“It’s not enough to be in the right place at the right time, you must be the right person in the right place at the right time.” T. Harv Eker
Success is always looking for a good place to stay and the big question is, “are you that good place or at least developing yourself to be that good place for success to stay?” Becoming a good place for success to stay is all about being the right person in the right place at the right time and it’s a life time commitment.
I’m reminded of Kenny Rogers’ song – The Gambler. One of the verses says, “You’ve got to know when to hold them; know when to fold them; know when to walk away; and know when to run. You never count your money when you are sitting at the table; There’ll be time enough for counting when the dealing is done.” And he further says, “If you gonna play the game, boy, you gonna learn to play it right.” I am reminded of this song because when it comes to growth, your mindset is key. Your mindset may be the reason you are stuck where you are and there comes a time when you have to let go of that mindset that is not serving you well – know when to fold them, know when to walk away and even run. away from them. Also, knowing that ideas without informed and persistent action will never yield results. Ideas alone may fuel frustration when you don’t act on them hence the song says, “you never count your money when sitting at the table, there’ll be enough time for counting when the dealing is done. If you gonna play the game of success, you gonna learn to play it right!”
You can choose to either have a fixed or growth/incremental mindset. If you really want to be a good place for success, you’ve no choice but to adopt a growth mindset. A growth mindset is based on the premise that, ‘with a right strategy and enough effort, I can get better at anything.’ A fixed mindset approach states that, ‘you are born that way, you can’t change it and you can’t learn and grow.’ Basically this one is based on the premise that you are stuck with what you are born with.’
Can we actually grow our cognitive abilities? About forty years ago, the answer would have been , “No, you’re stuck with your brain’s default wiring.” Recent science shows that it’s very possible and that the old thinking was wrong. The field of neuroscience has shown that, 1. You can physically grow your brain. 2. You can speed up the circuits in your brain, and 3. You can re-wire your brain for increased performance and intelligence on specific tasks. So, there you have it, you can now kiss your fixed mindset good bye!
Here are the four key ingredients to growth that you need to embrace when entering a growth mindset:
- Effort. You need to know that you must put an effort in whatever you need to grow in, this is critical, important, useful and leads to growth.
- Challenges. You need to accept and embrace challenges as opportunities for growth. You need to persevere and know that challenges pull you out of your comfort zone and bring out the best in you.
- Mistakes. Don’t hate them, don’t avoid them and don’t get discouraged by them, instead, use them to learn a better way.
- Feedback. Don’t get defensive when receiving unfavourable feedback and also more importantly, don’t take it personal. Appreciat it and use it to your advantage.
When I was a teenager, one of the many games we use to play was a game of cards, we called it ‘Three cards’. Three cards would be dished out to you and the chances to win would heavily depend on the order of cards you’ve been dealt. At times, the order of cards would be so unfavourable that some people would even cheat or disrupting the game or pull out of the game. Some would win the game though having started with a very bad combination of cards, the combination would get better every time they drew a new card from one of the decks available – closed deck or open deck. In retrospect, this is exactly what life is all about.
People with a growth mindset know that even if they’ve been dealt a bad hand in a poker game of life, they can continue to draw more cards by putting more effort and finding better strategies. This really shows that you have the power to live your dreams, never let your past or current circumstances define your future, you can do it! Choose to enter the growth mindset and be the person that success would like to stay in.
Veli Ndaba is a Professional and Motivational Speaker, Life-Coach and Neuro Linguistic Programming Practitioner, Author of three books (You Are Born to Win, Your Dream is Calling You and SWITCH ON!), Newspaper Columnist and Entrepreneur. To book him to speak at your next event or to help you and your team unleash your greatness, contact him on veli@velindaba.com , www.velindaba.com or +27 83 304 9773