High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 72: Choose a Growth Mindset

Episode Date: September 27, 2016

High performers adopt a growth mindset. High performance happens because of hard work and dedication.  They we see challenges as exciting and the find optimistic ways of explaining adversity. They take failure as feedback and continuously seek to improve and help others do the same. They take a “yet” mentality and believe they will figure it out. Affirmation this Week: I see challenges as exciting. I see mistakes as helping me learn.  When I get frustrated with my progress, I will remind myself I just haven’t done it “yet.”

Welcome to High Performance Mindset with Dr. Sindra Kampoff. Do you want to reach your full potential, live a life of passion, go after your dreams? Each week we bring you strategies and interviews to help you ignite your mindset. Let's bring on Sindra. A little high performance mindset on the country club for us today. Good morning, Sindra. It's great to be here this Monday morning. I kind of predicted today's topic, Sindra. It was weird. We were just kind of being mean and evil a little bit ago. And I said,

yeah, we're going to switch gears and go into something a little bit more positive growth mindset oriented when Cindra gets here. And today's topic is choose a growth mindset. We're going to start with a quote by Michael Jordan. He said, I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games, 26 times.

I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and miss. I failed over and over and over again in my life, and that's why I've succeeded. Crazy that he's kept track of how many times he's missed, you know, but there's been some very epic moments that will be his legacy, of course. So I think Michael Jordan is a great example of what we're talking about today, you know, and you might think like Michael Jordan was just a natural. He was just born with talent. You know, he was born as the world's best. And how many times have you heard people say something similar to Jordan or, you know, other successful athlete or movie star or musician? The fact is that he wasn't a natural.

He wasn't born the world's best ever, right? He was actually the world's hardest working basketball player. You know, it's well known that Jordan was cut from his high school varsity basketball team. He wasn't recruited by the college team that he wanted to play for, North Carolina State. And the first two NBA teams that could have chosen Jordan didn't. You know, all these are examples of me. We just kind of kind of laugh at those people. Like, why would they pass on the world's greatest, right? But, you know, people didn't see that.

Of course, Jordan had talent, but he put in the work. In fact, when he was cut by his varsity team, his mother said, go back and discipline yourself. Nice. Wow. And then every single morning, he got up at 6 a.m. and practiced before he went to school. And even his college coach talked about how one year that they lost the last game and he went back that night and shot several hours to get ready for the next year, which would have been like six, seven months later. And even the former Bulls assistant coach said, Jordan, yes, he's a genius, but he's constantly working to upgrade his genius.

Nice. Okay. So I think I know where you're going to go with this, but for those that may not, how is this an example of choosing a growth mindset? He embraced his failures and took a growth mindset, not only to his life, but to basketball. And he saw every setback as something that he could come back from as an opportunity to learn and grow. And this concept growth mindset comes from a researcher. Her name is Carol Dweck, and she wrote a book called Mindset. And basically what this means is like, you know, when we adopt a fixed mindset, we see our ability, our intelligence, our athletic ability is fixed, like something that can't be changed.

This is what I've been given. Yeah, this is just how I was born. When we take a growth mindset, which is something that we can train ourselves to do, you know, we see that, you know, sure, our talent is a starting point, but it's through hard work and dedication and using the opportunities that we're giving. And that's why I think Jordan is such a great example of a growth mindset. So the growth mindset is something that we can use. Obviously, you just mentioned it to make us kind of a little bit more aware, a little more powerful. How does that work? You know, when you adopt a growth mindset, you see challenges as exciting. You might seem like, what? Exciting? But you see it as exciting and you find optimistic ways of kind of explaining adversity.

The way I'd explain it is like failure is the acronym like first attempt in learning. Because you fail once doesn't mean that you can't master it. It's just like your first time that you're trying to learn it. And so many people are just afraid of failing that first time, which I don't, you know,

I mean, you got to give it a try, right? Absolutely. Grit is something that I know you like to focus quite a bit on staying gritty, sticking to it. How is adopting a growth mindset something that helps us stay gritty? So grit means that you have passion and perseverance for what you really want. And actually growth mindset has been linked to grit because what we know is people who have a growth mindset, they are happier, you know, they have higher motivation and it's super cool because what their research shows is that, you know, high level athletes and CEOs and musicians, scientists,

they all love what they do. And you might say, well, of course I have a growth mindset, you know, as you're listening, but I think it's easily defaulted that we have like a fixed mindset that when we do experience setbacks or failure, you know, that we get frustrated and impatient. So the key is to catch ourselves and adopt growth mindset instead. All right. So how would you suggest that we work to adopt that growth mindset? What do we do? I would say, you know, the best way is just to add the word yet to your sentences. So, you know, like a fixed mindset person would say, like, I just, I don't get it. Oh, I just can't do this. Yeah. Or that, that doesn't work. But how about, you know, I don't, I haven't gotten it yet,

or I can't do it yet, or this doesn't work yet. Okay. All right. And that's some other examples of how we can change our fixed to growth mindset. If you're a fixed mindset person, you want to be a growth mindset person, what do we do? I think just notice yourself, you know, besides adding the word yet, you know, like if you notice yourself saying, well, she's just a natural born singer, you know, instead attribute it to,

you know, she's worked really hard to get where she's at. Or, you know, my relationship with my spouse should just come naturally. How about, you know, a lasting relationship comes from effort and working hard. We all laughed. Or, you know, gosh, I'm so embarrassed. I just made that mistake. You know, there's so many things that I do wrong. Well, you know, my flaws are just my to-do list

of things to improve. You know, or maybe you might think like, gosh, I should already know that. I should be further along. You know, just success takes time and effort. So I'm going to work today on what I can control. And you've got another way for us to adopt some growth mindsets. So here is a few sentences. So as people are listening, just listen to like, which one of these could you adopt? Maybe put by your computer, put in your locker, put it in your gym bag, your athletic bag. Here's a few examples of growth mindset statements. I keep working and I will get this. Feedback is a way for me to grow and learn. I like to try new things. I can learn anything I want to and I like to challenge myself. Those are all great ones. Like she said, put it on

a post-it note and put it by your computer screen or on the bathroom mirror. Just little things that you might think are silly at first, but you write them down, you put them up, you see them there every day, and then they kind of become, yeah, it's powerful stuff, becomes part of your life. So how do we summarize this whole thing today? We kind of threw a lot of info out there. Yeah, you know, high performers,

those who work to reach their greater potential, they adopt a growth mindset, and they really see, you know, that success happens because of hard work and dedication. And they see challenges as exciting. And they adapt to a not-just-yet mentality. So it's going to come. We just got to continue to work hard at it.

And affirmation goes every week along with one of the topics and the things we're focusing on for this week. What's that one this week? I see challenges as exciting. I see mistakes as helping me learn. When I get frustrated with my progress, I will remind myself I just haven't done it yet. That could be a good desktop

screen for you today. Just grab that off of Twitter or Facebook, put it right there, and read it to yourself all week long, and then save it for the days you really need it. If we want to follow along with you guys, do that kind of stuff. See those affirmations and what you're up to, and get the updates and the podcasts, all of that. How do we do it? You can head over to my website,

Dr. Sindra. So D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A. And I'm also on Twitter, Facebook. You can find me at Mentally Underscore Strong. All right. Lots of good stuff going on there. And we're also anxiously and patiently awaiting more book news. And we know it's in the editing process. So that's pretty exciting, too. I know you've been working hard on that one it's just not ready yet nice and it will be coming soon thank you very much cindra thanks so much for having me i really appreciate it high performance mindset with us today and every monday morning at about 7 30 on minnesota 93 thank you for listening to high performance mindset if you like today's podcast make a comment share it with a friend and join the conversation on twitter at Mentally Underscore Strong. For more inspiration and to

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