Your mindset is perhaps your most precious mental asset, potentially even more valuable than the knowledge, experience, and wisdom you've acquired over the course of your life. Because, regardless of how smart and experienced you are, if your mindset is unsuited for the goals you're pursuing, you risk being blindsided by new realities. And, your mindsets aren't fixed; they can be built and evolved at every stage of your life.
We developed the process of building and strengthening mindsets through decades of applying scientific research to the real-world challenges facing high performers in many areas, ranging from elite athletes and entrepreneurs in start-ups to leaders and their teams in global organisations.
FIGURE 8.1 How to build a mindset
Source: Jean Gomes
1. WHAT DO YOU REALLY WANT?
The process of building a mindset starts by exploring perhaps the hardest question we can ask ourselves – ‘what do I really want from my life?’. The really part of this question is key. It's not the expedient, quick-fix answer, but what the true self wants. In most situations, our immediate response is far from this; more shaped by our unseen assumptions, the expectations of others, habit, history, or context. To successfully build a mindset, the driving force must be a deep sense of purpose, a why for what we're doing. Answering the question pushes us ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month, and much more.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
