Mindsets for Tinkering (explained!)

Further to my previous write-up (link)

Carol Dweck is one of the most prolific developmental psychologists and bestseller of the book “Mindset” wherein she talks about the growth mindset being the journey rather than the destination. My decade long portfolio career with a series of creative projects along the way has taught me to practice the wisdom of trial and error over accumulated knowledge. It is wiser to take many small bets than one large bet because optionality provides greater exposure to identifying life and career risk sensitivities.

Side hustles in?life work as tinkering, aka trial and error mechanism for growth and fulfilment. I spent the better half of my career in the intersection of data science, business design, venture creation, and technology adoption. It provided me with a range of skills to strengthen and nurture my survival power. The system of self-built tinkering established a cycle of micro-iterations and delivered value in short feedback cycles. If something didn’t work, I moved on. If something clicked, it helped me solve problems closer to my heart.

I believe self-organisation is one of the most critical characteristics of nature — in other terms, all good things in life will take care of themselves, and all you have to do is manage the uncertainty. We live in complex adaptive systems, and therefore our tools to cope with risk and uncertainty should also be adaptive and transformative. There are many ways humans can build adaptive systems around them; however, I will share a few tools (mindsets) that I often practice. These tools are repetitive, and their robustness changes with time and space. With a lack of creative labelling currently in my mind, I will call them something close to my day to day language, hoping it will make sense to read them through.

Teacher’s mindset: I have immense respect for my teachers — they have had a lasting impact on who am I today. When you look back into your life, you realise that a teacher is fundamental in any learning process — the teacher as a “role” and not just the people you meet in schools and universities. Success is often guaranteed if you strive for knowledge and have access to mentors. However, mentoring doesn’t replace self-discovery. Mentors are just idea editors, and we self discover ourselves in that learning process. A teacher’s mindset taught me to invest in people, give back to society, “teach” to learn things and develop the skill of mentoring as a discipline. This process of being interested in people, constantly looking for mentors or mentees, and devoting time to help or lift others is pretty spiritual. The sense of achievement we get from helping others is unparallel to any other feeling in the world.

Athletes Mindset: Posidonius, the great Greek scholar and philosopher, was nicknamed The Athlete. Athletes were respected in Ancient Greece. The parallel between the discipline necessary for an athlete and a scholar has been noted for several decades. Athletism helps to bring rigour to life. Rigour comes from preparation, and preparation builds confidence. I enjoyed playing soccer, cricket, and grass hockey throughout my high school and university days (at school and college level), and now I enjoy cycling, running, swimming, and hiking — yes, this is where you suppose to guess my age.

The habit of sports in life teaches us teamwork and the importance of every day (in?John Wooden’s voice). The love of sports restores your belief in yourself and encourages you to bet on yourself. Success, ultimately, begins in mind. Life celebrates the respect for experience before you try and acquire that experience. The book?The Invictus Mindset?by C. J. Martin Calvin teaches that “it is going to be hard, it is going to hurt, but you can do it.” (You can also listen to this fantastic?podcast?by @hubermanlab?with brilliant @AliaCrum)

Hackers’ Mindset: At QUT Entrepreneurship, we run several hackathons with students, academics, government employees, corporate executives, and many others. We believe (and experience) that hacking anything is a mindset and not a skill set. I was born and brought up in India, and we use a particular type of everyday hacking methodology called?Jugaad. For Jugaad, austerity is the operating system, and frugality is the framework for many street corner entrepreneurs and the common public. Jugaad teaches you to re-think and re-evaluate situations and solve problems with limited resources. In a controlled setting, we use hacking to explore the limits of what is possible, thereby doing something exciting and meaningful. In a typical hacker’s approach, the magic lies in the way of thinking. When Hackers get an object (say resource), they do not want to think about what it is; they believe what can they do with it.

Artist Mindset: Margaret Heffernan, in her book?Uncharted, mentions, “our uncharted future is guided by our often imagined false expectations that others have for us” — a compelling statement that we often ignore. She goes further and explains how we must live like an artist. In my experience with art and artists, the common denominator among the most artists I have met is their ability to make sense of our meta realities and subconscious needs. Relentless curiosity and flaneurism give our artists the ability to see things that non-artist individuals can not see and comprehend. The artist mindset explores our ability to develop a sense of agency and a desire to make something meaningful without being guided by others’ imagined or perceived false expectations. Artists have the immense capacity to tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty. They produce work that lasts years, sometimes centuries. We don’t have to be an artist, but we can think like an artist, live like an artist, and develop a mindset of an artist. Artists teach us how to pay attention to things that matter.

(I have left the last stack — Innovators’ mindset - for a dedicated write-up later this month)

The above mindset stack provides me with toolsets to develop various skillsets that I need to keep tinkering with career, passion projects, hobbies, and day to day life. It keeps me lively and allows me to live with my vulnerabilities.

In life, people bet on people, not ideas. Build yourself, so people feel confident to bet on you, and a mindset stack that helps the right people see things in you that most ordinary people won’t. In any economy, the asset of wealth creation lies with tinkerers, hobbyists, and risk-takers — where do you see yourself?