Mindset training is one of my favorite coaching experiences. Teaching somebody how to do a muscle-up is deeply satisfying, lowering a marathon time is surprisingly rewarding, improving sleep quality is not valued enough. Helping somebody change their mindset is a different thing. It really connects our shared humanity.
Are you a victim of your metrics? Are you constantly trying to better your metrics, just to feel frustrated and unaccomplished? I have been there, it is awful. In this post I present to you a set of principles that will help you use metrics to serve you and not the other way around.
Because of this digital illiteracy (that we are not fully aware of) we find ourselves in a world of confusion and tribalism today. This is true in the world of politics, and it is true in the world of fitness, nutrition, and mindset. My objective with this post is to give you an overview of two common mistakes the digital reader makes, as well as a tool you can use to evaluate the quality of the information you are reading. Let’s start with the suck.
You see, Mindset is one of those concepts that has become very popular and because of that, it has lost specificity. It is often vague. On top of that, our ideas around it come from academia, especially from the Psychology departments -although not exclusively. This means that we often look at it from one of two points of view 1) a very superficial one; or 2) a pathological one. The first case is represented in the average daily use. When a person says mindset most of the time they just mean attitude. When Henrick tells me: “Juan I went to that meeting with the right mindset, I was ready to crush it.” That’s not a mindset, it is an attitude. The second case means that we have become very good at identifying mindsets that are unproductive. We have identified general trends and their negative consequences. In other words, we are better at understanding the commonalities among the mindsets of people with poor ones, than among those who have good ones. All together, this means that when it comes to Mindset we need a little bit of a Francine attitude in the world. We need to be positive and specific. Just tell people what to do! This post is for you Francine. Let’s do this.
When you don’t know how to start writing, stop thinking and just start. I learned that after 5 years of dissertation writing. The funny thing is that I used to always refer to my dissertation as my “parto” (the labor, the moment of childbirth). This is a common Spanish phrase to refer to something that is long and gruesome. Two days ago, my son Elías was born. After 48 hours of difficult and painful work from my wife together with a great team of medical specialists he is here in the world cute as fuck, healthy and ready to kick ass. I must say I will never call again something a parto, unless it really it is. A dissertation, challenging as it is, not a parto my friends. And my dissertation is not a baby.
Meditation is not the only way into all the benefits that this practice produces. I believe that even though everybody can meditate and benefit from it, meditation is not for everybody. The purpose of this post is to provide some clarity about meditation and give you some ideas on how to use this practice or something analogous to better your life. Hang on to your staches, this will be a wild ride.
We could also call this week's video as "The Thrive Zone 2.0". It is just a different way to look at the same concept. I like to look at the fundamentals from as many angles as possible. Some aspects and perspectives click some don't. Let's see if this one clicks for you. If it does, as soon as you are done watching, put yourself in a place of intentional and planned incompetence. Thrive!
Let’s be mathematical today and start by defining what we are talking about: mindset. A mindset is a set of ideas or assumptions that mediate our behaviors. This mediation is bi-directional: mindset can determine our behaviors, just as much as our behaviors can determine our mindset. Long-held mindsets become our core beliefs and define how we see ourselves in the world. So if you think you are bad at math, that conditions your behaviors around numbers and mathematical problems. Which means you don’t even try to do the tip on your bill at a restaurant. On the other hand if you consistently and intentionally practice German each day with the help of a good program and a good teacher, you will end up learning German. In turn you will end up creating a mindset in which you think of yourself as a smart person who can learn new languages. That's it. The mindset model is simple and useful. The great thing about it is that it allows change to happen. Your mindsets and core beliefs can be modified and re-wired.
The focus of the whole month of January will be "The Basics." We get so caught up in the fancy stuff. We are always looking for sophisticated solutions for simple problems. Yet, the basics are where it's at. Today's video is about how we love being good at shit and how to do that. You know, basic stuff. Watch it and let me know how it goes!
I remember the day I spent a full hour talking to an advertiser about creating my own personal brand. It was like if your uncle Phil who just started jogging spent an hour talking to your friend Jody the ultramarathoner about the importance of having the right running shoes. I did not know the concept at that time, but I was deep in my research of the printing press in the seventeenth century. What I was learning was that most writers of the time had a strong sense of branding. They understood their books as objects in themselves and so they cared about every little aspect of them. They usually would include a self portrait in each of their books. Those portraits, man! They were quite literally an intellectual coat of arms. Everything had a meaning and everything was there for a reason. No contemporary nobel prize winner has ever thought so deeply about the cover of one of their books. The cool thing for me is that there was no pretense that they did not care about material, venial, graphical, or commercial things. They put themselves out there and they wanted people to understand them exactly and fully as they were. The advertiser I was talking to looked at me and with a duh-but-warm smile and said: “yeah, it is all about personal branding.” My head exploded a little.