had no exposure to any of that stuff. so you maybe just followed your parents' footsteps or your friends when they had a failure they may have dealt with it in a negative way, in a non-constructive way. so it's quite difficult to sometimes work out where the success- successful people actually get their mindset from and those that just have got the wrong mindset.
Now if you read the book by Dr. Carol Dweck which is a fantastic read, i really enjoyed it. and it just turned my life around literally. if you read the book she classifies people in two ways a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. the fixed mindset is someone who fails at a situation beats himself up calls himself a failure and says they're going to walk away and never try again. the growth mindset is the guy who has a failure and by the way i don't like the word failure we'll move on to that who has a situation where their expectations weren't as planned or as they hoped they would be but they learn from it and they say okay that didn't quite work what can i learn i'm gonna try again what do i need to do different and that's a growth mindset. there's been lots of social experiments with school children where they've been given some very difficult challenges to see how they approach things so differently, how they challenge things with really really hard subjects. some children have really thrived and been given very very difficult problems, and other children shy away from them. but even even some children have not been able to actually successfully solve the problem. they've still been very positive in their attitude towards it and how they've wanted to crack it and how they want to keep trying, but other children just walked away they've given up not tried. very hard. now i don't quite know what the reasons are, and i'm sure there's lots of um, science and experimentation to learn why it is that some people are naturally tending towards a growth mindset and other people seem to be naturally tending towards a fixed mindset.
as i say i just reflect on childhood schooling, people that i was with and that's must that's the only place it can come from as far as i can tell because i don't think anybody's naturally necessarily built with the growth mindset. built in you can learn these things in life so when i finish reading the book the thing that it makes you appreciate is that we're all human beings, we have fingers, we have a head, we have a body, we have feet, we have the same material matter in our brain, we're made up of the same chemicals and molecules, but the thought processes that go on there, we're like a computer you can load the brain with a computer program that works really well, or you can load your brain with a computer program that's actually very destructive and not very helpful to you. but if you actually take the explicit attitude that if something doesn't quite work out or something doesn't work out big time, actually speak to yourself. say out loud say the words out loud: "okay that didn't work. i need to try harder. i need to do this i need to get some help i need to do it differently. i need to go learn more.". please please be always very kind to yourself. it's very very easy that, and i've done this myself in the past. and it's a habit i sometimes slip back into, but again when you make a mistake, when you make an error, when things don't go quite right, it's very easy in your head to call yourself a bad name. "oh you idiot, oh you twit, oh you stupid person, and sometimes you might say it humorously with a smile on your face, but it's not helpful. guys just imagine you were supporting a best friend who'd had a big situation that didn't quite plan out as he wanted it to. are you going to call him an idiot or a failure? of course you're not. you're going to give him support. you're going to give them encouragement. you're going to give them help. if you're a good friend you'll do those things. so you should be your own best friend speak nicely to yourself when you things don't go as planned. have a nice conversation with yourself, be kind say nice words don't call yourself a failure.
now i think this thought this next quotation is one of my favorites of all time, and um, it's attributed to many people so i'm not quite sure of the true origins but the phrase goes like this: "i either win or i learn" and i think that's magnificent. because for some people they say either i win or i fail, or i win or i lose, that's not helpful to say that you've either won, succeeded or you've learned. it's a so much better way of framing it. so if you read the book it will teach you a lot more in depth about what mindset's all about. but fundamentally you just have to say the words to yourself, okay that didn't work out the way i wanted. what do i have to do to do better next time? what help do i need to get and frame it in a really positive way? and don't take on the blame that you're responsible. as i say you've got the same amount of fingers, you've got the same material between your ears, you've got the same legs as elon musk. you know he's a hugely successful guy, he must have the most powerful mindset, i can imagine. he's a very clever guy as well, by the way. but having the attitude of keeping going, keeping going, being kind to yourself, speak kindly to yourself, acknowledge that things didn't go as planned. yeah that's you know that's part of life that's challenges. you know if it was all easy everyone would be doing it, wouldn't they? but be kind to yourself and carry on. pick yourself up, brush yourself off, acknowledge the situation, try and decouple your emotions.
now i know that's easier said than done, because if i look back in my early life i tried a lot of things. i've had um i've had quite a few businesses that didn't work out for various reasons, and i've lost i've lost a lot of money. i've lost six figures on more than one occasion. through divorce, through a couple businesses that didn't work out, and at the time it sent me into a really dark place. and i felt really negative. really beat myself. up i felt very depressed and you know the self-talking here was just so negative and so unhelpful. it was uh, it was really bad. and it just you know it creates an affirmation. it just makes things worse and worse and worse and it's so horrible to do that to yourself. so when these things happen acknowledge it. yeah you might you're bound to be not feeling thrilled and excited and happy, but okay just take it on the chin accept it. recognize that it didn't work out. ask yourself what steps you can do next time to make it better, or try again and remember that famous phrase. if at first you don't succeed try try try again. now, although i learned that phrase in my childhood, it didn't really kind of mean very much to me. but now, in later life it means so much. so all i would say is adopt a positive growth mindset. always be kind to yourself when things don't work out as planned, always treat it as a lesson, not a failure. but some people would also say that every failure is a step closer to success, and i'd prefer to recoin that. i prefer to say that every lesson is a step closer to success.
so in summary: adopt a positive growth mindset, always speak positively about an outcome, be nice to yourself, be kind to yourself, be your own best friend, and speak to yourself as you would a best friend. there's a very good book on self-talk which i can also recommend. always try and deal with things in the best way that you can. i would keep a journal, write down the outcomes of situations that occur. you can express your disappointment by all means, i mean we're human we're not robots we can be disappointed. but it's how we handle that disappointment instead of going into a downward spiral of beating yourselves up, and self negative talk. learn from it. step forward, take a deep breath and try again.
i mean you know it depends on the outcome of the situation, like an exam is either a pass or fail, and you can do it again, but there's lots of things in life that are iterative they just keep going. they're ongoing, there's not like a black and white success or failure. the things you know success can come very slowly like the number of sales you get, or the number of conversions that you get. you can measure success in obviously very many ways, but the important thing is to learn and keep going. i'm an engineer by profession and we have these things called a feedback loop. so if you think of if you're running a bath and you're putting hot and cold water in the bath to get the temperature the way you want, it you put your hand in the water to see if it's too hot or too cold. if it's too hot maybe you'd switch the hot tap off, or you put the cold tap on. if it's too cold you'd switch the cold tap off, and put the hot tap on. your hand is providing a feedback loop, so in life it's very important to always get feedback from what you do. learn from what you do, feed it back into your process, move forward and improve, do things a bit differently.
i always find it's quite hard because in life, there's lots of cliches that are very much in conflict with each other. they're kind of two sides of the same coin. let's look at a couple of these. there's one that says the grass is always greener, which means that it's better over there than staying here. i'd say the flip side of that same coin is better the devil you know. so one of those cliches is encouraging you to go and try something fresh and new, but the other one is saying well it's better to stay with what you know. so there's another one that says you know it's only an idiot that keeps doing the same thing and expects a different result, i think. i think einstein may have said that. but hey, let's just just think about that. you know persistence, doing the same thing you know if you're banging your head against a brick wall, obviously you're not going to knock the wall down, but persistence and consistency and doing the same things, doing the same right things again and again and again, are going to get a result. let's look at cold calling. i don't like cold calling, it's a numbers game, but if you if you make 10 phone calls and you get rejected by everyone think oh that's a waste of time, i'm not going to do that again. then sure enough, you're giving up and you failed, because you only fail when you give up. but you make let's say you make 150 calls and they're all rejections, and that 151st call turns into a really valuable inquiry. and you win a big contract off that 151st call, you don't know you might strike. like it might be the first call of the day. it's a numbers game, but it could be that every call you make gets you closer to that one call that turns out to be an absolute goldmine. that can turn your business around. so people say if you keep doing the same thing and expect a different result, i kind of, i kind of slightly challenge that, because if you keep doing the same thing and you're doing the same right thing, like you keep making a cold call to prospective customers, eventually, you're going to get a result. so i kind of um, i'm always kind of a little bit curious about how people handle that phrase, because it's kind of a little bit contradictory. it's not always helpful to think about.
so anyway look i've shared with you some of my late learned lessons in life, the book i highly recommended really made me realize that when i have an outcome that i'm not happy with, or disappointed by, i can frame it in a certain way that allows me to move forward, and feel good about myself, and feel positive, and be kind to myself. always speak very kindly to myself .i wish i'd learned this so much early in life, i really do. but there's no one around to teach it to me. the other thing about the book is it also makes you recognize that when you're struggling, when you're facing challenges and the pressure's on, and things aren't working out as planned it can feel like a very lonely place. especially as you're an entrepreneur, working on your own and it's very easy to think that it's just you. but when you read the book and when you read lots of articles, and autobiographies, and biographies by famous business people, you realize they've been up against it as well. they're no different. they're no different. they've got the same number of fingers, they've got the same matter in between, there is the same number of legs, the same number of toes, what changes is their attitude in here. they just keep going "yeah we all have emotions. we're human beings, but the important thing is that quite often fear is not very helpful. the fear that we had that kept us alive in the in the jungle thousands of years ago it's not useful in modern-day society.". you know there are there are very few real threats that can affect us, but we react to it. our physiology can react to things in a very negative way, in a very unhealthy helpful way sometimes.
when you realize that other people have lots of failures, lots of lessons, i should say. sorry lots of lessons. when lots of other business people have lots, and lots of lessons, and there's a basketball player who said you know you took 15 000 shots, but there was one that actually hit the hoop. you know all these lessons they get they're gonna get you better. they're gonna get you closer to that success. the important thing is to acknowledge it's gonna happen, um it will happen. you're gonna have lessons, you're gonna have lots of lessons, lots and lots and lots of lessons, but recognize that you're not on your own. it's not because of you. because all the successful people out there have had a lot of lessons. rather than just give up and walk away and start being unkind to myself, they're carried on and they're very lucky that if they've been born with that mindset or well, they've naturally grown up in an environment where that mindset has been instilled in them. then you know they're very very lucky people. i didn't have that luxury, um the environment that i was in as a child and even at college, and so forth, that that mindset was never naturally there in me. it's only when i read the book i finally realized what the definitive definition of mindset is growth mindset, fixed mindset. and you can just change it by the words that come out of your mouth. it's very very easy. you have a situation it doesn't meet your expectations, you're a bit disappointed, but speak out loud frame it up. there's so many positive things you can say about the situation, how you can learn from it,and you'll do better next time. don't say all the negative things, because what's the point of that it's not helpful. frame it in a positive way, speak kindly to yourself and move on.
so i hope you can see i'm quite passionate about this, because it's affected me quite profoundly in later life. and i wish so much that i discovered what mindset was all about. you know before the age of 10 when i could have planted that seed and it would have helped me progress through my life in all the challenges, not just in business but in all the challenges that i've faced in life. and believe me i've had plenty, as i'm sure you're all going through life. if life wasn't challenging it'd be dull but what doesn't kill us it makes us stronger, as they say, and i do believe that because i look back on the things that happened in my life, and although at the time they were very unpleasant, experiences and very challenging experiences, i sure as heck learned a lot of lessons from them. and i do believe i'm a better person now.
so anyway i hope you got some value from this video, i really do hope you understand what mindset is about. it's an attitude you can just flick it think of a switch you can adopt a growth mindset, and just decide to say that when you have something that doesn't work out, you're going to use positive language. you're going to frame it in a useful constructive way that allows you to move forward, and keep trying and keep trying, and keep trying, and keep trying, and you're going to keep on trying until you get there. so thanks very much for watching!
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