Developing a Growth Mindset: Renewing Your Mind for Business, Leadership, and Life

Your biggest limitation might not be the market, your team, or your resources. It might be the story you keep telling yourself. We dig into what it really means to develop a growth mindset as a Christian business leader and why this is not fluffy motivation but a practical, biblical leadership discipline that changes how we work, lead, and respond under pressure.

We walk through the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset, then anchor it in Scripture, especially Romans 12:2 on renewing the mind. If you’ve ever caught yourself thinking, “I’m just not good at that,” we offer a simple shift that keeps the door open: the word “yet.” We also look at Gideon’s limiting self-view and how God speaks identity and calling beyond current circumstances, a powerful reminder that where you are is not where you have to stay.

We also make an important distinction: a biblical growth mindset is not pride or self-reliance. It is confidence in God’s sufficiency and a commitment to stewardship. We connect this to the parable of the talents and challenge the fear that makes leaders bury gifts instead of developing them. From there we get practical about business and leadership growth: adaptability in changing seasons, resilience when you fail, and teachability as the habit that keeps leaders effective. We close by talking leadership capacity and why even coaches need coaches, because growth stays a lifelong pursuit.

Grab the workbook at ChristianBusinessConcepts.org, share this with a leader who needs it, and subscribe so you don’t miss part two next week. If this helped you, leave a review and tell us: where do you need to add “yet” to your thinking?

Transcript

Welcome And Podcast Mission

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Christian Business Concepts with your host Harold Millby. Christian Business Concepts is dedicated to guiding companies and business words and becoming effective, efficient, and successful God's word and godly principles. Here's your host, Harold Milby.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Hey, thanks, Kelly, and welcome everyone to this week's Christian Business Concepts Podcast. This is the podcast where faith meets leadership. Biblical wisdom shapes business strategy, and kingdom-minded entrepreneurs learn how to lead with excellence. I'm your host, Harold Bilby, and I'm so glad that you've downloaded this podcast today. Whether you're listening in your office, in your truck, or on your morning walk at the gym or between meetings, just thank you for allowing me to speak into your leadership journey. I'm so thankful and I'm so humbled by that. Now, this week I want to give a big shout out uh to Chicago, Illinois, right here in the United States, for having so many downloads in the last week or so. Great job there in the Windy City. I also want to thank all of you around the world. Over 85 countries are represented uh by Christian Business Concepts and those who listen. So I hope you and your businesses and your organizations are truly blessed by this podcast each and every

Impact Academy And Free AI Course

SPEAKER_01 1:25

week. Now, I also want to mention again uh something new that we have recently launched here at CBC and uh and through our um uh business uh with uh Harold Milby uh trainer. Uh it's our Impact Academy. Now, this is an online learning platform, and it's for leaders who want to continue to grow, who want to continually grow as a leader, but they don't always have the time. Uh the courses are short and they're power-packed. The best thing is that there are no minimums, there's no membership fees. Uh, your your courses that you purchase are available for the rest of your life. Um, and just for going and checking it out, I want to give you uh a course called the basics of AI. And I want to give that to you absolutely free and uh just for going and checking out Impact Academy. Now to get there, you just type in Impact Academy, no spaces, impactacademy.haroldmillbetrainer.com. That's impactacademy.haroldmilbytrainer.com. No spaces. All right, and then you can begin your free uh course, and there's other courses that you can look at and you can cruise through there and take a look. But we'd love to have you uh be a part of that and take a look at Impact Academy. Now, please call or email me if you need coaching or training or any live workshops. We do that around the world. And uh, you know, for years I never mentioned to you about the business side, uh, but uh my coach has suggested that I start sharing this with you on the podcast. So thanks for allowing me to take some time for a commercial. Uh you know, thank you for allowing me to do that.

Share The Podcast And Grow Influence

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Now, before we get started, let me encourage you to help us to grow the Christian business concepts community. So if this podcast blesses you or it challenges you or maybe equips you, would you just share it with someone? Send it to a business owner, a pastor, a manager, an entrepreneur, maybe a salesperson or a ministry leader, or just a young professional who needs to hear it. Uh, because I believe that when leaders grow, businesses grow. And when businesses grow, influence grows. And when kingdom influence grows, lives are changed. And so I really believe that.

Why Growth Mindset Matters

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Now, today's subject is a very important leadership concept and one that is dear to my heart. Uh, and that is developing a growth mindset. See, this topic is not just motivational, it's not just psychological, it's not just business theory. Uh, you know, it's something that's tangible and real, and we're going to get into that today. But be sure to go to Christian BusinessConcepts.org and go to the resources tab and download the workbook uh for this podcast. And it's got some great info in there, and you can fill in the blank, and there's a lot of good things in there for you. And that's, you know, there's no charge for that. Just go onto the website and go to the resources tab and scroll down until you find it. All right. Now, for a Christian leader, a growth mindset is deeply, deeply biblical. You know, if we're created in God's image, you have to look throughout scripture from Genesis to Revelation, and you would have to agree with me and say that God does not have a fixed mindset because those are the two choices. You can have a growth mindset or a fixed mindset. Uh in fact, Romans 12, 2 says, and be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. Now, this passage tells us two very powerful truths. Number one, transformation is possible. So if you're sitting there thinking, well, I am the way I am, that's just it. That, you know, I can't change. I'm just the way I am. That's not scriptural. We just read in Romans 12 and 2 that transformation is possible, or he wouldn't have told us to do that. Uh secondly, he says, transformation begins where? In the mind. See, if you're you're thinking, you know, you know, nothing really ever changes, your life rarely ever changes. If you're if your mindset remains fixed, your your leadership will remain very, very limited. If your beliefs stay small, your business will often stay trapped beneath that ceiling of those beliefs. So today we're going to take a deep dive into what it means to develop a growth mindset as a Christian business leader. Now I'm going to tell you right now, we're not going to finish this today. Uh I I looked at this and I looked at the content uh as I developed it, and I thought there's no way I can do this in our time that we normally have each week. So this will be continued uh in the next uh podcast next week. Uh so I just wanted to share that with you so you know up front that we're not gonna finish it, but let not your heart be troubled. We'll do it next week and we'll finish it. But get the workbook too. Get the workbook. Uh we're gonna talk about what a growth mindset really is, uh, why it matters in business and in leadership, even personally, uh, the advantages that growth-minded people have over those who are fixed mindset or do not have a growth mindset, uh, the obstacles that keep people stuck, uh, how to overcome those obstacles, uh, a practical system to begin developing a growth mindset, uh, some biblical examples of growth-minded people, real-world business leader examples. We're gonna talk about scriptures that renew our thinking. Um, you know, we're gonna look at some great analogies and how to grow, how to build a growth mindset culture uh beyond yourself, but even in your business, in your church, in your organization. So get ready. This is gonna be a practical, biblical, and challenging topic today. So, first of all, let's look at what is a growth mindset. Um,

Growth Versus Fixed Mindset

SPEAKER_01 8:02

a growth mindset is the belief that your abilities and your skills and your intelligence, your leadership capacity, and your effectiveness can be developed. It can be developed, it can be grown, it can be developed through learning, through uh discipline, uh feedback from others, practice. Uh you can you can develop it through faith, through perseverance, and obviously the grace of God. You see, a fixed mindset says this is just how I am. You know, uh or you'll or you'll hear things like, well, I'm not good at that. I can't change, or I failed, so I must not be capable of doing that. Or I wasn't born with that gift. I've heard that many times. And uh, well, people like me do not succeed at that level. I've heard that before too. You know what Henry Ford said? Henry Ford said this, you've heard me quote it before. Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. Because the point is that belief influences behavior. And behavior influences results. So if if your if your beliefs influence your behaviors uh into more of a negative behavior or a set of negative behaviors, then that's going to influence the results, whether it be in your personal life or whether it's going to be in your business. A growth mindset, a growth mindset says things like, I I can learn, or I can improve, um, or or failure um is feedback. Um uh skills, and I say this all the time and to to coaching clients all the time, skills can be developed. Uh you'll you'll hear me say, Well, God can stretch me, you know, because I know that I'm not going to be the same person in 12 months that I am right now. Not if I do the things that I know I need to do. And one of those things is I have to have a growth mindset. I may not know how yet, but I can grow into it. You'll hear people say things like that. Well, you know, one of the most powerful words in developing a growth mindset is the word yet. In other words, instead of saying I'm not good at this, you just say, I'm not good at this yet. I don't understand this yet. I have not mastered this yet. I have not built that system yet. Or I do not know how to lead at that level yet. It's a one word that just kind of keeps the door open. You know, a fixed mindset puts a period where God may have placed a comma. Can I say it that way? A fixed mindset puts a period where God may have placed a comma. A fixed mindset says, this is who I am. And if you think about it, one of the greatest examples is Gideon. You know, when God came to Gideon and he said, he said to Gideon, he introduced uh Gideon uh to himself and he said, Gideon, you're a mighty man of valor. And and Gideon was looking around like, are you talking to me? I'm I'm a great man of valor. I'm a man of valor. Um, I don't think you understand who you're talking to. I belong to the least tribe of all of Israel. I am in the least family of that tribe, and I am the least in my family. So I'm at the bottom of the total pole, and you come to me and say, You mighty man of valor. So he had this fixed mindset that that's who he was, that's who he would always be, and those would always be the results he would have. You know, but a growth mindset says, This is where I am, but it's not where I have to stay. You know, Philippians 1 and 6 says, being confident of this very thing, that he which has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. That means God is not finished with you. It's a process. And if God's not finished with you, you should not declare yourself finished either to yourself. You know, uh Setcha Nadella, the CEO of uh Microsoft, said, don't be a know-it-all, be a learn it-all. The point is that a fixed mindset tries to prove it already knows. But a growth mindset is hungry. There's a desire to learn. Um, you know, at my age, I have this insatiable desire to learn. I try to get in the room with the people where I feel like I'm the dumbest person in the room. Because if I'm in the room where I feel like I'm the smartest person in the room, I'm in the wrong room. I'm not gonna be able to grow that way. I want to be in the room where the people that know so much more than I do. I want to learn from those people. So it's important.

Biblical Confidence Not Self-Reliance

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Now, now we've got to make a very important distinction here. Uh a growth mindset is not the same as what the world would consider to be self-reliance. Uh, it's not about saying I can do anything by myself. Um I mean, it's not pride. We're not talking about pride, we're not talking about humanism. Um, we're not talking even about positive thinking that that, you know, it is somewhat positive thinking, but it's not positive thinking that's detached from truth. Let me just say it that way. Uh a biblical growth mindset says, by God's grace, through obedience, discipline, learning, perseverance, I can become who God has called me to become. You know, 2 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 5 says, not that we all, that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God. So we're not talking about confidence in the flesh. We're talking about confidence in God's ability to form us, to teach us, to correct us, to strengthen us, to mature us, and to help us to grow. You know, Philippians 4.13 says, I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me. So I can do all things. I can do all things. If if if there's something I'm not good at, I can learn. I can learn. That does not mean I can do anything that I want to do selfishly. That's not what I'm talking about. But it means I can do everything God assigns me to do through the strength that Christ provides in my life. You know, a biblical growth mindset is not self-worship. Actually, a growth, a biblical growth mindset really is about stewardship. Because it says, God's given me gifts, he's given me time and opportunities and relationships, he's given me responsibilities. And I need to develop what he has entrusted to me. You know, it sounds a lot like the parable of the talents, doesn't it, in Matthew 25? You know, the servants who multiplied what they were given, they were very commended by the master. But the one servant who buried his talent was rebuked. Now, why was he rebuked? Because he allowed fear to stop stewardship. A fixed mindset buries talent. A growth mindset develops that talent. You know, my mentor, John Maxwell, said you cannot change your life until you change something you do daily. Well, what's the point? Well, the point is that growth mindset, having a growth mindset is not just a belief system, it's got to become a daily system. You know, a seed, whatever the plant may be, but a seed has potential. But that potential's got to be planted and then it's got to be watered, and then it's got to be cultivated. A seed that's left in a bag never becomes a harvest. And your gifts, your talents, your abilities, your time, your opportunities, those are all seeds. If they if if if they are never planted through discipline and watered through learning, cultivated through obedience, then they remain just as a potential. And God doesn't merely reward potential, God blesses stewardship. He blesses uh stewardship. So, why is developing a growth mindset so important?

Mindset As A Leadership Lens

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Well, let me give you the big idea. You know, the big picture. Your mindset determines how you interpret everything that happens to you. Let me say that again, and I want you to let this sink in. Your mindset determines how you interpret everything that happens to you. Two people can experience the same setback and reach two totally and completely different conclusions. One of them may say, Well, this just proves I'm not cut out for this. The other one says, This shows me what I need to learn next. The same event. It's just a different interpretation. And that interpretation affects the future. So it creates two different futures. Your mindset, your mindset is a lens that you look through and you view different things. So that lens through which you view maybe your failures or feedback from people or conflict, even conflict or change, or or even competition when we're talking about business, opportunity, correction, pressure, success, even other people's achievements. Uh-huh. It it it just has a huge impact. You know, Proverbs 23 7 says, For as he thinketh in us in his heart, so is he. So what you consistently believe eventually shapes how you consistently behave. What you consistently believe eventually shapes how you consistently behave.

Adapting To Seasons Without Compromise

SPEAKER_01 18:34

You know, a growth mindset helps you adapt, number one. Because business, and even in our personal lives, it changes all the time. Our lives are changing. Business is changing constantly. There's market shifts, there's technology changes. Good grief. I I remember before the before there were cell phones, I was I was in a sales position before I had to go or when I had to call in the home office, I had to pull off and fight a payphone. A lot of you don't even know what a payphone looks like because there isn't them. They don't have them anymore. Uh customer expectations, they evolve all the time. Teams, they become more complex. Um, competition increases. There's economic conditions that fluctuate. A leader with a fixed mindset resists change because change threatens their identity. And in the and at the bottom line is that's what we're talking about here. A leader with a growth mindset, he engages change because change creates learning. What's Ecclesiastes 3.1 say? It says to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven. Seasons change. A farmer who refuses to recognize the season will fail, no matter how sincere he is. You can't plant in the harvest season and then harvest in the planting season. Growth-minded leaders discern the season, they adapt their methods without compromising what their mission is that they feel like they have. As Christian leaders, really, uh, when you think about it, our roots have got to be anchored in eternal truth. Now, our branches have to be flexible enough to respond to changing conditions, but we've got to have that strong root system. See, truth doesn't change. Methods can change, but truth doesn't change. You know, we were my wife and I were very successful as pastors when we pastored two churches. And one of the things I used to tell staff all the time was the the the the um the message is sacred, but not the method. So as long as the method did not dilute the message, then I was okay with it. If we wanted to try some things outside the box, go ahead and try them. As long as it didn't dilute the message. I didn't care about the method.

Resilience Through Failure And Pressure

SPEAKER_01 20:55

A growth mindset builds resilience. Every business leader is going to experience difficulty. Every single one of you. There's not one of you that's not going to experience difficulty. We're all going to. But a growth mindset, it helps you to be resilient. You know, you're going to lose clients, you're going to make hiring mistakes. Oh boy, have I done that. You're going to misread markets. Um, maybe you're going to launch a product that fails. I've had that happen myself. You're going to face criticism. You're going to have seasons where your cash flow is like really tight. Um you're going to make decisions you wish you could do over. And a fixed mindset interprets failure as their identity. I failed, therefore I'm a failure. A growth mindset interprets failure as information, not as an identity. I failed, therefore I need to learn. Proverbs 24 16 says, For a just man falls seven times and rises up again. Notice the verse does not say the Righteous never fail. It says that they just rise again. Resilience is not the absence of falling. Resilience is the refusal to stay down. You know, if you think about a sponge, you know pressure on a sponge will reveal what's on the inside. So we're the same way. So when pressure comes, it puts that pressure on us, and as it pushes us, squeezes us, and puts pressure on us, what we really are inside comes out. A growth mindset doesn't prevent pressure, but it helps you to process pressure and do it a lot more productively, I should say. You know, James 1, 2 through 4 says, My brethren countered all joy when you fall into diverse temptations, knowing this, that the trying of your faith works patience. But let patience have her perfect work. That means trials that we go through can produce maturity if we respond correctly. If we respond correctly.

Teachable Leaders Keep Learning

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Now, growth mindset also increases learning because leaders who stop learning eventually stop leading, or at least they stop leading very effectively. You know, uh again, my mentor John Maxwell, he is known for saying change is inevitable, but growth is optionable. You know, you know, it's an option if you're going to grow, but change is going to happen. It's a powerful statement. Everybody gets older, but not everybody gets better. Everybody gains experience, not everybody gains wisdom. Experience alone does not produce growth. Evaluated experience is what produces growth. Psalms 119, 66 says, Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I have believed thy commandments. A growth-minded person is teachable. They ask, Well, what can I learn from this? Who knows more than I do? What skill do I need to develop? What mistake am I repeating? Um What assumptions need to be challenged in my life? What does scripture say about this? What would wise counsel tell me? You know, Proverbs 99 says, give instruction to a wise man and he will be yet wiser. Because wise people become wiser because they remain teachable. You know, now another thing is a growth

Expanding Leadership Capacity With Coaching

SPEAKER_01 24:29

mindset improves leadership capacity. Leadership capacity does not have to be fixed. You can grow in your communication, your emotional intelligence, a lot of the things that we teach here at CBC, your strategic thinking, your delegation abilities, your financial understanding, um, your conflict resolution, um, your team building, your decision making, your innovation, your courage, uh, spiritual maturity. You know, when you believe capacity can grow, you can take responsibility then for the development of those things. You know, Peter Drucker said one time, he said leadership is not magnetic personality that can just as well be a glib tongue. It's it's not making friends and influencing people. That's flattery. Leadership is lifting a person's vision to high sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal. So I I think you you kind of get the idea here. I think I think you get this of of what I'm trying to get across when we talk about having this growth mindset. I I think it's so important that we that we look at these things and understand that we can either have a growth mindset or have a fixed mindset. But the people who really are successful in life, in business, in organizations, in higher um academia, they're people with growth mindsets. They're people that are teachable, people that want to get in the room with people who know more than they do. Yes, I'm a coach. I am. I'm a coach, I coach people. Um, I have signature coaching programs like uh the one on purpose, the one about vision, and really the the one about have uh being a confident leader. I have a program called Confident Leader Accelerator, um, where we talk about the leadership gap. But the thing of it is, is that if if I think I'm a coach and that I don't need to be coached because I know everything, that's a huge mistake. That's a fixed mindset. I have coaches in my life, not just coach. I have coaches. Right now, I have three coaches in my life. Right now, I have three coaches. They're all coaching me on different things. But the key is that I want to be teachable because I want to learn and I want to have a growth mindset. I want to have a growth mindset. And I hope that you do as well.

Prayer Closing And Next Week Preview

SPEAKER_01 27:13

Now, Lord, thank you for everyone who's listened to this podcast. And uh Lord, I just pray, Lord, Father, that they see the importance of having a growth mindset. Lord, help us to take this so seriously and move from a fixed mindset to have the mind of Christ, which was not, it was a growth mindset. Lord, help us to open our hearts and our minds to what we have heard so far, and may it help us to find true godly success in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thanks again for helping us grow the CBC family by posting the link to this podcast on your Facebook and LinkedIn pages for other people to see. We thank God for you, and we thank God uh for your success in and through Christ. Now, don't forget, we're going to finish this up next week and go to the website, go to uh Christian Business Concepts.org, go to the resources tab, and find the workbook that goes with this, and I hope it blesses you. Well, until next week, remember Jesus is Lord and He wants you blessed.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

Thank you for tuning in to this week's Christian Business Common Simpsons Podcast. Go to Christian Business Commoncepts.com for more information and resources.