The Growth Mindset from the Harvard Business Review Blog

Today I’m sharing with you an article that I was forwarded by a friend (hat tip: Daniel) on the difference between having a growth mindset and a fixed mindset.  The general idea is this:

• In a fixed mindset, “your qualities are carved in stone.” Whatever skills, talents, and capabilities you have are predetermined and finite. Whatever you lack, you will continue to lack. This fixed mindset applies not just to your own qualities, but to the qualities of others.
• In a growth mindset, “your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts…everyone can change and grow through application and experience.” Qualities like intelligence are a starting point, but success comes as a result of effort, learning, and persistence.

I would guess that if you are reading this blog that you probably consider yourself as having a growth mindset.  If you believe that your abilities are fixed, and there’s nothing you can do to get better at anything, and you’re not likely to try to improve.  A blog like The Mastermind Project is based on the idea that we can change, we’re just trying to figure out how – so if you’re here, you probably believe it’s at least possible to improve yourself.

My observation: people don’t have either a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.  It’s a mix.  Our mindsets are situation-specific and skill-specific.  You may believe that you are getting better at your job each day, but that you’ll never be good at weightlifting.  Or you may believe that you can teach yourself to become a better writer, but that you just “aren’t a morning person” and will never be someone that wakes up early each day.  Chances are there’s some area of life where you believe you’re just destined to be terrible.  (Mine would be golf).  But it’s much more likely that it’s your mindset about that particular activity than you lacking the ability to improve.

Anyway, John Hagel III and John Seely Brown put it much better than I, so read their piece here.

My 30 Day Trial – 20 Days In

I am now 20 days into my 30 day trial of the Slow-Carb Diet from Tim Ferriss’ book 4-Hour Body.  As a recap, here are the rules of the diet, reposted from my checkin 10 days ago:

1) Avoid “white” carbohydrates (or anything that can be white, as in bread, rice, potatoes).
2) Eat the same few meals over and over again (for ease of sticking to the diet).
3) Don’t drink calories (no milk, fruit juice, soda, etc.).
4) Don’t eat fruit (you read that right.  has to do with fructose.)
5) Take one day off per week and go nuts (Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Krispy Kreme – all are encouraged).

The dirty?  10 days in: down 6 pounds.
20 days in: down 6 pounds.

As in the same 6 pounds.  I think it’s possible that I’ve taken the “go nuts” on the cheat day of the diet a little too far.  When my cheat day comes, I really go after it – and on each cheat day I’ve gained 3-4 pounds that seem not to go anywhere until 5 days later.  My cheat day has been on Saturday each week.  Two Saturdays ago, I gained 3 pounds on the cheat day, and my scale reflected those three pounds every morning until the following Thursday, when I weighed in 3.5 pounds lighter.  This past Saturday I gained 2.5 pounds, but lost 2 of them by Tuesday morning, so I’m hoping that the trend is continuing downward and I drop a few more this week.

I’ve stuck pretty closely to the diet – accidentally had some cheese in a salad once, had a Caesar salad last Friday in a pinch, possibly a bit too much cream in a coffee here or there (we’re limited to 1 tablespoon per day), but nothing that you would think would make a huge difference.  I had hoped to lose 12 pounds in a month, but it’s going to take some serious catching up for that to happen.

I should point out that I haven’t been keeping track of my measurements, so there very well may be changes beyond what I can see in the scale’s number.

Larger than the numbers on a scale, however, is the flexing of my willpower muscles.  It’s nice just to be able to say you’re going to do something and then follow through (almost) to a T.  Builds the confidence chops for tacking a more difficult project later on.

On that note, I’m also looking forward to what my plan for the next 30 days will be, but I’ll talk more about that when this 30 days is up.  Wish me luck for these last 10 days.

Do It Now

This simple phrase, which I first heard from Mastermind Group partner Michael, has been a great motivating mantra for me over the past year and a half.

Last week I talked about training your brain to do what you want it to do through practice. One thing many people would like to change, including myself, is a tendency for procrastination. “Do It Now” is a good place to start.

At the risk of sounding beyond trite, life is a series of choices. One big ole decision-tree. Where you end up depends on what decision you make at each turn. A or B? Study for the GRE or watch Real Housewives of Atlanta? Get that annual doctor’s appointment or wait until something is wrong?

When I’m presented with a choice between taking action and sitting still, I just repeat to myself silently “Do It Now.” Get out of bed, or snooze one more time? Get up now. Wash my breakfast plate, or leave in the sink for later? Wash it now. Fill up the car tank, or wait until tomorrow? Pump it now. You get the point. It works for procrastination on small things pretty well.

Where it really gets interesting is when that mentality of always doing now what you could put off until tomorrow sinks in to a deeper level. When you get in the habit of always taking action when sitting still would otherwise be the default option, a whole world of possibilities opens up. You choose to attend that networking event and meet your future employer or client when you normally would have chosen to stay home. You open up that GRE prep book in your spare time and get into grad school instead of watching TV and talking about how you plan to go back to school “someday.”

When it comes to making big moves to change your life, it’s easy to put them off, because a lot of the things that can have a major impact on your life are Important, but Not Urgent. The world won’t come to an end if you don’t go to grad school. Nothing comes crashing down if you don’t go ask your boss for the raise you’ve deserved for the past 3 years.

Also, it’s comfortable to stick with the status quo. You don’t risk failure or embarrassment if you just trudge along in your 9-5, doing the minimum necessary, but nothing extraordinary that could bring attention to yourself. No one will hound you about the business you thought about starting, or the degree you always meant to get. It just never happens, and you never know what your life would be like if you chose to take action rather than put off that decision until tomorrow.

Choosing to live a life of NOW doesn’t happen overnight. Just like anything else, you have to Start Small. Luckily, the opportunities to choose now over later are infinite. Within the next hour, you will undoubtedly be faced with a choice of doing something now or waiting until later. Do it now.

The Simple Dollar on The Art Of The Audacious Goal

Trent at The Simple Dollar writes mainly about personal finance. He has an easy-to-read writing style, and breaks things down, as the title of his blog implies, simply.

The post I’m sharing with you today is about The Art of the Audacious Goal. Trent believes that there is a benefit to setting a huge goal, a ridiculously ambitious goal, even if it is so lofty that it may be impossible to reach. His belief is that it is sometimes better to spectacularly fail at a huge goal than to not have taken any action at all.

I’m a huge believer in this philosophy. If you want to achieve anything amazing at all, you must accept that there will be some significant failures along the way. I can think of no field in which one can become a master that does not require one to have failure mixed in before one can succeed. I would bet that even masterful rock-climbers and sky-divers have close calls or other failures in judgment that make them the experts that they are.

Another point Trent makes is the elements that must be in place if you are going to take on an audacious goal. The last element he talks about is having supportive people in your corner. Trent writes:

“Finally, I had supportive people in my corner. The people up the food chain from my project were pretty supportive of what we were working on. They wanted us to succeed. They cheered us on when we needed it. They took care of peripheral things that would have just distracted us. They gave us carte blanche to use our own judgment, but were willing to provide input when we asked.”

Believe it. Our society glorifies this idea of a lone wolf achieving great heights against all odds; one man against the world. It makes for good movies, but it doesn’t reflect reality. Research any great leader, a la Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers, and you’ll find that these great leaders each had people in their corner providing the right encouragement, help, advice and opportunities along the way.

If you are planning on taking Trent’s advice and want to set an audacious goal, it is easy to remember to plan the steps you will need to take to reach your aim. Equally important, however, is remembering to identify the people around you who will support you in reaching that audacious goal.

Good, Better, Best… Path To Success

One of the key things I have gleaned from our Mastermind Group is that the variance in perspectives by other members actually brought to light why several things I was doing properly weren’t fruitful. I recalled a posting that was done by Aaron, which spoke to differentiating yourself from the pack (our peers) in order to begin properly placing yourself in the category of the elite. Not only do I strongly agree with his points, but also I’d like to take it a bit further.

Just like so many others out there, I had tremendous aspirations and dreams to become an incredible individual. I want to hone my skills to write my own story of success. It couldn’t be that hard. Look at all the great movies and stories used to inspire the creativity of kids and provide a sense of motivation. One thing that was constantly drilled into me by my parents and those around was to “be the best,” but what exactly does that mean and how do I get there?

Welcome to the philosophy of good, better, and best. Being a good person, good employee, and good story is nothing to be disappointed in, but it is the baseline to measure up against. No one at your respective place of employment would be there if they weren’t at least “good” at what they were tasked with accomplishing. Let’s face the truth as individuals that are highly driven and yearn for accomplishments. Settling for “good” is simply being receptive to mediocrity.

Push yourself to at least become part of the “better” category. Think about it in terms of your favorite clothes or food at the local grocery store and the companies that manufacture them. You’ve got plenty of options and how exactly do you perceive those brands? Store brands are good. Heinz and Kraft make well-known products that we tend to trust a bit more than that cost-cutting option. Burberry and Vera Wang are spoken of highly and are therefore deemed superb. We are drawn to and intrigued by elite people, products, and perceptions. Why not do what you must to separate yourself from the majority category and sharpen a skill as your key differentiator?

To be the best you have to selective on your area of focus. The superb individuals out there opt to become incredible at one thing in particular. This creates an immense sense of value for their knowledge and deems them highly marketable. It’s a noble thought to want to be good at everything we get involved in, but the inability to dedicate ourselves to any one thing in particular will ultimately become the our single greatest obstacle to progression. By becoming incredible at something and then working to build upon that over time you can no longer be “boxed-in.” We speak a lot in terms of outliers. We are the outliers and are uncomfortable residing in boxes. By making this simple adjustment to our mode of thinking we can quickly advance on the path of success and begin moving the needle from good to better, or even best.