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Embrace your Complexity
It is so easy to underestimate us, humans. It is easy to see the negative impacts we have had in this world as a sign of lack or that there is something intrinsic evil in us. It is easy to fall for the existentialist trap of believing our lives to be ultimately meaningless. Sure, we...
The Thrive Zone
If you want to get better at your sport/discipline/exercise-routine, approach your training as a time to learn not a time to perform. This mindset shift is one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal. The moment you go to learn and not to perform is the moment you free yourself from chasing immediate results...
Can I have your attention, please?
If there is no product the product is you, they say. Nowadays, anyone priding themselves on being critical throws this phrase around when talking about "free" digital services --think Facebook, Gmail, or Twitter. I beg to differ. There is some truth to the idea behind it, but it is primarily a simplistic vilification. Fortunately, you...
- Life is your Mindset Gym | Mindset | Science | The Gym as Your Mindset Sandbox | Train your mind in the gym | Training
Are you training your mindset?
Both of my athletes Francy and Henrick agree with me that mindset is important when it comes to athletic performance. This is unusual because they mostly think I am full of shit. Truth is most people know that what you think greatly determines how you perform at a given task. This is very intuitive and obvious on a superficial level. We all know that if you think you suck at running, well guess what? You are going to suck at running. What is really hard for most people is to flip it around and use this idea to their benefit. But in fact, the base of all sports psychology is exactly this: if you want to be good at something you have to believe that you can actually be good at that thing.
The 3:00 PM Chocolate: the Basics of Mindset
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.
Your own personal culture
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.
