WHY YOUR MIND SET IS YOUR MOST POWERFUL ASSET IN THESE TOUGH TIMES

Why do I say that your ‘mind set’ is your most powerful asset in these times?

I reckon these times are tough, due to lockdowns imposed on you by Government. Whether or not the lockdowns, effectively house arrests, were justified is another question. But the lockdowns have devastated large parts of many economies.

I want to share with you why your mind set is such a powerful asset, and then explore why so few people understand its power.

I hope you understand its power.

I hope you understand how to craft the mind sets of the people whom you lead in teams, or in whole organisations.

For the past 27 years, since I left my successful law career, I have been working with teams and individuals to effectively develop and craft mind sets that lead to achievement of exciting and worthwhile outcomes.

In this Passion Point to Ponder, from now on, when I refer to ‘you’, I also include those whom you lead in any way. This Passion Point is lengthier than usual, but the topic deserves your consideration in depth, rather than just getting a quick reminder of an idea.

Your success in tough times will be SOLELY governed by your ACTIONS and BEHAVIOURS.

And your ACTIONS and BEHAVIOURS will be SOLELY governed by your THOUGHTS.

And your THOUGHTS will be SOLELY governed by your MIND SET.

That’s it.

Simple, hey!

But, as I say in all my workshops, “simple is not easy”.

Let me give you one example to demonstrate how “simple is not easy”: if you are overweight, and want to weigh less, you will need to burn fat. I prefer to say ‘burn fat’ than to ‘lose weight’; burning fat is a positive expression, while ‘losing weight’ is a negative expression.

It is ‘simple’ to burn fat: just don’t eat. That’s it: eat nothing, just drink water.

But, to do this is not easy.

Getting fit is simple, but not easy.

Turning the television off to do some learning is simple, but not easy.

Now, let’s get back to your mind set.

Why don’t you take the actions and perform the behaviours that YOU KNOW are needed in these tough times? What is stopping you?

Are you avoiding certain actions that you know will help your cause?

Working with senior executives in many large corporations, and with individuals running their own enterprises, has proven to me that almost everyone knows what they SHOULD be doing, what actions they SHOULD be taking, what behaviours they SHOULD be exhibiting.

But they don’t do it.

They JUST DON’T DO IT!

Why is this so?

Because they have not mastered their thoughts.

Your thoughts are what you must master, and that mastery of your thoughts and thought processes is what I mean by ‘mind set’.

You must learn to guard your thoughts and your thinking.

As you guard your thoughts, you can then develop and craft them, nurture them, feed them, and strengthen them, so they can support and drive your actions and behaviours to achieve your goals and outcomes.

Your goals and outcomes include your mental, physical and spiritual goals and outcomes, your business outcomes, your relationship outcomes, and your health outcomes.

I consider that the most disempowering thoughts you can have are those created through your FEARS.

In tough times, fears dominate discussions, the media, and the thought processes of many people. If you spend your time FOCUSSED on fearful matters, your thoughts will be FEAR-FULL i.e. full of fear.

‘Guarding your thoughts’ means that you decide to control the matters on which you are going to place your conscious attention.

In each moment in time, you make the decision that “I CHOOSE to think about what I want”, and “I CHOOSE NOT to think about what I am worried about, or fearful about, or concerned about…”.

To help you guard your thoughts, you must CHOOSE consciously to do certain things.

I recommend the following, because these are the things that I do EVERY DAY to help me guard my thoughts and continue to develop my mind mastery, my mind set:

1. I avoid watching the nightly news on TV and I avoid listening to the radio news, and the radio generally.
2. I listen to inspiring podcasts and YouTube programs while I am driving.
3. Whilst I read the newspapers avidly, because I need to know what is happening with business and life generally, I avoid reading about murders, car accidents, celebrity capers, television entertainment and people with health problems. I flick over all those topics.
4. I read books that are chosen to help me continue my skills development in consciously chosen areas.
5. I think about aspects of my life for which I am grateful, including the fact that I live in one of the best countries in the world
6. I have identified what I am passionate about, and my goals are consistent with those passions.
7. I think about my mental, physical and spiritual goals, that are written down and clear, and that include short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals. By being clear about my goals, and then being able to think about the value of achieving them, my thoughts are more easily marshalled to drive my actions and behaviours to work towards achieving them.
8. When a fearful thought comes into my conscious awareness, and I identify it as not relevant at this moment (unless it’s a wild lion roaming the streets that I should avoid!), I push the thought out by replacing it with thoughts focused on what I need to do next.
9. When there is a tendency for a fearful thought to keep reappearing, I change my physiology, by exercising, or going for a walk, or singing aloud, or calling my wonderful wife to be excited by her voice and thoughts.
10. I exercise almost every day: this requires discipline, and the practice of discipline in physical matters supports my discipline in guarding my thoughts, leading to mind mastery and my desired mind set.
11. I constantly work on articulating what I actually believe, rather than being influenced by subconscious beliefs or subconscious worries and fears driven by subconscious beliefs.
12. I accept a crucial concept that I have been teaching for many years, having learnt it through the works of Dr R. Buckminster (‘Bucky’) Fuller, that, as human beings, our reward for solving problems is not peace or happiness, but BIGGER PROBLEMS! Therefore, I don’t beat myself up for having problems, or thinking that ‘I shouldn’t have this problem’, or thinking that I am not good enough because I have these problems.

The development of your mind set requires work. The work that I do as listed above takes effort and energy. In fact, your mind consumes more energy than any part of your body. You must therefore understand the need to fuel your body to have the necessary energy.

Fueling your body then leads to the need to feed your body, your spirit, and your mind.

You have been given by Universe, or by God, or by whatever you believe in, a magnificent machine of more than 70 trillion cells that will serve you as well as you take care of it. Just imagine if you were given a Maserati for your 18th birthday and you chose not to care for it: it would break down quite quickly.

This in fact is what happens to many people over a 10-year, 20-year period in terms of their mental, physical and spiritual health.

Therefore, you need to CONSCIOUSLY DECIDE to be disciplined about all the crucial factors that will help YOU to get what YOU want.

If you don’t yet know what you want, then this is one of the crucial reasons why your mind set is not the powerful asset that I am discussing here, and that I would love every person to have.

Over the years, many people in my corporate team-building workshops have shared BELIEFS that get in the way of their desired mind sets.

They have beliefs that significantly weaken their capabilities and their decision-making. They have beliefs such as:

· I’m not good enough

· If I try that, I will fail

· If I raise that issue, I will lose my job

· I did that before, and I got into trouble

· I will never be a success

· I am not worthy of success

· I cannot be disciplined

· I had a hard childhood, so I have no chance

· And so on…..

I urge you to consciously identify what you believe, and then choose to work on changing those beliefs that do not serve you.

Beliefs are not facts: they can be changed, and I urge you to start working on the change process.

If you don’t know where to start, then that’s why I am here. That’s the work that I do, in teams and with individuals, to help them identify where to start and what specific steps to take.

See the website links below to find out more.

There is one other word of warning for you to contemplate.

If you have spent years neglecting the development of your mind set, you CANNOT simply take a pill and fix it. The longer you have neglected doing this work, the more work you will now have to do to rebuild, renovate, regenerate and rejuvenate your mind set.

So, if you have the mind set that is the powerful asset to which I refer in these tough times, what would that specifically mean for you, what would that create for you?

It means this:

1. You wake up every morning ready to embrace whatever the Universe and our tough economic times are throwing at you
2. You feel confident in your ability to face life
3. You are constantly willing to learn
4. You are happy to face the fears of failure and rejection when your ideas don’t work or are rejected
5. You suggest innovative and creative ways to run your company and your teams
6. You keep persisting with your ideas, knowing that others are much less open than you are to face the risks of failure
7. You become more disciplined than previously, because you know that tough times require greater effort and disciplines
8. You take personal responsibility for the future survival and success of your company, rather than leaving it to others
9. You watch less TV and waste less time because you accept that you need to discover solutions to the new problems that face most of us
10. Tougher times mean that most people have more problems than they did before the lockdowns: business is all about solving problems for people, so you are willing to design new products and services to solve the new and additional problems of others
11. You know that not everyone is broke or out of a job: there is plenty of business to be gained by working in new ways, by marketing in new ways, by selling in new ways
12. You take even greater steps to continue to look after your health, knowing that the healthier you are, the more energy you have, and the more energy that you have, the greater is your capability and your productivity.

My vision is that you the reader, and those whom you inspire, lead, and interact with, have mind sets that enable you to live life on your terms, to achieve a vision of your life that inspires you, and mind sets that help you to help humanity to solve its current problems in these tough times.

When I left my legal career to create my new work as Australasia’s Passion Provocateur way back in 1993, I knew that discovering and pursuing passion is one of the crucial keys to living a great life, and that is why I decided to inspire, provoke and educate the world about the power of passion. I believe that the more people there are who pursue their passion, the better our world will become.

Finally, when you are passionate about your work, here’s a guarantee: fear will not dominate your thoughts! Passion makes you confident, courageous, powerful, excited, inspired and unleashes the capabilities of the machine of 70 trillion cells that you have at your disposal.

Go for it!

And play your part in building a world that YOU want to see.

That’s it!

Next Passion Point will come in a week or so.

Don’t forget to listen to The Charles Kovess Show as a podcast or watch the same content on YouTube.

Website link for corporate programs

Website link for the Self Awareness & Passion Quest