Mindset book from Carol S. Dweck helps to understand mindset types and how it works in sports, business, relationship and how to tune our ways of working with life. The book provides a lot of facts, research references which makes this book more credible and to be taken seriously, but on the course, it has become an adult read. But how do we introduce it to kids? or make a joyous read to understand the same? How can we embody the value of wisdom? This blog provides a short direction for the same, with some facets of my life, letting you know how I did discover this path.
On one fine day, my manager at work with some random thought wanted to bring in some inspiration to our team and bought some self-help books and gave it to each team members. That is how I got introduced to the book "The Present". while the book is a very good read. I wanted to check out what other books my manager gave the team and also checked out books from the same author and figured out the most popular book from Spencer Johnson "Who moved my Cheese?". It is a damn good read when compared to "The Present" but now I consider the ideas delivered by both books to be equally important in life. I can proudly say I did receive the most critical book "The Present" rather than others.
Given the short story of my life from the past, recently I came across "Out of the Maze" book from the same author Spencer Johnson. Yes. that is when I realized the correlation between these books and Mindset. I did go on to discover "The New One Minute Manager" & "The Secret" books by Kenneth H. Blanchard, it did strike a chord :)
What are these books about and how do these make a difference?
All these books are 1 or 2 hours read even for the average reader or one who ventures in reading books. They always contain a cooked up story and a simple plot which will help the reader to enjoy the short read and remain in flow without much cognitive strain. The gist and takeaways are summarized at many middle pages, helps to recall and manage the reader to keep up reading despite broken flows.
How mindset books takeaways can be put in place with these books?
Book 1 - The Present
Being in the present is the most important and simplest of the simplest trick to enjoy life - being here and now. The fixed mindset is a biased mindset. At fixed mindset moments we dwell in the depression of the past and remain anxious about the future. The first step to come out these moments is to dwell in the present. We remain more in the present when we remain sportive i.e. when we play a game, when the rules of games are simple and when we encounter failure as a stepping stone of learning and embrace it as a normal and it is fine to fail frequently and to laugh at our stupidity of not learning our moves but still willing to struggle hard making improvement. It is a big bang at a smaller scale where we could observe the entire cosmos and study our behaviors. It is better to perceive the rules of the game of life simpler and enjoy life. The "The Present" book directs us towards it with a short cooked up story. A short read to remind us.
While "The Present" book does not only reminds us to live in the present but also provides a slight hint to learn from the past and prepare for the future. When we remain in present, we remain more creative, when we remain creative we remain more constructive when we remain constructive we grow maturity.
P.S. Neo chooses the red pill.
Book 2 - Who moved my Cheese?
Goal setting for future based on past learning, present dwelling remains important. But Are we in control of our Goals? It is we who should set the goals for ourself, but in reality, we are not the only one who got into the turf to live the game of life. The game of life is to persist, resist and accelerate towards our own goal but We live a maze controlled by other players like Minotaur's labyrinth. We live in a maze designed by others, we live in a maze in which goals are set by others and rules are set by others. The book Who moved my Cheese? directs us to understand the rules of the game and not to become lazy when you find the patterns and have excelled few or all rules, it asks us to anticipate the change of rules in the game. A very good story with characters like "sniff", "scurry", "hem" and "haw", The characters spreads in the spectrum of consciousness (ability to live in present with the expansion of ability and visibility) with the different presence of the living in the maze. "Sniff & Scurry" are creative living beings living in the present but are considered dump or with limited intelligence as they don't learn much from the past or prepare for the future. "Hem & Haw" are good learners and considered smart but becomes less creative and constructive over a period of time as the goals at hand become mundane, which put them in the depression of the past and makes them anxious about the future when the maze or rules of game changes. While haw escapes the fixed mindset moment by going back living in present and rediscovering creativity and ready to expand consciousness. Hem remains stupid and mentally retarded with its belief & belief system.
P.S. Neo learns the rules of the matrix.
Book 3 - Out of the maze
Who is in control of our goals? Is it others? No, it is we, it is in our minds, it is in our belief. We fail to realize this. Our belief system creates a mirage. We will not be able to come to our mirage belief until we work hard employing creativity and constructively building our strategy and tactics. We have to go back to our present and live life slowly expanding our consciousness gaining maturity and rewiring our belief system to include new learning. The book "Out of the maze" is a good read calling out loud to help "Hem" of Who moved my Cheese? story to change the game plan by changing perspectives. We live in one game - The game of life. But there is lot much smaller cosmos dwelling in the bigger cosmos and lot more games within games. Each game has its own rules, the choice is ours to choose which game to play and play. With our increasing consciousness and maturity let us choose games which will increase much more consciousness and maturity thereby living a meaningful life.
P.S. Neo completely understands the Matrix.
Book 4 - The New One Minute Manager
While we expand our ability and visibility we become a leader in the game. A leader is a more mature and conscious person and others seek his/her help to play the game smaller or larger. "The New One Minute Manager" book helps the leader to build on top of "managing oneself" ability to build "manage others" ability. Trust and benevolence become most important than developing one own ability. Time is most critical in the game of life. Our life is ephemeral. The very quick we gain trust and become trustworthy saves a lot of time. "The New One Minute Manager" call out to quickly build trust by sharing the game plan "one-minute goal - To avoid complaining, to create & understand problem and work towards solution", "one minute praising - To catch them when they are right", "one minute redirect - To correct mistakes on solving problem" and goes beyond to help understand not only the game of life but also the games within the game of life.
P.S. Neo meets the Oracle and understands he is the one and he is redirected to fall in love.
Book 5 - The Secret: What Great Leaders Know and Do
In the game of life, leaders also fail. Actually, in leadership, everything rises and falls, failures & successes become normal, learning alone persist. we as leaders should go back to remain creative, constructive, avoid resenting about past and anxiety about the future, change perspective to change goals. Let us just remind ourself "In the game of life, let us persist from quitting, resist from giving up, accelerate towards the goal, live in present, learn from the past, prepare for the future."
"The Secret" books call out to S.E.R.V.E
S- See the future & Set goals of yours (not the team).
E - Engage and Enable/develop Team
R - Reinvent Continuously & Challenge Status Quo
V - Value Results & Relationship
E - Embody the Value
To Serve, it is not enough to just learn. We have to Unlearn things. If we are already full of thought with the rules of games, we cannot fill anymore with our new rules at the next abstract level. As a coach "John" from the higher level is introduced to "Debbie - the struggling leader" in "The Secret" book to help her understand about Service and to help her "Unlearn" and "Learn" the rules of games at an abstract level. From my point of view, the abstract level is oversimplified, it is actually completely nonlinear and it depends upon the environment and opportunity set up in the game, only a rigorous practice could help the leader to remain successful. Yet we should not underestimate the power of falsified simplification, they can only help us to gain the momentum from our trampoline jumps to reach higher and higher. The falsified simplification also demands to unlearn and relearn.
The following were revelations from the book,
1. In leadership, everything rises and falls.
2. We cannot tune or grow any team member as we like, as their strength differs.
3. We can get the team members' hands at work but we need to get their heart and head.
4. A leader's hallmark is when he makes another leader.
5. Helping people is the most rewarding part of the leader.
P.S. Neo meets the Architect and understands that it is not his first time he is directed to meet the source. Actually, the matrix has reloaded 5 times already and the matrix has been tuned based on the learning from the earlier version to overcome the anomaly Neo. Neo's new redirection to fall in love saves life & restores peace. Peace is just the consequence of the right & balanced tension in the matrix. The story ends in Peace & slightly hints that in reality everything rises and falls in the game of life ;)
The new books introduced in the blog are so simple and definitely simpler than the blog itself. I am still conceitful and writing blogs with twists and turns to enjoy writing rather than being conscious of the readers. In reality, I should not be conceitedly deceiving myself that I know more, like a child I am reflecting my living. If you are a child like me, likeminded, you will definitely like the blog post. Yet, I demand that you appreciate the beauty of the simplicity in the books revealing great knowledge and wisdom in the simple form of storytelling.
