Avoiding the Danger of a Narrow Mindset: How to Expand the Reach of Your Own Mind

Build your abundance mentality and growth mindset, enabling your personal and company growth

Danger with a Narrow Mindset

A growth mindset is commonly seen as positive over a narrow mindset, this we know, but how do you train yourself and learn to have a more open mind? And we all hear more focus is needed with less distractions, so at times that feels like you should narrow your focus, and be more narrow-minded. Let’s start by clarifying this; a narrow focus is different than being narrow-minded. Having a narrow focus is concentrating on a specific area or niche, while being narrow-minded is not seeing the world for what else is out there to consider and being closed to listening, diverse thought, or seeing potential options. If you're narrow minded, you don’t listen, if you’re open minded, you at least will hear and consider things.

As we look at a growth mindset, one benefit is that it lends itself to a compounding effect, while being closed-minded lends itself to one-off success or outcomes with little to no connectivity for future success. With individual work not tied together, compounding is limited and it means, more work with less impact or reach. If you keep an open mind with abundance, you realize compounded returns on your efforts and align your work to build on itself, versus being a one-off piece of work. The power with abundance lies in your ability to have an open mind to keep your options and potential open, not get pinned down negatively by restrictions, and abundance allows you to consider opportunities, allows you to reach your goals within your focus, all by having an open mind.

Compounding Your Work & Expertise

I understood the power of compounding from a mathematical and financial sense, but I’ve completely underestimated the power of compounding when it comes to learning and development, and building on ideas. Considering the impact, the response, the feedback and the opportunity that comes from putting yourself out there and sharing something significant with others, there is truly a powerful impact, especially with content, in this attention economy. I saw everything as individual bits of information, but now realize how interconnected everything really is. I can confidently say I have learned more in the last 17 months from a content perspective, compared to any time in my career, outside of a couple of key jumps in my career. The power of compounding occurs any time you can find interconnectedness across the work, which has a way of catapulting your ideas, reach, connections, and impact.

I am covering this topic now, because whether it comes to honing your craft, or whether you’re building something you’re passionate about, you’ve got to jump in and do it. And that’s where it gets a lot of people, is where faith and the lack of a guaranteed success, along with the notion of having to work hard at something, with no guarantees, and requiring faith that you will earn something from your efforts. The only guarantee is your commitment to consistency, and the time varies for all based on circumstances. There’s so much that goes into building something special, whether that be your current role in business, a creative endeavor, your own brand, or business, but you have to go all in and know that it may never pan out the way that you have seen others succeed, but that’s how you find that thing. Your thing. Don’t worry, going all in on something and if it’s not working out, it sounds terrible, but that is what will lead you to find your thing. Small step, right? It’s much harder than it sounds if you haven’t faced it to this point.

How to Capture Abundance & Growth to Leverage in Work & Business?

To make this operational, you must increase your ability to use these tools by studying concepts and people who showcase these regularly. Position yourself to learn by absorbing and learning this mindset through articles, books, podcasts, and following people to build your circle of development.

Study Key Related Concepts

• Abundance

• Networks Effects

• First Principles

• Performance

• Stoicism

This is not an all-encompassing list, and I have a lot to learn on these and others, but it’s a start to get you going if you need some spark for ideas. Also, develop your influences, and who you spend time with. It doesn’t mean physically or even who you know. It can be through your self-growth journey and what content you take it and pay attention to.

Consider These Popular Mantras

• “Your network is your net worth”

• “If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room”

• “Build your personal board of advisors”

• “Change your habits, change your life.”

• “A man is but a product of his thoughts. What he thinks he becomes.”
  - Ghandi

(Some of these quotes have so many notable’s tied to them, I won’t attempt to put the correct owner of the original quote for most of these).

Influential Thought leaders Helping Push Beyond Fear

Top 15 Podcasts

A Few Influences - Several notable thought leaders in addition to those below

Matt Gray

Eric Partaker

Sahil Bloom

Patrick O’Shaughnessy - Invest Like the Best (podcast)

This list of influencers will be customized for your own needs. This is included as a reference and I can definitely speak to the value they have provided me, but everyone’s journey is unique in some way.

Opening your mind through an abundance and growth framework opens your knowledge and ability, opening your mind to your own personal value and potential, which creates opportunity and development. Learn to take it all in and sort out truth and perspective from your own lens, evaluating what you see as “truth”. This ability to evaluate truth, also allows you to open up your mind to new adventures, which builds your path for fulfillment and reaching your goals.

Hopefully, this adds a little value to your business or your career. Thank you for reading.

Climb Higher, Raise Your^ROI