00:08 Hi, I'm Denise Simpson, a master life and leadership coach who helps women step into their authentic and feminine power so they can lead like visionaries, influence with grace, and create a legacy of contribution and service. You'll hear about real leadership clients with real problems navigating their success in life, business, and career. If you're ready to become a masterful leader, then this podcast was made for you. So let's get started.00:46 Dear Leader, I am so excited you're here. I am about to share with you a portion of a recording that I did inside the institute. Listen, last week was fantastic for my clients. What we did was we rerecorded the signature course inside the institute, and it is called The Path of Masterful Leadership. It was so impactful, it was so powerful. It showed my clients exactly where they are on the path of mastery. Here's what's really interesting. You are on a climb. Now, you're probably saying, but wait a minute, Denise, I'm, I'm climbing. What am I climbing right now? Listen, you are climbing a mountain, a mountain. It could be, uh, the mountain to your four year degree. It could be the mountain to your terminal degree. It could be the mountain to the C-suite. But listen, you are on your path to summit. You're not there yet.01:44 You are somewhere along the mountain. Some of us are further along. Some of us just started the climb. And so you are on a mountain, my darling, and we are going to support you on the climb. So if you look in your past, you have climbed many mountains. You have summited many peaks. You, my friend, have evidence of mastery in different areas of your life. And now my friend, you are on a new one. And this mountain right here may not feel as easy as those last mountain tops. Maybe you're not enjoying the journey. There may be some agony, there may be some personal sacrifice. There may be some painful moments along this climb, and it's different and it feels different. And maybe you don't have transferrable skills that you've earned from the other summit you have accomplished. Maybe this is a new venture. Maybe it's a new goal.02:47 For me, entrepreneurship is the new mountain I'm on now. Listen, I've been on this mountain for a few years, so it's not new, but it's not like the other mountains. I have summited. I've summited many and have been very successful. And now that I am in this entrepreneurial space, this darn mountain feels like Mount Everest for me. And I am on that climb and I am always looking for support. I have Sherpa's that have helped me along the stages of my journey. Sometimes I take 10 steps forward to maybe take five steps back. Sometimes I am, you know, I've got a lot of momentum and I'm climbing that sucker really quickly. And then sometimes I have to take a break. And maybe it's a few weeks, maybe it's a few months. But that's the beauty of what we get to do inside the institute. And so we support you no matter where you are on your path of mastery.03:41 So take a listen to this latest recording. This is on the principles of mastery. Embody these principles, put them into your neurology. Start practicing them every single day. And then my friend, you will have a much easier time on your climb. We're here to support you inside the institute. Take a listen, enjoy this episode, and I hope to see you inside the institute. Take good care. All right, my friend, we are ready to talk about the five principles of mastery. We are so excited to introduce to you the work of Dr. Carol Dweck. She's an American psychologist who has revolutionized the field of mindset, especially mastery and mindset. And we are going to talk about five principles that we want to adopt, that we want to consider inside the institute. And the first one is one that we've heard for a very long time, especially for those of us in personal development and professional development.04:43 We talk so much about the growth mindset. Well, here's what's really interesting. She talks about the differences between growth mindset and fixed mindset. So let's take for example, a leader that you may know, a parent you may know, a leadership figure in your community who may have a fixed mindset. What does that even look like? This looks like somebody who is close-minded to ideas. This is someone who may be functioning in an era that served them best. I'm not talking about generational leadership. I have a peer friend of mine who does extensive work on leadership in different generations. And that has proven not to be true. It depends on the individual. So this individual may have a mindset that's stuck in an era that hasn't caught up to our present way of leading. So a fixed mindset may also look like a leader who you turn to for ideas.05:57 You turn to for innovation. You want somebody that you wanna bounce off ideas with. You want creativity stirred up. And this is a person who doesn't have the capacity to think forward, to think past their present circumstances. We have leaders that turn away from innovation, they turn away from creativity, and then they find you as a threat because you're coming in with lots of great ideas. And so they shoot you down. They say, I don't think so. That's not how we do things around here. You know, this is how we've done it for years. Don't you see it's worked in the past. Don't you see all the success we've had? But you're coming into the institution or the organization with a fresh pair of eyes saying, ah, no, actually, uh, that's wonderful. However, because I've noticed some patterns today and I noticed that there are some things that are changing.06:54 There are some things that we wanna keep up with. There are some things that we may want to consider because we may be obsolete very soon. So here are some ideas I wanna present to you and this leader, because he or she has a fixed mindset may say, no, that's not what, that's not how we do things around here. Yeah. And then they deem you the disruptor. Yay, you disruptor . So this is somebody who has a fixed mindset. This is somebody who you know is gonna shoot down any of your ideas. Now listen, we have some people in our personal lives that have a fixed mindset. It's interesting because, you know, I have, um, children who are very much disruptors, , uh, who don't want to do what we say, don't want to listen to what we have to say. And you may have that same experience where you may have a disrupter child who is saying, I don't think so. I don't think you're that smart mom. I don't think you're that bright dad.07:57 But there's some things that I learned from you and there's some things that I'll take. But you know what, uh, you're not keeping with the, with the trends. You're not keeping with the current motion, the current motion of forward thinking, the current, current motion of innovation. I mean, listen, these kids today are so disruptive because they see their parents as status quo. But social media and society is saying, no, keep going, keep going. We got more for you. Let's go, let's go. And so everything that comes outta your mouth is, uh, obsolete to them. So a fixed mindset just looks like somebody who shoots down your ideas and you can start noticing their patterns, especially if you're in a, in the workforce, in the, or in the organization. You can look at those in your department. They, they could be peers, they could be subordinates, they could be your leader and start noticing their behaviors when it comes to innovative ideas or anything that is different than what the institution or the organization does.09:09 So I was a chair of a community college many moons ago, and I had to present a very provocative idea, very disruptive one to my board of trustees. And there they were. I think there was only one woman at a table of 12 board of trustees. And you know, the one woman, uh, I thought, I thought in my head, oh, we're women. Oh my gosh, she's gonna be on my side. She's gonna hear my ideas and she's gonna love it. That was not how naive I was. Of all of the board of trustees, there was one who said, wow, actually that's a very interesting idea and I think we can, let's explore that here. Let's explore more about that. So there I was defending the idea there. I was answering all of their objections there. I was negotiating with them, really is what I was doing.10:04 And I finally got enough votes to get that idea approved. It was a policy that I changed. And let me tell you something. If it wasn't for that one person who had a growth mindset, who said, whoa, there is evidence that there's, there's some wrongdoing here. There's evidence that this person is presenting us with and maybe maybe to avoid legal troubles. Why don't we entertain this today? And guess what? He was an attorney and he's now the mayor of that town that I worked in . And so he was coming to this approach with the growth mindset of, whoa, if we keep at this, we are gonna be in trouble as a community college district. And so things were changed because I came forward, I was brave enough to say disruption needs to happen. And here's how. And I pleaded my case. I gave enough evidence that somebody on that board had had growth mindset already.11:10 And he was already thinking, ah, yeah, you just painted a picture of the future that could be really scary for us. Wow. It was so compelling to him that it shook his neurology. And so he then, uh, encouraged the board to move forward with, with voting for, um, this policy change. So interesting growth mindset versus fixed mindset. Growth mindset is just a complete opposite. You are open to receiving, uh, criticism, feedback. You are open to receiving ideas, innovative ideas. You are looking to, to, to look at the past and those trends that, that your employees have identified. Cuz you may have blind spots and you didn't catch some of these things. And maybe an employee came to you and said, you know, I came from so-and-so's industry, you know, I worked at that other organization, you know, a and now that I'm here with you and you know, I've been studying trends for a little while and I, you know, I've been here for a g a a hot minute.12:16 Um, what you all have been doing, it is, it's worked fantastic, but what if we tweak it slightly? What if we add something to it? What if, and the growth mindset leader says, Hmm, well that's interesting. Okay, well, you know, I don't, I don't know much about this idea you're presenting me with, but I'm open to listening to more. That's somebody with a growth mindset. So Carol Dweck has, uh, uh, revolutionized the way we look at mindset. And so I'm adapting this into the leadership context for us. So growth mindset versus fixed mindset. So the growth mindset will carry us through any journey. So if we are challenged, if we are faced with an obstruction, if we're faced with objections, if we're faced with something on our path that, that, you know, we get stuck on the growth mindset, keeping your neurology open despite all of your bias and your negative beliefs, keeping it open to ideas.13:25 So you may be right now thinking, but Denise, I I'm, I'm actually very fixed. I'm a fixed mindset person. How do I move into growth mindset? All you have to do is ask yourself, how will this idea better serve my people or better serve my employees or better serve my clients? That's the only thing you have to answer. That's it. It's not about shaking you up so hard, like you have to be a growth mindset leader. No, it's just a matter of opening yourself up to ideas and asking, okay, it's not about me because I think it's a really negative idea. I think it's really a crappy idea, but it's not about me. How could what this employee is sharing with me, or this idea that I'm listening to, or this book that I'm reading, how could this actually better serve me, my community, my employees, my children, my constituents?14:23 How could it better serve them? That's it. And so that just removes all of your bias and all of your limiting beliefs. Great work, right? Growth mindset. Okay? So that's number one. Principle number one. The second thing Carol Dweck talks about is the difference between learning goals versus performance goals. Let's start with the performance goals, because many of you on here have a lot of formal education. , many of you on here have, um, been measured based on your performance. And we do this in formal education, right? We're doing this every single day in the school systems. We are assigning a performance measure by grades, right? We even have those standardized tests in the school district. And so a performance goal is, I wanna get an A or I want a 4.0 on my gpa, right? So that's a performance goal. A learning goal, however, is the actual accomplishment of something.15:25 It's what we're doing on the summit where as we summit the mountain. So that is the learning goal. So here's an example. So let's say you're learning French, you're in a French class and you get an f ooh, big fail, right? However, your learning goal is that you're speaking French. You actually have enough French to start a conversation in France, , that's a learning goal. And so what Dr. Carol Dreck says is, let's focus more on the learning goals. This is what we should be focused on, on not so much the performance goals where somebody else is having to measure us. Because that leads to frustration, it leads to overwhelm, it leads to giving up. And so a learning goal is what we get to do here on the pursuit of mastery. So the third principle is the helpless response person versus the mastery oriented person.16:31 Okay? So how many of us know someone in our lives who reacts, uh, with tantrums, maybe reacts with their hands in the air saying, forget it, I just can't do it. I just quit. How many of us know people this way? Our children may be this way, our leaders may be this way, our employees may be this way. They have this helpless response attitude, right? Something goes wrong and they're, their hands are in the air and they're kicking and screaming. I'm done. And listen, I've done that a few times, , I've done that, especially on my journey of, uh, weight training. I, uh, early on as I was building the habit of lifting weights and, and, and challenging my muscles, and really in this faith of discomfort, I remember so many times getting after my personal trainer, like, you should know better. You should know. I can't do this. I'm not sure why you're giving me all this weight. Why aren't you stepwise doing a stepwise motion here? Why are you just flinging me into the deep end of this pool? I can't do this. And there was so many times he said, Denise, just relax. , do your best.17:41 I mean, here I was like a hot pepper. And this guy was like a tall, uh, you know, drink of milk. He like, shg this and relax, . So I had a helpless response, especially when, you know, when you're frustrated and you're overwhelmed. And some of us are on the verge of burnout. And so we, we have these responses, a helpless response. And so Carol Dweck says, no, if you're on that path to mastery, right? You're on that mountain, my friend, and we're reaching the summit, how about we look at mastery oriented response instead? How about we look at it as well, this is part of the process. Discomfort is part of this journey. Failure most definitely is inevitable here. So that is the mastery response, mastery oriented response that we wanna have as we are on this journey. So that was number three. Number four is not taken from Dr.18:42 Carol Dweck. Actually number four is taken from Dr. Angela, uh, Duckworth. Uh, Dr. Angela is somebody who has done a great deal of, of work in grit in the study of grit. And she has an amazing book called Grit, the Power of Passion and Perseverance. And so she wants to tap into your passion. She wants to tap into your why. Why are you even on this journey? Right? What does that summit represent? And she talks about the ultimate concern. The ultimate concern is what's, what's on that summit? What you, what the pinnacle is on that mountain, that peak that you are reaching? What is the ultimate concern? And she talks about the ultimate, ultimate concern in this way. She says, once you have committed with your passion, you'll persevere because it'll now become your ultimate concern. I mean, think about it. Think about the words ultimate concern.19:36 I am ultimately concerned about reaching this goal. But here's what's so cool about this theory, is that she says, when you decide and you commit with your passion, your life will organize itself around the ultimate concern, which is exactly what happened. When I decided and committed to getting a PhD. It was a, it was a, it was a long process. It was a, it was a, it was several years , a lot of commitment, a lot of sacrifice that I thought needed to happen at that time. And my entire life organized itself really to accommodate the ultimate concern. And that looks like organizing your life based on time, based on boundaries, based on saying no to things that were going to require extra focus and attention, right? Extra, you know, projects at work, extra committees that you, you know, would have joined. But because this ultimate concern is, is organizing its life around this one goal, this one summit, the whole life, your whole life says, okay, well, let's just move some parts here and let's make this work.20:56 And so great work, uh, that Dr. Angela has done for us in the field of grit, and you, my friend, have so much grit. Start looking at the past for evidence of your grit and your perseverance and your res and your resiliency. Start looking at all of those mountains that you have climbed, all those peaks, all those summits. Start looking at the evidence for your grit. Okay? And so now we're on a new mountain, right? Some of what you have mastered in these other summits, you can transfer to this one. Sometimes it's completely different. Like for me, when I went from, from academia, from higher education into entrepreneurship, I'm like, none of that is transferrable. And I kind of had that, that helpless response that Dr. Carol direct talks about. I'm like, forget it. My hands were in the air. I'm like, there's no way I can do entrepreneurship.21:52 I, I, somebody give me the blueprint, somebody give me the map. Somebody tell me about the terrain ahead. I can't do this. I can't summit by myself. I can't do this alone. This is a new mountain. I don't have no, I know nothing about entrepreneurship. And so here I was looking in my past saying, but you know, hold on, Denise, you did do that and you did do some of that. Maybe some of that may work right here. Isn't that interesting? And so then my nervous system calmed down. I'm like, okay, relax, relax. We'll take this one day at a time. You know, those mountains that you've climbed before, they were hard. They were really challenging. And guess what? You did it. And so here we are on this new mountain, and I'm building mindset. I'm building skills. I'm honing some skills that I brought from those, those summits.22:46 And now I'm honing them here. I'm using them. I'm cultivating new skills that I've never used before, and I'm also strategizing and executing, and I'm also creating very healthy habits that are supporting me on this climb. Actions that I take are very different now because they're driven by a thought that is going to propel a powerful emotion so that I can move forward taking one step at a time on that climb. So this new mountain I'm on, it's not, it's not new, it's not, it's not new. It's, I've been on here for a few years, but this mountain I'm on is requiring a whole lot more than I've ever given to these other summits. And that's okay. So you may be in the same boat as me. So you, my friend, have grit, you have purpose, you have passion, and you're going to persevere up that mountain.23:42 So you and I are going to reach summit because of these principles of mastery. So let's wrap this up with number five. Number five is mastery is a never ending process of becoming better. This is why you have evidence of all of these summits. This is why you have been on many mountains before, because it is a never ending process of becoming better. You have too much ambition to, to bottle it up somewhere and put it on a shelf and say, well, you know, expiration day is like tomorrow. Uh, forget it. No, you have limitless ambition. And so you want more, you want better. That's what disruptors do. We're we're, we're challenging ourselves, just like we're challenging society and we're challenging the culture in our organizations. This is, this is why you are here. Because you are always looking to better yourself, to better your community, to better generations, to come, to better your descendants, to better your workforce.24:42 You are always on a never ending process of becoming better. Why not? Why not? I don't wanna be the same person I was three weeks ago. I don't wanna be the same person I was when I was a child. There's some things that I'm taking that are so powerful. They are strong, they are rituals, traditions in my culture that I will always be, be blessed with, and I will take into the future with me. But there's some things that I wanna leave behind. There's some things that are more destructive than disruptive. And I wanna leave what has been destroying my life, my community, my organizations, my workforce. I'm gonna leave that there, because now, because of this guiding principle of always becoming better, I'm now going to find different ways to support my culture. I'm gonna find different ways to support my family. This is a never ending process, and this is just a mindset that I carry.25:45 So my friends, these are the five principles of mastering. Listen, I know it's a lot to take in, but these are the five principles that I thought were the best fit for us disruptors. So I want for you to watch this video as often as you can. And I want for you to find ways to practice these principles, to start embedding them in your daily life, in your leadership practice. So whether you are a leader in an organization, a leader of your family, a leader in your community, or a leader in your business, these are five principles that will serve you on your journey of mastering. All right, my friend, I hope you enjoyed our time together and I look forward to serving you on the next video. Hey, leader, do you want weekly leadership tips, coaching and training straight to your email inbox? Yeah, I thought so. Head over to dr denise simpson.com/leadership. Again, that's dr denise simpson.com/leadership. Just submit your name and your email address and we'll get started right away. I look forward to serving you inside your email inbox. See you soon.
