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The Business Edge
The Business Edge
Back2 Basics - Episode 22: Tackling the Limiting Thoughts
Feliciano School of Business faculty members in the department of Information Management and Business Analytics, Dr. Mahmoud ElHussini and Dr. George Elias discuss issues and problems being faced by business professionals. On this podcast, they continue their discussion of limiting thoughts by focusing on how to dismantle the myth behind the false power limiting thoughts have on individuals, and brainstorm different ways to deal with and overcome such limiting thoughts.
Co-Hosts Background:
Mahmoud (Moe) Elhussini, MS, MBA, DBA, is an Instructor Specialist at Montclair State University. He is also the president and founder of The Growth Coach Allentown - Somerville. A consulting and business coaching company. Moe has worked in data & operations management for over a decade. He then switched to business consulting, helping companies build ERP and customer interface systems. After that he transitioned into international business development, helping companies manage their internal organic growth or through mergers and strategic alliances. Moe has published a couple of handbooks, one on emotional intelligence and another on servant leadership. He is currently working on a third that revolves around overcoming sales objections. Moe has a BA in Biology from Rutgers University, an MBA in Global Management, and MS in Information Management, and a DBA in Geopolitics and Strategy. At Montclair University, Moe is part of the Information Management and Business Analytics Department. He teaches Business Decision Making, Operations Management, and Statistics in Business courses.
George Elias, Ph.D., PMP is Chief Systems Engineer for Space and Airborne Systems leading initiatives in integrated spectrum management and mission avionics at L3Harris Technologies. Additionally, Dr. Elias is as an adjunct professor at Montclair State University’s department of information management & business analytics where he teaches business operations and statistics. Dr. Elias is experienced in leading the development and production of complex hardware and software system solutions including: electronic warfare systems, communication systems, and space systems. Previously, Dr. Elias served as the Director of Capture Excellence & Business Development Operations for the Electronic Warfare Sector. As an L3Harris Technologies Certified Enterprise Capture Lead, Dr. Elias was responsible for directing large, complex pursuits across the enterprise. In addition to systems engineering and business development, Dr. Elias has held roles in finance, quality assurance, operations/manufacturing, modeling and simulation, project engineering, program management, and Internal Research and Development (IRAD). Dr. Elias has a Doctorate in Systems Engineering, a Masters Certificate in Project Management, and a Masters in Computer Science from Stevens Institute of Technology. Additionally, Dr. Elias has a Bachelors in Computer Information Systems from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey & New Jersey Institute of Technology. Finally, Dr. Elias has a Mini-MBA from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.
Hello everyone, welcome back to our episode. Back to Basics. I am yours truly Mawul Hussaini, and I am here with my bestest friend, george Elias. How you doing, georgie? Great. How are you? I'm good man. How's everything going? Awesome?
Speaker 2:glad to be here with you.
Speaker 1:Same here, same here, same here. Your day's going good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep, got a long day ahead of me. Probably going to be working late, really. Yeah, that's the way it goes, we're going to go for about half an hour, so I think you should.
Speaker 1:I know you have a meeting coming up, but we'll try to wrap it up. We started talking about limiting beliefs, right? Our last podcast, and I think we said we're going to continue today to talk about how to deal with it, yeah, how to counter it, right? What do you think Shall we do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a great idea. I think last time, if I remember correctly, we discussed more like what are the power of your limiting beliefs and limiting thoughts. It's impact on you, right and then we also talked a little bit about how that can not just affect you as an individual, but affect your business and the people around you. Right, correct?
Speaker 1:correct, correct. And what do you say before we go into how to tackle it? How do we recognize that it's there, right? Why don't we talk about that first? Like, how do you even know that? Wow, you know what?
Speaker 1:I do have a limiting belief. I do have something that's holding me back from doing X, y or Z. What do think? What are some of the symptoms that we can detect? Right, like and I'll give you an example To realize that I may be falling into I don't want to call it a trap, but falling into that you know scenario where I'm limiting my potential. Like, for example, I can think of myself sometimes if I keep saying I'll do this tomorrow, I'll do this later, you know what I'll get to it. Like, if you're talking to me, right, sometimes, even when we talk together, I remember even back from college days hey, mo, let's go do this. Hey, you know what? Let's. Just, I'm busy today, let's do it, next week, let's, let's, let's, let's. Right, I keep pushing it out could be an indicator that I'm avoiding something that I just don't want to confront. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, totally. Can you think of something else? Maybe that falls under that category.
Speaker 2:Well, let's just think about this for a minute and see if I can conjure up some examples.
Speaker 2:So here's the problem with limiting beliefs. Right, these beliefs or belief systems so I'll just call them short belief systems, bs. Right, there, they're lies. Right, and part of the problem with lies that they end up believing, like that is the lies end up becoming comfortable and they actually feel good. Right, so it, you know, in some way maybe even makes your life easy, because by putting something off, you don't actually have to do something to fight it. It it becomes the lazy thing to do.
Speaker 2:Right, the easy thing to do is to let that lie sit there right so now that, now that we have this concept of eliminating belief, and now that we can buy into the fact that they're not at least not the truth, right? Whether you want to buy into it being a lie and you're lying to yourself, it's at least not the truth, right? So now that we know that-.
Speaker 1:Or not the reality. That's fair. It could be the reality Truth reality.
Speaker 2:Fine, right, but it's not the actual thing that's going on. So I would say first step would be to be aware that there's a such thing as a limiting belief or a limiting thought, right? So now that we're aware that's going on, now that we can start looking for them, I would say one thing if there's no evidence behind it, if you're saying something for instance, I'm not athletic, or why you can start testing, why you're just not athletic, or could you be athletic, I? I think, um, oftentimes things that are very static, you're declaring that something is a certain way and can't change. I think that's a clue that you might have a limiting belief yeah, or if you're deflecting from a conversation.
Speaker 1:I, I keep talking to you about something, george, no, yeah, let's go start running. Yeah, no, yeah, right, well, what about if we do this instead? Right, like, you keep kind of like dodging that conversation, and I think it may become more difficult if it's something intangible that you're talking about, right, like, in your case, the example that you mentioned. Yeah, it's easy. Well, you know, I believe that what was the example that you just used now, the one that you're exercising? Sure, exercising Right, it's easy to actually go and start trying to exercise. But let's talk about the one that me and you keep bringing up over and over and over, and we kind of I'm starting to agree with you, but when we started talking about public speaking and being an introvert and I think we addressed it in one of, I think it was episode one, I think it was at the very beginning- I believed, or I thought sometimes.
Speaker 1:I think that not everybody could be good at public speaking, right, that I'm born with genes or I'm born with traits that just make me not capable of speaking in public. I'm just a pure intro, like a born introvert in our discussions. I'm not going to speak for you, but from what I remember, when we talked about it I think it was a few lunches ago you were saying that, no, it may be difficult to change it, but eventually, given a couple of things which I'll let you speak about because they were your ideas, you can possibly eventually change. So why don't you? Because it was convincing the way you presented it. It made sense and actually we carried it on to other examples. But what are those things?
Speaker 1:Let's use that example. I'm an introvert. I'd like to be in my own zone, in my comfort zone, like you said, this is my safe place. I don't want to speak in public and I get a lot of students like that, right, and I'll tell you what I do with them later. But if I am like that, what are some baby steps that I can take to get me to the point where I change?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think it's a good example. Yeah, the whole public speaking thing and I run into it in my classroom. I've had many students express anxiety, fear, even the thought of having to get up in public. Yeah, it can be something that can stress. It scares them.
Speaker 1:It's just some people. It's like a medic, it's like it seems like it's a medical thing. It gets to the not that it is, but it feels like it is. They just can't do it.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm sure that some of their stress levels can rise to a medical issue, right, and to be really serious here, they can have serious anxiety off of these things. So I've dealt with this too. One thing I will say my belief is that, for from a business school perspective, your ability to address groups, talk in public, talk to customers, communicate is is very, very important for business, right? If you can properly communicate and talk about things in an articulate way, it's that is career limiting.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Potentially very career limiting. So how do you get through that, right? How do you get through that? I believe that if somebody thinks they're just bad at public speaking, I would classify that as a limiting belief, right? So like the first question that I would have that as a limiting belief, right? So like the first question that I would have is how do you know you're bad at public speaking? Right? Did you get up on stage and people told you?
Speaker 2:you are very bad at public speaking? Did you get laughed off of the stage? What, what and why did this come about? And oftentimes, when you start confronting that idea, people will start coming up empty. Well, no, I didn't get up on stage. No, nobody laughed me off, nobody told me I was bad, right. So how did this develop? So sometimes, if you can confront a belief that's just not true, sometimes you can realize that it's not right. So I would say that's a belief that's maybe not so deeply rooted, right. The problem is, if you have a belief that's much, much more deeply rooted, somehow right. So how do you get through this? So I think one is if you believe that's a limiting and you believe that I could be better, right, like you're starting to get there, and I would say everybody can right. And what you really need are really two main ingredients, and I'll call that motivation right. So you have to be motivated at wanting to be better at public speaking, the willingness yeah.
Speaker 2:Right. Well, not just willingness, but also the want right. I actually want this, okay. The other piece I would say is you need to have a method right, because it's one thing to want to be better, it's another thing to know how to get better right, and then at some point, when you're going through the method, you have to find that method on some level. On some level, not too painful.
Speaker 1:Okay, before you continue, let's break it down a little bit before we get into the method. So let's just start from the beginning. So the first thing, confront it right. The other ingredient be motivated. Right, like you said, you want to do it and then find the method to make the change or to do whatever it is to speak in public, right, like what, what? What's that process I'm going to go through to get to that point. Part of that method, part of that method do you?
Speaker 1:agree or disagree, that it could be someone helping you, meaning there could be an influence, of an influence, because we talked in the last episode that part of the limiting beliefs could be the relationships that you have, the environment that you're in Right, so having the right surrounding people around you could be part of that method.
Speaker 2:So for public speaking, if we're talking about public speaking, yeah, let's just do that example, yeah. Right. So if we're talking about public speaking, I would say, at some point, having others around you is essential, right?
Speaker 1:Otherwise it's not public, it's just you, no, but even for the motivation like somebody to motivate you to do it. That could be influenced by someone. It could be right.
Speaker 2:It could be right. It all depends on what it is right so you can. I've been motivated by others, whether it's a coach or a mentor, a parent, a friend. I mean, definitely there are certain people in your life that can motivate you positively to get better at things right, and I think that's definitely a good thing. Some people are self-motivated and and find ways of doing it, and even being self-motivated is one of those things that takes practice right.
Speaker 2:You know like you can actually self-motivated is one of those things that takes practice. You can actually self-motivate yourself, For instance. I don't know if you do it so much, but I self-talk a lot.
Speaker 1:I mean I always have You're crazy.
Speaker 2:Well, that's for sure, for sure, I am.
Speaker 1:I know what you mean.
Speaker 2:But I have an internal monologue going on. I would say almost always, but let me just bring it out. When I'm running, I am definitely talking to myself. I was just going to ask how do you use it? Oh, definitely.
Speaker 1:So use the running look.
Speaker 2:So I'm running. I'll tell you, I'm talking to myself. You're on pace, george. I actually talk to myself in the third person, or you can do it, you can get there. We're almost there, right. So I'm sitting there and being my own cheerleader.
Speaker 1:Oftentimes, and that self-talk, that positive self-talk, can get you through a lot of things. Actually, I'm thinking about myself while you're talking to see where I do that. I think I do that, I think I do that and I think that voice coming from within or from outside meaning, for example, in my class, right towards the end, we do a presentation and I can see some students that sit in the classroom very quiet, very reserved, and I know, when the time comes, where we're starting to prefer the presentation. Just from experience, I know they're going to walk up to me and I know the conversation.
Speaker 1:Hey, professor, is there anything? Can I come present in your office on our own? Can I write my notes that I was going to speak? For? I don't like to speak in public. Right? True story, 100% true scenario. More than once, when I am that voice that speaks to them and they end up actually getting up to talk, they're like in their zone, they're better than half the other students, right when they actually do it. So I wonder if those people would be interesting to know if they do have that voice right, if they do understand that they can actually fuel themselves to do what you do. Right, where they can speak, that I can do this, so they don't need me so.
Speaker 2:So that's interesting that you compared somebody's inner voice and their that self-talk yeah saying that in some way, maybe they were successful because they mimicked you right, like you planted this motivation or idea and when they told themselves they could, it sounded like dr Mo yeah, dr Mo told me I could do it, I can do it, right, and I think that's an interesting concept because we haven't talked about this before.
Speaker 2:But I think we can have multiple voices in that self-talk, right. So I talked about one positive way where I'm my own cheerleader and I take that as part of me. This is a little bit of an advanced discussion, but if you have negative self-talk, right, maybe you can start identifying that. You could even go as far as naming it and telling that self-talk to get out of your head right, and in that way you can actually control and recognize negative self-talk and say, no, that's not part of me anymore, right? The truth of the matter is, I can get better at this. If I want to, I can do this right, and then that becomes your self-talk that you get to own right, and that's part of the method, right?
Speaker 1:that. That is one. That is the method. That is one method. Yeah, I didn't mean to interrupt you if you're, if you're done or finish your thought, but tell me, what other method can you think of?
Speaker 2:right, so you can confront it right to prove it untrue confront it right to prove it untrue.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you can name it right to make it untrue. Um so, look, make it an entity, materialize it, let it be.
Speaker 2:Make it something that you can look at and kind of like conquer look at it, conquer and, depending on your personality, you might even make it something funny. You know, you, you, you decide that the the lying voice in your head is a court jester. Get out of here, you silly thing. Right, so you can almost use some humor or some way of deflating that anxiety, right? I think, uh, realizing the emotions that are going on and why you're having negative thoughts, whether it's fear or some sort of anxiety or some trepidation, sometimes, realizing what those thoughts are that are bringing you to that point, might be something there. This might be just.
Speaker 2:I want to go back to the concept of the voices in your head, that self-talk mimicking people, sometimes limiting beliefs, comes from childhood issues or things that went on. Maybe a parent, and I'll tell you, I think I said this to you before but sometimes those good, motivating thoughts that are in my head, I've realized that those are things that my father told me as I was growing up. Right, so you know, georgie, you can do this, georgie, you're strong, georgie, you're smart, right. So I was told these things. So I had that positive influence in my life and a lot of those positive thoughts, those growth oriented thoughts you can do this are kind of like the voice of my father in the back. Right now Not all of us have that positive experience, but I think, recognizing where those things come from and saying I have a lot of negative thoughts, that's because somebody put that in me. Now you at least have a string to pull on, you get to confront them and say, well, even those were of the best intentions. Let's say, yeah, is it true?
Speaker 1:And you know what. So two things. That's a good scenario. The opposite extreme of that is if somebody, since you were three years old and you could actually comprehend a conversation, has been feeding something wrong, negative, bad, whatever you want to call it in your mind until you're 21. So that's the opposite of the words of encouragement that you're dead, which brings up the second point I was thinking about while you're talking identifying the origin of that thought in your mind. I think there's a big part of countering its effect knowing how it began, how right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and sometimes, because of your mindset and because of your belief systems, you'll end up congregating or coming around people that have similar mindsets right yeah. Which confirms the faults, it confirms it. So you have limiting. The people around you, people in community, have limiting. When you start recognizing that then it becomes very hard to fight against those limiting beliefs. In fact, when you start your growth mindset you almost don't fit in with the people who tell you you can't right.
Speaker 1:In other words, you know what's a good example that to think of. If I'm scared of heights, I shouldn't go join a group of people similar to me. I should go join a group of people that are going to climb Mount Everest To break out of that. You know, everybody's like me, I'm the same like everyone else, then I'm okay. Go to somebody like you said, the opposite of.
Speaker 2:Or let's get back to public speaking. Let's get back to public speaking. I'm having a hard time public speaking. I feel anxiety about it. I sweat, I can barely stand up, I'm shivering because I'm so scared. Take an improv class or talk to somebody that is good about public speaking. I'm telling you, if somebody went and said to me, you know, dr george, I'm not good at public speaking, and if they wanted to have a real honest conversation, I I would say I wasn't always good. Yeah, that's what I thought. Right, I wasn't always good and I'll share something that I know, you know.
Speaker 1:But the audience doesn't know.
Speaker 2:I stuttered, I remember right. I stutter, so I work hard every day and you dealt with it on your own. I work hard every day to not stutter.
Speaker 2:I remember from Rutgers. It's the truth, right, so I'm a stutter. I remember from Rutgers, it's the truth, right. So I'm a stutterer and I've worked very hard to be much better at public speaking and when it comes to giving speeches, when it comes to talking to others. I do a lot of planning on it, right, I work at it and I think I work hard enough that some people might actually say'm not that bad, right? So if I can do it right and I struggled, then what's to say? Other people can't do it?
Speaker 1:I don't want to go over it too quickly because I feel like we jumped over it fast, forward it too quickly. I want to go back again, if it's okay with you, to how do we acknowledge that this is a limiting belief. Right, we said we confront it, we think about it, we see, what is it that we keep avoiding to talk about? Do you have? I don't right now, but can you think of other cues that you can think of to help people know, oh wait, this is it. This is a limiting belief. I can really do this. Can you think of anything else that, even with your examples, that you can think of, that goes through your mind to help you realize that this is and I don't want to put you in the spot because, honestly, I can't think of one right now I'm thinking about the answer, what I'm asking, the question while I'm asking, but I I don't know what else would be a good example so I would say that muslim beliefs are static in nature.
Speaker 2:They are, no matter what they are. In general, they declare a state that is unchangeable. Yeah, I am just not good enough.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Right, I am slow. Right, yeah, I am not enough.
Speaker 1:I'm just looking at my notes to see if I have anything Go ahead.
Speaker 2:I can't, or I'm just not good at soccer, right, so? Or? These sorts of statements that are definitive and static tend to be limiting beliefs. Yeah, right, yeah, now a growth is, I'm not very well practiced at soccer, mm-hmm, I'm just giving you an example. I could be better if I practice soccer.
Speaker 1:So, to use your example and say it in a different way, something that just thought of, if I reframe what I believe is a limiting belief, it can be a step one, meaning instead of me saying I suck at soccer, I can never play soccer. If, instead of that, I reframe it in my mind mentally to say that I'm not good at it, but I could be good at it if I do A, b, c, it changes the whole perspective of how you can approach it 100% right.
Speaker 2:I am not strong, but I could be if I worked out. So that opens the door to the possibilities, sure, but that's more the growth mindset, right. Yeah yeah, when you stop at the state and you say my belief is I cannot change, that's almost always a lie, because people can change.
Speaker 1:So you really think with your logic, right the way you explained it, and it's not wrong. But you could do anything Given the right environment, the right motive, not fly right within the realm of reality. Right, you have the opportunity or the potential to do what you don't think you can do. Whatever it may be, if you confront it, you're motivated and you want it bad enough and you're given the means to help you achieve it or do it.
Speaker 2:I would say absolutely yes. I truly, truly believe that we are much more capable than we allow ourselves to be. Yeah, I mean, you know.
Speaker 1:In anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say in almost every dimension, whether it's you know, academic or logic, or you know empathy, the ability to feel for other people or help other people, whether that's public speaking. You know and I'm saying that because it's both hard skills and soft- skills.
Speaker 1:Exactly Tangible, and intangible too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I was sharing with you earlier that I believe that we can even control our own thoughts right, and we debated this for a while right, and I'm not saying that it's an absolute right. I mean saying that it's an absolute. I mean, obviously something comes into your perception. It's hard for that not to come to mind.
Speaker 2:But, you can choose how you perceive it. You can choose how you react to it. So that takes training, and you talked about reframing. So how do you reframe your perception, how do you reframe your beliefs to go from something that's negative to positive, like, how do you see this as an opportunity rather than obstacles? Right, and a lot of people are very good at that, and I would say it takes practice. It's not something you just do on day one.
Speaker 1:And you break it down and I'll use the example that I said last time and I think I mentioned that when we were getting coffee earlier today I don't think I can get any clients if I make cold calls.
Speaker 1:I use this example as some very quickly. But if I break down that statement to see what are the type of people that I call, I can maybe say that I cannot cold call people that don't know me. But if I cold call people that I met at a networking event and they know me, then there's an opportunity that that door will open and they would want to talk to me. So, like, when you break down, write that statement that you're making, drill into it deeper, and then you can even drill deeper. Well, if I cold call those people that met me before and I talk about something that interests them that they told me, then it becomes more of a conversation, right, and then if maybe before I cold call them, I send them an introductory email that I'm or a tech, right, etc. Etc. So the point is, if you break down that statement into more details, I think you can control it more.
Speaker 2:So I think what you basically did there is you flipped around the motivation and the method. So maybe if you had a better method, you would find the motivation right. So it you know they, this thing sort of goes together right. So oftentimes in business I get the statement oh, that can't be done. And then I go and I confront this well, why can't it be done? Well, we tried it already. How did you try it? Well, we did this and this and this. The question is is that the only method? Is that the only way it could have worked? Did you try a different way? Is it possible that there's a different way that can get you there? So, instead of that person being in the box and saying can't happen, limiting belief, and then they start finding evidence to justify that can't happen, they don't realize that there might be a different method, right, so they are closing their mind and being very definitive about it.
Speaker 1:So kind of like what you said, it's not set steps. It could work method first, then motivation, after you're motivated, maybe, oh, maybe, now I want it, so it doesn't have to be in that order, so to speak.
Speaker 2:I agree. I do think that the method and the motivation need to somehow come together at some point yeah, yeah. You need to want to do it and you need to have some way of doing it.
Speaker 1:And when I say method.
Speaker 2:It all depends on what it is right. And how do you work yourself in there?
Speaker 1:I agree, this was actually really good. Honestly, in all honesty, just talking to you about it out loud, it helped me self-reflect on some of the paranoias I don't want to say paranoias, but some of the negativities I have in my mind. And I do see that if, depending on how I see it and who I choose to listen to versus who I could block out internally or externally, it could really help me see things in very different ways and revisit my approach. So I'm glad we talked about it.
Speaker 2:No, I'm glad you talked about it See things in different ways, because that gets it, you know, perceiving and it actually removes your bias in the way you see it right. So you can, you know, go from that negative bias to a I can do this positive bias and, like we talked about before, right, if you believe you can't, you're right. If you believe you can, you actually might be able to get someplace. So I think, in general, if you can shift yourself smartly to a positive position or lean towards positive positions, you will naturally achieve more, and I think that's what the conversation's really about here.
Speaker 1:Well said. Thank you, awesome. Thank you, quick conversation. Thank you very much. Do you wanna wrap it up?
Speaker 2:Sure, let's wrap it up. So do you know what we're gonna talk about next time? I think we'll have to play an Audible.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I was thinking we invite have the AI conversation. Maybe we can bring Gail in and talk about the AI. Do you remember what you guys were talking about last time?
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's see what we can do when we were walking in the corridor. That would be fun, that would be interesting.
Speaker 1:Awesome, you guys will be the experts, but I think it'll be an interesting conversation.
Speaker 2:We'll try to keep it light though.
Speaker 1:Sounds good, buddy, I'll wrap it up.
Speaker 2:Thank you all for listening to this episode of Back to Basics on the Business Edge, brought to you by Feliciano School of Business at Montclair State University. We hope you enjoyed this episode. It's just Mo and I here. If you have any suggestions for future episodes or any feedback, we'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1:And thank you to the team again. We appreciate everything you guys do. Thank you very much.
Speaker 2:Awesome group here.
Speaker 1:Thank you everybody, take care, we'll see you next time. Thank you, take care, see you.