The Blueprint for Next-Level Thinking

“Growth hacking is a mindset, and those who have it will reap incredible gains.” — Ryan Holiday

Believing that the next step, next opportunity, next relationship and next commitment is going to work out in your favor is the most important mindset to adopt in life. When you really think about, it all begins with faith. Your belief in yourself, belief and trust in others, and perhaps belief in a higher power help to form the backbone of your thought-life and decision making.

It’s here, on this foundation of faith that we learn and begin to build confidence, hope, perseverance and our ability to love others — but most importantly, ourselves. By building our lives on values and time-tested principles, we equip ourselves with the ability to continue forging ahead with confidence and steeling our resolve in the face of adversity, difficulty and failures.

All throughout our lives, we’ll find challenges that come before us that dare us to believe, behave with confidence and to give things a shot. It’s the “next-phase” thinkers among us that excel and get what they want because they are resolute, determined and committed to achieving their goals. The winner’s mindset can be best summed up this way:

Pursuing purpose and persevering when you believe passionately and intelligently in your cause.

I’ve created a series of principles that I believe will transform your life as you build your mindset and look to become the best you can in business, school, your relationships and all creative endeavors.

5 Principles of Building Your Mindset:

1. Recovery, Recharge and Reload

After any loss, mistake, failure, and even wins, we all need time to recover. To tweak, make adjustments and learn from what we just did. This is time to decompress, to think creatively and to analyze and make sense of our output. It’s not time to beat ourselves up or criticize ourselves harshly. We all need to recharge our batteries and reload with a wiser, bolder willingness to advance forward onto the next dream, goal, task or opportunity.

2. Adversity is Your FRIEND — Not Your Enemy

You’ll learn herein through the story of Richard Branson that adversity and losing can be our best friend. Adversity is NOT your enemy! Adversity is the gauntlet that life throws at us, challenging us to rise to the occasion and overcome any obstacles that seem to be preventing us from moving forward. Look back at your life and ask yourself, “How did I respond in the face of difficulty, adversity or loss?”

You’ll learn a lot about yourself and you’ll make your greatest strides once you begin to use adversity to your advantage.

3. Empowerment Visualization — See the Victory

As I wrote about previously, visualization is the prized mental process that winners follow. See the victory. Visualize what you’re doing and color those thoughts with positive emotions. See yourself standing in the winner’s circle, paint that mental picture like you’re Picasso. Get descriptive, get specific and buttress this creative imagination by writing it down and turning this into something that is actionable.

4. Build Mutually Beneficial Alliances of Empathy

Simply put — surround yourself with other winners who are there to encourage, support and build you up — not tear you down. Empathy is intrinsically self-giving and generous in nature. It’s not selfish. It’s not self-seeking and motivated by “What’s in it for me?” thinking. Winners learn that leading and service others with an empathetic, service-minded approach returns such higher returns and dividends than seeking only our own benefits.

5. The Equanimity of Present and Future Confidence

One of my favorite quotes is:

“Keep Your Eyes on the Stars and Feet on the Ground” — Theodore Roosevelt

This is my interpretation and translation of this quote: Always, always, always look confidently to the future, while equally maintaining a focused, self-assured vision for right now. There has to be a balance. If you always look to the past or hunker-down exclusively on the present, you’re bound to miss the future. Your destiny and future self need you to think deep thoughts and build plans with achievable goals that demand you to passionately give your all.

Always Move Forward

I turn back to a quote I recently used in a recent story from Elon Musk, which is a beacon of positivity : “If something’s important enough you should try. Even if you think the probable outcome is failure.” — Elon Musk

THIS IS THE MINDSET OF A WINNER!

You must be willing to give things a shot, even when you think that in probability it won’t work out. Probability means that the supposed odds are not in your favor. But make no mistake — probable does not equal possible. The world is gifted with many contributions from great women and men that endeavored to do something special that was highly improbable at the time.

Every great innovation came against incredibly long odds for success. So many outstanding accomplishments in our lives come when we stay positive, work passionately and fervently in a cause or for a goal that may seem impossible. It likely won’t happen overnight, yet over time we’ll realize the success of a venture that seemed like a total pipe dream years before.

Richard Branson’s many successes have also come with some spectacular failures. But let me ask you this — what do you most remember him for? Is it Virgin Cola or (gasp!) Virgin Brides? Or is it perhaps his estimated $5 Billion fortune built upon Virgin Records, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Mobile and many other successful businesses?

Take Branson’s perspective of how he fortified his mindset into becoming an incredible winner in business:

“My mother drummed into me from an early age that I should not spend much time regretting the past. I try to bring that discipline to my business career. Over the years, my team and I have not let mistakes, failures or mishaps get us down. Instead, even when a venture has failed, we try to look for opportunities, to see whether we can capitalize on another gap in the market.” — Richard Branson

Oprah Winfrey became one of the most popular and successful entrepreneurs in the world because she’d “only do shows that were in alignment with [her] truth…” What this meant for her, was that she had to believe passionately in what she was doing — and that it was making an impact on others’ lives for the better — in order to keep going and building on becoming a winner.

Oprah Winfrey made a spectacular and enormously successful foray into news broadcasting and daytime television talk. She’s a true pioneer as an African-American woman who found her calling and knew that to best serve others she needed to forge ahead and gain a larger platform. She had tremendous odds against her, and yet she deeply believed in her purpose.

“The biggest risk is not taking any risk… In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” — Mark Zuckerberg

Nikola Tesla is a name that will be remembered for all of eternity because he produced remarkable innovations with the intent of adding value to the lives of mankind. His dream of sharing free energy with the world was never realized, but it was in the works purely for altruistic motives. Tesla was out to help the world. He wanted to use his genius to give value to others.

He began focusing on other technological innovations that have changed the course of history forever and STILL have a direct impact on our lives. Tesla played a huge role in the development of alternating current electricity, harnessing the power of light to develop fluorescent bulbs and is now credited for having invented radio.

When he found his passion, he kept going and kept pushing himself to higher-levels of imagination and greatness. The man took enormous risks and they paid off.

So I ask you, what risks are you willing to take? A winner’s mindset is not for the timid or faint of heart. It takes confidence, imagination, a bold willingness to take chances and a commitment to live the life of your dreams. I humbly believe that as you search inside yourself, you’ll find all of these things. You just have to give it a shot.

Win Every Day by Investing in Yourself

I’m helping thousands of people each day build their life on values and put together their personal game plan. Join me! Check out The Value of You, my Amazon bestseller. The e-book is available for a limited time for just $2.99! Order the e-book HERE!

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Additional Reading

How to Overcome Procrastination and Develop a Productive Daily Routine

1 Hour Per Day Doing this Mental Exercise Will Exponentially Increase Your Success

30 Excuses Stopping You From Living Your Best Life (And 30 Solutions)