MINDSET ZONE

“In a very bizarre way, I was lucky to experience the racism because, to me, it made me a whole person.”CB Bowman CB Bowman joins me to share her story, noting the power of a mindset of undefeatability. She discusses how this mindset brought her through everything from her experiences with extreme racism to the time she took an unplanned, seemingly unrealistic trip to Panama to visit her father unannounced. We discuss the flexibility of mindset, and she notes the difference between diversity and inclusion. We also discuss the importance of bringing distinctive perspectives to the conversation. This Week on The Mindset Zone: Why we don’t need to be stuck in a mindset.Overcoming odds through an unbeatable mindset.The importance of pinpointing what needs to be fixed.The prevalence of racism, and the different types of racism.The importance of diversity. The guest CB Bowman is the founder of ACEC, or the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches; the CEO of Workplace Equity and Equality; and was recently selected for the Thinkers50 2021 Coaching and Mentoring Award Shortlist. Resources from this Episode: Connect with CB Bowman: website | LinkedInCB Bowman LIVE! Challenges of the C-SuiteACEC - Association of Corporate Executive Coaches Expand what's possible!

In a previous episode, I spoke about “mindset limitations” as some of the beliefs, conscious or unconscious, that constrain the way we see, think, and feel the world around us. I explore some of my own mindset blind spots around the pursuing happiness fallacy.  Here, I want to focus on the other side of mindset limitations. The term “mindset” in itself has become very popular. If we google the word, we get more than 150 million results. In Amazon’s books, more than 50 thousand results for "mindset" come up - 20 thousand in book titles. On ListenNotes.com, a great podcast search engine reveals 2,432 with “mindset” in the show title. And I’m thrilled to inform you that at the time of this recording, our very own Mindset Zone, is number two on that list. Self-help books, like “The Secret” have popularized the idea that our thoughts are the primary cause of everything. This principle is also core for many high-performance systems. One of my favorites, The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks Than Others Do In 12 Months, Brian P. Moran explicitly argues “It’s important to understand that the results you achieve are a direct byproduct of the action you take. Your actions, in turn, are manifestations of your underlying thinking. Ultimately, it is your thinking that drives your results; it is your thinking that creates your experiences in life.” In sum, the more prevailing perspectives see our mindsets–the way we think, and the beliefs we have–determining what we do and the results we get.  Even the well-researched CBT, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy–a form of talk therapy that has been demonstrated to be effective for a range of problems including depression, anxiety disorders, alcohol and drug use problems, marital problems, eating disorders, and severe mental illness–focuses on changing thinking patterns. A basic CBT technique, originally developed by Albert Ellis, is known as the ABC model, and it assumes our beliefs about a specific event affect how we react to that event, being its goal to help us restructure these beliefs to adapt a healthier response. For instance, you sent an important email out with a proposal that if accepted can help you achieve your goals for your next quarter, but one week has passed and you didn’t get any reply. This can be seen as the Activation event, the A in this ABC model. This situation can lead to negative feelings, emotions, like anxiety, fear, lack of confidence that can lead to procrastination, or inaction. These emotional responses and behaviors are the Consequences, the C in the ABC model. So, the B is at the center of the model and represents the Beliefs that are triggered by A, and are the real cause of C. So, the goal is to change the B, the Beliefs, to change underlying thoughts. So, for example, when you haven’t yet heard back about that proposal, instead of thinking, “How awful! I'm never going to be good at this!” which will most certainly lead to less than optimal feelings, and probably a lack of action. You can disrupt the self-fulfilling prophecy by changing your thoughts. Thoughts. Feelings. Behaviors. It’s easier to use a linear model to describe what is happening when we are trying to change. Yet, we can argue that this linear perspective is too simplistic, and that doesn’t allow us to see the whole multidimensional picture. CBT acknowledges that our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are all interconnected, but most of the time it focuses on changing thinking patterns first as if that was a unidirectional relationship. But if this was the case, gaining a new insight, or becoming aware of a thought pattern would be enough to change our feelings and behaviors, and we painfully live the reality that it’s not that easy. Wouldn’t it be great if an inspiring TED talk was enough to change us?  Yes, it can ignite a spark that leads to change, but usually, there are more moving parts involved in the process of lasting change.

When we hear the words “mindset limitations” we often think about our beliefs, conscious or unconscious, that constrain the way we see, think, and feel the world around us. These beliefs affect our present reality and also impact what we can envision for the future and the possibilities we chose to explore. Often, we are not aware of these limitations. They are mindset blind spots and as such, they are hidden. Sometimes, others can see them, but we don't. It often takes many painful life circumstances to expose them and give us the impetus to change. Visual blind spots are great metaphors for our mindset limitations. When we are driving and look into the side-view mirrors, we know there is a blind spot that remains, a zone around the car that we have to turn our head to see. The eye blind spot is even more amazing. Our eyes have a natural blind spot, the area where the optic nerve exits the eye, that doesn’t have light receptors so, we cannot see any images that fall on that spot. When I first learned about the eye blind spot, I wondered why so many of us never become aware of it. We usually view with both eyes, so one eye sees the information that falls into the other eye's blind spot, and even when we look at something only with one eye, our brain fills in the missing information – our brain tricks us to see what is supposed to be there. Just google “blind spot test” to find easy-to-follow experiments that expose our visual blind spots. It’s truly awe-inspiring how our brain can fill in the information that’s supposed to be there. One of my biggest mindset limitations was the belief that one of the noblest goals in life was to pursue happiness. That was the goal I aspired to and was proud of. I consider myself an optimist by nature, always trying to see the silver lining in people and life circumstances. I focus on the positive, and wholeheartedly embrace the study of positive psychology, speaking about it, teaching it, even doing a podcast where most of the topics are about how to cultivate positivity. I only very recently realized my blind spot around the concept of pursuing happiness.  If I have this as a goal, by definition I'm always pursuing it, and therefore not enjoying, not being fully happy. This is a great strategy to keep detached from feelings, rationalizing everything, and being dissociated from the present moment. When I started to see my own blind spot, I started to see the possibility of choosing happiness at almost every step of the way. Happiness doesn't need to be a goal; it can be a way of being. Choosing to make lemonade out of lemons, adding some sugar (positivity), and enjoying drinking it! Yes, I was doing lemonade before, but not giving myself permission to flavor it or enjoy it. I started to understand why I admired people like Victor Frankl, Nelson Mandela, and the kids playing in the rumbles of a war-destroyed city. I used to ask myself how could they smile? Viktor Frankl survived the Nazi concentration camps, where his mother, father, brother, and wife were all killed. Afterward, he wrote “Man's Search for Meaning,” and created Logotherapy, a form of psychotherapy that is focused on the search for meaning. Several years ago, I had the opportunity to interview Frankl’s grandson, Alexander Vesely, who describes him as a really interesting person, funny and witty, with a positive energy that would fill the room. I truly admire Viktor Frankl’s zest for life and his belief in the potential in us all. Nelson Mandela is another inspiring human being. He spent twenty-seven years in prison fighting apartheid in South Africa. He is known for winning the Nobel Peace Prize and for having a fantastic sense of humor. My own personal hero, my husband’s grandmother, Armen Melikian lived through the Armenia genocide in 1915–only she and her mother in her family of ten survived the killing and expulsion of the Armenian population from Turkey.

Life is two days, and the first we spend waking up. This phrase from a Portuguese song I loved to listen to in the 90s sums up one of my favorite mantras, and like any good chorus, it's worth repeating: Life is two days, and the first we spend waking up. When we become aware of this, what do we do? Do we finally express what we believe and start writing our own scripts, or do we  keep trying to meet other people's expectations? How can we live more fully and more positively  in this world? These are the kinds of questions I ask myself. I'm probably halfway through my journey; I feel alive, and awake, and I’m embracing the freedom of this constraint. What exactly do I mean? Well, at my age–roughly mid-life–I see a lot of people around me lamenting the lost day they spent “waking up.” They feel they’ve wasted time and they carry this attitude into their futures creating more of the same. If you have got one day left, are you going to waste it lamenting the day that is gone? What if you looked at having only one day as a constraint that brings freedom? Yes, constraints can bring freedom. If you’re in the productivity world, then you’ve probably heard about Parkinson's law, the idea that work expands to fill the resources available for its completion. We see this play out very clearly with deadlines. If the deadline is three weeks from now, we stretch out the work. If the deadline is three days from now, we get the project finished in that time frame. A very precise and clear time constraint can be a great antidote to procrastination, perfectionism, or paralysis by over-analysis. No more postponing it into the next day–we just get it done. No more unrealistic standards that keep being updated as soon as we almost reach them. No more overthinking everything, gather all possible information in the universe before you start to implement it. Deadlines are extremely effective because wanting to meet them forces us to manage our anxieties, plan our schedules accordingly, find the courage to do the work and push it out into the world. When we realize that we have spent half of our lives half-awake, we can choose to be more daring and use the limited time we have to do what really matters most. And yes, there are other constraints besides time – money, skills, materials, space, laws, geography, technology, health – and they also can be used to make things happen more effectively and creatively. As the saying goes, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." Or limoncello :) In the corporate world, the Theory Of Constraints or TOC is a well-known management paradigm. It argues that any goal-oriented system has constraints that can be identified and used to improve the overall results. And, many would say that the underlying power of Theory Of Constraints flows from its ability to generate a strong focus on what really matters most. To get back to our lives, we can transform constraints into growth and freedom. Constraints don't necessarily limit us; in fact, they can expand possibilities. More often than not, the problem is not the constraint itself, it’s our reaction to the constraint that results in what seems like a contracted choice. That said, when we learn to change our mindsets around constraints, we can also learn to press the pause button, and choose our response more purposefully. As the quote that Stephen Covey attributes to Viktor Frankl, so well says: "In between stimulus and response there is a space, in that space lies our power to choose our response, in our response lies our growth and our freedom." Back to the chorus: Life is two days, and the first we spend waking up. If you are like me, maybe you wonder, I have had several awakenings in my life, then I find myself awakening again. Don't I ever learn? Be gentle with yourself. We are always learning and hopefully always awakening to new possibilities–new opportunities to press the pause ...

All you need is love. You hear these words and you think of the famous Beatle's song. Relax, I will not start singing it. I have many talents but singing is not one of them. Yet I love to sing when I'm alone. It makes me feel alive and it can change my mood quickly. You probably have songs that make you smile, others that make you sad, others that energize you or relax you. Music is powerful, and often it affects us without our awareness. When we are watching a movie, we are not necessarily aware of the soundtrack but it totally makes the experience. Back in the day, I bought many movie soundtracks to replay some of the emotions and feelings of the movie. “Eye of the Tiger" from Rocky...can we even count how many workouts that song has helped? During my teens and twenties, I used to listen to music daily. I would wake up with my alarm radio synced to my favorite rock station. I would have music playing in the background as I was getting ready for the day, while driving, or relaxing. So often I danced or exercised to the sound of music. When my heart was broken I would cry listening to Sinead O’Connor’s "Nothing Compares to You" and bring myself back together again singing along at the top of my lungs (alone) to Gloria Gaynor's "I will survive." When my daughter was born, I rocked her to sleep to old lullabies and Portuguese folk songs that I didn’t even know I remembered. But, recently, I became aware that I don't listen to music that often anymore, and that made me sad. I don’t want to live my life like a movie without a soundtrack. I want the full experience. Music can make us feel alive. Music can help us heal our feelings, even our minds.  Music therapy, anyone? Music can lift us up when we need it most, it can energize us, help us process emotions, and yes, shift our mindsets too. After thinking about this for a while, I watched a TED talk about music and emotion through time, where Michael Tilson Thomas traces the development of music from ancient times until today, and he says something that really captured my imagination. I’m going to read from the transcript: “And the chords, it turned out, were capable of representing incredible varieties of emotions. And the basic chords were the ones we still have with us, the triads, either the major one, which we think is happy, or the minor one, which we perceive as sad. But what's the actual difference between these two chords? It's just these two notes in the middle. It's either E natural, and 659 vibrations per second, or E flat, at 622. So the big difference between human happiness and sadness? 37 freakin' vibrations.” End of quote. Small shift, big impact. So, lately, I started organizing playlists on Spotify. I have one titled “Memory lane” with songs that take me back in time, almost like a time machine. Another playlist is for bi-neural music like Hemi-Sync aimed to produce a state of coherence between the left and right brain hemispheres that we can use to facilitate deep relaxation, focused attention, deep sleep, meditation or other desired states. Or “Power songs” – my list of music to lift me up, songs from  Elton John’s “I’m Still Standing” to “Firework” from Katy Perry, and “Happy” from Pharrell Williams. This playlist also includes a very special song I’ve created with an amazing singer-songwriter from Canada, Lowry. He has recorded 9 albums and along with hundreds of his own songs, has co-written hundreds of songs with other people, individually and in groups. Honestly, until I met him, I didn’t even think about the possibility of writing a song. I want my life to have a great soundtrack. Of course, we can select from thousands of great songs already out there in this universe, but there is something magical about the process of creating our own. I believe that at a certain age, we have to make a choice: Do we finally express what we believe and start writing our own scripts,

Are negative emotions always bad? What are negative emotions? When something stirs us up in an unpleasant way, we can call it a negative emotion. We feel sad, fearful, mad. Let's think about situations that cause us to be fearful. Usually, it's something that can put us in danger. I remember many years ago, in a group adventure, we went rock rappelling. For those of you who don't know or who have never tried rock rappelling, you lower yourself down the side of a cliff using ropes. If done with care, it's quite safe. Anyway, we ended the day at this natural pool that you could jump into or rappel down to.    Oh, boy, when I looked downwards, I was afraid, and I asked myself: "Are you really sure you want to do this?" I understood the fear as self-preservation, I managed to rationalize it, and I jumped. It was terrific falling into the refreshing water–what a contrast between the fear and the joy! A radical emotional shift within seconds. Now let's consider a more common situation. If we are crossing a road, and we suddenly notice a car coming fast. We quickly react out of fear of being run over and bring ourselves to the safety of the sidewalk. We feel our hearts beating fast. We realize how close we've come to danger. We feel fear, a negative emotion that can be a good thing in this type of scenario, even a great thing because it allows our bodies to react quickly to save our lives. Yes, this is an example of how a negative emotion can be good. Fear is there to protect us from danger. The capacity to experience that emotion is there because it helped our ancestors to survive dangers. Negative emotions only become bad when we don't let them go. When we stay stuck in a negative emotional state, for instance, remaining all day long thinking about what could have been? Holding on to this kind of negativity is detrimental to us mentally and physically because we keep that state of high activation going without allowing our body to recover and relax. Consider another situation. Did you ever witness a kid being accused of something they didn't do? Something they consider an unjust accusation. Oh! They can get mad, even have an angry outburst, screaming, crying, kicking. Definitely not a pleasurable experience for anyone involved. Anger has that characteristic of energizing us to fight. For instance, if we witness someone we love (or even a stranger) being mistreated, we feel our heart racing, and we get in action mode to do something about it. In this case, anger can be a good thing. Of course, there are many occasions where anger can lead to awful consequences, such as violence, injuries, and harm. But this happens not because of the emotion itself. More often than not, it's because of how everyone involved reacts to their negative emotions. Let's consider yet another situation–sadness. When we lose a loved one, we feel sad. A totally normal emotion and I will argue, a healthy emotion that just shows how connected we are with significant others, and if those connections are broken, it hurts like hell. But it can also connect us to good memories of that relationship, with all we learn from that person, even energize our determination to keep their legacy alive. In that case, it can be a good thing too. My point is that negative emotions can be a good thing in certain circumstances. Negative emotions are part of our lives, and how we respond to them determines their goodness or badness. Toddlers wear their emotions on their skins. They go from laughing to crying in a New York minute. As we grow older, we can become so good at self-regulating our emotions that we become numb to feeling them. "Thick skin," we call it. But we can sweep too many emotions under the rug, and they will find ways to come out and cause trouble. Or we can reduce our emotional range, which once again can numb us and prevents us from feeling even the good things in our lives.

The power of restart! When your computer starts to misbehave or run slower, common advice is to shout it down and restart it. Many times we resist this advice. We have so much stuff open. We are afraid of missing something. It will take time. And we can go on and on with excuses. But we know that restart can be the most powerful action we can take. So, here I am restarting to record new episodes to the Mindset Zone podcast and rebroadcasting some of our most popular past content. Why did I take this long? What are my excuses? My business got very busy. I had to recover from cancer. We all had to learn how to cope with a pandemic. There are always good reasons. Yet, I'm so grateful for the reminders everywhere about the opportunities to start fresh: a New Year, a new month, a new week, a new day, a new hour, a new minute, a new breath. Why not? We can be equally great in coming up with excuses to restart now. So, what are you delaying to restart?

When I was preparing to interview Jordan Harbinger (now the host of The Jordan Harbinger Show, at the time the host of The Art of Charm podcast), I planned to focus this episode on overcoming blindspots. In fact, I begin by telling the story about my big blindspot in relation to the Top 50 iTunes podcast The Art of Charm that has more than 1.5 million downloads per month. Yet, the conversation with Jordan was so rich that I decided to rename the podcast. I changed it from "Overcoming Blindspots", to "Blindspots, First Impressions and People Skills." It’s about learning the art of charm with - the social dynamics expert and entrepreneur - Jordan Harbinger. We spoke about: My initial blindspot in regards to The Art of Charm podcast Importance of first impressions We can’t prevent people from judging us, yet, we have some control over first impressions How to manage how people perceive us The blank canvas analogy Importance of non-verbal communication Jordan’s blindspots Why Jordan decided to start his podcast more than a decade ago How Jordan learned how to master people skills Importance of the growth mindset The big takeaway is:You can learn people skills, even master them. Also, check:https://www.jordanharbinger.com/

I recorded this MINDSET ZONE episode, on the Fourth of July, Independence Day, in the US. We commemorate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776. This was when the American colonies declared themselves as a new nation, the United States of America, no longer part of the British Empire. Independence can be seen as self-government, self-determination, self-sufficiency, autonomy, and freedom. These are certainly inspiring values to live for. For my father, who passed away 6 years ago, independence was one of his core values. He raised me and always reminded me about the value of being independent. I’m grateful for this. Without doubt, being independent has been one guidepost I hold dear. Yet, I have to admit that when I hold this value above everything else, I limit my possibilities. Why? Because we can achieve much more through team work, than we can only by ourselves. Even in competitive individual sports such as running, swimming, tennis, the peak performers don’t do it alone, they have a team to support them. Steven R. Covey says it best, in his well-known book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: "On the maturity continuum dependence is the paradigm of you—you take care of me; you come through for me; you didn’t come through; I blame you for the results.Independence is the paradigm of I—I can do it; I am responsible; I am self-reliant; I can choose.Interdependence is the paradigm of we—we can do it; we can cooperate; we can combine our talents and abilities and create something greater together.Dependent people need others to get what they want.Independent people can get what they want through their own effort.Interdependent people combine their own efforts with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success." Where do you place yourself on this continuum scale? After my thirties, and now in forties, I'm finally moving towards interdependence with my family and as an entrepreneur. This allows me to enjoy everyday life more and achieve better results. I thrive through Interdependence :) Love to read your comments.

In this episode, I had the pleasure to interview Monique Y. Wells. Monique is a productivity expert, and loves to coach women entrepreneurs who want their businesses to support their ideal lifestyles. Monique writes regularly for the Huffington Post. There she published recently a three-article series where she interviewed several entrepreneurs in the "expert arena” - coaches, consultants, authors, speakers, online marketers – about their experiences of six or seven figure business growth. This interview focused on mindset shifts around productivity, balance and entrepreneurship (namely what usually happen for the solo-preneurs to be able to survive the start-up phase, and grow their business to the six or seven figure mark.) In our conversation we spoke about: What Is Productivity?Productivity Is More Than Getting Things DoneNew Definition of BalanceProductivity Mindset Shifts in Entrepreneurship: From Start-Up to High 5 Figures From High 5 figures to 6 Figures, and Beyond "If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."-  Old African Proverb Links:Click here for Monique Y. Wells three-article series published on the Huffington Post: Learn more about Monique Y. Wells at MakingProductivityEasy.com