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What should leaders keep in mind in the time of crisis to make an impact?

My keynote at RMIT Webinar: “Leadership Mindset In Difficult Times” on 20 May, 2020.

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Hello everyone,

 

Thanks RMIT for inviting me to share with the young talents. 

I will start my sharing about mindset by telling 4 stories which reflect mindset messages.  

1. A choice is always available for you (Bế Thị Băng)

 

Born as a normal girl in the highland, she grows up like other normal kids. Then she got an accident. The container truck hit the back of her motorbike, the wheel clamped on the motorbike and her right leg and dragged her along the road. Waking up after surgery, Bang was shocked to learn that one of her legs had been cut. 

At that time, Bang was only 24 years old. Just got a job. The skype seems to fall in front of her eyes. 

Last year, she was the winner of crescent moon contest by her impressive dance performance. (You can watch here). What else can she do? She can swim and she is a dentist and married a German professor

Talking about her disadvantage, Bang expressed: “I tell myself that whether we are disabled or healthy, we have the right to equality and to live and be confident with ourselves.”

 Similarly, it’s not your fault if you were born poor or some accidents happen to your life or prone to mental illness. But it is your responsibility to figure out how to deal with your situation.

No one else can heal your emotional wounds but you. No one else can fix your toxic relationship with money but you. No one else can make you stop addicting to social media/phone but you. 

That isn’t to say you have to do it all by yourself. You should seek out help if you need  a coach/mentor and get financial help when your luck is down. But for better or worse, at the end of the day, it’s all on you.

 

2. No one will believe in you unless you do (Ritesh Agarwal)

Ritesh Agarwal was born in Rayagada, India – a city where most people  make no more than 10 dollars a day. He grew up very poor and he struggled for 18 years. He did not go to the university and he had no career according to his neighbor. At some point, he was kicked out of his own apartment with 50 cents in his banking account 

He knows that his life is hard and well aware of it. He did not chase money but try to solve the issue that made his life and other lives better. He observed that the hotel owner did not make a lot of money so he took the biggest risk of his life to promise to bring more customers to the hotel. Then he came to the hotel to change the lightbulb, bed and put water and painting to increase the standard of the hotel and then took pictures to put one on the internet and Change the name OyO hotel. Finally,  more customers came to the hotel and OyO became the largest hotel chain in the world 

He received a Thiel Fellowship that paid him $100,000 over two years to create a startup.

He raised $25 million (Rupees 150 crore) from San Francisco-based Greenoaks Capital and existing investors Sequoia, DSG Consumer Partners and LightSpeed Ventures. 

He became the youngest billionaire in India with a hard childhood thanks to an elegant solution to the problem with the guts and fortitude to build.

There are enough people who tell us that we are not good enough, why do we want to tell ourselves that negative thought?  Your thoughts are a catalyst for self-perpetuating cycles. What you think directly influences your feelings and behaviors . So if you think you’re a failure, you’ll feel like a failure. Then, you’ll act like a failure, which reinforces your belief that you must be a failure.

Listen to what you believe and do your best to bring solutions to the issues that you discover. 

Consistently learn and improve until you get it. When you can do it once, you can do it again and again. No one will believe in you unless you believe in yourself.

3. See the world as it is, not as you wish it would be (Boyan Slat)

Boyan Slat is a Dutch inventor and the CEO of The Ocean Cleanup.

In 2011, at the age of 16, while Slat dive in Greece, he found there were more plastic than fish in the ocean. Instead of complaining and being angry, he decided to devote a high school project for deeper investigation into ocean plastic pollution and why it was considered impossible to clean up. He later came up with the idea to build a passive system which uses the circulating ocean currents to his advantage. Then he presented at a TEDx talk in Delft in 2012.

Slat discontinued his aerospace engineering studies at TU Delft to devote his time to developing his idea. He founded The Ocean Cleanup in 2013, and shortly after, his TEDx talk went viral after being shared on several news websites.

Then he received all of the awards you can think of such as the Champions of the Earth award of the United Nations Environment Programme, Forbes “30 under 30” list In 2016, a Thiel Fellowship receiver, European of the Year,  Dutchman of the Year 2017.

 In 2018, Slat was awarded the Leonardo da Vinci International Art Award and Euronews award “European Entrepreneur of the Year”.

If he just showed his judgment on everyone else with rage  for throwing trash in the ocean—well, no one would have listened to him. Then the ocean will appear with more trash and plastic and other waste and hundreds of species in the ocean will disappear.

It is easy for us to judge, criticise and comment behind the screen with the air conditioner but it takes guts, hearts and brains to act like the problem solver.  

Action speaks louder than words and when you see the real ugly world as it is, not as you wish it would be, you come up with a solution which gradually influences others with the actions. 

4. Lead by example then people will follow

 

This is the last story that I want to share today. 

As an entrepreneur, I suffer a lot from Coronavirus pandemic. However, instead staying at home and crying, I chose to be different and meaningful to my life and others.

I want to build a stronger culture, improve myself and others who go with me as this pandemic is just one of the worst events that happens to our life and we have more unexpected events in life. 

I started a plank challenge in my company to encourage people to exercise and lose weight ;and daily meditation to help our team mind stronger and focus their concentration on things that matter the most. 

The Result was great, my team works better and faster online even though we suffer a lot from the beginning. I lost 5 kg and gained more muscles. At first, it is weird that my team will meditate with me in the morning, now that is the first thing they do in the morning with me.  

Secondly, when I saw the old man crying on the street with the lottery ticket. I feel really bad, I also want to help him and many miserable lives on the street But my resources and capacity are limited.  

Therefore, I want to initiate a project or platform that helps not only the youth but also the less fortunate one with automatic mechanisms. That’s why GIVE IT BACK was born to support the youth to accomplish more via mentoring 1 on 1 models as well as give a chance for them to give it back and share the difficulties with those less fortunate with their capacity. You can see the value cycle in this project and the youth know that they are lucky and impactful at the same time. 

I ,as a founder, invest my time and money to execute the project but mentors give their free valuable time to mentees. Mentees help the poor via their real action (money).

I can do nothing to support these people and be fine but I chose to act to help my people and the youth. Thanks to that, people follow me, support me and achieve more with me.

The question for you is what are you willing to suffer to make your life and other lives better?

Whether we like it or not, life is hard to predict and happen as we wish. What we can control is our thoughts and actions we have. Therefore, Choose wisely what mindset you should have and avoid 

 

“I believe when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade…and try to find someone whose life has given them vodka/whiskey, and then we can have a party.”

 

Thank you

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WHY DO WE NEED TO BE RESILIENT TO LIVE A SUCCESSFUL LIFE?

The Slight Edge was a book given to me on the very first day of my career. It was a gift from my first boss which is why I appreciate it as much as I do. 

The core message is simple but meaningful and readers must know how to reflect upon it for themselves, otherwise The Slight Edge is in danger of becoming just another book on the shelf. 

THE SLIGHT EDGE PHILOSOPHY 

According to Jeff Olson, the edge is the “door” that determines whether or not you will be successful. The secret in being successful in life, says The Slight Edge, is the “Simple productive actions, repeated consistently over time that ultimately leads to success”.

The problem is that not many people continuously choose to take these actions, which are easy to do, as they are also activities that are easy to skip. This is the main reason that leads to the difference in 5% of successful people compared to 95% of failure.

IF THEY ARE SIMPLE, WHY DO PEOPLE FAILTO IMPLEMENT THEM?

It is simply because these small actions do not have an immediate effect on your life when you decide not to do them. 

We are living in the world of “on-demand” service of a 4.0 technology revolution, in which with just a click you can get whatever you want. We do not have to wait to get what we want. We tend to be less patient, we want to get to the result without making progress or efforts. This 4.0 lifestyle makes it easier to give up or stop doing something if it is not convenient for us to do. 

As Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity states, “the observed gravitational effect between masses results from their warping of spacetime.” If your daily choices are productive, it will help you move upward, so that your lifeline will be on the upper half (only 5% of people achieve this). Unless your line is downward and your position is at the lower part (95% fall into this category). 

WHAT MAKES OTHERS SUCCESSFUL IN LIFE? 

 

  • SELF-DISCIPLINE

 

Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life.

This is my favorite motivational quote by Jerzy Gregorek which clearly defines the philosophy of “The Slight Edge”. He subsequently won four World Weightlifting Championships. His journey towards his successful career was not easy, it took time and effort to overcome the “old” him from being a political refugee to the champion of World Weightlifting. 

This quote is not only true to weightlifting athletes but also applicable in every aspect of life. The only way for the weightlifting athletes to lift up the heavier weight is to constantly choose to push a little bit more weight than the last time. The progress leads you to the edge of “what you can’t do”. Taking a step far away from the “what you can do” edge by working harder and harder than what you did yesterday will benefit you in the long-run. “By making it harder for yourself today, you make it easier for yourself in the future.” This simple principle reminds you of the “heavyweight” of small decisions that we choose to do every day. 

 

  • “KEEP MOVING” SPIRIT 

 

Do you recognize that the word “extraordinary” is the combination of extra and ordinary? 

When ordinary people leave their comfort zone and continue practicing doing more and more (extra) simple things every day, at some point, they will become extraordinary. If we do not repeat the small actions such as daily workouts, we might stop ourselves and bounce back to the new comfort zone. When we feel like we have enough and no new challenges are taken, this results in procrastination.

 

  • REFLECT 

Not many people know how to truly reflect. You read, learn, listen… What’s next? 

If you do not spend time practicing and apply what you have read, learned and listened into actions, will this be your knowledge? 

If you just keep doing… What’s next? 

When you keep doing without looking back on what you have done, you don’t leave space to adjust and improve the process, you cannot increase your productivity.

You are working extremely hard just to live day by day… So what’s next? 

Without talking with your inner self, it is hard for you to realize the reason why you are doing what you are doing. Do you truly live or just simply survive? 

Daily reflection may help you explore your true self, empathise with yourself after every experience. Don’t stop moving forward by asking yourself: “what’s next?” Simply spend 1% of your 24 hours (15 minutes) to focus on reflection, you will be amazed. 

 

  • TIE YOURSELF TO THE GOALS 

 

After 10 years of working on my own business, startup and many projects, I have witnessed the change in young people. They are the next generation of leaders, but they do not have much of an environment to grow, to challenge their assumptions, to release their potential, to contribute to the development of our country. That is the reason why I want to give young people a chance to practice and to learn how amazing they are if they keep trying hard and consistently every day. 

During this time, I had a chance to hold a lecture at some universities and worked with many mentees. I have realized that IQ is not a strong measurement of one’s ability. My best mentee does not get a high score in school or achieve a high IQ score, most of them have the normal or even “not very special” in the beginning. But what makes them different? 

  • Self-discipline/ Resilience 

Most of my best mentees that I am extremely proud of, do not have a particularly special talent on the very first day. They are not confident in themselves. They do not know what they want, what their strengths are or what their weaknesses are. Whenever they are asked to give their opinion, they are shy and hesitate to give their ideas. The only thing inside them that makes me believe and become their mentor is their actions, not words. Day by day, they take actions to overcome their “not perfect” parts, they do not prevent themselves from exploring and learn more to make whatever difficulties become their strength. 

Their resilience ability ties to their passion and patience to achieve the long-run goal. Resilience is to choose to look forward, day by day, not only in weeks or months but in years, many years.  Resilient people see life as a marathon, they see what they are doing in the long run. To be resilient, they need to have the ability to deal with the problems and have the ability to stand up and start again after every failure.

 

  • GROWTH MINDSET 

 

This idea is generated by Carol Dweck – a researcher at Stanford University. People with a growth-mindset do not see themselves with a potential that can be explored and fostered. They are not afraid of failure, they keep their head high to move forward because they believe that their ability is just the starting point of their potential. That is the reason why life cannot knock them down easily. When life gives them lemons, they will sit down and make their own lemonade. They see whatever challenges that life gives as a gift to learn and to be a better version of themselves. Thus what we need to do is keep teaching our inner child to learn how to be more resilient every day.

It is important to keep in mind that your behavior comes from your attitude toward things. Every piece of advice will be meaningless with a fixed mindset, instead of a growth mindset. Because when you keep the fixed mindset, you will see that your ability cannot change and try to prove that you are right, instead of learning from mistakes.

Why do we need to hide our weaknesses instead of fixing them? 

Why do we have to maintain the relationship that we think will raise our self-esteem instead of spending time with people who challenge yourself? 

Why do we need to compare ourselves to others instead of developing their potential? 

The passion for developing yourself when you are not enough is the key to the growth mindset. That is how successful people think and spend their life.

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5 ways to advance your life and enterprise with a growth mindset

Why do people imply staff performance related to mindset?

When I assign the same task to two of my new energetic staff, they perform in two different ways, which embody two different types of mindsets. Vincent’s mindset is about guarantee. He sometimes has no idea dealing with failure and also be afraid to change when receiving feedback from others to improve his performance. He takes it personally and sometimes she is displeased. Vincent requires his benefits before doing something.

Youth training in Botanic Garden, Singapore

On the other hand, Jules expects to receive feedback from the senior when making mistakes. To cope with a failure, she dares to change and improve her ability to accomplish well later on. She perceives challenges as ideal opportunities to fail and to learn. If she encounters something that is quite troublesome, she will endeavor to overcome somehow. After all, you can know that who has the fixed mindset and who possesses the growth mindset in this story.

What is Mindset?

If you refer to someone’s mindset, that means their thoughts and beliefs drive them into habits and the way they commonly think about issues. The mindset orients our disposition or attitudes to handle situations. The mindset has much influence on what people think, how they feel, what they perceive and what should they react. In other explanation, the mindset shapes your belief and your belief shapes your attitudes. People have various mindsets of the same thing due to perceiving in different ways.

The book called Mindset: The new psychology of success written by Carol Dweck, who is a psychology professor at Stanford, is one of the most prominent psychology and individual development books nowadays. The book reminds me vividly of my personal experience.

The Fixed Mindset

People with the fixed mindset believe basic qualities like talents are fixed traits. They view failure as permanent. They are more likely to give up when facing an obstacle. When they feel criticism as a personal attack, they seem to quickly give excuse and explain.

Their behaviors are shaped by innate ability and their priority always is validation and achievement. The insight of people having the fixed mindset is that better performances. They are less likely to take creative risks. They choose easier tasks and put in minimal effort.

The fixed-mindset people don’t allow others be better compared to themselves. If their colleagues try new things and succeed, fixed-mindset people feel threatened. They are afraid that success will put pressure on themselves to do more. Safety is their choice.

The Growth Mindset

People with the growth mindset believe new abilities can be developed by practice. They consider challenge which is just an issue need to be faced, resolved, and learned from. It is possible to say that growth-mindset people can all adapt, progress and experience without any fear of being painful.

Most people are not perfect, and they should suffer from losses and hardships to be stronger and more at peace than ever before. The growth mindset doesn’t mind to show their imperfections as they think that weaknesses are not the problem. The problem is just only the person who cannot accept these weaknesses belonging to them. The imperfections should be recovered since that helps people to improve their adequate development.

Personal performance is good, but the process of how to bear the failure is much more important. The growth-mindset people assume that it takes time for development and achievement. They aren’t convinced of being talented. They strongly believe in the determination of learning from time to time, arduous working and toil to get an accomplishment.

How do you know that you are a fixed-mindset person or a growth-mindset person?

Let’s emphasise straightforwardly in this case. What do people react when receiving a course of work? With the fixed mindset, it will be: “People will finish it with no mistakes. People should avoid being a failure. People simply lose interest or temperature when facing challenges. People think about the inputs for themselves rather than the outputs for others.”

In contrast, with the growth mindset, it will be: “People make mistakes, and it’s not a problem. People need to have feedbacks, even constructive criticism. People get ready to undergo current trouble. People are excited to try to do something beyond what they’ve mastered. People make an effort to figure out the measures of solving issues better than they did.”

5 Significant Ways to Develop a Growth Mindset

1. Acknowledge and embrace imperfections

Even if you demonstrate your best traits of a great person, but you hide from your deficiencies, you will never be excellent in most cases. You are unable to overcome the fear of weaknesses. Of course, fear can hold you back. Have you ever thought that fear is an obstacle distract you from building your strengths? Grasp an opportunity to discover yourself, uncover imperfections hidden and deeply understand yourself. This will be a premise to change the weaknesses towards your strengths.

2. View challenges as opportunities

The growth-mindset people consider each challenge is an opportunities to grow stronger. We continuously determine who we are and what we are able to achieve after enduring troublesome issues. In fact, people might not control events that occur to them, but these unanticipated events serve as a big deal to test truly your characteristics. Thus, it is grateful for welcoming opportunities to learn and to improve.

3. Replace “to fail” with “to learn”

Have you ever heard a quote of Samuel Beckett? “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

It’s not a shame to share your failures with each other. When you make a mistake for your goal, you haven’t failed, you are learning. You learn from the bad experience for yourself instead. You shouldn’t think you’re a loser, think that you’re a learner and then an achiever.

4. Redefine “genius”

A genius is a person who suffered from a whole host of challenges, hardships, losses, and toils. You should redefine that the genius is shaped by hard-working, not only natural ability. The fixed-mindset people believe in talent or intelligence. However, the growth-mindset people only recognize improvement and development throughout the experience. You will be a genius if you mobilize your resource and stretch on your way.

5. Learn from others’ mistakes

It is better to combine our mistakes and the mistakes of others to learn. That will be valuable information for you to tackle the problems that push you up. People sometimes share the same weaknesses, which is a chance to empathize and adapt it to your case. It’s not always wise to compare yourself to others. Learn from others’ missteps and travel down on the bumpy road that helps you be more better.