By Peter Daisyme
Stanford University psychologist and friend Carol Dweck pioneered the important idea of the mindsets that separate those who get by from those who succeed. Through extensive research, she developed the idea that there is a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. To Dweck, there’s power in the belief that you can improve beyond your existing skills, as she explains in this TED talk.
Over the past two years, I’ve learned how to apply these principles towards my own mindset. I’ve also instilled these ideas in my employees and gained a better understanding of how to truly empower a growth mindset. Here’s what I’ve learned from making this shift.
Fixed Versus Growth Mindsets
I try to focus on a growth mindset because it goes beyond fixed traits or talents. It seeks further development of one’s existing abilities through hard work and commitment.
The growth mindset can be applied to almost anything, from children in school to personal and career development. As an entrepreneur or business owner, you can apply the concept of a growth mindset to take your company to the next level by further developing your and your employees’ abilities.
In revisiting her research, Dweck further explained that a growth mindset goes beyond making extra effort. Getting praise is nice, but could actually inhibit you from further learning. While hard work is an important ingredient for this mindset, there are other necessary actions, including trying new strategies and considering input from others when there you encounter barriers.
Learning From Setbacks
Personally, I’ve learned to take risks outside of my comfort zone with my strategic marketing decisions. This has not always led to success but has taught me new ways to look at my target audience through the reactions I received from the new tactics. When I first tried using social media platforms to communicate with my audience, for example, I wasn’t sure it would work because I’d always relied on traditional marketing channels and felt they did what I needed. However, once social media started delivering new information about my prospects, my understanding grew and I was able to push the business further than if I’d stuck with my tried and true methods.
A core idea is to get over the fear of failure and learn from setbacks. You can’t blame your environment; instead, determine how a situation can be actively changed. A growth mindset focuses on this approach to short and long-term experiences as well as assesses what happened during each event to see if there was a lesson to be learned.
In her research, Dweck showed that all of us have elements of both mindsets. Therefore, knowing what’s needed for a growth mindset can help us acknowledge to what degree we need to change.
Applying a Growth Mindset to Your Business: Embrace Failure, Take Risks
With this idea as the foundation, the next step is to determine how to apply the growth mindset to your business. As an entrepreneur, you’re already putting in tremendous effort, but working around the clock is not be the only way to apply a growth mindset to your company. The next level is to embrace the failures you experience along the way and learn from situations where you fell short.
While some risks for growth’s sake have worked, I’ve still failed along the way — including business ideas that I spent time and money developing only to find out there wasn’t an interested audience. It was disappointing, but this failure taught me to do more research prior to spending so much time and money on a startup. It also helped me learn more about my audience and what they really wanted from a product or service.
As Dweck explains in this interview, a growth mindset also forces you to change your priorities because you start looking for specific experiences that push you to try something new. In some situations, I had to change the course of my business because what I learned showed that the company was not going to remain relevant or sustainable on its current trajectory. If I had stuck with the fixed mindset, that course correction may have never occurred.
When I entered the online marketing business many years ago, it was relatively unknown. Instead of approval, people seemed confused and didn’t think I was going anywhere. If I had focused on their doubt, I never would have taken the risk of starting a business that is now the norm. Similarly, how would any of the disruptive products and services that are now dominating the market have been developed had those business owners not deployed their own growth mindsets?
Peter Daisyme is a special adviser to Due, a payments invoicing company helping small business owners transact money online. He’s been a CPA for the past 18 years. He recently sold his previous company Hostt.
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