Primal Leadership Part 3

Part Three: Making Leaders

    

        We spent much of Part One of the blog about Primal Leadership talking about how emotional intelligence helps leaders, and the lack of emotional intelligence hinders leaders. The ironic thing is that the higher one travels up the ladder of success, the less likely this leader is going to receive honest feedback on his or her emotional intelligence. This phenomenon is called the CEO Disease.

            It takes a lot of courage to tell the boss that he or she has been performing poorly in the emotional intelligence arena lately. This is especially difficult to do when the boss has been a little rough lately and everyone is ducking for cover and trying to stay off the radar. People want to keep their job and continue to be able to feed their children.

            The bottom line is that many CEOs lose some of their self-awareness as they travel up the rings. However, the ironic thing is that study after study shows that self-awareness is greatest among companies doing well, and poorest among companies doing poorly. So, now it comes down to which poor soul is going to put their job on the line to tell the boss that he or she is out of touch and acting like a schmuck because it’s good for the whole company if the boss is made self-aware?

            As I said earlier, the good thing is that emotional intelligence can be learned. However, according to, Primal Leadership, most training and leadership programs only target the neocortex rather than the limbic brain. Leadership skills usually comes down to habits learned early in life. So, if we’re going to re-educate the emotional brain, they typical leadership program isn’t going to cut it. In order, to re-educate the emotional brain we need lots of practice and repetition aimed at the limbic centers of the brain. This kind of learning is very slow; but, that’s a good thing because once it’s learned, it’s learned very well, at a much deeper limbic level. Furthermore, this learning will be retained much longer than traditional surface level cognitive learning.

            The cycle of successful change through emotional intelligence consist first of discovering what our ideal self really is. Second, then unearthing who we exactly are. What is our real self? Third, we have to discover what our learning agenda is. Next, we have to practice our new thoughts and behaviors over and over and over. Lastly, we need to discover some supportive relationships. We need people who help us succeed.

            Emotional intelligence in leaders requires that they at least have some vision of their ideal lives. Through this vision they can uncover their real selves. This requires self-awareness though. Leadership strengths lie at the crossroads of where one’s real self matches one’s ideal self. Where it doesn’t are the gaps that one needs to work on.

            Improvement plans crafted around learning rather than performance outcomes have been found to be more effective for working on those gaps mentioned in the paragraph above. The best kind of learning is when one gets to focus on what one wants to become; one’s ideal self, rather than what others want him or her to become. One’s own life goals ignite their full range of talents. And the more parts of one’s life that can be identified as relevant to one’s leadership goals, the more chances one will have to practice and grow. Being handed a performance goal des the opposite. It undermines motivation. It causes anxiety, and decreases performance.

            Goals should be built on a person’s strengths, not their weaknesses. Plans of improvement should be flexible, feasible, and fit into their life and work, as well as fit into their learning style if it’s going to have the biggest impact on their development and growth.

            The problem is that people try to force leadership upon others and thus these poor souls learn it haphazardly by repeating what they saw others do while growing up, or their own poor previous attempts at it. The good thing is that one can improve in leadership by becoming aware of bad habits and constantly practicing a better way until one masters it. Having a good supportive relationship here really helps a lot in making this change.

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. To learn more about Dan please visit his website at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Thanks.

Ted Talks Part 5

TED Talks

Part 5 Reflection

Today, knowledge is becoming more specialized than ever before according to Chris Anderson author of TED Talks. TED Talks is a breath of fresh air in today’s times, as well as, some good old fashion common sense. TED Talks reminds us that all knowledge is connected into a giant web and that public speaking skills are going to matter in the future even more than they do today.

Everyone probably realizes by now that computers are taking over specialized knowledge from us human beings. So, what do you think is going to eventually become the only thing left for us humans? That’s right. We’re going to need to go back to being more human by utilizing more contextual knowledge and more creative knowledge. We’re going to have to develop a deeper understanding of our own humanity according to Anderson.

We develop this deeper humanity through the speaking renaissance that’s taking place today in public speaking, as well as the TED Talks taking place all over the world. And even more important, thanks to the Internet these talks are also accessible to all of us. In the very near future, we’re going to have to learn from people outside of our specialties or fields in order for us to develop a deeper understanding of our world and our role in it.

Online video is providing visibility to the best talent in the world and also has a massive incentive to improve upon what is already out there. People are becoming YouTube stars in their niche communities through a thing called, “crowd accelerated innovation”. It’s the most exciting application in the world of ideas and to improve upon ideas. We have this amazing laboratory right at every one of our own fingertips, which is rooted in public speaking and presentation literacy through the digital world that is streaming right into our homes and even into some of our pockets on our handheld devices.

When we finally do reach our goal of giving a TED Talk, let’s try to remember that it’s not the end, but just the beginning. In addition, it also isn’t about being safe, secure, and right. It’s about creating something that will breed further ideas and be impactful. The future isn’t written yet. We are all collectively writing it together. “There is an open page on every empty stage waiting for our contributions,” says Anderson. Let’s go get ‘em and do our part to contribute to a new and improved better world!

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. To learn more about Dan please visit his website at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Thanks.

Emotional Intelligence Part 6

Emotional Intelligence

Part 6

So, now that we have spent all this time talking about emotional intelligence in the last 5 parts of this blog series, is there an easy way to see if one has emotional intelligence? Well according to a test done in the 1960s a simple marshmallow test can be a very good indicator of a child’s emotional intelligence and their future success better than any IQ test. Young kids were told to wait in a room and take one marshmallow if they wanted and the adult would be right back. If they could wait for the adult to get back though, they would get two marshmallows instead of one. Researchers followed these children through the years and found that regardless of their starting IQs the children who had the emotional intelligence to pass up the smaller prize of one marshmallow for the bigger prize of two marshmallows later did better in all aspect of life throughout the rest of their lives.

So, is there anything that families can do to help their little ones become more socially and emotionally intelligent? Well, since the family life is usually our first school for emotional learning the answer to that above question has to be ‘yes’.

Hundreds of studies have been done that show that how parents treat their children will have deep lasting consequences for the child’s emotional life. Also, having emotionally intelligent parents is an enormous benefit to the child.

During the first 3 or 4 years a toddle’s brain grows to 2/3 of its adult size. It evolves at a greater rate than it ever will again. This is a key time for emotional learning. Children who receive this learning and feel accepted by their parents will go on to believing that they can achieve. The ones that don’t keep looking for where they are going to screw up, and eventually find it.

Childhood is a window of opportunity. However, if the child does not receive the proper upbringing, all may not be lost. Emotional learning is a life-long process. And even the mostly deeply implanted habits of the heart learned in childhood can be reshaped under the proper retraining. But, why let it get to that point? As Erasmus said, “The main hope of a nation lies in the proper education of its youth.”

Let’s get emotional intelligence out of the shadows, and get it into the classrooms where it belongs. Maybe we can spend less time on standardized testing that ranks kids, and instead give them a more complete holistic education as was the original charge of education in the first place.

Final note; what are you doing to round off your education and make yourself more emotionally intelligent?

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker, educator, a parent expert and certified life coach. Find out more about Dan at: www.GranddaddysSecrets.com

Emotional Intelligence Part 5

Emotional Intelligence

Part 5

The key to making good decisions is being attuned to our feelings. The stronger the feelings the more attuned we need to be to make sure we aren’t blindly acting on something that we shouldn’t, especially when we are talking about the ever powerful emotion of anger.

Benjamin Franklin said a long time ago, “Anger is never without a reason, but seldom a good one.” Anger is the mood people are worst at controlling. Our self-righteous inner monologue fills our minds with convincing arguments for it. However, reframing the situation in a more positive light can help put anger to rest. When we feel anger coming on we should immediately go into distraction mode. Distract them, or, ourselves if angry, and reframe the angry situation to something better. Also, challenge those thoughts or feelings of anger.

Sadness is a mood that the majority of people put the most effort into shaking. Like anger, when we are feeling sad, we can challenge those feelings. However, do not ruminate in negative feelings. Just like anger, reframe sad thoughts to something more positive. This reframing is called, “Cognitive Reframing”. This cognitive reframing and writing down whatever negative or counterproductive thoughts one has in order to challenge them and then reframe them in a more positive light really helps one improve their emotional intelligence.

Did you know that emotional intelligence really helps in athletics? Athletes with high emotional intelligence have the special ability to motivate themselves to pursue relentless training routines without quitting due to boredom. It typically takes about 10,000 hours of practice to move near the top of one’s field on the national level, and 15,000 hours of practice to move near the top of one’s field on the international level. Very few people have the emotional intelligence to be able to stay motivated for that long, while facing and overcoming the setbacks that are bound to happen along the way.

Empathy is a powerful emotional intelligence. The failure to notice another’s feelings is a major deficit in emotional intelligence, and a tragic lapse in what it means to be human. Rapport, the root of caring, stems from emotional attunement, from the capacity for empathy. The roots of morality are to be found in empathy. Having empathy makes one more out-going, happier, and do better in school.

However, in order to be empathic it requires one to be calm enough, and receptive enough so that the subtle signals of feeling from another person can be received and mimicked by one’s own emotional brain. This is emotional intelligence.

Another key social competence is how well or how poorly people express their own feelings. This ability to express one’s own feeling have an immediate impact on the other people who are receiving them. This transaction could be good or bad depending how social and emotionally adept one is.

Those who are adept at social intelligence can connect with people quite smoothly, be astute in reading other’s reactions and feelings, lead and organize, and handle the disputes that are bound to flare up in any human activity. They are the natural leaders, the people who can express the unspoken collective sentiment and articulate it so as to guide a group toward its goals. They are the kind of people others like to be with because they are emotionally nourishing- they leave other people in a good mood and always see criticism as an opportunity to work with others rather than an adversarial situation. In addition, these star performers build relationship and networks long before they need them.

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker, educator, a parent expert and certified life coach. Find out more about Dan at: www.GranddaddysSecrets.com

Emotional Intelligence Part 4

Emotional Intelligence

Part 4

High IQs don’t always predict how successful someone will become because many times it’s the ones that can control their irrational emotions and who have high EQs that become more successful. Hey, smart people do dumb things all the time. We all do dumb things because we are still operating through prehistoric emotional wiring and then trying to back up the crazy out of date moves we make with self-created faulty modern day logic.

So what exactly is emotional intelligence? Well, it’s probably more than I have room for in this article. But, let me take poke at it. Emotional intelligence is being able to motivate oneself to persist in the face of frustration, to control impulse, and delay gratification, to regulated moods, and keep distress from swamping our ability to think rationally, and empathize with others and to never lose hope, even when the odds are against us.

Wouldn’t you agree that this list above is very important to us humans? Well, sadly, today, schools and our modern neocortex thinking culture is fixated on mostly academic abilities while pretty much ignoring emotional intelligence. I wonder if the modern day school shootings are a symptom of our society not paying enough attention to emotional intelligence in order to just etch out a few more points on some standardized test.

Hey, no one is saying that emotional intelligence is an end all. We all know that we need the complete package to be successful and well-adjusted in life where we don’t do dumb violent things anymore. After all, emotional aptitude is really just a meta-ability, although a very important meta-ability, which helps determine how well we can use whatever other skills we have, including raw intellect.

Emotional intelligence plays a big enough role that Howard Gardner has said that it is not uncommon for people with 160 IQs to work for people who have 100 IQs if the 100s have a good intra and inter-personal intelligence. Come on… We all know really smart people who are working for someone else, instead of themselves.

So, in short, being super smart with a super high IQ is not an end all in itself either. Hey, if we focus only on the intellect then we will miss out on what it means to be human, and never get to experience the higher values of the human heart of faith, hope, devotion, and love. Through focusing only on intellect we’ll never solve the real human problems of this world that really matter. This sounds kind of sad, doesn’t it?

One way that emotional intelligence helps us, if we let it, is through that gut-feeling. These somatic-markers, or gut-feelings can steer us away from trouble or unveil opportunities for us without us even knowing how or why. This is the way we are emotionally wired. If we are smart enough we can use it to our benefit. We used to either jump at food, or jump out of the way of some other animal trying to eat us. We didn’t have time to think about it. We just instinctually acted. Today those same pre-historic instincts are still there telling us to quickly move to avoid trouble or move to gain something good. Our thinking brain, hasn’t had a chance yet to fully formulate what this gut feeling is telling us. And by the time it does formulate a rational decision, it may be too late.

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker, educator, a parent expert and certified life coach. Find out more about Dan at: www.GranddaddysSecrets.com

Emotional Intelligence Part 3

Emotional Intelligence

Part 3

According to Daniel Goleman the author of, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ we all have two minds. And the two minds make us do very different things. The first mind is based on the emotions and feelings and get us to do that moving thing, which isn’t always very well thought out. The word heart is often used with the first mind. The second mind is based on thinking and analyzing. The word head is often used with the second mind. This is where we take the time to think things out and then move slowly and deliberately.

Our brains have grown from the bottom up with its higher centers developing as elaborations of the lower, more ancient parts. Our second brain, the rational one, may be the top brain, but it is also deeply intertwined with our underneath first brain, the emotional one. Thus, our thinking brain is influenced by our prehistoric emotional brain, and sometimes our emotional brain is also influenced by our thinking brain because they have grown into each other.

Let me explain this a little bit more. You see, the most primitive part of our brain is the brain stem that surrounds the top of our spinal cord. This brain is good for reptile survival. We have survived and evolved beyond this, however. We humans evolved from this reptile period into a more advanced period in which we developed a limbic brain, or emotional centers from what some called the nose brain. During this period our emotions slowly evolved on how to feel about each new smell, and then how to instinctually act in regards to each new smell. After millions of more years of this emotional instinctual behavior we slowly develop the thinking neocortex brain on top of our emotional limbic first brain that is sitting on top of our spinal cord.

The upper neocortex, second brain, gives us humans that three pound brain which is about triple the size of our nearest cousins in evolution, the non-human primates. The neocortex is the seat of thought and has given humans an extraordinary intellectual edge over the rest of the animals. Now, believe it or not, all these years later, thanks to our neocortex, we now can even have feelings about our feelings due to our ability to think.

So, by now you’re probably wondering how all this emotional intelligence or lack of emotional intelligence stuff works, right?

Well, the architecture of the brain gives the amygdala, a center of the limbic brain, the ability to hijack the brain. Sensory signals from the nose, eyes, ears, tongue, or skin, travel first in the brain to the thalamus, and then- across a single synapse- to the amygdala. A second larger signal from the thalamus is rooted to the neocortex- the thinking brain. This duel signal allows the non-thinking amygdala to begin to respond before the thinking neocortex, which mulls over information through several levels of brain circuits before it fully perceives and finally initiates its more finely tailored thoughtful response.

The quick-acting amygdala associates sensory input with other experiences and emotional memories to formulate emotional meaning to the new stimulus. If the association through the emotional memories are powerful enough, the amygdala’s emotions leap to action. This knee-jerk reaction is good for an animal looking to eat rather than being eaten, or for modern day humans during a real emergency. However, this emotionally vital response is not always appropriate in the modern day human who is rarely in the middle of a real emergency. Most of the terrible things that we perceive that are about to happen to us, rarely ever happen, and the ones that do, are rarely real emergencies.

Bottom line: Stop sweating the small stuff!

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker, educator, a parent expert and certified life coach. Find out more about Dan at: www.GranddaddysSecrets.com

Emotional Intelligence Part 2

Emotional Intelligence

Part 2

            Emotional intelligence goes by various terms, such as; EQ, emotional literacy, and social emotional learning (SEL). Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is the umbrella in which character education programs have fallen under, such as, violence prevention, anti-bullying, drug prevention, teen pregnancy, school discipline, leadership training, and a whole lot more

          These Social Emotional Learning programs mentioned above, as well as many others have improved school academic performance, job performance, health and have even created a better democracy according to Daniel Goleman author of, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. Now the big challenge, Goleman stresses, is to get these emotional intelligence programs out of the shadows of main stream education and into the classrooms fulltime. Today’s students need to be inoculated with daily on-going emotional intelligence lessons that will keep them on the right path, instead of outside assistance as an afterthought once things have already gone wrong.

            Recent research has shown that the brain is kind of like a muscle. Its neuroplasticity allows the brain to be shaped by repeated experiences. Social Emotional Learning (SEL) experiences, according to Goleman, are especially potent in shaping our human brains. So, any view of human nature, or intellectual training that ignores the power of emotions is shortsighted. In short, it’s not a very good decision to ignore emotional intelligence.

Oh, by the way, making everyday decisions is also a vital emotional intelligence. In making decisions, feelings count every bit as much as thought, and sometimes even more. For example, the powerful emotion of love can get us to do some pretty irrational things, wouldn’t you agree? This irrationalism of our stronger emotions has persisted throughout the ages to the extent that even some of our first laws attempted to domesticate our powerful, and sometimes troubling emotions. For what are the Code of Hammurabi, the Ten Commandments, and the Edicts of Emperor Ashoka if not an attempt to subdue emotional life, help us make more rational decisions, and lessen the probability that our irrational emotions will hijack our rational thinking?

Believe it or not, our appraisal of every personal encounter, and our response to it, is shaped not just by our rational judgment, but also our own personal history and distant ancestral past. We still have those same ancestral emotions that worked so well for the last 50,000 generations that helped our ancestors survive and climb their way to the top of the food chain. However, these same ancestral emotions don’t always work so well in modern times where we aren’t looked at anymore as food for some other animal. We no longer have to be in that survival fight or flight mode.

However, sometimes we just can’t help ourselves. All emotions are impulses to act. Emotions’ Latin root word “motere” means to move. In the animal kingdom is was good to move and to move quickly, sometimes without even taking the time to think about it. But during a job performance review acting without thinking about it may not be such a good idea.

Have you ever acted without thinking? Yup… Don’t be so hard on yourself. For the entire history of mankind we all have been doing this… It’s just the way that we are wired. And now that we know about this, maybe we can better control it.

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker, educator, a parent expert and certified life coach. Find out more about Dan at: www.GranddaddysSecrets.com

Emotional Intelligence Part 1

        Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. Essentially, we are all emotional creatures that tend to make emotional decisions. Then, as emotional creatures, we then subsequently find ways to rationalize and back up with logic, the things that we have already emotionally done or decided. However, our emotions, which were created to protect us, sometimes also gets us in trouble, especially when the emotion of anger is involved and we are looking for some logic to back it up.

 “As the wail of newborns testifies, we humans have intense feelings from the moment we are born,” says Daniel Goleman author of,

Thus, when feeling angry it is as important to remember Aristotle’s challenge: “Anyone can become angry- that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way- that is not easy.”

Emotional intelligence in one form or another has been around for a very long time. In more recent times, however, one of the big names that has had some influence on emotional intelligence is Howard Gardner and his 1983 book, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences.

Near the end of the 1980s, John Mayor of the University of New Hampshire and Yale’s Peter Salovey were the first to actually offer a formulation of the concept called “Emotional Intelligence”.  And eventually, thru Daniel Goleman’s 1995 book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, the term emotional intelligence finally becomes widely known after thousands of years of humans using it and living it, even though, most weren’t aware of it.

So, now that we are aware of emotional intelligence and that it is indeed important in our overall success, how do you plan on learning more about and using it effectively in game plan for improving your life and the life of all those that you love? 

Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker, educator, a parent expert and certified life coach. Find out more about Dan at: www.GranddaddysSecrets.com

MINDSET Part 4

MINDSET

Part 4

How to Be A Growth-Mindset

            There was a famous saying among the counter-culture during the 1960s that it was better to become than to be. Growth-mindsets are always in the process of becoming, while fixed-mindsets always think that they already have to be. As a society, if we were able to effectively change most of our fixed-mindsets to growth-mindsets we would solve a lot of the world’s problems. As individuals, making that shift from fixed-mindset to growth-mindset wouldn’t make our lives perfect, but it sure would make them richer.

            Andrew Carnegie understood what it meant to be a growth-mindset person. He once said that he wished to have his epitaph read, “Here lies a man who was wise enough to bring into his service men who knew more than he.” Carnegie is a very rich example who we can all learn from. Lesson: Get around people that are smarter than yourself.

            Another way that helps us to become growth-mindset is just knowing that the two mindsets exist. Knowing these mindsets exist will allow us to start thinking about it and consciously choosing to act differently. For example, people are born with the love of learning, at some point, especially during adolescence, that love of learning comes undone for a safer route of not doing anything that will give people a chance to judge them anymore, also known as, a fixed-mindset. We can make the conscious choice to keep making the effort to learn and not worry about being judged. Some of us may even remember that old saying that goes something like this, “When I was 20, I thought everyone was looking at me. When I was 40, I didn’t care anymore who was looking at me. When I was 60, I finally realized that no one had been looking at me.” Let’s not let the fear of what others may be thinking of us keep us from becoming all that we were meant to become.

            Beliefs are powerful. Change your beliefs and you can change your mindset. For example, intelligence is not set in stone. Even Alfred Binet, the inventor of the IQ test admits that this test that has been labeling kids for so long, was really designed just to identify children who were not profiting from the Paris public schools, so that new educational programs could be designed to get them back on track. According to Dr. Dweck, Binet said that “With practice, training, and above all, method, we manage to increase our attention, our memory, our judgement and literally to become more intelligent than we were before.” Believe it or not! You better believe it!

            Robert Sternberg, the present-day guru of intelligence, writes that the major factor in whether people achieve expertise, “is not some fixed prior ability, but purposeful engagement.” Stop believing that you’re smart of not smart. Regardless of where you are, you can choose to, and more importantly, make the effort to become smarter than you presently are. But, first, you have to believe that effort is a good thing, and it’s worth it to work harder. Check your beliefs.

            Benjamin Bloom, and eminent educational researcher who after forty years of intensive research on school learning said his major conclusion was, “What any person in the world can learn, almost all persons can learn, if provided with the appropriate prior and current conditions of learning.”

            Binet, Sternberg, and Bloom understand that we can all learn under the right conditions. Those right conditions are growth-mindset fed through effort and proper praise that recognizes effort over innate talent and performance. Talent is over-rated here in the United States, as well as, elsewhere in the world. And talent certainly isn’t heroic, like some try to make us believe. What’s so heroic about a gift anyways? You want to know what’s truly heroic? A heroic effort is heroic and worthy of praise, not natural endowments that one didn’t do anything to deserve.

Finally, if you are an adult working with our youth, don’t praise their performance, that only weakens their resolve and lowers their IQ in the end. Recognize and praise their effort and willingness to take on hard things, and to actually fail at hard things and bounce back from them. Now that’s something that is truly heroic and worthy of praise.

            In the end we become more through a herculean effort and a growth-mindset.

Daniel Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker, and educator!

www.GranddaddysSecrets.com

MINDSET Part 3

MINDSET

Part 3

           So, what does growth-mindset look like? Well, it looks like Henry Ford, Michael Jordan, Coach John Wooden, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Thomas Edison, Jack Welch, and Winston Churchill. Let me explain. According to Dr. Dweck in Mindset, a growth-mindset is more concerned about learning than grades. Thus, growth-mindsets find new ways to create learning. Henry Ford showed this love for learning over his paycheck by constantly taking a new position at the bottom of a new job every time that he just mastered his old one. People thought he was crazy not to stay in the job that he had mastered. And they thought that he was even crazier to take a pay-cut to go back to the bottom of a new job. He did it because along with his vision, the learning was more important than the paycheck and praise.

            According to Dr. Dweck, a growth-mindset never rest on their laurels as the best, but keeps making an effort to learn and to become even better. This is exactly what Michael Jordan did. He was always willing to work harder than anyone else, even at the height of his career. Former Bulls assistant coach John Bach called him, “A genius who constantly wants to upgrade his genius.”

            In addition, Dr. Dweck shares that a growth-mindset teacher or coach doesn’t judge, but in contrast, gives equal treatment to each youth. This is exactly what Coach John Wooden did at UCLA as he equally expected each and every player to get a little bit better every day while equal concern, compassion, and consideration for each and every one of his players were always priorities of the highest order for him. Concern for his players were even more important than winning. And as you probably already know, Coach John Wooden won a lot!

            A growth-mindset doesn’t make excuses, even when they have good excuses. One of Coach John Wooden’s star basketball players, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, could have made lots of excuses when basketball outlawed his signature shot, the dunk. Instead, he went right to work on his other shots; perfecting them. His skyhook shot became unstoppable and carried him, his teammates, and future teams/organizations to many, many victories over the years. His growth-mindset coach did a great job teaching him a growth-mindset and countless people benefitted from it.

            Similar to Coach Wooden, Thomas Edison was a growth-mindset type of person who also helped others become growth-mindset. Not only did he model and live a growth-mindset, but he also mentored the previously mentioned Henry Ford and laid the way at General Electric for future CEO, Jack Welch.

Thomas Edison was once asked by a reporter what it felt like to have failed 10,000 times to create a light bulb. A fixed-mindset would have seen each one of these attempts as horrible failures and would never have been able to persevere long enough to create a better light bulb. Thomas Edison, however, didn’t look at life like this. His growth-mindset framed that constant internal conversation going on in his head of: What is happening? What does it mean? What should I do about it? Edison knew exactly what to do. He smiled at that reporter and said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Edison knew that with each way that wouldn’t work, he was one step closer to finding the way that would work.

            Jack Welch was the most widely admired, studied, and imitated CEO of his time. And one of the things that made him great was that he surrounded himself with great people that he had selected through mindset rather than pedigree.

            Welch was growth-mindset all the way through. He was constantly learning. And when he needed to know more he went directly to his front-line employees to figure out what was going on. He respected these people, and learned from them. It was always “we” not “I” with Jack Welch while he ran General Electric.

            General Electric was always about growth, not self-importance under Welch. He shut down elitism. Got rid of brutal bosses. Always asked his people at all levels what they liked and didn’t like about the company. His approved way to being more productive was through mentoring, not through terror. Leaders were encouraged to share credit for their ideas and successes with their teams. In the end, Welch as well as thousands of others, benefited immensely from his growth-mindset.

            Finally, there is Winston Churchill. Being a leader is stressful, especially during wartime. And as mentioned earlier, fixed-mindsets tend to eliminate their competition and silence the critics so they get only good news from their subordinates and thus continue look good, whether it’s true or not. This type of silence that only allows one voice, and sometimes even only one way of thinking comes from a dangerous phenomenon called groupthink according to Dr. Dweck. Fortunately for England, Churchill was a growth-mindset type of person that combatted groupthink by setting up a special department. The job of this department was to give Churchill all the worse news. This helped keep Churchill out of a false sense of security and forced him and his team to keep learning and searching for better ways to beat Hitler.

            Next month’s article will explain how to be a growth-mindset type of person…

Daniel Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker, and educator!

www.GranddaddysSecrets.com

MINDSET Part 2

MINDSET

Part 2

         

   So, what does a fixed-mindset look like? Well, a fixed-mindset is someone who is bent on talent and believes that if you have to try hard it must mean you aren’t talented enough. Fixed-mindset is a life of being judged and judging others. It is a life where we are only allowed to be successful. Success has to happen immediately or we shut down and blame others. However, if the mentality of a fixed-mindset person is that you are someone when you are successful, then what are you when you are not successful? Unfortunately, a no one. And feeling like a no one really hurts. So, because fixed-mindsets now feel labeled and can see no road to success, their only option to repair their self-esteem is to blame others and make excuses. They won’t make more effort to become successful because making more effort is scary; it robs them of their excuses if they don’t succeed and exposes their inadequacies for others to judge, which they are certain that others will judge. The fixed-mindsets are easy to identify because they are the naysayers sitting around who are constantly saying, “I could have been…” They’re basically polishing their unused endowments like they were trophies. How sad, wouldn’t you agree.

            Fixed-mindsets run away from problems because they believe that if they truly are as talented as they think they are, then success shouldn’t take so much effort. Believe it or not, it has actually been shown through various studies that a fixed-mindset person’s brainwaves only fire up as the answer to a problem is given. They want to know if they are right. Period. Don’t care about the rest. If they aren’t right, according to Dr. Dweck, then they aren’t interested anymore in the activity.

            Fixed-mindset is a huge problem in the adolescence years because during this time of our lives we already feel awkward and judged, as well as feel that everything has all of a sudden become more difficult. Now imagine how a fixed-mindset adolescent naturally multiplies all these negatives and you can imagine a scenario that is unbearable to them, and usually results in them turning off to education. Sad. And avoidable.

            It doesn’t get easier though for these fixed-mindset kids after school is over. Teens with fixed-mindsets usually grow up to be adults with fixed-mindsets. In professional sports fixed-mindsets can be identified pretty easily because they are the ones always saying, “I”, “I”, “I”. They act like they won the game all by themselves and they don’t need teammates.

            Some fixed-mindsets end up as CEOs. They are the ones that develop CEO disease and are more bosses than leaders. This CEO disease tends to eliminate competition, silence critics, squash employee development programs, and put themselves up on a pedestal to be admired by all at the expense of their co-workers and even the company.

            Finally, many fixed-mindsets end up as parents, teachers, coaches, or just adults who interact with kids on a daily basis. Most of the time these adults will create an atmosphere of judging, punishing, and labeling kids. And if any other adult should challenge them, or heaven forbid, if a mate were to leave them, they would be devastated, believed they have been judged, and label themselves as unlovable or unworthy, and then they would usually want some kind of revenge on the other adult.

            Next month’s article will explain what a growth-mindset looks like.

Daniel Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker, and educator!

www.GranddaddysSecrets.com

MINDSET Part 1

MINDSET

Part 1

  

          According to Dr. Carol Dweck in her very influential book called Mindset she states that since the dawn of time, people have thought differently, acted differently, and fared differently. So now, I must ask you: what has been the difference? Dr. Carol Dweck says in her book Mindset that the difference has been mindset itself. A person’s mindset frames the on-going internal dialogue taking place in our heads that consist of: What is happening? What it means? What we should do about it? This never-ending internal dialogue molds our thinking, values, and behaviors into a person that either acts with a fixed-mindset or growth-mindset. A fixed-mindset is a person who feels judged, judges others, and believes in talent over effort. A growth-mindset is someone who doesn’t think others are criticizing, but rather helping with their advice, and believes in effort and learning over talent.

            Malcolm Gladwell, famed author of, Outliers, says that sadly Americans like effortless achievement. Gladwell’s statement makes me wonder what happened to the ruggedness of our cowboy days here in America. What about proud heritage of a hard-working immigrant nation? The people that built this great country never tried to take the easy effortless way out, right?

            Well, like it or not, according to Dr. Dweck, our most potent path to success- our effort, is being pushed aside for talent. Just look around at what big business, sports and even now schools are doing by bringing in all of these big hotshot leaders. It seems apparent now that people are picking talent over effort.

            Dr. Dweck, in her book Mindset mentions Jim Collins the famed author of, Good to Great, and his message of getting the wrong people off of the bus, and the right people onto the bus. It appears that most of our society thinks this meant to recruit talent over potential. Basically, to recruit the Lee Iacocas of this world. That’s not what Jim Collins meant in his book. People that read Collins’ book closely noticed that he said the best leaders weren’t the charismatic ones oozing with self-confidence, but the self-effacing ones that asked questions.

            Well, as a society that now seems to value talent and quick fixes over potential and slow sturdy lasting fixes, we have some real challenges to face. And according to Dr. Dweck, these challenges are going to be compounded by the fact that we have the “Praised Generation” now hitting the workforce who are bursting with self-esteem and unable take constructive criticism. The big question now is are we going to be fixed-mindset or growth-mindset people?

            Next month’s article will explain to you what a fixed-mindset looks like…

Daniel Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker, and educator!

www.GranddaddysSecrets.com

The Psychology of Success Part 3!

In parts 1 and 2 of the psychology of success we discussed a few methods that all achievers use, whether they know of not, to become successful, as well as a few of the laws of success. This third part will discuss a few additional laws of success.

Humans have roamed this planet and been working hard for a long time; so as a species we already know how to do hard work when it is necessary. However, what’s newer on the human scene is the mental and psychological laws that either get us to believe that we can do something of believe that we can’t do something. So what are these additional laws and how do we harness their power? These mental and psychological laws are the Law of Belief, the Law of Expectations, and the Law of Attraction according to Brain Tracy, the author of, The Psychology of Achievement.

In the Law of Belief we are constantly screening our thoughts and environment and subsequently allowing in some information, while not allowing in other information. Sadly, we mistakenly keep out some empowering information in order to make space for some false dis-empowering information. Unfortunately, this false dis-empowering information strengthens those limiting beliefs of ours that often create our less than optimal reality.

With the Law of Expectations we often find that we get what we expect, as well as, what other people expect. This programing starts when we are just kids. Our well-meaning parents, coaches, and teachers are constantly saying “No” to us and “Be careful.” Thus, we learn to expect less of our little selves in this big scary world. However, we can still stand taller and see further on that horizon if we change our expectations of ourselves by re-programing ourselves for bigger and better things. In order to optimize our re-programming we should also include the expectations that people who look up to us have us. Are we going to let our younger siblings, our peers, or team, our co-workers, or even our own children down?

Next, the Law of Attraction basically states that our dominant thought patterns attract what we presently have in our lives. If we control our thoughts and create a persistent positive mental attitude, feelings, and expectations, even if we have to fake it a little bit in the beginning, we can indeed get ourselves to believe that our life is full of positives. These positives will in turn attract other positives, such as, positive people and positive things. This sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? And it sounds very doable too, right?

So here it is finally being wrapped up in a three part series of how you can improve your life through the psychology of achievement through following a few of the methods of achieves and the unwritten laws of success. Follow these laws and follow Brian Tracy and you’ll sure to achieve more in your life.

Daniel Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker, and educator who wrote the Granddaddy's Secrets teen leadership book series. To learn more about Dan please visit his website at: www.GranddaddysSecrets.com.

The Psychology of Achievement Part 2!

In my last blog on the psychology of success I shared with you that achievers, whether they know it or not, practice many of the following methods: Peace of Mind, Health and Energy, Loving Relationships, Worthy Goals and Ideals, and a Feeling of Personal Fulfillment or Self-Actualization. I briefly talked about each one and ended with what Dr. Abraham Maslow called our highest human need of self-actualization in which all of our basic needs are met and now we are working on doing something that is meaningful and fulfilling.

However, self-actualization is not an easy things to obtain. Henry David Thoreau said, “Most people live lives of quiet desperation.” So, why is this? Why is it that after a life time of working only 5% of people ever achieve the kind of financial freedom that will allow them to do what they want to do, when they want to do it? Brian Tracy, the author of, The Psychology of Achievement, believes that even though we have been born into the richest and most advanced society that the world has ever seen, we struggle to achieve because we are born into this world without an operating manual. It’s like having a super computer without the owner’s manual. That computer, like ourselves, is capable of doing amazing things, but without the operating manual, we are lost, and so much potential and capability is wasted.

            So what do we do about this? Well, if we want to get the best out of ourselves then we have to learn a few laws of success like the Law of Control, Law of Accident, and Law of Cause and Effect. In the Law of Control we want to feel like we have some input or control over what happens in our lives. Unfortunately, though, most of us don’t control our thoughts and then our thoughts run wild and make us feel like we aren’t good enough to control anything, or accomplish anything of real value. In regards to the Law of Accident, many of us feel that life just happens to us. We won’t become achievers with that mindset. We have to make things happen. In addition, in order to become an achiever we are also going to have to get a better grasp on the law of Cause and Effect. Every effect or outcome has a cause. We can cause the effects or outcomes that we desire if we believe it can happen and then do the necessary work to bring it about.

So there is our next step in our own psychology of achievement. Let’s master the Law of Control, Law of Accident, and Law of Cause and Effect. Master these laws will move us a step closer to being the achiever that we want to be. 

Daniel Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker, and educator who wrote the Granddaddy's Secrets Teen Leadership Book Series. To learn more about Dan please visit his website at: www.GranddaddysSecrets.com.