My Years of Study in Mindset

What does it mean to you??After 20 years of study, reading the work of the greatest academics. Listening to thousands of hours of podcasts from the world of high performing sports stars, successful business men and women and observations when working with people I regard to have the strongest mindsets, I like to describe myself as someone who has studied and practiced this field relentlessly.?

My definition of mindset can’t be split into one or two keywords, but instead hundreds of facets aligning together. Once those alignments happen however unbelievable results transpire.?

It all starts with a goal. In order to control or convince our minds, we must allow it to see and believe what we are trying to acheive. Once we have that, we start to begin to lock in. That’s why I’ve always taught this as a starting principle. Know what it is you are trying to achieve.

Now in order to convince the mind, we can begin to ensure it sees this. I’m a big fan of the theory of VARK with my own little twist. Visual (See it), Audio (Hear it), Read/Write (Plan it) and Kinaesthetic (Feel it/Do It).??My Visual is my imagination, picture the journey and what the end scenario looks like, Audio (talk myself through it, positive language), My Read/Write is my favourite, I have a need to put pen to paper, it’s my go to, my reference, it’s why I journal and keep and read data. My last one is my experiment stage of Kinaesthetic, it’s where I try different things out to see if they work or in most cases don’t. In the case of them not, I’m starting my VARK again, but this time in smaller, focused chunks. Now before all you senior academics jump up and down saying this is not the theory of VARK, remember I said, VARK with my own twist.?

Right, now I’ve convinced my Mind of the direction of travel and locked it in. I’m ready to go! This sounds very easy doesn’t it, but the issue comes when the mind is distracted and influenced by many other factors and that can happen a lot.

There are a multiude of factors that can make us stop, deviate from the path or change direction altogether.?This is where I’ve spent years of learning and practice. Areas such as laser focus, mental toughness, positive habit creation, visualisation and yes meditation is one of these, positive influence, diet and nutrition, hydration, exercise, courageous conversations, mind over matter, the Pareto 80/20 principle, Maslow, Skinner and Rodger’s, Black Box Thinking, Breathing exercises, thinking slow acting fast, controlling the controllable, these are just a few.?Remember earlier when I said ‘hundreds of facets’.

All of this research, observation and practice has helped train me to keep control of the mind. When it becomes bored, sees something new and sparkling, is tempted by the apple of eve or senses danger and tells the slenses to stop, to quit and run, is when I need to be at my sharpest. I've designed myself to recognise that my mind has the biggest influence of my brain?and can stop me reaching the intended goal. Therefore the thing I must control is the mind and to do this, my brain must remember who’s the boss!?

When I decided I wanted to start my own business at a very young age, I sought mentors to work with who were running successful businesses, I took on the worst jobs with sometimes no pay, just to get close enough to observe them. This started with small business all the way up to corporate level, building the bank of knowledge.

I’ve always said in business, I had three strong influences all of which I took a bit from each in order to create my own version of me. What I’m saying here is I was never a natural leader, I manufactured myself. There is absolutely nothing natural about me, it’s continual development in order to acheive the goal I’ve set. The first of my three mentors was the hardest grafter I’ve ever seen in my life, but I also observed their poor communication levels and spite towards others who would not graft the same as them. My second mentor was someone who had a business but knew very little about the expertise of the business, however they were exceptional at finding people who did and bringing them into strategic positions, the problem was they made lots of false promises to which they never kept. The third, was a showman, a networker of dreams, someone who lit up the room and their presence was always felt.??A person who did not show stress and slowed everyone down to look for solutions. They believed that if you throw enough money at the problem, the answer was always going to reveal itself. The issue with this, was wasted money often in the wrong areas.

Now, I used the word Mentor for all of these three people, and I stand by it even though I’ve highlighted some negatives in each of them. To create me, I needed to see from each of them, what I would lean into and what I wouldn’t. Let me give you some examples. I’m an absolute grafter, but I won’t micro-manage, I love to create businesses that I’m passionate about and want to learn and disrupt the norm but I also understand that I need to find people who are better than me in key areas in order for it to grow. Once I’ve found those people I need to offer them incentives and deliver on them when they deliver.

To showcase this, In 2023 I gave 30% of my businesses away for free, to three key people. You can see how I used the positive principle of mentor two but reversed the negative. I’ve learned the need to network, be a strong communicator, be a presence in a room but I’ve also learned to test every process, value money and ensure that everything we do offers an opportunity for return on investment.?

Now you may be thinking, what has all this got to do with mindset. It’s everything. What the eyes can see, the brain can determine and the mind can understand.?

It’s why 90% of the businesses I’ve created have all been successful. The 10% of failures is when I invested but didn’t understand. You might have done this yourself with stocks and shares or crypto currency, me to. My worst however was a construction development company and there are so many lessons I learned from that period. Thats part of my control the controllable mentality.?

If one of the carers call in ill for the Nightshift, could I put my uniform on and cover the shift, absolutely. If one of my trainers let me down, could I go and deliver the session to a high standard, 100%. If one of my Sales Team couldn’t make the pitch, could I take the lead, naturally. If marketing didn’t know how to split test, could I show them, I’d love to. If my FD went on long term absence, would I know the finances? I taught her, so yes. However if the bricklayer, electrician or plumber didn’t show up, could I build the wall, wire the property or fix the boiler, absolutely not. Could l learn, yes, do I want to? No! That’s why I’ve developed myself to only build companies I love and have a continued passion for. Anything else, becomes a No, no matter how good it looks. That maybe considered narrow thinking, but the very first thing I mentioned in my facets of mindset was ‘laser focus’ and I can only focus on something I want to achieve. The key word being ‘want’.?

For my personal ‘outside of business’ world, I have the exact same mentality. I push myself, I’m a real example of Johari’s Window. Be it running a marathon, completing a triathlon, climbing the highest peaks, jumping out of planes, stepping into the boxing ring or competing for Mr UK and Mr Universe (current project) on stage in a very skimpy pair of shorts. I have an absolute mindset to see what the end result looks like before I’ve taken the first steps.

I Surround myself with people who give positive influence and act as the support crew, be mentored by people who have been there and done it. Dependent on the challenge is dependent on who I put around me. Anyone who will not contribute or act negatively is gone! I research everything I’m doing, absorbing as much information from any source I can find that will help. I write my plans, prepare my nutrition, find a coach, look for the best facilities to train. In my world, I go into professional athlete mode. In some instances, I believe I do it better than them, even though my genetics are not on the same level. It’s why every challenge I’ve set myself, I’ve completed. Every time the training or the food intake has got difficult or extreme, I’ve ploughed on through. Every time it’s got dangerous, I’ve convinced myself, we can do more. Maybe this makes me mad, but I’m an achiever, not a quitter.?

I’ve purposely placed myself in the most uncomfortable positions to build my mental toughness. Canvassing for a political party who were not the most liked in the social area needs mental toughness. Imagine what it’s like going into hotbed areas of the opposing party, knocking on doors and asking people to vote for the party they hate the most. Being chased off roads, sworn at, spat at, threatened physically, pushed and kicked, and doing this voluntarily, yet turning up the next day and doing it all again. It happens, believe me. But also something magical can happen, you find a person who believes in the same principles as you, but is to afraid to speak about it, but you give them the platform and listen. This was me in my early thirties when I put myself up for election and went and won an area that they thought impossible. The relentless attitude I have and mental toughness, was built on those doorsteps, and in business it’s taught me, that it’s never over, no matter how bad that day is, we can go again tomorrow.?

Be it failing fast and learning from everything, to highly motivating individuals to building high performance teams, all of it has required a mindset that it can be done as long as we keep control of ourselves. I’ve learned that in order to do this, I need to eat the right foods, drink the right refreshments and exercise regularly. I have to be the role model to others. I have to inspire to be inspired and educate to replicate. Mindset is the most powerful thing I have. It’s my superpower,??but it never came naturally and neither will yours, you have to build it.?