Mindset Development Tips

It takes one minute to damage a career you spent 30 years building. Because success isn’t about skill or intelligence. It’s about emotional regulation. Exercising restraint instead of: → Engaging in a heated debate with a client. → Exchanging a sharp word with a colleague. → Sending an angry email in the heat of the moment. The second you lose control, you’ve lost. Emotional regulation is the biggest marker of career success. The good news is it’s a muscle you can build. Here's how: 1. Know Your Triggers → Identify what sets you off. → Do you feel threatened when criticised? → Awareness is the first step to control. 2. Hit Pause → Before reacting, ask yourself: What are the consequences of my move? → Regret minimisation is critical. 3. Reframe the Experience → What else could this mean? → Maybe the person was having a bad day. → Chose an interpretation that serves you. 4. Create a Delay on Emails Sent → Set a 10-minute delay on all outgoing emails. → This in and of itself could save your career. 5. Breathe → When emotions rise, take three slow breaths. → It signals your nervous system to reset. → Simple, but powerful. 6. Speak With Emotional Intelligence → Once you’re ready to respond, choose your words carefully. → Ask: How can I create the right outcome in a calm way? Remember: → If you choose restraint, you win. → If you reframe, you grow. And every time you stay in control, you keep your power. How important do you think emotional regulation is for career success? ---- ☀️Follow Deena Priest for career, leadership and personal development insights.

SELF BELIEF > INTELLIGENCE Believing in yourself is often more critical than raw intelligence. Intelligence can sometimes lead to overanalysis, hesitation, and self-doubt, hindering progress. On the other hand, confidence drives action, resilience, and the ability to learn from failures. Balancing intelligence with self-belief enables you to take risks, make decisions, and persevere through challenges. 1. Cultivate Self-Belief: * Affirmations: Start each day with positive affirmations reinforcing your abilities and potential. Statements like "I am capable," "I trust my judgment," and "I can achieve my goals" can boost your confidence. * Celebrate Successes: Keep a journal of your achievements, big or small. Reflecting on past successes can remind you of your capabilities and build your self-esteem.
 2. Manage Overthinking: * Set Time Limits: When faced with a decision, give yourself a specific amount of time to analyse and then commit to a choice. This prevents paralysis by analysis. * Simplify Decisions: Break complex decisions into smaller, manageable parts. Focus on one aspect at a time to avoid feeling overwhelmed.
 3. Embrace Failure: * Learn and Adapt: View failures as opportunities to learn and grow. Analyse what went wrong, adjust your approach, and try again with newfound knowledge. * Resilience Practice: Develop resilience by challenging yourself to step out of your comfort zone regularly. The more you face and overcome challenges, the more confident you will become.
 4. Balance Intelligence with Action: * Trust Your Gut: Sometimes, intuition can guide you better than overanalysis. Learn to trust your instincts and make decisions with confidence. * Take Calculated Risks: Use your intelligence to assess risks, but don’t let fear of failure stop you from taking action. Embrace uncertainty and move forward with confidence.
 5. Seek Support: * Mentors and Peers: Surround yourself with supportive people who believe in you and encourage your growth. Seek mentors who can provide guidance and feedback. * Positive Environment: Create an environment that fosters positivity and growth. Minimise interactions with negative influences that may undermine your confidence.
 6. Continuous Improvement: * Lifelong Learning: Commit to continuous learning and self-improvement. Embrace new challenges and opportunities to expand your skills and knowledge. * Set Realistic Goals: Establish achievable goals that push you slightly out of your comfort zone. As you achieve these goals, your confidence will grow.

In 2008, Michael Phelps won Olympic GOLD - completely blind. The moment he dove in, his goggles filled with water. But he kept swimming. Most swimmers would’ve fallen apart. Phelps didn’t - because he had trained for chaos, hundreds of times. His coach, Bob Bowman, would break his goggles, remove clocks, exhaust him deliberately. Why? Because when you train under stress, performance becomes instinct. Psychologists call this stress inoculation. When you expose yourself to small, manageable stress: - Your amygdala (fear centre) becomes less reactive. - Your prefrontal cortex (logic centre) stays calmer under pressure. Phelps had rehearsed swimming blind so often that it felt normal. He knew the stroke count. He hit the wall without seeing it. And won GOLD by 0.01 seconds. The same science is why: - Navy SEALs tie their hands and practice underwater survival. - Astronauts simulate system failures in zero gravity. - Emergency responders train inside burning buildings. And you can build it too. Here’s how: ✅ Expose yourself to small discomforts. Take cold showers. Wake up 30 minutes earlier. Speak up in meetings. The goal is to build confidence that you can handle hard things. ✅ Use quick stress resets. Try cyclic sighing: Inhale deeply through your nose. Take a second small inhale. Exhale slowly through your mouth. Repeat 3-5 times to calm your system fast. ✅ Strengthen emotional endurance. Instead of avoiding difficult conversations, hard tasks, or feedback - lean into them. Facing small emotional challenges trains you for bigger ones later. ✅ Celebrate small victories. Every time you stay calm, adapt, or keep going under pressure - recognise it. These tiny wins are building your mental "muscle memory" for resilience. As a new parent, I know my son Krish will face his own "goggles-filled-with-water" moments someday. So the best I can do is model resilience myself. Because resilience isn’t gifted - it’s trained. And when you train your brain for chaos, you can survive anything. So I hope you do the same. If this made you pause, feel free to repost and share the thought. #healthandwellness #mentalhealth #stress

I've delivered 500+ keynotes. Here's a pro-tip for speaking/presenting. Your pre-performance ritual isn't optional. It's essential. The difference between good and transformational always comes down to those final 15 minutes. HERE'S MY NON-NEGOTIABLE RITUAL: T-minus 30 minutes: Tech check complete. No more logistics. T-minus 15 minutes: Complete isolation begins. This is when I start programming my nervous system for peak state. T-minus 10 minutes: Active preparation. I pace backstage, repeating my opening lines until they're cellular: "Change itself has changed..." "When we think about transformation..." "Let me tell you about the moment..." T-minus 5 minutes: Full state activation. No conversations. No distractions. Just presence. Why this matters: Your opening determines everything. If those first 30 seconds land perfectly, you're in flow for the entire presentation. If they don't, you spend 10 minutes trying to find your rhythm. THE SCIENCE: Your prefrontal cortex can hold 7±2 pieces of information. Your opening sequence needs all of that bandwidth. A "quick chat" deletes 3-4 of those slots. Now you're on stage trying to REMEMBER your opening instead of BEING it. FOR SPEAKERS/PRESENTERS: Protect your ritual. Write it into your contract: "15-minute isolation period before stage time required for optimal performance." This isn't being difficult. It's being professional. FOR THOSE HIRING SPEAKERS: Want maximum impact? Give us space to create it. We're not being antisocial. We're preparing to transform your audience. Think of us like athletes before a game or surgeons before surgery. The ritual isn't preference, it's preparation. THE FRAMEWORK: 1. Decide your optimal activation time (10-30 minutes) 2. Communicate boundaries clearly and early 3. Design your ritual for YOUR nervous system 4. Practice until it's automatic 5. Never apologize for protecting your performance Your boundaries aren't limitations. They're the architecture of excellence. What pre-performance ritual would unlock your next level?

As a psychologist, I’ve had the privilege of working with top athletes, actors, and corporate leaders at the peak of their game. And yet—despite the accolades, despite the success—there’s a common thread I see far too often: They believe that the next achievement will finally silence the voice that whispers, “You’re not enough.” But it never does. Why? Because ambition that’s rooted in inadequacy is a bottomless pit. No matter how much you pour in, it never fills. True ambition isn’t about proving your worth. It’s about knowing you already have it. After years of working closely with high performers, I’ve noticed something powerful: The most fulfilled individuals don’t chase worthiness. They operate from it. And they live by three core principles: They chase mastery, not approval: If your goal is to silence self-doubt with success, it will never work. The inner critic doesn't quiet down. It just raises the bar. But when you focus on mastery for its own sake, success stops being a desperate pursuit and starts being a natural result. They practice ruthless self-respect: Not indulgent self-care. Ruthless self-respect. The kind that refuses to let self-criticism run wild. They don't allow themselves to be treated poorly, especially by their own thoughts. They measure progress by their own growth, not by others' success: Comparison is a losing game. There will always be someone ahead, always a new level to chase. But the moment you shift your focus inward—to your evolution and your growth—you take control of the game. Ambition isn't the problem. But when it comes from a place of emptiness, it will consume you. When it comes from a place of inherent worthiness and true desire, it will elevate you. So ask yourself: Is my ambition building me up or breaking me down? That answer will determine whether ambition becomes your greatest strength or an endless trap. #psychology #success #mindset #learning #growth

You don’t need more stuff. You need to want less. Many people believe happiness increases when they accumulate more. That could mean more money, more status, or more possessions. But in behavioral science, we understand satisfaction differently. It turns out that happiness is not simply about what we have. It’s about the relationship between what we have and what we want. The true equation is: Happiness = Haves ÷ Wants. If your wants keep rising faster than your haves, your satisfaction will fall—even if your circumstances improve. Recent data backs this up. In longitudinal research such as the Global Flourishing Study, people who report high life satisfaction consistently exhibit stronger habits of self-regulation and a greater sense of meaning, not necessarily greater material success. Here are two ways to put this strategy into practice: 1. Create a reverse bucket list. Instead of writing down everything you still want to achieve, make a list of things you’ve already done, or consciously decide you no longer need. 2. Audit your desires. One helpful exercise is to list your major goals and ask: Would this still matter to me if no one else knew I achieved it? If the answer is no, it may not be a goal rooted in meaning. In research on midlife satisfaction, those who reoriented their ambition from status to service, especially men, reported higher purpose and deeper relationships over time.

For years, I confused ambition with control. I tried to manage the market, the team, the timing, the outcomes. I was exhausted. And the harder I gripped, the less actually moved. Here's how to be ambitious, but lazy: 1. Pour Energy Only Into What You Can Move You can't control the market. You can't control how people respond. You can't control timing. What you CAN control: • Your health • Your work ethic • Your mood • Your mindset • Your experiences That's the list. Everything else is rented space in your head. 2. Drop the Outcome, Own the Input Outcomes are lagging. Inputs are leading. Founders who burn out obsess over results they can't directly touch: • Revenue • Press • Investor decisions • Customer reactions Founders who win quietly obsess over inputs they can: • Reps shipped • Hours of deep work • Conversations had • Systems built Show up for the input. The outcome takes care of itself. 3. Protect Your Energy Like It's Equity Your energy is the only non-renewable resource in your business. Treat it that way: • Sleep before you scroll • Walk before you meet • Eat for clarity, not convenience A clear mind makes better decisions than a tired one with more information. 4. Default to "Not Mine" Most stress isn't yours. You inherited it. The market mood. A team member's bad day. A client's overreaction. Train one phrase: "Is this mine to carry?" If the answer is no, set it down. 5. Shrink Your Decision Surface Most exhaustion isn't from working too hard. It's from deciding too much. Pre-decide what you can: • Same morning routine • Same workout times • Same response to low-priority requests The fewer decisions you make, the better the ones that matter become. 6. Be Lazy About the Wrong Things Lazy isn't a bad word. It's strategic if pointed correctly. Be lazy about: • Meetings without a clear outcome • Tasks you can automate, eliminate, or delegate • Opinions of people not in your arena • Problems that don't compound Save your effort for what compounds. 7. Build the Discipline of Letting Go The most powerful thing a founder can build isn't a product or a team. It's the discipline to pour energy only into what you can move. When you stop trying to control everything, the noise fades. Clarity comes easily. Decisions get faster. Being ambitious isn't about gripping harder. It's about choosing what to grip, and letting the rest go. Everything you've ever wanted is on the other side of that shift. — Enjoy this? ♻️ Repost it to your network and follow Matt Gray for more. Want to find out exactly how much time you're wasting on the wrong things right now? DM me 'TIME' and I'll send you my Founder Time Audit Assessment.

I knew stepping into a Chief People Officer role would be a major undertaking. And boy, was it. But as with any big leap, there’s what you expect to learn... and then there’s what you learn by living it. Over the past few years, one of the most important shifts I’ve made is moving from a function-first mindset to a business-first one. As a VP, I focused on how I could build the most thoughtful, progressive People strategies out there — and rolled out some pretty darn awesome #HR programs if I do say so myself. (See: Our 'No Negotiation Policy' and our '$100 Bonding Perk') But here's the thing: I didn't often have the "overall business success" in mind when I pushed these initiatives forward. I started with what I thought was best for my function (AKA: the #People strategy), and then retroactively found ways to justify it to leadership. As a C-suite executive, however, you have to be a business leader first, and a function leader second. Your number one priority must be to empower the success of the business. Your job as a C-suite executive is to start with the business goals, and work backwards from there to determine how you can best empower the business through your function. In my recent piece for the amazing Jess Yuen's The Left Hand Column, I unpack what that shift actually looks like — not just in theory, but in practice — and offer tactical prompts to help other People leaders build their own business-first mindset and catch yourself when you start to go astray. Some of what I cover: ✅ How to spot when you’re working backward from your function instead of forward from the business ✅ How to level up your fluency in company vitals, general business acumen, and cross-functional strategy ✅ Why it’s so important to trade territorial thinking for true collaboration (especially in moments of budget tension) If you’re in the middle of this shift — or working hard to get yourself CPO-ready — this post should offer a useful framework for navigating what’s next. 👉 Check out the full article here: https://lnkd.in/eZTxiQWb 👉 Want even more tips for leveling up your leadership skills? Check out my top tips and tricks here: https://lnkd.in/egBrc4Kj

Don’t stay where you are not fulfilled. It’s never too late to change your career. Straight career paths? Simply a myth. The most interesting ones? Messy! ➟ Jeff Bezos: worked in finance. Founded Amazon at 30. ➟ Arnold Schwarzenegger: actor at 30. Governor at 56. ➟ Vera Wang: ice skater, journalist. Fashion designer at 40. ➟ Julia Child: cook. Author at 49. TV star at 51. ➟ Harrison Ford: carpenter. Hollywood icon at 35. Most career advice is backwards. They tell you to polish your resume. Or perfect your pitch. But these power moves flip everything you know: 1. Make Rejection Your Metric 📊 ↳ Stop avoiding "no's" - start collecting them ↳ 10 rejections mean you're finally playing big 2. Create Before You're "Qualified" 📝 ↳ Share what you’re learning as you go ↳ Newbies spot what experts miss 3. Own The Identity Gap 🎭 ↳ Stop waiting to "feel ready" ↳ The impostor feeling means you're growing 4. Turn Your Age Into Power 💎 ↳ Young? You spot chances others overlook ↳ Older? You see patterns no one else can 5. Build Your Story Backwards 🎬 ↳ Picture your dream destination first! ↳ Then connect the dots that lead you there 6. Leverage Your "Outsider Advantage" 🔄 ↳ Fresh eyes find hidden solutions ↳ Past roles are your secret strength 7. Make "Micro-Experiments" Your Playbook 🧪 ↳ Stop overthinking, start experimenting ↳ One real-world project beats 100 classes 8. Master Energy (Not Just Time) ⚡ ↳ Career shifts need sustained energy ↳ Prioritize recovery, not just non-stop hustle 9. Create a Financial Runway First 💰 ↳ Anxiety kills momentum ↳ 6 months' savings buy you freedom to take risks The truth? Your next career move isn't about age. It's about the courage to play by your own rules. To leave what's not for you. And to create what others can't yet see. Which power move resonates most with you? Share below! ⬇️ ♻️ Repost to inspire others to take their next bold step. ➕ Follow Mike Leber for more.

Why Staying Disciplined Outweighs Staying Motivated In the journey toward achieving our goals, motivation often gets the spotlight. It's the spark that ignites our initial enthusiasm, the burst of energy that gets us started. But what happens when that spark fades? This is where discipline – the less glamorous, but infinitely more powerful force – takes center stage. Discipline vs. Motivation: Motivation is fleeting; it's based on emotions that can fluctuate daily. Discipline, on the other hand, is about commitment. It's the structured approach to making progress, regardless of how we feel. The Power of Habit: Discipline transforms actions into habits. While motivation can kickstart a routine, discipline cements it into our daily lives, making excellence not an act, but a habit. Consistency Leads to Results: The magic of discipline lies in its ability to help us maintain consistency. Achievements are not the result of sporadic efforts fueled by momentary inspiration but of consistent action, day in and day out. Building Resilience: Discipline builds resilience. It teaches us to push through adversity, to keep going when motivation has long left the building. This resilience is what separates the successful from the rest. How to Cultivate Discipline: Set Clear Goals: Know exactly what you're working toward. Establish Routines: Create a daily structure that aligns with your goals. Monitor Progress: Keep track of your actions and outcomes. Stay Accountable: Find a mentor, coach, or community that supports your journey. Reward Progress: Celebrate the small wins to maintain momentum. In conclusion, while motivation is the spark, discipline is the fuel that keeps the fire burning. Let's shift our focus from seeking perpetual motivation to cultivating unwavering discipline. Here's to achieving our goals through the power of disciplined action! 🌟📘 Please follow Varun Anand - PfMP/PMP/ CSM /PMI-ACP/CAPM #Discipline #SuccessMindset #AchievementThroughDiscipline #GoalSetting #PersonalDevelopment