Improve Your Mindset, Change Your Life…To Greatness
What made Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, or Elon Musk succeed? Was it their technology or their mindset?
Personally, I think the mindset is an entrepreneur’s most critical asset. Yet few of us ever take the time to craft it — to purposefully select and sharpen the mindset(s) we desire.
Your mindset is the filter through which you see the world. It determines how you spend your time, what decisions you make, and where you invest your resources.
I’ve been asked over the years whether I’ve always had an Abundance mindset and an Exponential mindset… The answer is NO. They are both mindsets that I’ve crafted over the past 10 to 15 years.
So how do you craft and reinforce a mindset? Which mindsets am I most excited about? These are the questions I’ll explore in this blog.
Let’s dive in…
How mindsets work…
Before you choose which mindset(s) to focus on, it helps to understand how mindsets work.
Here’s an analogy: if you’ve been following developments in AI, you know that we can train neural nets to do image recognition. The challenge with these neural nets is that they’re only as good as the data you feed them.
For example, if you show the neural nets thousands of pictures of cats, and then you show them a picture of a dog, the algorithm will tell you that the dog is actually a cat. It doesn’t know any better.
The same is true for our brains, which are also neural nets.
If you constantly feed your brain with negative perspectives, your outlook will be negative. You won’t know any better.
So, how are you training your neural net?
Most of us don’t realize that we’re doing this training. It operates in the background. For example, through social media echo chambers or in our daily news intake of the CNN (Crisis News Network) or Fox.
So, what shapes your mindset? What are the things that have you trapped thinking the way you do? What would you need to change?
Crafting your mindset…
The two key inputs that shape our mindsets are the people we spend time with and the media we consume.
Life is who you go through life with
There’s an old saying in business that you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
If you want to be fit, hang out with friends who exercise.
If you want to think big and aspire to change the world, hang out with people who have Moonshots and a massively transformative purpose (MTP).
Garbage in, garbage out
Just as you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with, the same is true for ideas.
The news and media we consume are data that we allow to flow into our brains (AKA our neural nets).
What is your news diet? What kind of movies or documentaries are you watching?
What books or blogs are you reading? (Thank you for reading this blog!)
Do these inputs reinforce the mindsets you want? Or do they reinforce mindsets you’re trying to avoid?
As an entrepreneur, answering these questions is a critical part of your journey to be successful during this era of exponential change.
The next step on that journey is choosing the mindset(s) that works best for you.
Selecting your mindset…
There are MANY mindsets you can choose from. But for me, there are six specific mindsets that I find most powerful and important to hone during this era of exponential growth.
The following six mindsets are the ones I personally focus on:
- Abundance Mindset: You have clarity, evidence, and conviction that technology is dematerializing, demonetizing, and democratizing products and services, creating increasing abundance on a global scale.
- Exponential Mindset: You understand that computation and derivative technologies (AI, VR, 3D Printing, etc.) are growing exponentially. Thirty doublings drive a billion-fold improvement that the human (linear) mind finds difficult to grasp.
- Longevity Mindset: You are focused on maximizing your health span, tracking the biotech breakthroughs able to add 20 to 30 healthy years onto your life and making “100 years old the new 60.” You seek key insights and early access.
- Moonshot Mindset: You understand that most people are focused on incremental (10%) growth, but you seek 10x Moonshot growth. You desire tools and techniques that enable you to select and implement your Moonshots.
- Purpose/Passion-driven Mindset: You seek to find, refine, or update your massively transformative purpose (MTP), which allows you to live a passion-driven life. You seek tools and a community to amplify and support your MTP.
- Gratitude Mindset: You recognize how incredibly lucky you are on a personal and professional basis, and you take the time to acknowledge your blessings. You have created routines in your day that allow you to reflect on this, and to share this with those in your life in a way that brings you joy and uplifts those around you.
Which would you choose?
Can you imagine the benefits of having an Exponential or Abundance Mindset?
Would it help flip the way you see things? Instead of seeing a problem, can you see an opportunity? Remember that the world’s biggest challenges are also the world’s biggest business opportunities.
Let’s work together and help you move towards your vision of success faster; schedule a call: www.calendly.com/clifflocks
Contributor: Peter Diamandis, Founder, X Prize Foundation and Chairman of Singularity University and edited by Cliff Locks, Investment Capital Growth, Managing Director and Executive Coach
Recent Blog Post: The Importance of Having an Abundance Mindset
Cliff Locks is a trusted mentor, confidant, and advisor to CEOs, C-Level Exec, and high-potential employees to help them clarify goals, unlock their potential, and create actionable strategic plans.
Available to join your Board as a Certified Master Professional Board of Director and Advisor.
I am a trusted mentor, confidant, and advisor available by Zoom and by phone to be your right-hand man, who will make a significant contribution and impact on your way to success.
As a Trusted Mentor, Confidant, and Advisor, I support you, along with your company’s strategic and annual operating plan. This plan may include marketing, sales, product development, supply chain, hiring policies, compensation, benefits, performance management, and succession planning.
Most successful leaders enjoy talking to someone about their experiences, which is why most develop a close relationship with a Trusted Confidant—a person with whom they feel free to share their thoughts, concerns, and ideas without fear of sharing too much or being judged by the people they lead, or their colleagues and superiors. I am a sounding board who will help you to better develop and see your ideas through to fruition.
The most effective Executive find confidants who complement their strengths and sharpen their effectiveness. Bill Gates uses Steve Ballmer in this way; Warren Buffett turns to vice chairman Charlie Munger. In the end, both the Executive and their organizations benefit from these relationships.
As your trusted confidant, I am always by your side, holding your deepest secrets and never judging. Everything discussed is held in complete confidence.
What many executives feel is missing from their busy life is a trusted business person who understands the holistic complexity of both their business and personal life.
I strive to provide solid financial, business, and family expertise and serve as a dispassionate sounding board, a role I like to call “Executive Confidant.”
By holding a safe place for the Executive to work on life path issues as well as direction, I repeatedly see remarkable benefits as personal values become integrated with wealth and family decisions, enhancing a more meaningful life.
As an Executive Confidant, I welcome a confidential conversation about the most important issues facing the business leader, including:
• Strategic planning toward your visions of success and goal setting • Operations, planning, and execution • Career transition • Retirement • Legacy • Kids and money • Marriage and divorce • Health concerns • Values and life purpose • Vacations • Mentoring & depth of the executive bench • Succession planning
When I do my job well, I facilitate positive action in both your professional and personal life. This consistently has a positive benefit on impacting people within the sphere of your influence.
The job of an Executive can be lonely. For various reasons, confiding in colleagues, company associates, family members, or friends presents complications. Powerful, successful, and wealthy individuals often isolate themselves as a protective reaction because of their inability to find people they can trust and confide in.
Successful people are often surrounded by many people, yet they insulate and isolate themselves to varying levels of degree. This isolation factor is not often discussed in the same context because the assumption is that success and wealth only solve problems. The false belief is that it does not create more problems, when, in fact, sometimes it creates a unique set of new challenges. Success and wealth do not insulate you from the same pitfalls that the everyday person faces. It may give you access to better solutions perhaps, and that is what I can help you achieve. Financial business success can create unique vulnerabilities, often overlooked as most people feel that the “problems” of the wealthy are not real-life problems.
The Executive Confidant can be particularly helpful when:
• Aligning life priorities with the responsibilities of wealth. • Wanting more meaning and purpose in life. • Desiring a candid and experienced perspective. • The answers often come from within, and we cannot arrive at them easily. • Clarity often comes into focus, with skilled questions and guided discovery. The right questions can be the first step in achieving ideal outcomes.
Who can you turn to when you need to find clarity? Who is your “Executive Confidant”?
Referrals to team members or family members are always welcome.
Investment:
One-to-One – Individual payment: Strategic Coaching: $295 per month (weekly for 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on the depth of our conversation Zoom meeting).
One-to-One – Corporate payment:
i. Coaching & Leadership Development: $600 per month engagement (weekly 1 hour Zoom meeting).
ii. One-to-One Executive Coaching and Mentoring: $600 per month engagement (weekly 1 hour Zoom meeting).
iii. Increasing Top Team Performance and 1:1 Mentoring Sessions: $600 per month engagement (weekly 1 hour Zoom meeting).
iv. Planning New Futures for Senior Executives: $600 per month engagement (weekly 1 hour Zoom meeting).
Team coaching:
i. Enhancing Boardroom Effectiveness & Executive Impact Group: Starting at $15,250 per annual engagement.
ii. Strategic & Operational Planning/KPI Development: Starting at $25,500 per annual engagement.
iii. Productivity Assessment & Profitability Improvement: Starting at $25,250 per annual engagement.
iv. Sales Channel and Product Development: Starting at $25,250 per annual engagement.
v. Energy and Sustainability Efficiency Initiatives: Starting at $18,500 per annual engagement.
Board of Directors or Board of Advisors:
- Private company:
- $25,000 to $45,000 per year, depending on the number of Board and Committee meetings.
- Public company:
-
- Under $50M in revenue: $25,000 to $45,000 per year, per year, depending on the number of Board and Committee meetings.
- Micro: $50M – $500M in revenue (click for annual compensation)
- Small: $500M – $1B in revenue (click for annual compensation)
- Medium: $1B – $2.5B in revenue (click for annual compensation)
- Large: $2.5B – $10B in revenue (click for annual compensation)
- Top 200: Largest 200 in the S&P 500 (click for annual compensation)
-
Email me: [email protected] or Schedule a call: Cliff Locks #WSJ #privateequity #boardmembers #corporateleadership #IBD #CEO #CFO #COO #BoD #CXO #management #privateequity #PE #hedgefund #limitedpartners #LP #venutrecapital #VC #ethicalbusiness #directors #corporategovernance #accountability #integrity #ethics #corporateleadership #leadership #nonexecutivedirector #nonexec #boarddevelopment #leadershipfirst #mentoring #thoughtleadership #managementdevelopent #mentorship #leanmanagement #leadershipdevelopment #business #leanstartups #businessstrategy #InvestmentCapitalGrowth
[gravityform id=”1″ title=”true” description=”true”]