From Shane Parrish. And he’s right … about all of it, whether you agree or not, he’s right.
If you want to change the outer world, start with your inner world. The way you choose … CHOOSE .. to see the world is how the world presents itself to you.
One of the biggest things working in the background over the past two years is the mindset gap.*
At the onset of COVID, one group of people, became paralyzed and waited. They waited for someone else to take the lead and tell them what to do. They waited for schools to go online and figure out how to educate their kids. They waited for the government to tell them what was safe and what wasn't. They waited for clarity. They waited for certainty. And they waited for other people to solve problems so they could continue with life.
Another group of people refused to stop. While they might have slowed down, they kept adapting. Inch by inch they did what they could and moved forward. They hired teachers or turned to Khan academy for their kids. They kept the expectations of themselves and their kids high. They pushed forward at work and home. They solved problems. And they learned new skills.
The difference between these two groups comes down to mindset.
All the energy you put into things you can't control comes at the expense of things you can control. And because they focus on what they can control, the second mindset is far more resilient and adaptable than the first. And that makes all the difference.
When I talk to people about this, they often bring up the wealth gap. I hear things like, "It's easy for the rich to hire tutors and teachers and childcare and keep their kids working hard." Yes ... and that misses the point.
It is easy to overestimate the role of money and underestimate the role of mindset. Often, we convince ourselves that if only we had the resources, we would apply the second mindset. But the second mindset isn't a luxury of the rich, it is a necessity to build wealth in the first place.
When you focus on the money you miss the leverage of mindset hiding in plain sight.
A lot of people without a lot of money figured out ways to focus on what they could control. While they didn't control what the schools did, they did control giving their kids extra work or putting them in Khan academy. I'm using parents as a simple example to make a point, but the same mindset applies to every aspect of life every day.
Your mindset gets applied to life thousands of times a day. It's at work in every interaction and every circumstance. At the end of day one, the difference between the first and second mindset is indistinguishable but at the end of a decade, the gap is too large to catch up.
Sooner or later, you realize everything comes down to mindset.
When you focus on what you can control, there is always an action you can take to put yourself in a better position. When you focus on things you can't control you tend to freeze, unsure of what to do, and you wait.
The world might have paused for two years but people with the second mindset never stopped. Rather than be mastered by circumstances they didn't control, they mastered them.
For the past two years these two mindsets have been invisibly applied in the background. Now that the world is opening, the gap is becoming visible. My son's teacher told me she's never seen so many grade 6 kids so far behind. I can only imagine the education loss in higher grades. At the office, if you stood still for the past two years, you were lapped by the people that didn't stop.
The mindset gap created an outcome gap that will only compound in the next decades.
At his most popular, MLK had a disapproval rating of 62% from the public at large. 2 out of every 3 Americans polled felt like he was a bad person, doing bad things. Remember that the next time someone cuts on your dream, tries to silence your words, slanders you to a friend, or exercises their cowardly impulse. Those of us who do are only vulnerable to those who complain when we choose to be.
Anything you rely on can become a crutch. And disabled or not, when you rely on something, that is what will cripple you.
—RJ Mitte
Show up. Today, as you soon as you read, call to mind someone you know is going through a tough time. Use whatever scale you want to measure that struggle, that’s up to you. Now, do something about it. Most problems that absorb people’s minds cost less than $500 to fix. They usually aren’t about money at all, they are usually about being overwhelmed, doing it all alone, not knowing how to get things done.
You are different. You have the $500. You’ve been through the struggle. You’ve climbed the mountain. You know the way.
The sin of the desert is knowing where the water is and refusing to tell the thirsty person. Don’t be that person.
Reach out. Write the check. Say the words. Remove the hurt. Help.