Kat: In today's episode, we're going to talk about six
characteristics of a growth mindset.
I'm going to share examples from successful entrepreneurs and
leaders who have exemplified these characteristics, as well as share
some of my personal experiences.
I'm also going to share ways that we can adapt this and share it
to the children in our lives.
So stay tuned.
Hey, my name is Kat.
And I'm Lee.
And welcome to the Wildly Wealthy Life podcast.
In this show, we explore the journey of what it means to live a truly
exceptional and fulfilling life.
Each episode focuses on how a foundation of brilliant minds and
brave hearts nurtured through the arts leads to lifelong success.
Get inspired with actionable tips to foster a growth mindset, leadership values
and creativity in children and adults, turning their potential into lasting
contributions for their communities.
We hope that you embrace the challenge to shift your perspective
as we equip you and the next generation for a wildly wealthy life.
Welcome back.
In the last episode, I talked about the Wildly Wealthy Life Ladder, and it is a
framework that I sort of developed just from reflection on my own experiences
with how I've approached life and what has gotten me to where I am today.
And the first step in that ladder is to The frame and just as a review, you can
watch episode two if you want, but as a review, the frame, that first step is
really where everything begins because your frame, which is your framework, your
frame of mind is what affects everything that you do, how you approach life,
how you approach the world around you, uh, what you believe about yourself.
So this frame is so important that we get this right.
And in the last episode, I talked about how we can either have a fixed
mindset or a fixed frame or an open and a growth mindset or an open frame.
So today, I'm going to take the time to talk about growth mindset.
And because I love acronyms, because it helps me remember things, I
thought about the word growth.
Right?
And first, we kind of have to define what growth means.
And growth, if I look at the literal meaning of growth, it is something that
is increasing, whether that's increasing in value, increasing in capacity,
increasing in size, increasing in number.
It is something that is growing.
And one of the ways we can tell if there is good growth is to look at the fruit.
Right?
So yes, we can increase our capacity in patience.
We can increase our capacity for leadership.
We can increase our capacity to love.
And while all of that is good because it is an increase.
One of the ways that we can really look at is the fruit.
Of the growth.
Is there a good fruit that's coming out of this growth or is it bad fruit?
And one of the ways that we can tell if it's good growth, aside from of course the
increase in value and size and capacity or numbers, is really if there is good
fruit that is coming out of the growth.
So let's talk about G first and G stands for grit and this is grit In
challenges, when I looked at the literal meaning of grit, it talks about the
part of the stone that is adaptive to grinding and the word grinding.
If we dig deeper, it doesn't feel like there's anything good about it because it.
It feels painful, I think about grinding of the teeth, gnashing of the
teeth, my husband he grinds his teeth at night and he wakes up and his jaw
aches because of the effort that it took to grind your teeth in the middle
of the night while you were sleeping.
So when I look at a person and I say, Oh my gosh, that person has so much
grit, it usually means that that person has gone through something difficult.
And a good example here in the business world is Elon Musk and what no matter what
you think about him, uh, the point is he is where he is right now because of his
grit and the challenges that he's faced.
There was a time where they didn't have any more money left, uh, in the bank to be
able to sustain the next round of payroll.
And there was a very specific investor in his company that would
Was actually against Tesla and didn't want to go through with the product.
And he really had to face that challenge with so much grit
and tenacity and push through.
Even when there was such a huge setback and think about their company, they,
they probably need millions and millions of dollars to be able to support the
payroll, the next round of payroll.
But.
He pushed through with grit and now he is where he is right now with Tesla.
And in our lives, I'm sure that you also have a personal experience of
what it means to go through a very tough challenge and really grind
your way through that challenge.
I've had many experiences in my own life.
One of those experiences was my mom having cancer.
Uh, it was a very difficult time.
And people could say that, wow, that kind of faith is
almost like a delusional faith.
And I think that's actually part of grit is having that faith that no
matter what it's going to be okay.
And in my case, in my world, I believe in God, I believe in the power of Jesus.
So to me, it may seem delusional, but I have had a lot of experiences
where I've seen God work in my life.
over and over again.
So I had that grit as a family, as a person, but also as a family
to push through that challenge.
Another example that I have was actually I was auditioning.
This was years ago when I moved to LA, I didn't have a car and I
would take the bus from audition to another audition to another audition.
It was, it was a lot, right?
And it was, it was my dream.
I, I moved to Los Angeles to become a professional dancer.
So I, uh, Auditioned for this print ad and I remember uh, it was raining
really really hard that day in LA and here in Los Angeles We don't
take rain seriously for the most part because it doesn't always rain here.
And then the bus system is really Non existent meaning completely
unreliable late 99 percent of the time.
So I showed up to the audition I was carrying this huge backpack with
my change of clothes for the day because I was going from one audition
to another and I was soaking wet when I showed up to the audition.
My bag was soaking wet.
I still remember it was a Jansport Backpack and everything that
was in that bag was soaking wet.
I didn't have an umbrella.
I was soaking wet I got to the audition with very little time
to spare to even fix myself.
So I said to myself, you know what?
I didn't come all the way here to give up.
Okay, and when I say come all the way here I didn't mean like from bus to bus to bus.
I meant I didn't come all the way here To the United States from the
Philippines to give up just because I got drenched in the rain So I was
convinced that i'm going to step into that audition room and i'm going to shine
and i'm going to make them Love me, so I don't remember exactly what I did.
But all I remember is that I was determined To get through that
audition and make it my best audition that I've ever had and to my
surprise I actually booked that job.
I was in a k swiss print ad if you don't know I don't know if k swiss still exists
in this day, but it's an athletic brand.
And um, yeah, I I booked that job It was my very first print ad
Print ad, uh, here in the States.
And it was at the 17 magazine and it was great.
It was, it was a fun experience.
And had I given up that day just because, Oh my gosh, I look terrible.
I'm soaking wet and there's no way that they're going to love me.
I probably wouldn't have booked that job.
So grit and challenges.
And you know, one of the ways that we can really encourage the kids in our
lives, whether, uh, you're an educator, a parent or a caregiver, right.
Whether you're an aunt, a grandma, a guardian.
Uh, one of the ways we can encourage that is every time they go through a difficult
situation, let's say in school, like, let's say it's just a math problem, right?
Uh, it may seem like that to us, oh, it's just a math problem, but it's
probably really big for them, right?
If they can't get through a math problem and they're really struggling in school,
one of the ways we can really encourage this is just by asking them to break it
down into small steps and encourage them and tell them, hey, you know, it's, you
know, Incredible that you stuck through that even though it's very very difficult.
Just remind them that wow What an amazing thing it is that you actually
stuck with that problem Even though it was challenging for you and that
really teaches them to value the process to value perseverance instead
of instant success the r in growth is reflection Which is reflecting on
your decisions, your actions, right?
And not only reflecting internally, but really actually seeking out feedback
from whether it's a peer, whether it's a director or a boss, or you are the boss.
And feedback from your team members, right?
From the people who are work, who are working with you, and, and, and for you.
Uh, I think that reflection is one of the ways that we can truly grow.
A great example for this is Ray Dalio, who is the founder of
one of the world's largest hedge funds, Bridgewater Associates.
He talks about this thing called radical transparency, and what he does is he
really encourages the people in his company to be completely radical about
everything from the good, the bad, and the ugly, especially the ugly.
I think a lot of times we like.
Transparent we like being vulnerable when it's like a good thing but we don't really
want to show the ugly parts of us or the ugly parts of our company of The way we
run things and he says that it's only when you really are Transparent from the good
the bad and the ugly that the people in your company the team members can come
together and really offer a Objective and the best decision on how to move forward
from an issue from a challenge and I think that that is so wonderful to hear that
from someone who has a huge company and Really encourages that because I think
that that's also how we should uh function in life Of course, we're not saying
hey just welcome every feedback, right?
We have to be also careful about um, the voices and the feedback that's
coming into our lives and that's Part of that is just discernment, right?
It's kind of knowing when a feedback is is good and it's going to help us
grow and when a feedback is completely just You know criticizing us and it's
actually not helping us to grow And one of the ways that we can really instill
that in our kids is kind of prepping them that hey If you're doing something
in school, right whether that's a project for art or or anything else
There might be people that will not like your work And sometimes when they
don't like your work, it depends on the way they deliver their feedback, right?
And sometimes it's not the best delivery.
And even if it's not the best delivery, what we could do is we could just
quiet ourself and ask, Okay, well, that might not be the best delivery,
and that really hurt me, the way they said that really hurt me.
However, is there some truth to what they said?
And if there's any, any validity to what they said, then is there any way that I
can apply that to my work for next time so that I can actually improve my work?
And one of the things that I love as a performer is actually getting notes.
When I perform on stage, my favorite part is always after when the director
or the choreographer tells us, Hey, uh, do this one thing here, uh, change this.
Uh, you can do this one better.
Well, one of the reasons why I like that is one, It makes me grow, two,
makes me feel good that, hey, the director or the choreographer is
watching me, meaning they're interested in, in helping me become better.
And three, if I apply that note, I'm pretty sure that because they are seeing
it from the audience perspective, it's going to help me connect to my audience
more as well, which will essentially make me become a more effective dancer.
And so reflection is truly one of the ways that we can grow our mindset.
And again, not only reflecting internally, but actually seeking it
out the O and growth is optimism, not just any sort of optimism.
I'm not talking about like blind optimism.
You know, everything is just roses and rainbows.
I'm talking about Optimism when you are faced with failure and how do
you reframe your mind so that you can actually Still push past the challenge
with and when I think about the word optimism It is that hope and that
Kind of confidence that something good is going to come out of a situation.
And one of my favorite examples in the business world is Sarah Blakely,
the inventor and founder of Spanx.
If you don't know her, look her up.
I'm pretty sure she's a household name by now because gosh, like
just her success is incredible.
But when she was starting, especially when she's starting with a very new
product, no one has heard of it before.
She's a woman.
Going into all these manufacturers and presenting her product idea to them
She had so many no's and she didn't have any investors to back her up She
started her business with 5, 000 from her savings account and went all in
With this idea that this product is going to take off and she received so
many no's No after no after no from manufacturers saying we don't want to
produce your product and finally she got a yes And the rest is history.
We know her now because obviously she is a multi millionaire billionaire I
don't even know but the point is if she didn't have optimism in the face of
failure if she gave up We wouldn't know her today, and we wouldn't have Spanx.
In my own life.
I had um, I don't think it was really a business failure, but it was a
business failure in a sense that I did not protect myself, uh, in a
partnership that I had, um, with someone.
And I was very young.
I was naive.
I, you know, I trusted.
I had a really good relationship with this guy.
And so I trusted our relationship and we went into business together.
And, uh, you know, long story short, years and years after pouring my heart
into this business, created an entire program, trained teachers and all of
these things, I found out that I'm not actually a business owner and I don't
really have stakes that accompany that.
If I stop working, I would also.
Not receive any more salary, right?
And so that was really heartbreaking for me, a huge heartbreak.
Um, but what I learned from that is I could have buried my head
into the ground and said, Oh my gosh, cat, like, what did you do?
You should have known this better.
I could have blamed myself over and over again for not, you know, protecting
myself for not doing things correctly, not having a contract in place, an
agreement in place, and that was a huge failure for me because that was a big
chunk of my life that I devoted to.
And then all of a sudden.
It's just gone.
And yet, here I am today, still in business, still an entrepreneur.
Yes, I am no longer in that business, but I still push through and everything
that I learned from that, I realized that I got so much out of that experience
and I'm bringing it to what I do now.
And for the children in our lives, you know, it's really important
that we encourage them that, hey, when you make mistakes, it's.
Totally okay.
It is part of the learning process.
It is literally I feel like I say that every day in my lessons with
students is I always tell them mistakes is part of the process.
It's okay to make mistakes.
But what we can do is we can learn from them, right?
And that's a way to kind of frame our mindset to be more positive that
no matter what mistakes we make.
There's always a light at the end of the tunnel.
There's always hope.
There's a confidence that something good is going to come out of that.
Even when it doesn't look like it right now, W in growth is willingness.
And that is willingness to learn.
I believe that one of the ways we can grow our minds is by always being
willing to expand on what we don't know.
There are so many things in the world that we don't know, that
we don't understand, you know.
What they say is, well, you don't know what you don't know.
And I I think it's a very powerful place to be in when you realize that wow There
is still so much more that I don't know even though yeah, i've lived life and i've
learned a lot There's still so much more and one of a great example here is richard
branson founder of virgin group who?
Never had really formal business training But yet because of his
willingness to learn he has been able Successful across many different
fields and with the kids in our lives, one of the ways that we can really
foster this is the love for learning.
I think that as humans, we all have our natural inclinations and as we watch
children grow, we can tell, Oh, this child really gravitates more towards sports.
Oh, this child gravitates more towards musical theater and arts and dance.
And one of the ways that we can really foster the love of learning
for children is by telling them, Hey, I noticed you really love sports.
Of course, I'm going to support you in that, but let's see if we can also learn
something from this other side, right?
Maybe a different activity and it doesn't have to be something that
they're going to do longterm, but maybe it's just something where they
can do it for a little bit so they can foster the ability to ask questions.
Questions, questions like.
Well, I don't really enjoy this doing this particular activity, but what can I learn
and is there anything that I can love?
I can actually develop a love for learning in this particular
subject or topic or activity.
I used to say this a lot.
There's nothing that's boring in life.
And the reason why it's boring is because you're boring and I know that sounds
harsh But it's because of my belief again.
This is my framework.
This is my mindset my belief system It's because of my belief that
there's always something that we can learn we can always find a love for
learning in any Industry in any field.
So I always thought that, okay, I love, you know, arts, movement, music, all these
things, but gosh, if you put me in coding, if you put me in basket weaving, if you
put me in anything else that is completely unrelated to usually what I love doing,
I probably will find something fun in it.
And not just probably I'm actually sure I will find something fun in it because
that's just my belief system I know that whatever you bring in front of me I will
find a way to love to do it because of the love for learning and an example
of that in my own life is really just running a business as someone who runs her
own business and used to not have help.
Now I have help, which is amazing, but gosh, I had to
learn how to make a website.
I have to learn email marketing.
I have to learn how to create my own copy for emails and, and the landing pages.
I have to learn accounting, how to do bookkeeping.
I have to learn.
I hate bookkeeping.
It's one of the worst things for me personally.
Right.
But I have to learn it.
I have to learn, um, how to present myself, how to do sales calls.
I, yeah.
There's just so many things that I had to learn as someone
who's running their business.
And if there isn't a love for learning that has been fostered in me in such
a young age, I probably would have already given up because there's
been a lot of gosh, mental blocks and just learning curves that I had to
go through running my own business.
So if we can establish this and foster this with the kids in our
lives at an early age, that would be something that would really set
them apart as they grow into adults.
The T in growth is team One of the ways that we can grow our mindset is
actually by working together with other people so I really truly believe that
you know, we can't do life on our own I don't think anyone when people say
i'm self made I really don't understand where that's coming from because
nobody is truly self made At some point in your life Someone helped us out.
There's no one that is truly self made.
And I think that team here means that you are able to work successfully with others.
You're able to communicate your thoughts and your ideas successfully with other
people in your team, whether you are someone who's working for someone or you
are the boss and you are empowering your team or you are working with other people.
Other people together as a team.
And one of the ways that we can foster this in our children is
really by encouraging them actually to step in a leadership role.
So let's say a child isn't naturally inclined to lead and
to volunteer, to become a leader.
Maybe we can, you know, just kind of plant seeds of.
Hey, you know, there's a new project coming up in your school this next month.
Maybe you should volunteer.
Maybe you should talk to the teacher and volunteer to be a leader or talk to your
peers and volunteer to lead so that you can experience what that is like, right?
To lead a team.
And if that is a hard no.
For the child, there's always ways to still foster this because
you know, some children, not just children, but adults as well.
Not all of us are really wanting to lead, right?
Um, however, we can still learn leadership skills by being a great teammate and we
can definitely foster that with our kids.
Even if they don't want to lead a team per se, we can engage in conversation with
them and ask them questions like, okay, so there's this project right now and I
know you're part of the team that, um, Is submitting to a leader, ask them questions
like, how can you contribute to the team?
How can you be an effective team member?
How can you deliver what's being asked of you on time?
How can you deliver what's being asked of you in your own unique way?
What is your own perspective?
How can you communicate your ideas?
To your fellow team members, right?
How can you show up for them?
So it's supporting them and we're not delayed in the work because it's
actually moving the project forward.
So asking questions like that with the Children in our lives is a great
way to develop this characteristic.
A great example for this in the business world is Satya Nadella, who is the CEO of
Microsoft and He is known for establishing a culture in the workplace where there's
really empowerment for the team members.
They are encouraged to take risks without fear of failure
so that they can truly innovate.
The H in growth is habit, and I'm not talking just about any habit because
obviously we can talk about habit all day long and forming good habits, but
it's really the habit of adaptability.
When I looked at the word habit, it's talking about permanence, something
that you do on a regular basis.
And yes, there are a lot of good habits, as I said, but really
specifically the habit of adaptability.
Because.
We know now in hindsight, right, that 2020, so many people who didn't
Adapt, uh, weren't able to continue with their businesses while other
people who were able to pivot and shift right away, they were able to
either grow or maintain their business.
And a great example here in the business world is Reed Hastings from Netflix, who
knew how to adapt to the needs of the consumers, whether that's a DVD rental to
streaming to original content production, the way that he's able to adapt to
the needs of the consumers has really.
Paved the way for them to still be here today.
And so personally in my life, that's exactly what I did as well.
In 2020, I was in the dance world, in the stunt world.
Um, I was busy trying to, you know, be a performer and
audition and all these things.
And of course, when the pandemic happened, all the performing jobs went away.
And so I really had to think hard, how do I put food on the table?
Because my whole life has been all about.
And of course I was also doing entrepreneurship with real estate and
had my own business, but really it was still mainly dance and aerial.
And so how do I do that when there's no more work?
And thankfully I was already teaching piano back in 2018 and in 2020 I just
really focused and said, okay, well this is what I'm going to do full time now.
And it was incredible because it was literally a time where
when it was so crazy for.
A lot of people and a lot of people lost their jobs.
I grew, I grew my income and for the first time in my life, I actually
had a stable income because it was a business where people were paying
every single month for the lessons.
And I never had that as a dancer.
As a dancer, I was living from paycheck to paycheck, figuring out
when it's going to come again, because if I don't book a job, well, I don't
have money when I don't have a job.
Right.
And it all depends if I book a job.
And so with, uh, 2020, I was really able to adapt and just pivot very quickly.
And to this day, it is still what I do.
I'm still doing this business and it's been incredible.
And even now I'm already adapting.
There's already a lot of shift and, and changes and the way people are
doing things in the online space.
And, and I'm adapting to that as well.
And I'm changing some of the things I do because of what is being
asked from me, from the consumers.
So.
So again, that habit of adaptability is really important.
And a way that we can foster this with the children in our lives
is by looking at situations where things didn't go their way, right?
Um, being there for them when they expected something to happen and
it didn't happen and really just sitting down with them and asking,
okay, well, this didn't quite pan out the way you expected it to be.
How can we still adapt?
Get to the other side where it's still a favorable outcome, right?
How can we actually adapt this so that we can still learn from this?
We can still grow from this.
We can still, uh, receive the outcome that we wanted.
Maybe it's not the exact outcome that we wanted, but maybe it's a better
outcome because we, we don't know.
Right.
And so just asking them questions.
Uh, one of the things I'm so excited about is, Being certified in Adventurous
and Wisdom, which is a life coaching for kids, is this skill called Power Shifting.
It's literally just helping the kids understand that when there's a situation
that comes our way that is not our ideal situation, how do we shift our mindset
so that instead of looking at it as, oh gosh, things didn't go my way, Right?
We can actually step into our power and look at that and say, well, it
didn't pan out exactly how I wanted it to, but I'm going to make it better.
Right?
How can we adapt?
So instilling that mindset at an early age in our kids could
really set them up for success.
So I hope you enjoyed today's episode.
Again, at the heart of Wildly Wealthy Life is really sharing ideas, thoughts,
examples, life experiences, questions we could ask for ourselves and for
the children in our lives as to how we can grow so that we can have a
fulfilling and an exceptional life.
So again, to recap that growth mindset to me is someone who has grit, Someone who's
able to reflect not just internally, but actually encourage feedback from others.
Someone who's got optimism in the face of failure.
Someone who's got willingness to learn always, always cultivating
that love for learning.
Someone who's able to work together in a team setting, knowing how to
communicate your ideas, knowing how to deliver your deliverables on time.
Um, and someone who has the habit of adaptability, being able to
pivot and shift when needed.
So take that with you, and I hope you have a wildly wealthy life.
I will see you in the next episode.
All right friends, that's a wrap on today's episode of Wildly Wealthy Life.
We hope you're feeling fired up and ready to take on the world with
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