How To Build A Growth Mindset

From Hockey Sticks to High Performance: Lessons on Overcoming Rejection and Building a Growth Mindset from V&V Walsh General Manager Brent Dancer.

Having grown up with a hockey stick in his hand and quickly venturing into high-performance sport as a member of Australia’s men’s national field hockey team, the Kookaburras, Brent Dancer is no stranger to setting himself a big target and reaching it.?

Brent is now the General Manager of V&V Walsh, part of the Craig Mostyn Group, and said the challenges he faced and the lessons he learned during his sporting career have been helpful while building his professional career.?

“In high-performance sports, rejection happens regularly,” he said.?

“Major tournaments happen regularly, and unless you are in the top 20 per cent of the squad selected every week, you can be in and out of the team quite often.?

“You’ve got to have the ability to take the bad news of not being selected for something you have worked hard for.”?

Brent said it was essential to look at the bigger picture instead of dwelling on the rejection.?

“Whenever I had setbacks, I would always think about what I needed to do next to achieve my desired outcome,” he said.?

“I would focus on the dream and work backwards from there, breaking it down into small steps.?

“If you keep looking at the problem, it will seem like a big mountain you must climb.?

“Start by taking the first step and then the next one, and all of a sudden, you start to get back on the pathway and the trajectory to the outcome you are looking for.”?

Brent said a common mistake people made was taking constructive feedback as criticism.?

“In sports and business, you have to be able to have tough conversations,” he said.?

“Sometimes the person delivering the message can be quite blunt when they deliver the message, and it can feel like a personal attack.?

“If someone is willing to give you that feedback, listen and absorb it because inevitably inside that message is something that they are trying to give you to help you make a change for a better outcome.”?

Brent said a growth mindset was essential in being able to face challenges.?

“Having the ability to listen, accept and to a certain degree compartmentalize will help you deal with the here and now,” he said.?

“It is not a matter of compartmentalizing and keeping it hidden forever.?

“But you need to have the ability to put the things you can’t control in a spot, lock it away and be fully focused on your next training session or play if in the sporting realm, or next key decision or conversation in the business world. Then give yourself some time and space to come back and deal with the issue.”?

Brent said an effective technique to deal with the stress and anxiety of high-pressure situations was to go outside that sphere and decompress.?

“For me, that is going away and doing an activity where you don’t have to think,” he said.?

“That used to be running, but these days it is getting in the garden and doing some sort of physical labour that lets me get out of my head.”?

Looking back on his sporting and professional experiences, Brent said taking time to reflect was important.?

“We have seen a lot of change over the past four or five years at V&V Walsh,” he said.?

“We always need to take the time to stop and acknowledge that change, celebrate the wins and the successes and acknowledge individuals for the efforts that have given.?

“It is also important as an individual to take that time to reflect on what you’ve done, how you have done it and what has been improved because you can use that positive energy as a springboard to propel you forward to hit the next benchmark on the way to bigger things.”?