mastering your mindset - amazon s37 mastering your mindset mastering your mindset the two basic...

Mastering Your Mindset

Preview Of What You Will Learn

Sections:

Introduction.............................................................................................................5

Growth vs. Fixed Mindset.........................................................................................6Understanding MindsetsGrowth MindsetFixed Mindset

The Root of Our Mindset.......................................................................................9Development StagesAltering Your Mindset

Mastering Your Business Mindset.......................................................................11Learning From Successful PeopleBusiness Challenges and ManagementCreate a Goal Setting Mindset

Wrap Up....................................................................................................................15

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5Mastering Your Mindset

Mastering Your

Mindset

How important is mindset to a real estate investor? Paramount. Your mindset determines the overall success that you have in all areas of your life. If you look at your business, your parenting skills, your athletic performance, or even your relationships, your mindset affects each and every aspect.

A mistake many investors make is to only focus on the mechanics of their investment strategies and not the psychology behind those mechanics. What you do and how you do it starts and ends with your mindset. We want to help you to become aware of exactly how your decisions are impacted by the way your mind works. How do you react to failures? How do you react to success? These things matter in determining not only your short-term success, but also how you’ll carry out your business in the long run.

Mindset is a simple idea discovered by world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck in her book, “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.” Many times, it’s a simple idea that can make all the difference. Once you’ve read this system, you will have a better understanding of how mindset works, why it’s important and why brains and talent alone aren’t what brings success.

Introduction

Understand that it’s not what happens to you in life…it’s how you react to it.

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Before you can master your mindset, you have to understand what it is and how it works. Many people aren’t aware of their own thoughts. They are even further out of touch with how they communicate those thoughts. Most often, it is a simple awareness of these two things that will begin to really transform your success. As Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck pointed out, the key isn’t ability; it’s whether you look at ability as something inherent that needs to be demonstrated, or something that can be developed.

Understanding MindsetsA mindset is simply your beliefs about yourself and your most basic qualities. Things like your intelligence level, the talents you have, and your overall personality are part of your mindset. We as individuals all process thoughts differently. Some people have more negative thoughts, while others tend to favor positive thoughts. If you think of a handful of your closest friends or family members, you might be able to distinguish the individuals who are more positive or negative.

While we can point to some biological features differentiating one person’s mind to the next, such as shape and size of one’s skull, the evidence is lacking that this has much to do with the mindset. More research has been done as to whether or not a person’s background, experience, training, or ways of learning may differ. Dweck speaks to this idea in her book. She touches on Alfred Binet, the inventor of the IQ test. Binet designed this test to identify children who were not reaching full potential in Paris public schools. His goal was to make certain that all of the school systems were on point. He believed that education and practice could bring a fundamental change in intelligence.

Modern day experts tend to agree that it isn’t enough to just say it’s either nature or nurture, but rather, a complex mix of the two. While we may start out having a makeup of certain temperaments or aptitude, that’s not an end all be all. It is clear that with experience, training, and an overall personal effort, anything is possible for anyone.

Growth vs. Fixed Mindset

“A few modern philosopher’s assert that an individual’s

intelligence is a fixed quantity, a quantity which cannot be increased. We must protest

and react against this brutal pessimism.... With practice,

training, and above all, method, we manage to increase

our attention, our memory, our judgment and literally to become more intelligent than

we were before.”

-Alfred Binet

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Mastering Your

Mindset


The Two Basic MindsetsStudies have shown a variety of differences between what’s called a growth and a fixed mindset. The basic idea is that the world is split into those who are open to learning and those who are closed to it. The side you fall on will determine everything from the way you view the world to your interpersonal relationships. Let’s take a closer look at each mindset below.

Growth MindsetWhen you are able to have a growth mindset, you understand that you can change and grow as you go. These individuals are constantly trying to improve their intelligence. “In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment,” writes Dweck.

Whether it’s your education, relationships, athletic success, or simply the overall condition of your business, it’s important to embrace the growth mindset. Doing so will allow you to learn more and learn quickly. If you do not believe that you have the ability to influence how your life turns out, then how will it ever change? Those with a growth mindset believe that a person’s true potential is unknown. With this mindset, it’s simply impossible to foresee what can be accomplished with years of passion, hard work, and education.

Fixed MindsetOn the other side of the coin, there are many people who believe that intelligence and or talent is genetic. They believe that talent is fixed and has everything to do with being successful. To the fixed mindset, effort plays little to no role at all. For example, people may believe that at birth, Michael Jordan was destined to become the greatest basketball player that he was. What many people don’t realize is that Jordan was cut from his basketball team in ninth grade. If he bought into a mindset that his abilities were fixed at that moment, he would never have become the athlete that he was.


• Intelligence Can Be Developed• Embraces Challenges• Persists in the Face of Setbacks• Sees Effort as a Path to Mastery• Learns from Criticism• Finds Inspiration in the Success of Others• Reaches Higher Levels of Achievement• Has a Greater Sense of Free Will

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The same thing can be said in business. Most people believe they either were born intelligent or not. They are either qualified for a job, or they’re not. There’s no growth potential involved. A common characteristic is to try to document and prove where you are now instead of developing what you could become later.

Fixed mindsets are the finger pointers – those who say, “Life happens to me,” instead of, “I make life happen.” It’s a very tricky and dangerous mindset to have, especially when it comes to business. You may find yourself withdrawing from things you shouldn’t just to try and protect your ego. We all know that there are times when failure is inevitable. If you maintain an attitude under a fixed mindset, you won’t be able to grow from your mistakes.


• Intelligence is Static• Intelligence is Genetic• Avoids Challenges• Gives up Easily• Sees Effort as Useless or Worse • Ignores Useful Negative Feedback• Feels Threatened by the Success of Others• Plateaus Early and Achieves Less Than Full

Potential


Mastering Your

Mindset

So if we aren’t born with a genetic makeup of predetermined mindset, where does it come from? The mindset you have today is no accident. It was created, altered, and cemented throughout your periods of development as a child. Most people don’t take the time to sit down and truly think about why they think the way that they do, and that’s a mistake. We have to gain self-awareness before any development can take place. So even if you think that you may have a fixed mindset, there are ways to tweak your day-to-day interactions so that you gain growth potential. We’ll show you how.

Development StagesTry to think back to one of your earliest memories of praise or criticism. Were you given praise for winning a t-ball game? Told you weren’t very good at gymnastics and that it might be a waste of money to continue? You may not have realized it at the time, but those types of statements take a profound role in shaping your mindset.

Telling a child that they themselves, as a person, are either good or not good at a certain activity will create a fixed mindset. This statement will simply reinforce the idea that we are born with certain traits and attributes that make us who we are. Encouragement is meant for growth the same way criticism is. When you’re looking back on your youth, did you give up on gymnastics? Did you skip baseball practice because you just thought you were better than everyone else? These are very common outcomes.

Placing BlameAs we grow from adolescence, to young adulthood and then adulthood, there are individuals in our lives who may be doing more harm than good. This often roots from the concept of placing blame. For instance, if your mom and dad came home from a parent-teacher conference and sat down with you to discuss your “C” grade in biology, they probably should’ve expressed concern about how you are applying yourself in class. However, many parents will simply blame the teacher. They will tell their son or daughter, “That teacher has it out for you” or “I could tell that she is a terrible teacher. We need to get you into another class.” Pointing fingers is something many parents are guilty of. They don’t intend harm by it. They are simply trying to protect their children and make them feel better. However, the effects are detrimental to the student’s growth potential.

The Root of Our Mindset

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By placing blame elsewhere, parents reinforce that intelligence is fixed – the teacher is making a mistake. Once this pattern is developed, very seldom will it go away. It will reappear over and over again. It will always be someone else’s fault. That’s why it is so important that we develop a sense of ownership and responsibility in our own lives.

Altering Your MindsetIf you are to reach your fullest potential, you have to begin to think differently. You are not chained to your current capabilities, but that is something you have to realize yourself. All great achievers from Mozart to Einstein built their abilities. When you are able to grasp that concept, you can bring your game to a new level. Altering your mindset all begins with your awareness. We all will typically have a lack of awareness and a general sense of ignorance when it comes to our mindset. When you’re aware of what you’re saying to others and how you’re processing thoughts, you will solve the problem on your own and begin to embrace challenges and love learning. This will not only ensure success, but more fun while succeeding as well.

Most of us have fixed mindsets about one thing or another. So even if you believe that you have a growth mindset, you still have work to do. Follow these three steps to improve your mindset:

1. AWARENESS- Recognize that the growth mindset does in fact exist and is supported by years of scientific research. Neuroscience shows that the brain changes and becomes more capable when we are working to improve ourselves.

2. COMPETENCY- Learn and teach others about how to develop our abilities. Learn about deliberate practice, and what makes for effective effort. When we understand how to develop our abilities, we strengthen our conviction that we are in charge of them.

3. PROFICIENCY- Control your fixed mindset voice. When you hear it, talk back with your growth mindset voice. If you hear “I can’t do that” respond with “yet.”

The Root of Our Mindset


Mastering Your

Mindset

Now that we understand what your mindset is and how to master our own personal mindset, let’s take a look at how to apply this to day-to-day business practices.

Learning From Successful PeopleIn your business, and in any business, there will be those who are more successful than you. Will you criticize them? Will you become jealous? When you see successful people, it’s natural to have these emotions. However, you must be aware of those feelings and ask yourself a better question, “How did they become successful?” You can learn from them. Build rapport with them. Learn their skillsets.

Modeling the success of others is one of the greatest skills you can learn. It will allow you to experience the growth that you need. Understand that there is no one person you should follow, but rather, a myriad of successful people who you should be surrounding yourself with. From agents, to investors, to contractors, and lenders – make sure that you are always around those at the top of their game.

In sporting events, you will often find one team or the other playing to their opponent’s level. If the best team in the division plays the worst team in the division, two things can happen. The first is that the worst team plays to the level of the best team. They turn up their energy, gain focus, and really play up to their opponent. The second thing that can happen is that the better team plays down a level. They feel overconfident in their abilities and start to make rookie mistakes that they don’t normally do because they’re modeling their opponent. Surrounding yourself with those who are better than you is the best way for you to reach for the top. It forces you not to settle, but to always strive for more.

Business Challenges & Management As we’ve already mentioned, a fixed mindset describes an individual who will avoid taking on new challenges because they fear failure. Working with this mindset would mean that you might not call the top REO agent in the area because you may think they’d never take you seriously as a new investor. This fixed thought will prevent you from learning, because even if they blow you off, you will grow from it.

Mastering Your Business Mindset

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Realize that rejection isn’t a door slammed in your face. It’s simply an arrow in another direction. Know that criticism is not an attack. It is a gift. As a business owner, you have to accept no; you have to accept failure. Each and ever time that you do, you will become one step closer to your goal. Build with the blocks you’re given instead of burying yourself underneath them.

Communicating With OthersHow you communicate with others in your real estate business says a lot about your own personal mindset. That is why your goal should be to make your employees and team members feel good about themselves, while still letting them know that you expect more. For example, if your contractor just finished up an amazing kitchen for you, you could say:

“Wow John, you are good! This kitchen is amazing.”(This supports a fixed mindset)

- OR -

“Wow John, you must’ve worked really hard to make the kitchen look this amazing.”(This supports a growth mindset)

Telling a contractor they are the “best” is a fixed level. Instead, you want to compliment the work ethic, or the process. These are small things that are not only training your employees, but also training you to interact with all of the people who are in your life. By mastering the way in which you communicate with others on a day-to-day basis, you are fine-tuning your own mindset while helping others to form theirs.

Helpful Tip!Once you are able to identify who does and who doesn’t have a growth mindset, you can choose who you should surround yourself with. Hire growth-minded people, work with them, and build off of their abilities.


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Mastering Your

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Create a Goal Setting MindsetGoal setting is certainly one of the best ways that you can apply a growth mindset to both your personal and business life. By doing so, you can actually create an unconscious map to your success. You may know where you are today and where you were in the past, but do you know where you want to be in the future? This is where your focus must begin to really sharpen.

Designing steps and creating a system for your goals is an excellent way to apply this concept to your business. Follow these four steps to create your goal setting mindset:

Step One: Envision Your Rewards This first step is to master visualization. Visualizing is extremely important. Most people would think they should envision their goal. For instance, if you want to save $5,000 you may want to picture holding that money in your hand. However, the more important aspect of this vision is not the picture of the money itself, but rather what you are going to do with that money as your reward for hitting that goal. Is it to put a down payment on a new car? Or maybe you want to buy a fancy new watch. Imagining the result of reaching your goal is where the power is held. If you visualize the reward, you are telling your brain that you already have it. Repeat this visualization process every single day.

Step Two: Attach EmotionThe next step is to then attach emotion to that reward. Figure out what pushes you to the next level. Where is the root of your emotion? Is it your family, your love of travel, or even the ability to prove self worth? While tangible items may be a great goal for so me people, for most people the emotional aspect of an achieved goal is the highest motivator. Holding an emotional anchor also means that you are stronger when it comes to those inevitable goal obstacles. So take it a step further and imagine how excited your family will be when you get that new car, or how good it’s going to feel to put on that expensive watch, knowing you earned it.


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Step Three: Create a Vision BoardBecause your mind responds strongly to visual stimulation (by representing your goals with pictures and images), you will actually strengthen and stimulate your emotions. A vision board is simply a display of photographs or words that represent your rewards and goals. Whether it’s financial freedom, a vacation to Rome, a new watch, or even a house, create a vision board full of these photographs so that each day not only are you imagining those goals being reached but you are looking at them as well. Make these goals important to you by placing the vision board in a place that you can’t miss. Whether it’s laminating it and placing it in your shower or taping it to your ceiling above your bed, make sure you see this every single day.

Step Four: Help OthersMotivational speaker Zig Ziglar once said, “You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.” He couldn’t have been more correct. By teaching others a lesson, you in turn teach yourself. When you guide a person down the right path, you reach the same outcome. Help your team members create their own vision board. Have your family members write down and recite their goals to you. This will keep you on track and also ensure success for all parties involved.

Helpful Tip!It’s a good idea to create a new vision board each year. Remember that as you continue to grow, evolve, and expand, your goals will too.



Mastering Your

Mindset

Wrap Up

#1Growth Mindset is the belief that

intelligence and talent can be changed, while a Fixed Mindset

is the belief that intelligence and talent is fixed at birth.

#2The development of your mindset begins from your

early adolescence.

MASTERING YOUR

MINDSET

#3With practice, altering your

mindset is possible.

#4Surrounding your self with

successful people will ensure growth.

#5Incorporate your growth

mindset in your day-to-day business challenges.

#6Set goals and visualize

rewards to maximize your potential.

mastering your mindset - amazon s37 mastering your mindset mastering your mindset the two basic...

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