A mindset reset means getting into the weeds of how we define growth. Everything outside of us is pushing us to go faster, to move quicker. Slowing down and taking the time to actually think is how to start the reset. Eric and Dale dive into the details.
A mindset reset means getting into the weeds of how we define growth. Everything outside of us is pushing us to go faster, to move quicker. Slowing down and taking the time to actually think is how to start the reset. Eric and Dale dive into the details.
Dale:
Welcome to the game changers podcast. I'm your host Dale Dixon. I help leaders be their best on stage and in front of the camera and I'm the chief innovation officer for a better business bureau. Eric Bowles coaches trains and inspires leaders to unleash their potential and the potential of those around them. Today it is a mindset reset Eric great talking with you.
eric boles:
Great talking with you, my friend. Glad to be back. Little break, unfortunately. I guess the break was good, and unfortunately, the unfortunate part is, you know, obviously us not having the chance to have as many of these podcasts go out. But the benefit is, I think we've both had a chance to re-energize these batteries of ours.
Dale:
Absolutely. So when you sent me the topic for today, my mind immediately goes toward a conversation that we've had in the past around Carol Dweck's book, mindset, and the importance of a growth mindset. But when you talk about mindset reset, give us frame it up and give us some context.
eric boles:
Okay, so when I say mindset reset, it even means getting into the weeds of even how we define growth. The reason I bring that up is everything outside of us is pushing us to go faster, to move quicker, to, everything is. And so, slowing down and taking the time to actually think. Right, like think and look at. you know, where is my mind set right now? Because if you don't think about what you're thinking about, right, those thoughts that you're not thinking about kind of control you, right? And I know just from the number of individuals, not only am I coaching and working with right now, but I just feel the stress level is really high, Dale. It is really, really high. I feel it, I know others have felt it. I was telling you a little earlier, I've had a tremendous year of what I would define as accomplishment and the individuals I get to work with, it's been such an incredible blessing. But with growth comes challenges and some of those challenges is I haven't been home as much, right? I haven't, and so to nurture my home. to nurture my incredible wife who helps facilitate it and allows me to have home court advantage, right? So I can win on the road. I gotta take care of home. And in our desire, not only desire, just the need out there to get more done and get more done in less time. we don't realize how many different areas that takes from. And so many of those who I'm working with right now, I feel the stress levels going up higher and higher and higher. And here's what I do know about stress, Dale, is that stress and a sense of control, they kind of have an inverse relationship. So the greater sense I have of control in my life, the lower my stress level. The less control I feel in my life, the higher my stress level. And I feel there's a lot of people feeling pretty stressed right now. And what they're attempting to do, if this makes some sense, is how do I gain control over those circumstances that are creating stress? And what I like to say is you're hacking at the branches, man. That's, you're hacking at the branches, all right? We gotta get down there and hack at the root, right? We gotta get down to the root of it. And so... Anyhow, that's when I say we have to have a mindset reset. It gives us a chance to think about the root level, not just the branch level of what's going on.
Dale:
I hear you saying that, and
eric boles:
And
Dale:
part of
eric boles:
part
Dale:
the problem
eric boles:
of the problem
Dale:
is that
eric boles:
is
Dale:
we
eric boles:
that...
Dale:
get into an automated
eric boles:
All they need
Dale:
mode
eric boles:
is a mode
Dale:
of
eric boles:
of
Dale:
working
eric boles:
working
Dale:
every day
eric boles:
every day
Dale:
and we
eric boles:
if
Dale:
don't
eric boles:
we don't
Dale:
stop
eric boles:
stop
Dale:
to think
eric boles:
to think
Dale:
what we're
eric boles:
what we're
Dale:
thinking
eric boles:
thinking
Dale:
about
eric boles:
about.
Dale:
because our
eric boles:
Because
Dale:
brains
eric boles:
our brain.
Dale:
naturally do that. We look to make efficient, create efficiency everywhere we can
eric boles:
Yep.
Dale:
and really automate in the background all these things that are happening day in and day out leads to getting in ruts, leads to doing things that aren't necessary, lacks prioritization, we start focusing on the urgent and not the important.
eric boles:
That's right.
Dale:
So yeah, let's break that down
eric boles:
Yeah.
Dale:
when we how do you how do you trigger a pause, you know, where's your where's the pause button and what happens to trigger that pause button. So you stop and take the step back and say, Wait a minute, I need to look at myself from an outside perspective and say, What am I doing that's not serving me well? How do I? How do I reassess the situation to make sure that I'm being effective and doing the right things?
eric boles:
Great question. I try to do it in two ways, and everything I'm sharing with today and the group out there, I know there's individuals listening right now who have all different kind of methods that they use. One of my mentors helped me so much in this, and it was to not use the scoreboard to evaluate where I'm at, because again, the scoreboards are a lagging indicator. Again, those are the branches. the bigger emphasis was focus on what are you feeling internally? What's your sense of? Do you have clarity? Do you feel a sense of control? And when I say control, control not over every circumstance, but control in my response. Like how am I reacting to things? Pay attention to that. How am I responding to things? Am I finding myself getting a little short with people? Am I finding myself getting a little disheveled? Now, one of the things, because of my personality type, I'm probably, you know, it's not my personality, I'm gonna probably be somewhat optimistic the majority of the time, right? I'm gonna be fun, I'm gonna be, I can laugh, I find humor and stuff. Okay, that's wonderful, right? But that doesn't mean things are going well internally. That's just how I, that's my expression. When I get a little anxious on the inside or uneasy on the inside, and I even look at my current environment, I notice my organizational skills calling falling off, right? It starts reminding me that I need to step back and have a kind of a reset. And so here's the one area that... I really lean into, even while, when the scoreboard, and I really feel this, even when the scoreboard's working in your favor, that's the best time to slow down and really get locked in and going, okay, what's going on, what am I creating right now? Because the scoreboard has a lot to do with what I'm doing, or more importantly, what I've already done. Sometimes I've stopped doing what was allowing the scoreboard to do well, but the scoreboard is still working in my favor so I can have the blind spot of believing I'm still behaving that way when I've changed it. But for me personally, my mindset reset is around this, around growth itself. So we're not just talking about having a growth mindset. It's very important to understand growth itself. And so Dale, one of the things that helped me recently, you know, those who've heard me before, I use all kinds of analogies, you know, whether it's an oak tree or something, but those giant sequoias, I think sequoia trees, right, the biggest in the world, down in the California area, they're phenomenal. But when I was learning this, that they grow about the thickness of a penny, every day. Like they grow a penny thick every day. Now I promise you, you stood there and watched this, the poetry, you just sat in front of it for a day. It looked like nothing happened. Right? And you're like, how can you call that growth? Well, I realized, you know, a penny a day of growth or a penny thick of a day of growth is pretty incredible when you put a lot of those together over time, right? The compound effect of those over time. The problem is that is not my mindset. Now I'm excited about growth. I'm all everything and this is why it's important when I'm talking about the audience about mindset. Your mindset influences how you react. Your mindset influences how you respond. Everything you do is I always like to say my mindset, my attitude, my habitual way of thinking, that's what we're describing, it controls my spontaneous reactions. It controls how I react and respond to those things around me. When my mindset is still locked up and I still talk about growth, but I'm still so heavily influenced by big events that lead to change, when the reality is really our big events are the things that cause change. Those are just the things talked about because they're obvious. Those are the things discussed because they're obvious. We'll sit back and watch an incredible gymnast like Simone Biles, or we'll sit back and watch an incredible swimmer like Michael Phelps. And the first thing we wanna look at is, look how in... incredibly talented they are. Look at how dynamic they are. So our natural instinct is to believe that it's their natural talent and their intelligence that drives it, right? Now, I know we read all the stuff and I know we say all the stuff. We see somebody who's successful in a business and we're like, ah, yeah. But what we don't do is slow down enough and go, what did their growth look like? What did their growth look like a penny a day? Right? What, what, do I value the fact that, uh, that those, those are, those, their intelligence and their, uh, talent are developed traits, not just innate traits? And in, in the reason this is so big from having a reset of, uh, have a mindset reset is if I don't approach things right, then I'm going to take on things trying to make change happen so fast. And when it doesn't change at the speed I want it, I get discouraged. And guess what I do? I quit. And I promise you, the majority of us quit far more often than we realize. And we don't quit because we didn't try. We quit because we had a bad perception of what growth looked like in the first place. So we underestimated what can get done in a year and overestimated what can get done in a week. And what proves it? Look at your calendar. Look at how many things you think you're about to accomplish in the next week. Look at how many things you think you're going to have this incredible transformation in a short amount of time. Unfortunately, we don't want to believe it, but change does not happen like that. When I say this to leaders and with the leaders I'm working with, I know it sounds like I'm telling you to remove urgency and to remove a desire to grow. No. What I'm telling you is understand what growth actually is. You're trying to go against the laws of nature, right? Like you gotta align with them. If you can deal with, you know, have big plans, just have a ton of small actions that lead to that big plan going. Why? Because it creates the kind of momentum, you don't know when the big play is gonna happen, but if you're relying on just a big play, you're in trouble. And that's the reset I've had to, you know, be going through during this time of having a little break.
Dale:
It reminds me of the story of the British cycling team and they brought on a new coach back in 2002. And up to that point, in its 76 year history, the British cycling team had not had I think one gold medal in an Olympics.
eric boles:
Mmm.
Dale:
And so he purposefully worked with the team to number one, break it down every, every single piece down to the micro level of what
eric boles:
Wow.
Dale:
that cyclist was doing and then worked to improve each one of those areas 1%
eric boles:
See, that's it. One percent
Dale:
And
eric boles:
rule.
Dale:
it's the 1% rule. And so what I'm hearing you say, if we're going to, we're hacking at the branches when we start focusing on the overestimation of what we can get done in a short period of time. It's when we start getting to the root and breaking down each one of those activities and saying, how can I bring a 1% improvement to this activity and then realize the compound effect
eric boles:
That's
Dale:
of
eric boles:
right.
Dale:
that going forward?
eric boles:
One of the things I love what you just said, Dylan, everything we're talking about and everybody listening right now, we get this. I always like to call these aha moments when the obvious slaps you upside the head, right? This is an aha moment, right? We know this, but there's a difference between knowing this, being aware of this and setting your mind up. Right? Like we just talked about a mindset reset. That means I have to see differently. When I see growth this way, I will feel different about growth and then I will act differently when it comes to growth. And so if I can see differently, this conversation, this week, it's even the way, it changed the way that I even see people who are celebrated. Now I value not only what they just, their output, But now I have a new appreciation for the process, like the step-by-step process. Me and you might have had this conversation, but there's this, I think his name is Erickson. I wish I had his first name. I should have did that. But you know, he's been known for some great accomplishments, being a world-class musician, wrote incredible books, did every kind of thing. And me and you talked about this once before, but I remember hearing. him say his greatest aha moment came from being taught by his music instructor to stop trying to make improvement in long concentrated moments of time like, hey, you practice for hours to become great. And she told him early, no, practice in minutes. Find ways to throughout the day and every time you have an extra few minutes here and a few minutes there and a few minutes here and a few minutes there. to work that way. And he was like, why? He goes, because the older you get, the less time you just uninterrupt the time that you have. And so when you view growth in small moments of time, over time, compounded over time, you'll get so much further. And then you also want to go through what we like to call the process of burnout, right? All right? In your pursuit of growth. I mean, I know there's people I'm talking to now who've heard it, like, please, can we just stop talking about growth for a while? Right? We've heard about
Dale:
Hehehehehehehehe
eric boles:
growth so much that you're almost like, ah, no, but the issue is, it's our perception, it's how we see it. And so when I say mindset reset, really what we're resetting is how we see, because we don't realize the power of perception, we're gonna make that one of our podcast conversations as well, either that one would be powerful, right? But if I realize, the way that I see growth, the way that I see, you know, that, you know, small, small little acts, or more importantly, how much greater consistency is over intensity. It even changed the way I walk through life, right? Like this, I have a tendency, and when intensity means too much, you put so much effort and energy into an event. And the reality is, it... you know, rarely does one thing or one event that one time make the biggest difference. It doesn't. It happens over time. So if I just keep coming back and if I can keep coming back and not overwhelm myself to the degree that I can't keep going, growth will naturally occur. It's the disruption of the compound effect that gets in the way. We disrupt the compound effect by trying to speed it up or not having an accurate assessment of what growth looks like in the first place. This is why I always tell people this, step back and really remember, reflect on your own life. Where have you actually grown the most and don't attach it to one event, attach it to over time. Where you are right now is a compound effect of a lot of small things happen over time. You got moments in it that you remember that, you know, trick big, big moments, but do not put all your weight on that play. It's like, you know, most games people were like, you know, Hey, it was that play that changed everything. That play is the one you remember, okay? There's a lot of plays you didn't see, like that one play that didn't gain a yard because if the lineman would have blocked that one guy, you might have scored, right?
Dale:
Mm-hmm.
eric boles:
If the running back hit the hole on time, he might have scored. All those are significant. It's just the one you remember that was most obvious. And so when you can sit back and really have a mindset reset, it starts to do what you were just describing about the... the British coach who had the cyclists really evaluate these little things. It's like view growth that way that it's consistency over intensity, big goals, win the tour de France, right? Small actions. What are these little things compounded together that make the biggest difference?
Dale:
Big goals, small actions. I also wanna go back and talk a little more about this idea of reaction versus response
eric boles:
Mmm.
Dale:
because I see there's a big difference. And when we break down and start looking at, most often my reaction does not lead to a positive outcome.
eric boles:
No.
Dale:
for me or anybody around me.
eric boles:
Yep.
Dale:
It's when I stop and think, which is going back to how we started this conversation, when I stop and think, then I have an informed response.
eric boles:
Yes.
Dale:
And so it's one of those, you know, to not just be in a mode where I let myself react. in situations, it's really stopping and thinking so that I respond appropriately. Think through
eric boles:
Yeah,
Dale:
that I need to get
eric boles:
Dale,
Dale:
all the information.
eric boles:
let me throw something out to the group. We're gonna definitely have a, go into a podcast when we talk about how to think about what we're thinking about, right? But my reaction many times to something that occurs, I'm like, oh, I should have reacted differently. Or the reason, but I acted the way I reacted, the way I acted. had a lot to do with what I felt, right,
Dale:
Mm-hmm.
eric boles:
in when that took place. The mistake we make is to assume that what we feel is accurate. Now, what we feel is accurate, but the reason we feel that way is because what we're seeing might not be accurate. It's hard, like. So this is why when we talk about resetting mindset, when I say mindset, I'm literally talking about the way that my mind sees, the way I see. So the way that I see influences the way I'm going to feel and the way I feel completely dictates how I'm going to act or react. Okay? So my goal is to see properly so I'm just not reacting based on the way I feel. I am responding because my perception, I'm taking in better information. Perception's grown. So when I say a mindset reset, I gotta step back. See, when we just talked about growth, man, when I got the right perspective on growth, when I see it properly, I can go into the same circumstance the last time this happened, or somebody messed up, or I may have messed up, or somebody, I flipped out. Okay, now I gotta work on not flipping out. No, you don't have to work on not flipping out. I promise you, if you can see every one of these mistakes as learning mistakes, and that is changing your mindset, you don't have to practice not flipping out. You won't, because you fundamentally don't see it the same way. So, so many people want me to help them deal with, you know, I got a behavioral change thing, Eric, can you help change this behavior? Eric, can you help change this action or whatever? No, I really can't, I don't worry about that. Why? Because again, that's the branches on the tree, that's the fruit, the root. is your perception in the first place. Your route is how you see growth. If I can see growth as not trying to be great, but training to be, I understand, I only way to train, I have to have some learning mistakes, all of a sudden it gives context to everything. You know what I'm saying? Like, and this is where, this is where we individually have to sit back and look. If I keep believing growth is from big events, or happens in a hurry, or where... I have a seeing problem, right? Like that's where the problem is. So my reaction, like, oh, we had a setback today. And I flipped out. I didn't flip out just because we had a setback. I had a flip back because I believe this setback messed up the timeline I have because I think we should be farther than we are. And why is this happening to us? And based on my reaction, it now negatively impacted the people I lead. They're no longer as motivated. So I'm actually moving us further away from our goal. not closer to it. But if I realize going into it that this is part of the learning, this is part of the growth, and I get my mind set around that, all of a sudden when those things hit, my response is of course different. Because I realize my ultimate area of responsibility is controlling how I see, is controlling my own mindset. I get that right. Everything else tends to fall into place. And this is when I say we gotta have a mindset reset, this is what I mean. In many different areas, not just in terms of working with other people or whatever, but I'm like, oh man, everything is a progression. It's not a race, it's not perfection. Penny thick a day, all of a sudden I can end up with a psychiatry. Okay, guess what? That means I don't have to diminish, like you said, the 1% rule. Man, so. you know, one percent, man, my goal is to lose 20 pounds. I was like, gotcha, and how soon? You know, cause that matters, right? Okay, now here's what's even more important. You may find out that, you know, it's like, oh, one of the things I gotta do to lose weight, I gotta get to the gym, ah, yeah, you can do that. Or, can you, do you believe you can walk every day for 15 minutes? Yeah, well, if you can get, okay, do that for a week. Do you think now you can move that 15 minutes to 30 minutes? No question. Why? Because when I was walking, I looked up. I wasn't just looking down. I saw things in my neighborhood I had never seen before. There's all kinds of additional benefits, but you also underestimated the power of walking daily, right, because you didn't connect that to big impact. And when you can sit back and look and see differently. These are all the areas of our lives we have the opportunity to create growth in if we stop diminishing small improvement. You know Beth Everdell as Chief Innovation Officer. So many people only view innovation as giant disruptive changes. Man, that is not innovation. Innovation many times is the result of little actions done over and over and over and then the compound effect looks like incredible innovation. No, that's just a natural transformation that happens from the small actions that lead to incredible results.
Dale:
Take a moment, stop, and really assess the little things. That's where it's important. Incremental improvement.
eric boles:
sit like...
Dale:
That's the call to action today.
eric boles:
hahaha awesome brother, awesome
Dale:
Okay, so how you how would you sum up the specific action items for somebody who's driving and they just need that reminder that I'm going to walk into the office today I've got all this stuff going on. What are the top two or three things that I need to focus on to get this mindset reset?
eric boles:
gotcha, I would say probably the first thing is to remember this mindset reset is more to do with how you look at things and less to do with what people are actually doing. So it's not about the circumstances, remember, those are secondary. What's primary is how am I seeing? So this mindset reset, even when I, and I use growth as the example, but it can be many things, but it's like, okay, what are the small things, small areas? that allow me to improve that I am going to stop, sit down and get and start these little things working on. And now the one point I'm gonna emphasize overall that is, do not underestimate what can get done over time, but make sure you're not overestimating what you can get done in a day or a week. And so when I talk about these little daily actions, These aren't big things, these are small things. For somebody right now, just asking one question of people, just, hey, how you doing today? For somebody right now, starting your morning off, instead of grabbing your phone, you drink a glass of water, before you do anything else. That is a tiny thing, but what you don't understand is the compound effect, all the secondary benefits that come from these small actions. So sit back, evaluate your life. Don't just evaluate the outcomes. Evaluate. the areas you actually can influence and control. And there's a biblical passage that says, do not despise small beginnings. Another way of saying it is, don't despise the small things that you can do so focused on the big things that many times, their influence is overrated anyways. Like we have a tendency to overinflate big things just because they're obvious. No, the real changes happen beneath the surface. This is what makes growth so hard, because growth is typically invisible until it's not.
Dale:
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eric boles:
Hehehehe
Dale:
Yes, so true, so true.
eric boles:
Awesome, bro. Thank
Dale:
Awesome.
eric boles:
you for that.
Dale:
All right. Thank you for that.
eric boles:
Yeah.
Dale:
We have our marching orders for the day. I would ask that our listeners do us a huge favor if you would rate and review this podcast. If you haven't subscribed already to the podcast and your favorite podcast playing app we are out there whether it's Spotify, Apple podcasts, we're on a number of platforms, wherever your favorite is go in rate and review the podcast makes it easier to find for folks who are looking for this type of We appreciate a five star rating and a few kind words in a review that you write Also, you can find Eric at the game changers ink dot com to learn more about what he does and how he helps businesses and leaders Also, you can find me at Dale Dixon media comm We would love to have a conversation with you and if you've got a topic you would like us to cover in a podcast Let us know just reach out there. We're also active on LinkedIn This is the game changers podcast Thank you so much for your time today.