How Your Mindset Can Influence Your Business

A mindset is a frame of mind that influences how you see things and guides you in making decisions. Do you prefer to stay safe and stick with the processes you know, or are you constantly searching for new ways to improve and innovate? As a leader, you may think that your mindset only affects you as an individual. In reality, there are many ways your mindset can impede or inspire your business success.

Mind Your Mindset

There comes a time in life when we become set in our ways. Our personalities solidify and we assume that we have learned all that we can learn. As the idiom goes, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” This may have been true in the olden days, but with easy access to information today, there is no excuse not to progress with time. 

Let us compare two of the most common mindsets. The first is the fixed mindset. With the fixed mindset, success is determined by individualistic factors—you feel accomplished when your business makes money and your brand becomes known. You focus on production as a means to profit. When faced with competition, you feel threatened and fear failure.

Next is the growth mindset. With the growth mindset, success is also individualistic. However, you spend a little more time thinking about how you can accomplish more through increasing productivity and mastering certain skills or techniques. Instead of being threatened by the success of your competitors, you try to learn from them and better yourself 

Clearly, the growth mindset is more conducive to personal development and business agility. That said, there is a third and lesser-known mindset: the benefit mindset.

People with a benefit mindset view success as an individual achievement but care equally about the benefit to the collective eco-system at the same time. They seek to meaningfully contribute to the lives of their employees, their clients, and society. These people are most likely to reach their full potential and become leaders with a strong sense of purpose.

You Get What You Give

The energy that you bring to your business makes a considerable difference to your success. In feng shui (Chinese geomancy), business owners often place mirrors in front of their shopfronts to reflect bad energy. Unfortunately, this does not work when the negative energy that comes from the leader of the business themselves.

If you have a fixed mindset that resists personal growth, your managers and employees will adopt the same attitude. They will fear change and shy away from challenges. Some may even feel that it is pointless to speak up when they have good observations or suggestions. Many businesses that have leaders with fixed mindsets end up becoming stagnant and outdated.

In contrast, when you enter your business with a growth or benefit mindset, your team members feel a sense of positivity and meaning. They feel that there is room for development and growth—both for the company and themselves as professionals. They believe in effort, persistence, and making a difference to others. This energy will propel your business forward.

The ideals of a leader trickle down throughout the entire organization. Whether you believe in the law of reciprocity or the law of attraction, you must set an example by embracing change and progress. Only then can you lead a team of agile and innovative problem-solvers who are ready to take on the modern world.

Focus, This Is Important

While you cannot control everything that life throws at you, you can control how you react to adversity. You are bound to have high and low periods throughout your success journey, and a positive mindset will allow you to command and conquer every time. Keeping your eye on the eventual prize enables you to stay resilient when faced with setbacks.

It is also important that you become comfortable with taking risks. Instead of approaching challenges with fear and negativity, a growth mindset will help you to persevere and become stronger. If you find it hard to change your mindset, consider taking a Secure Methodology course that will teach you how to reprogram your mind and become a better leader.

The ability to communicate your mindset is likewise an essential skill for a leader. There is a reason why memorable speeches from leaders such as Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King, Jr. are still rousing today. As the head of the organization, the way you talk to your team members determines whether they get on board with your direction and vision.

Undeniably, the fixed mindset is a comfortable rut to fall into. It is easy to chase after short-term gains and lose sight of your original vision and mission. However, you will have to be content with achieving only a fragment of your true potential. As your business stays stagnant year after year, you lose more opportunities and possibilities of what could be.

Ultimately, the success of your business depends on your personal development as its leader. You must be willing to show up and become the best possible version of yourself before you can ask others to do the same. By adopting a growth or benefit mindset, you can inspire your team to look beyond the mundane and work with you toward the big picture.