April 19, 2024 • 35 mins
Take action today toward your own personal and professional development with impactful, practical insights from New York Times bestselling author Eduardo Briceño. Eduardo joins On Leadership to speak on the power of mindset, sharing his personal journey from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset and how that journey transformed his life. He discusses the performance zone and the learning zone, and how understanding these zones can help you achieve your goals and find fulfillment.
- Manage Your Energy to Do Your Job Well: 5 Tips for Constant Self-Renewal—To identify areas where you're putting yourself at risk of burnout, answer the questions in our guide, then choose one good self-care habit you can start practicing this week.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
Hello and welcome back toFranklinCovey's twice weekly podcast,
On Leadership with Scott Miller.We've been around for six years,
350 plus episodes where twiceweekly on Tuesdays and Fridays,
I have the privilege of shining what isFranklinCovey's mega watt spotlight onto
thought leaders around the world,
on topics related tomaking you a better leader.
(00:32):
FranklinCovey is the most trustedleadership firm in the world,
founded of course by Dr. Stephen R.Covey and Hyrum Smith four decades ago,
where we help organizationsand individuals really achieve what matters most
to them. Likely you have read The 7Habits of Highly Effective People,
the seminal book that our co-founderStephen Covey wrote that has changed
(00:52):
hundreds of millions of lives,
and we use this podcast everyweek to make you a better leader.
Perhaps it's a bettersolopreneur entrepreneur.
Maybe you're in the c-suite or leadershipteam of a large global company.
Maybe you're a leader inyour home, in your community,
or in any facet of your life.
We like to interview people that can makeyou more effective and whatever it is
(01:14):
you're trying to accomplish asyour legacy and your mission.
Today we have Eduardo Briceno.
He is the author of this phenomenalbook titled The Performance
Paradox:Turning the Powerof Mindset into Action. Now,
often a lot of our interviews come froma referral and sometimes they come from
(01:35):
my weekly visit to Barnes & Noble withmy three young sons. We have a policy,
if they will read it, I will buy it.
We walk out with a couple offeet of books every Saturday.
They think Barnes & Noble is the library,
but fine with me ifthey're going to read it.
And I happened upon Eduardo's book atBarnes & Noble a couple of months ago
and have invited him on to the podcast.With that, let's get down to business.
(01:59):
Eduardo, welcome to On Leadership.
Thank you, Scott. It's great to be here.
Great to have you joining us from theWest Coast today where you spend a lot of
your time when you're in the US, obviouslytraveling around the world. Eduardo,
I'm looking forward to talking all aboutwhat it means to be in the performance
zone, what it means tobe in the learning zone,
a key structure of yourbook and your teachings.
(02:19):
You have a TED Talk that is to sayit's gone viral is an understatement.
I have listened to it twice. I'veread your book and studied your work.
Before we get into the actualconcepts in The Performance Paradox,
rewind a couple of decades and spendsome time reorienting yourself to
all of our listeners and viewersaround the world. Where were you born?
(02:40):
What did you study, and how didyou come to write this new book?
Sure, and thanks for the kind word,Scott. I am from Caracas, Venezuela.
I thought I would live my wholelife there as everybody that I knew
did, and I sharesomething with you, Scott,
I think,
which is that I never guided myearly life and my early career
(03:05):
with what I thought wouldbring me happiness and joy.
I just did what I thought I wassupposed to do. I put my heads down,
I worked to get good gradesin school and then to try to
study something that would giveme a safe job that if there was a
recession, I could still have ajob and provide for my family.
So I studied things that Iwas not passionate about.
(03:27):
I studied chemical engineeringand I studied finance,
which I ended up enjoyingmore. But in college,
I learned about this thing I had neverheard about before called investment
banking. It sounded amazing.
I ended up doing that in Wall Streetin New York City, and I thought, wow,
I am living in New York City. Inever thought I'd be doing this.
I'm being paid more than money than Iever thought I would working in these
(03:51):
incredible multimillion dollar deals,and I thought I was living the dream.
I started working with the venturecapital group of the investment bank,
and I was asked to join that group. SoI moved to Silicon Valley 25 years ago.
I was here during thedot-com boom. And again,
I was in Menlo Park atthe center of Silicon
(04:14):
Valley meeting with entrepreneurs everyday and eventually ended up joining
boards of directors. And Ithought that was the dream.
That was what was at the peak of
what would make for whateverI thought success was.
And one night I was working late inthe office, I was not in a good mood.
I started kind of taking it outon the keyboard as I did my work,
(04:37):
and I started feeling some painon my hands and on my arms,
and it ended up getting worseover the next few weeks.
So I went to see a doctor and it turnedout to be something that was really hard
to diagnose.
I ended up seeing lots of doctors andtrying acupuncture and meditation and all
kinds of things, and I was getting worse.
And I met someone whohad my same condition,
(05:01):
who couldn't use their handsfor more than 10 minutes a day,
and that's freaked me out. I thought, wow,
what if I become unable to use my hands?
It turned out to be somethingcalled Myofascial Pain Syndrome,
a repetitive strain injury, andbecause it was really hard to diagnose,
I had to do a lot of learning aroundwhat this thing might be, what led to it,
(05:22):
how I could get better,
but also I learned that I had toaddress the root causes of that,
and that turned out to be lotsof things about lifestyle,
like nutrition and sleep andexercise and how I held my body.
I ended up, I was tensingmy body every day,
all day because I wanted toperform at my best every day,
(05:43):
all day, and that because I wastensing my muscles all the time,
it led to them gettingjust tight and short
permanently,
and that prevented them from bringingblood into them so that they could
recover.
And so it ended up in this conditionand I realized that there were a lot of
things that I had to change in my life,
(06:04):
and one of the things that I realizedI had to change was a sense of meaning,
a sense of contribution,
a sense of I was using my life well tomake a difference in the lives of others,
which I realized wasn'ttrue. And so I was thinking,
if I can't use my hands at all,
will I have done something useful withmy hands in the life that I have led?
And so far, I felt the answer was no,
(06:26):
because the great companies were goingto get funded whether I was in venture
capital or not,
and I wasn't feel like I wasgiving great advice to CEOs.
I didn't really have anyexperience. I was 27 years old,
so I went to grad school in search ofsomething where I felt like I could
actually make a big difference. I wasinterested in social entrepreneurship,
(06:47):
so I explored a lot of differentprojects and I was introduced to Stanford
professor Carol Dweck,that's where I was studying.
I got an MBA and a Master's inEducation and learned about her work.
She's the author of the book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. (06:58):
undefined
She became my mentor.
We co-founded an organizationtogether called Mindset Works,
and I led that organizationfor over a decade,
and that led to the work that I do now,
which is about helping peopleand organizations develop
learning and cultures oflearning and high performance.
(07:20):
Did that at the beginningin education in schools,
and over time I started being asked todo more and more public speaking and more
and more public speaking for businessesthat wanted to foster cultures of
learning and high performance.
And so that's what I do nowfull time is I help companies
build those cultures.
Let's start with a primer onthis idea of growth mindset.
(07:43):
Most people are familiar withCarol Dweck's work out of Stanford,
and her book Mindset. Butlet's do a reset there.
Remind everybody what it means to havea fixed mindset versus a growth mindset.
And maybe give us a sense for how you'veseen that applied in someone's life,
maybe your own.
Sure. So a lot of people have heardof growth mindset and fixed mindset.
(08:07):
When we ask people whata growth mindset is,
we often hear things thatare not quite right on,
we might hear it's working hard orit's persevering or it's having high
expectations and a growthmindset is none of those things.
So a growth mindset is a perspectiveabout the nature of human beings
specifically is thebelief that we can change,
(08:27):
that our abilities andqualities are malleable and we can develop them over time
as opposed to being fixed. For example,
when we think of ourselves as geniusesbecause we are natural at something
that's an example of a fixed mindset,
that we are great at something becauseof something that innate in us rather
than something that we have developed.
Or if we think I'm completely badat this thing and I could never
(08:51):
get better, that's also anexample of a fixed mindset.
We can have a mindset about ourselvesor a fixed mindset about others,
like labeling other people in fixedways thinking they can't change.
And what a fixed mindset does is itcreates a self-fulfilling prophecy, right?
Because if we believethat we can't change,
then we don't believe we can improvebecause change is necessary for
(09:12):
improvement. So we don't do the thingsnecessary to improve. Same thing.
If we believe somebody else can improve,
then we won't share usefulinformation with them,
like honest feedback that points toan opportunity for them to improve.
And so that is what a growth mindset,
fixed mindset is a belief about thenature of belief of human beings,
(09:32):
and it is necessary but notsufficient in order to foster growth.
Eduardo,
what drew you towards Carol'swork around growth mindset?
Was there something in your ownlife that you were searching for?
Riff on that.
Yeah, sure. And this ties to yourprior question about examples, right?
Personal examples for me, whenI read Carol's book Mindset,
(09:55):
I realized that I had a fixedmindset in several parts of my life.
One example was in sports and athletics.
I thought some people were athleticand others were not somewhere
in the middle, and that was notsomething that you could change.
And I saw myself as somebodywho was kind of in the middle,
not a fantastic athlete,not a very poor athlete,
(10:18):
but because I didn't think that I couldget better really in my athleticism
every time that I played a sport, I wasjust trying to prove how good I was.
I was trying to minimizemistakes, and if I made a mistake,
I would try to hide it. And that allprevented me from getting better.
Or in terms of social relationships,
(10:39):
I thought some people were funny andengaging and other people were really bad
at it. I was really bad at it.
I would get really nervous whenI would speak with anybody,
and I just wanted to be invisibleso I didn't have to talk to anybody.
And I didn't realize until I readCarol's book that that was just a fixed
mindset about social skills,
and I had never done anything to try tobecome better at interacting with people
(11:01):
because I thought that that was somethingpeople either had or didn't have.
And so those were some of theways that I was self-sabotaging.
And so because in readingthe book, I realized, wow,
this way of thinking is preventing mefrom getting better and achieving things
that I care about.
And then in identifying that andchanging my beliefs and behaviors,
(11:22):
I was able to become a much better athleteand to become much better at engaging
and interacting with people.And now I'm a public speaker,
so because it has such a bigimpact on me, then I thought,
wow, everybody shouldlearn this in school.
And that's where we started inschool. We think the hubs of society,
(11:43):
and that's why we partner up andwe set about to bring out her
work into the world. At the time,
nobody had heard of Carol Dweck or growthmindset said she had just released her
book. And so we set out toput it out into the world.
You and I share many friends.One of them is Chip Conley,
the hospitality entrepreneur, the author,
and now the organizer of sortof mission driven retreats for
(12:07):
people in the crescendo of life. Youshare a great story and your book,
The Performance Paradox about anexperience you had at Chip's retreat in
Mexico, involves the ocean a little bit.
Will you retell that story and maybeuse the lessons from that to move into
what are these two zones known as theperformance zone and the learning zone?
(12:29):
Absolutely, and Chip hasbecome a dear mentor.
I actually reached out, I didn't know him.
I reached out to ask him a question,
and he very generously said, hey,I am happy to answer that question.
How about a 20 minute call? I wouldlove to learn more about your work.
And in that conversation, hesuggested that I write a book,
and that's what led to the book that Iwrote. And he's become a dear mentor,
(12:52):
but one of the experiences thatyou're referring to is I went
to the Modern Elder Academy, which isthe organization that he co-founded.
They have a beautifulcampus in Baja, California.
And I spent a week there just learningabout midlife, which is what they do,
and learning about how to better navigatemidlife and spending time with Chip,
(13:15):
who was one of theco-facilitators for the week.
And it was a wonderful, I mean,he's a hospitality entrepreneur.
He created a great boutiquehotels chain called Joie de Vivre.
He was one of the advisors at Airbnb.
So he has created an incrediblekind of hospitality hotel in Baja,
(13:35):
California. It'sbeautiful, incredible food,
and it's right in front of theocean where you can see kind of
whales jumping on thewater, a beautiful beach.
But one thing that was really frustratingto me is that I couldn't get in the
water because I grew up 45 minutesfrom the ocean. I love the ocean,
I love swimming in the ocean.
(13:56):
And so that was the only thingthat I was frustrated by. And
we were asked not to go into thewater. The water was very dangerous.
I didn't want to not follow theinstructions from my dear mentor
and his organization canget people into trouble.
But we were told that about amile away, there was a beach,
a public beach where we couldgo in the water and it was safe.
(14:18):
So early one morning I joggedthere and it was amazing.
It was like paradise. There wasnobody there. I went in the water.
I'm very comfortable in theocean. I got past the waves.
I was kind of floating and justbeing mindful and really present and
enjoying the present moment.And next thing I know,
I look around and I'm really,
(14:39):
really far away fromshore and I said, wow,
there must be a strong current.This really is a strong ocean.
So I started swimming towards shore.
So my goals changed from really havinga great morning and enjoying to just
trying to get to the shore. Thatwas the most important thing.
So I was swimming to shoreand after a minute or two,
(15:00):
I look around and I have not madeany progress. So I realized, oh wow,
I must be in the middle of a rip current,
which I had heard about growing up inthe ocean, but it had never been in one.
And luckily for me, I realized, okay,
this is a dangerous situation and whatI need to do is not swim to shore.
I need to swim perpendicular to shorebecause I need to get out of this rip
(15:23):
current. So I turned 90degrees, I was turning,
I was swimming parallel to shore,
and it's a little scary because at thebeginning you continue to get pushed away
from shore, and I was reallyfar, but after a few minutes,
then I started turning a little bitmore towards shore and turning a little
more. I was tired.
(15:43):
So then I turned to mybackstroke rather than scroll.
And then eventually I started feelingthe waves a bit in front of me.
I turned back to freestyle. I wasjust performing straight to shore,
trying to get there.
And then eventually I let a bigwave tumble me towards shore towards
(16:03):
felt like forever. Andeventually I got up, I was dizzy,
but I was safe and I had survived.
And that is an illustration of thefact that sometimes when we have a
goal,
we drive straight toward it and thatmight not be the best way to get
there.
Often what we need to do is toexplore what might be better avenues,
(16:26):
what might be better strategies,
what might be people who mighthelp us get to our destination,
and it might not be evident or likea straight line from the beginning.
And so the performance zoneand the learning zone is the
performance zone is when we're tryingto do something as best as we know how,
trying to minimize mistakes.
And that's what a lot of us tend tospend all or most of our time doing that,
(16:50):
just getting things doneas best as we know how.
And the paradox is that when wedo that, we lower our performance.
When we are stuck in chronic performance,
just worried about onlygetting things done,
we get less done than if wealso engage in something else,
which is leaping beyond theknown. That's the learning zone,
trying things that may or may not work,
(17:11):
making mistakes and learning fromthose mistakes, soliciting feedback,
debriefing, reflecting.
All of those things are examples of thingsthat are different from just getting
things done and they're necessary inorder to foster continuous improvement and
innovation.
Eduardo,
you write in your book that while theperformance zone focuses on flawless
execution, the learningzone is about inquiry,
(17:35):
experimentation or reflection andintegrating both are essential to growth.
I mean, I would think that the majorityof organizations aren't just focused
on,
but are obsessed with flawlessexecution is understanding what do the
best performers do? Go do that. Whatare our systems, our strategies,
our structures,
let's get as minimal variation aspossible in our workforce and have them
(17:59):
focused on that.
I'm guessing that the learningzone is probably somewhat
counterintuitive to organizations thathave built so much focus and discipline
around flawless execution.Is that not your experience?
How would you respond to that?
Yes.
I find when I share these ideaswith people and with leaders,
(18:22):
it creates a lot of clarity becausethere's an implicit assumption often that
what we need to do to succeed is justto work hard, put our heads down,
do what we know works, minimize mistakes,
and that's what's goingto lead us to success.
And so we learned that one of the wayswe learned that is through school,
(18:42):
a lot of times everything is graded.
And what we think the teacherwants is for us to get a hundred
in everything we do to have no mistakes.
Or we might look at a wonderfulathlete performing doing what
they already know best and think thatthat's the path to excellence because we
don't see what they do off the court.They're working on their weaknesses,
(19:05):
they're working on the things thatare at the next level of challenge.
And so we get the idea that if you wantto become a fantastic tennis player,
you just spend 10,000 hours playingtennis and then you'll become great rather
than you spend 10,000 hours doing somevery different than playing tennis,
which is working with your coach on thethings that are at the next level that
you don't yet know how to do.
(19:26):
And so when I share these ideaswith leaders and professionals,
I actually do like polling in my sessionsand people reflect and share their
thinking. And more than 90% ofpeople consistently say, wow,
we're not engaging in the learningzone as much as we want to,
as much as I want us to because peoplego to work trying to do their best
(19:48):
every day.
And they have the implicit understandingthat the way to do that is to minimize
mistakes all the time.
And so we need to be deliberate a abouthow growth and improvement happens,
which is something different than that.
And then what are the systems and habitsthat we need to build as individuals,
teams, and organizations inorder to make that the default,
the way that we work byourselves and with each other.
(20:10):
Eduardo,
if our listeners and viewers are atall like me and my wife insists that no
one is like me, but justgo with that for a moment.
I'm guessing they're digesting your workthinking about their own career right
now,
they may be thinking less about theircompany and more about what's working for
them in terms of the roles they havein life and their career. I mean,
I have authored seven books.
(20:31):
I have taped 600 radioand podcast interviews,
and right now as I read yourbook, I've been thinking, okay,
so my current strategy is to write sevenmore books and tape 600 more episodes.
And I've had to ask myself,is that working for me?
Is it getting me to where I want to be?
Am I in the performance zone versus in the
(20:53):
learning zone?
This adage we hear most people will saythey've got 20 years of experience when
they have one year repeated 19times, and it's funny and pithy,
but there's some truth in that.
How does someone know whenit's time to move from their
own performance zone into the learningzone? Do these happen simultaneously?
(21:14):
Is it a pivot back and forth?Give us some guidance on that.
Sure, I'm happy to share insights on that.
I'm curious on what someof your reflections were,
because it strikes mewhen I wrote my book,
I learned a ton as I interviewed people,as I dove deeper into the research,
as I had to think about illustrations,then that led me to new ways of thinking.
(21:35):
And when I obviously in interviewingpeople, you're asking questions,
you're learning. So it seemsto me like in your work,
performance and learning is integrated,
which I think is the greatest opportunityfor all of us because we spend so much
time working in shifting the waywe work so that we do it not only
through getting things done,
but with the two goals of getting thingsdone while also learning and improving
(21:57):
along the way. It seems to me likethat's what you do, but before,
answer your question,
what are your reflections around whenyou thought about those things for
yourself?
Well, I think I'm probably not a greatexample because the nature of my job,
like yours is reading books and watchingTED Talks and interviewing people.
And so my job is by very naturea learning kind of zone job.
(22:18):
But I've been thinking about,so is it just more of the same?
What are my goals not confusingthe success I have with some of the
frustrations I've had around successmeasures? Am I measuring success properly?
I guess what your book didfor me was to ask myself,
should I just quadruple down anddo more of the same and it will
(22:42):
pop big for me, or should I pivotsignificantly and say, yeah, I did that.
I wrote seven books and I hosted threepodcasts and now that's done and I should
move to something entirely different.I'm not sure I'm a great example,
but your book certainly got me thinkingabout how much am I sort of working
harder and just doubling downmore and more and more versus
(23:05):
is there a pivot in mind?
Is the learning zone not learninghow to do what I'm doing now better,
but learning maybe somethingelse new and better?
Great.
So I would offer that for anybody foryou or for your wife or anybody else.
A lot of this is about beingintentional and to be intentional,
(23:28):
we need to be clear. Andso what do I mean by that?
One very simple strategy thatanybody can use, for example,
is to remind ourselves everymorning of what one area am I
trying to proactively improveand how am I going about it?
So if we build eventually an automatichabit where we are reminding ourselves of
(23:50):
some important things every morning,
one of them is what I'm working to improveand how then that's going to get me
into learning zone habits every day,where I'm going to improve at that thing.
And so then you can ask questionslike the ones that you're asking,
is it that I want to get betterat what I'm currently doing?
And so if I am going to be
(24:10):
an author or a podcast host,
what aspect of that specificallyam I going to be working to improve
and how? But it can be somethingcompletely different like you're saying.
And in order to answerthose types of questions,
I think we need to be clear aboutwhat we care most about in our lives,
what psychologists callour hierarchy of goals.
(24:32):
If I am a podcast host, we can askthe question, why am I a podcast host?
Why is that important to me?And that'll give me an answer.
And then I can ask why againand why again, and why again?
And that gets us to the highest levelvalues and goals that we have in our lives
or pursuits. And then we can askourselves, how do I get better at that,
at the thing that I care most about?
(24:54):
And the answer might be becominga better and better podcast host,
or it might be something different ormight be to add something to what you do
to your cadence and to
the mix of work and personalthings that you do in your life.
So those are some of thethings that we can think about.
And then think about do we want to engagein those things on my own or also do I
(25:17):
want to build a community of people thatI'm learning with and performing with
in order to do those things together?
Well, I don't have answersto any of those questions,
but I'll certainly be thinkingabout them more. When you opened,
you said something I thoughtthat was really resonant with me,
and that is I have sharedmy social platforms quite
vulnerably that at 56 years old,
(25:38):
I'm not quite sure what it isI want to do professionally.
I'm not quite sure what it is thatbrings me meaning and purpose and joy and
happiness.
I think one of the gifts thatperhaps the younger generation has,
and I'm still very much not at the endof my career by any means as my wife
reminds me because of the billsthat I am responsible for,
but I think the younger generationmay have afforded themselves
(26:02):
a little more deliberation aroundpursuing what does bring them joy,
what does bring them meaning I'm56, I was raised in the eighties.
I don't know anybody that wasever asked what brings you joy,
brings you meeting. We went anddid what it took to pay the bills.
We went and pursued what ourparents told us we should do
in most cases. I don't thinkthat's the case anymore.
(26:25):
I do think you give people a gift.
You're certainly giving me a giftaround some introspection on why am I a
podcast host?
I'm a podcast host because I havebills to pay and it's a talent
subjectively that I've built and building.
I'm not going to pivot to be a dentist.I'm not going to be a federal judge,
(26:46):
and I probably won't own a cardealership. But to your point,
I am really thinkingfrom reading your book,
what is that balance betweenbeing in the performance zone,
especially when I tape 6, 8,
10 interviews a week across allthree podcasts versus being in the
learning zone? And do I want to learnto be a better podcast host an author,
(27:07):
or do I want to learnto be something better?
I think it's just a question that I'masking myself as a result of reading your
book. I want to pivot because you teacha model in your book called The Growth
Propeller,
and I'd like to take the remainingminutes of our time and talk about that.
It has five elements, you call it thegrowth, propeller, identity, purpose,
(27:27):
belief, habits, and community.Would you explain first,
what is the growth propeller and maybetake a minute on each of those five
elements?
Sure.
So the growth propeller is a frameworkwith five elements on things that we can
think about and work on in order tobecome master learners and performers.
(27:50):
And so as you said, so picturea propeller with three blades.
One is beliefs, one ishabits, and one is community.
And in the center of thepropeller, the access,
we have those two elementsof identity and purpose.
So when it comes to identity,
who are we evolving to be both in,
(28:12):
how we think aboutourselves, how we think,
how we want others to think about us.
And sometimes we are really tied to avery fixed sense of identity that prevents
us from changing. And if we can'tchange, then we can't improve.
So one thing that we can workon identity and think about is
do I think of myself as a learner?
(28:33):
Do I think of myself as someone who'salways continuing to evolve as my default
proactively know something? Growth andlearning shouldn't be just reactive.
When we make a mistake, we learn,but rather is change the default?
And how am I driving my own change?Is that part of my identity?
That's the identity piece.
The purpose is what gives usenergy to do everything that we
(28:58):
do, including engaging in the learningzone and the performance zone.
So in terms of organizations,
organizations with a strong sense ofpurpose and mission that they feel they're
making a big difference in the worldand they foster that in their staff.
That gives people an energy to collaborateand to put effort into learning and
performing. And for you,and for a lot of parents,
(29:19):
it might be just tohelp their kids thrive.
And so if for parents who areworking only for paycheck,
that can give them a strong sense ofpurpose if that's providing something
that's really important to them andthat's going to help their kids thrive.
But for me, eventually,
my wife and I like tospend below our means.
(29:42):
And so when I was making a lot ofmoney in venture capital and investment
banking,
at some point I had a strongsense of purpose in driving for
money before that. But when that wentaway, I felt a void. So I got sick.
And so I needed adifferent sense of purpose.
That's where I connected with contributingto others and making a difference in
other people's lives. So that wasmy path. When it comes to belief,
(30:04):
there's lots of implicit beliefs that wehaven't examined that lead us to behave
in different ways.
One example is growth mindset and fixedmindset when we view ourselves and
others as set the waythey are or as able to
change and grow. But anotherexample is transparency, right?
When I'm transparent with others andI share with them my beliefs and my
(30:27):
emotions, is that somethingthat puts me at risk?
Is that something thatpeople can use against me?
So it keeps me fearful of doing that.
Or do I think transparencyis a good thing?
Do I want to share more authenticallywith other people around me,
especially around information thatis relevant to our shared goals?
And is that going to make usstronger in learning and performing?
Is that going to deepen relationshipsrather than harm relationships,
(30:51):
if I'm honest with other people andmaybe engage in difficult conversations
sometimes?
So those are some examples of beliefsthat change the way we approach learning
and performing. Then there's habits.
Most of our behavior isdriven by unconscious and automatic habits rather than
by rational decision making.
And so being mindful about thehabits and systems that we put
(31:14):
together to perform and to learn.Often in our lives and in our work,
we have lots of habits and systemsthat are driven toward performance,
and those are important,
but we often don't have enough systemsand habits that are driven for learning.
And so what do they look like?
How do I continue to evolve andget better at those? And finally,
there's community. The peoplearound us, whether it's our team,
(31:35):
our organization, our family, ourfriends, our church, whatever it is,
are those people, peoplethat I see as learners,
people who want to continueto change and evolve and grow.
Are they interested in soliciting feedbackand examining mistakes and sharing
with each other what they'relooking to improve upon?
And are we collaborating onthat? And very importantly,
(31:57):
do I feel like I trust them? Do Ifeel like I belong in that community?
So who am I surrounded surrounding myselfwith and how am I building a culture
with them toward collaborativelearning and performing?
Never have the words my wifeand I like to live beneath.
Our means come out of my mouth,
but it's a concept we will bediscussing this evening. Hey,
(32:19):
let's end our discussion today. Eduardo,
you wrote something that Ithink is really inspiring to me,
and that is that our purposeand our identities are
not static. They are evolving. AndI don't think that's an epiphany,
but I liked reading it in the book.
And I want you to end our discussiontoday reminding everybody that our purpose
(32:41):
is not predetermined. I mean,
maybe someone thinks that because oftheir religion, that's fine as well.
I like to think that it's not,
I like cleaving to the idea that ouridentities of course change and evolve
and so do our purposes.
How does that concept helpto reinforce the need for a
growth mindset and to findourselves in the learning zone?
(33:05):
Connect those two and we'll end?
Sure. Well,
sometimes when we areasked to mentor younger
people, for example,
we might suggest that they workon finding their passions or
finding their purpose.
And something that growth mindset researchhas uncovered is that that can have
(33:26):
negative consequences because it canfoster a fixed mindset about trying to
find out what is the onething that we were born to
do as opposed to developing our purpose by
exploring and tinkering with thingsthat we might find interesting,
understanding that we mightevolve in different ways.
(33:46):
And there are different possible ways,
a lot of different ways that we couldthrive in terms of evolving ourselves,
in terms of evolving how we want to live,
how we want to be goodstewards of our life,
how we want to contribute to other people.
And so that is very freeing forus to think that there's not a
one truth inside us to discover,
(34:09):
but rather there's lots of possibilities,lots of choices we can make.
And it is up to us to thinkabout how do I want to
continue to evolve and howdo I want to continue to make
life meaningful to me and tofeel like I'm living life well?
And how do I work atgetting better at that?
Not looking for flawlessness,
(34:32):
but looking to get better at thatand explore and try some things.
Some things might work, some things mightnot work. That decreases our stress,
it decreases our sense of anxiety andincreases our joy and happiness along
our joy and happiness along the waybecause a growth mindset doesn't just
lead to higher growthand higher performance.
So it's not just about the outcomes,
(34:53):
but it's also about thejourney along the way.
The process is a lot more joyfulbecause we're asking more questions,
listening better, experimenting,discovering more about each other,
building deeper relationships,
and that makes for a morejoyful and fulfilling life.
Eduardo Briceno, your bookis The Performance Paradox:
Turning the Power of Mindset into Action.
(35:15):
You are the CEO of Growth.how,
and the co-founder of MindsetWorks. Thanks for your time today.
Thank you, Scott. Great to be here.
And we'll see you back here next weekfor a new conversation On Leadership.
Hello and welcome back toFranklinCovey's twice weekly podcast,
On Leadership with Scott Miller.We've been around for six years,
350 plus episodes where twiceweekly on Tuesdays and Fridays,
I have the privilege of shining what isFranklinCovey's mega watt spotlight onto
thought leaders around the world,
on topics related tomaking you a better leader.
(00:32):
FranklinCovey is the most trustedleadership firm in the world,
founded of course by Dr. Stephen R.Covey and Hyrum Smith four decades ago,
where we help organizationsand individuals really achieve what matters most
to them. Likely you have read The 7Habits of Highly Effective People,
the seminal book that our co-founderStephen Covey wrote that has changed
(00:52):
hundreds of millions of lives,
and we use this podcast everyweek to make you a better leader.
Perhaps it's a bettersolopreneur entrepreneur.
Maybe you're in the c-suite or leadershipteam of a large global company.
Maybe you're a leader inyour home, in your community,
or in any facet of your life.
We like to interview people that can makeyou more effective and whatever it is
(01:14):
you're trying to accomplish asyour legacy and your mission.
Today we have Eduardo Briceno.
He is the author of this phenomenalbook titled The Performance
Paradox:Turning the Powerof Mindset into Action. Now,
often a lot of our interviews come froma referral and sometimes they come from
(01:35):
my weekly visit to Barnes & Noble withmy three young sons. We have a policy,
if they will read it, I will buy it.
We walk out with a couple offeet of books every Saturday.
They think Barnes & Noble is the library,
but fine with me ifthey're going to read it.
And I happened upon Eduardo's book atBarnes & Noble a couple of months ago
and have invited him on to the podcast.With that, let's get down to business.
(01:59):
Eduardo, welcome to On Leadership.
Thank you, Scott. It's great to be here.
Great to have you joining us from theWest Coast today where you spend a lot of
your time when you're in the US, obviouslytraveling around the world. Eduardo,
I'm looking forward to talking all aboutwhat it means to be in the performance
zone, what it means tobe in the learning zone,
a key structure of yourbook and your teachings.
(02:19):
You have a TED Talk that is to sayit's gone viral is an understatement.
I have listened to it twice. I'veread your book and studied your work.
Before we get into the actualconcepts in The Performance Paradox,
rewind a couple of decades and spendsome time reorienting yourself to
all of our listeners and viewersaround the world. Where were you born?
(02:40):
What did you study, and how didyou come to write this new book?
Sure, and thanks for the kind word,Scott. I am from Caracas, Venezuela.
I thought I would live my wholelife there as everybody that I knew
did, and I sharesomething with you, Scott,
I think,
which is that I never guided myearly life and my early career
(03:05):
with what I thought wouldbring me happiness and joy.
I just did what I thought I wassupposed to do. I put my heads down,
I worked to get good gradesin school and then to try to
study something that would giveme a safe job that if there was a
recession, I could still have ajob and provide for my family.
So I studied things that Iwas not passionate about.
(03:27):
I studied chemical engineeringand I studied finance,
which I ended up enjoyingmore. But in college,
I learned about this thing I had neverheard about before called investment
banking. It sounded amazing.
I ended up doing that in Wall Streetin New York City, and I thought, wow,
I am living in New York City. Inever thought I'd be doing this.
I'm being paid more than money than Iever thought I would working in these
(03:51):
incredible multimillion dollar deals,and I thought I was living the dream.
I started working with the venturecapital group of the investment bank,
and I was asked to join that group. SoI moved to Silicon Valley 25 years ago.
I was here during thedot-com boom. And again,
I was in Menlo Park atthe center of Silicon
(04:14):
Valley meeting with entrepreneurs everyday and eventually ended up joining
boards of directors. And Ithought that was the dream.
That was what was at the peak of
what would make for whateverI thought success was.
And one night I was working late inthe office, I was not in a good mood.
I started kind of taking it outon the keyboard as I did my work,
(04:37):
and I started feeling some painon my hands and on my arms,
and it ended up getting worseover the next few weeks.
So I went to see a doctor and it turnedout to be something that was really hard
to diagnose.
I ended up seeing lots of doctors andtrying acupuncture and meditation and all
kinds of things, and I was getting worse.
And I met someone whohad my same condition,
(05:01):
who couldn't use their handsfor more than 10 minutes a day,
and that's freaked me out. I thought, wow,
what if I become unable to use my hands?
It turned out to be somethingcalled Myofascial Pain Syndrome,
a repetitive strain injury, andbecause it was really hard to diagnose,
I had to do a lot of learning aroundwhat this thing might be, what led to it,
(05:22):
how I could get better,
but also I learned that I had toaddress the root causes of that,
and that turned out to be lotsof things about lifestyle,
like nutrition and sleep andexercise and how I held my body.
I ended up, I was tensingmy body every day,
all day because I wanted toperform at my best every day,
(05:43):
all day, and that because I wastensing my muscles all the time,
it led to them gettingjust tight and short
permanently,
and that prevented them from bringingblood into them so that they could
recover.
And so it ended up in this conditionand I realized that there were a lot of
things that I had to change in my life,
(06:04):
and one of the things that I realizedI had to change was a sense of meaning,
a sense of contribution,
a sense of I was using my life well tomake a difference in the lives of others,
which I realized wasn'ttrue. And so I was thinking,
if I can't use my hands at all,
will I have done something useful withmy hands in the life that I have led?
And so far, I felt the answer was no,
(06:26):
because the great companies were goingto get funded whether I was in venture
capital or not,
and I wasn't feel like I wasgiving great advice to CEOs.
I didn't really have anyexperience. I was 27 years old,
so I went to grad school in search ofsomething where I felt like I could
actually make a big difference. I wasinterested in social entrepreneurship,
(06:47):
so I explored a lot of differentprojects and I was introduced to Stanford
professor Carol Dweck,that's where I was studying.
I got an MBA and a Master's inEducation and learned about her work.
She's the author of the book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. (06:58):
undefined
She became my mentor.
We co-founded an organizationtogether called Mindset Works,
and I led that organizationfor over a decade,
and that led to the work that I do now,
which is about helping peopleand organizations develop
learning and cultures oflearning and high performance.
(07:20):
Did that at the beginningin education in schools,
and over time I started being asked todo more and more public speaking and more
and more public speaking for businessesthat wanted to foster cultures of
learning and high performance.
And so that's what I do nowfull time is I help companies
build those cultures.
Let's start with a primer onthis idea of growth mindset.
(07:43):
Most people are familiar withCarol Dweck's work out of Stanford,
and her book Mindset. Butlet's do a reset there.
Remind everybody what it means to havea fixed mindset versus a growth mindset.
And maybe give us a sense for how you'veseen that applied in someone's life,
maybe your own.
Sure. So a lot of people have heardof growth mindset and fixed mindset.
(08:07):
When we ask people whata growth mindset is,
we often hear things thatare not quite right on,
we might hear it's working hard orit's persevering or it's having high
expectations and a growthmindset is none of those things.
So a growth mindset is a perspectiveabout the nature of human beings
specifically is thebelief that we can change,
(08:27):
that our abilities andqualities are malleable and we can develop them over time
as opposed to being fixed. For example,
when we think of ourselves as geniusesbecause we are natural at something
that's an example of a fixed mindset,
that we are great at something becauseof something that innate in us rather
than something that we have developed.
Or if we think I'm completely badat this thing and I could never
(08:51):
get better, that's also anexample of a fixed mindset.
We can have a mindset about ourselvesor a fixed mindset about others,
like labeling other people in fixedways thinking they can't change.
And what a fixed mindset does is itcreates a self-fulfilling prophecy, right?
Because if we believethat we can't change,
then we don't believe we can improvebecause change is necessary for
(09:12):
improvement. So we don't do the thingsnecessary to improve. Same thing.
If we believe somebody else can improve,
then we won't share usefulinformation with them,
like honest feedback that points toan opportunity for them to improve.
And so that is what a growth mindset,
fixed mindset is a belief about thenature of belief of human beings,
(09:32):
and it is necessary but notsufficient in order to foster growth.
Eduardo,
what drew you towards Carol'swork around growth mindset?
Was there something in your ownlife that you were searching for?
Riff on that.
Yeah, sure. And this ties to yourprior question about examples, right?
Personal examples for me, whenI read Carol's book Mindset,
(09:55):
I realized that I had a fixedmindset in several parts of my life.
One example was in sports and athletics.
I thought some people were athleticand others were not somewhere
in the middle, and that was notsomething that you could change.
And I saw myself as somebodywho was kind of in the middle,
not a fantastic athlete,not a very poor athlete,
(10:18):
but because I didn't think that I couldget better really in my athleticism
every time that I played a sport, I wasjust trying to prove how good I was.
I was trying to minimizemistakes, and if I made a mistake,
I would try to hide it. And that allprevented me from getting better.
Or in terms of social relationships,
(10:39):
I thought some people were funny andengaging and other people were really bad
at it. I was really bad at it.
I would get really nervous whenI would speak with anybody,
and I just wanted to be invisibleso I didn't have to talk to anybody.
And I didn't realize until I readCarol's book that that was just a fixed
mindset about social skills,
and I had never done anything to try tobecome better at interacting with people
(11:01):
because I thought that that was somethingpeople either had or didn't have.
And so those were some of theways that I was self-sabotaging.
And so because in readingthe book, I realized, wow,
this way of thinking is preventing mefrom getting better and achieving things
that I care about.
And then in identifying that andchanging my beliefs and behaviors,
(11:22):
I was able to become a much better athleteand to become much better at engaging
and interacting with people.And now I'm a public speaker,
so because it has such a bigimpact on me, then I thought,
wow, everybody shouldlearn this in school.
And that's where we started inschool. We think the hubs of society,
(11:43):
and that's why we partner up andwe set about to bring out her
work into the world. At the time,
nobody had heard of Carol Dweck or growthmindset said she had just released her
book. And so we set out toput it out into the world.
You and I share many friends.One of them is Chip Conley,
the hospitality entrepreneur, the author,
and now the organizer of sortof mission driven retreats for
(12:07):
people in the crescendo of life. Youshare a great story and your book,
The Performance Paradox about anexperience you had at Chip's retreat in
Mexico, involves the ocean a little bit.
Will you retell that story and maybeuse the lessons from that to move into
what are these two zones known as theperformance zone and the learning zone?
(12:29):
Absolutely, and Chip hasbecome a dear mentor.
I actually reached out, I didn't know him.
I reached out to ask him a question,
and he very generously said, hey,I am happy to answer that question.
How about a 20 minute call? I wouldlove to learn more about your work.
And in that conversation, hesuggested that I write a book,
and that's what led to the book that Iwrote. And he's become a dear mentor,
(12:52):
but one of the experiences thatyou're referring to is I went
to the Modern Elder Academy, which isthe organization that he co-founded.
They have a beautifulcampus in Baja, California.
And I spent a week there just learningabout midlife, which is what they do,
and learning about how to better navigatemidlife and spending time with Chip,
(13:15):
who was one of theco-facilitators for the week.
And it was a wonderful, I mean,he's a hospitality entrepreneur.
He created a great boutiquehotels chain called Joie de Vivre.
He was one of the advisors at Airbnb.
So he has created an incrediblekind of hospitality hotel in Baja,
(13:35):
California. It'sbeautiful, incredible food,
and it's right in front of theocean where you can see kind of
whales jumping on thewater, a beautiful beach.
But one thing that was really frustratingto me is that I couldn't get in the
water because I grew up 45 minutesfrom the ocean. I love the ocean,
I love swimming in the ocean.
(13:56):
And so that was the only thingthat I was frustrated by. And
we were asked not to go into thewater. The water was very dangerous.
I didn't want to not follow theinstructions from my dear mentor
and his organization canget people into trouble.
But we were told that about amile away, there was a beach,
a public beach where we couldgo in the water and it was safe.
(14:18):
So early one morning I joggedthere and it was amazing.
It was like paradise. There wasnobody there. I went in the water.
I'm very comfortable in theocean. I got past the waves.
I was kind of floating and justbeing mindful and really present and
enjoying the present moment.And next thing I know,
I look around and I'm really,
(14:39):
really far away fromshore and I said, wow,
there must be a strong current.This really is a strong ocean.
So I started swimming towards shore.
So my goals changed from really havinga great morning and enjoying to just
trying to get to the shore. Thatwas the most important thing.
So I was swimming to shoreand after a minute or two,
(15:00):
I look around and I have not madeany progress. So I realized, oh wow,
I must be in the middle of a rip current,
which I had heard about growing up inthe ocean, but it had never been in one.
And luckily for me, I realized, okay,
this is a dangerous situation and whatI need to do is not swim to shore.
I need to swim perpendicular to shorebecause I need to get out of this rip
(15:23):
current. So I turned 90degrees, I was turning,
I was swimming parallel to shore,
and it's a little scary because at thebeginning you continue to get pushed away
from shore, and I was reallyfar, but after a few minutes,
then I started turning a little bitmore towards shore and turning a little
more. I was tired.
(15:43):
So then I turned to mybackstroke rather than scroll.
And then eventually I started feelingthe waves a bit in front of me.
I turned back to freestyle. I wasjust performing straight to shore,
trying to get there.
And then eventually I let a bigwave tumble me towards shore towards
(16:03):
felt like forever. Andeventually I got up, I was dizzy,
but I was safe and I had survived.
And that is an illustration of thefact that sometimes when we have a
goal,
we drive straight toward it and thatmight not be the best way to get
there.
Often what we need to do is toexplore what might be better avenues,
(16:26):
what might be better strategies,
what might be people who mighthelp us get to our destination,
and it might not be evident or likea straight line from the beginning.
And so the performance zoneand the learning zone is the
performance zone is when we're tryingto do something as best as we know how,
trying to minimize mistakes.
And that's what a lot of us tend tospend all or most of our time doing that,
(16:50):
just getting things doneas best as we know how.
And the paradox is that when wedo that, we lower our performance.
When we are stuck in chronic performance,
just worried about onlygetting things done,
we get less done than if wealso engage in something else,
which is leaping beyond theknown. That's the learning zone,
trying things that may or may not work,
(17:11):
making mistakes and learning fromthose mistakes, soliciting feedback,
debriefing, reflecting.
All of those things are examples of thingsthat are different from just getting
things done and they're necessary inorder to foster continuous improvement and
innovation.
Eduardo,
you write in your book that while theperformance zone focuses on flawless
execution, the learningzone is about inquiry,
(17:35):
experimentation or reflection andintegrating both are essential to growth.
I mean, I would think that the majorityof organizations aren't just focused
on,
but are obsessed with flawlessexecution is understanding what do the
best performers do? Go do that. Whatare our systems, our strategies,
our structures,
let's get as minimal variation aspossible in our workforce and have them
(17:59):
focused on that.
I'm guessing that the learningzone is probably somewhat
counterintuitive to organizations thathave built so much focus and discipline
around flawless execution.Is that not your experience?
How would you respond to that?
Yes.
I find when I share these ideaswith people and with leaders,
(18:22):
it creates a lot of clarity becausethere's an implicit assumption often that
what we need to do to succeed is justto work hard, put our heads down,
do what we know works, minimize mistakes,
and that's what's goingto lead us to success.
And so we learned that one of the wayswe learned that is through school,
(18:42):
a lot of times everything is graded.
And what we think the teacherwants is for us to get a hundred
in everything we do to have no mistakes.
Or we might look at a wonderfulathlete performing doing what
they already know best and think thatthat's the path to excellence because we
don't see what they do off the court.They're working on their weaknesses,
(19:05):
they're working on the things thatare at the next level of challenge.
And so we get the idea that if you wantto become a fantastic tennis player,
you just spend 10,000 hours playingtennis and then you'll become great rather
than you spend 10,000 hours doing somevery different than playing tennis,
which is working with your coach on thethings that are at the next level that
you don't yet know how to do.
(19:26):
And so when I share these ideaswith leaders and professionals,
I actually do like polling in my sessionsand people reflect and share their
thinking. And more than 90% ofpeople consistently say, wow,
we're not engaging in the learningzone as much as we want to,
as much as I want us to because peoplego to work trying to do their best
(19:48):
every day.
And they have the implicit understandingthat the way to do that is to minimize
mistakes all the time.
And so we need to be deliberate a abouthow growth and improvement happens,
which is something different than that.
And then what are the systems and habitsthat we need to build as individuals,
teams, and organizations inorder to make that the default,
the way that we work byourselves and with each other.
(20:10):
Eduardo,
if our listeners and viewers are atall like me and my wife insists that no
one is like me, but justgo with that for a moment.
I'm guessing they're digesting your workthinking about their own career right
now,
they may be thinking less about theircompany and more about what's working for
them in terms of the roles they havein life and their career. I mean,
I have authored seven books.
(20:31):
I have taped 600 radioand podcast interviews,
and right now as I read yourbook, I've been thinking, okay,
so my current strategy is to write sevenmore books and tape 600 more episodes.
And I've had to ask myself,is that working for me?
Is it getting me to where I want to be?
Am I in the performance zone versus in the
(20:53):
learning zone?
This adage we hear most people will saythey've got 20 years of experience when
they have one year repeated 19times, and it's funny and pithy,
but there's some truth in that.
How does someone know whenit's time to move from their
own performance zone into the learningzone? Do these happen simultaneously?
(21:14):
Is it a pivot back and forth?Give us some guidance on that.
Sure, I'm happy to share insights on that.
I'm curious on what someof your reflections were,
because it strikes mewhen I wrote my book,
I learned a ton as I interviewed people,as I dove deeper into the research,
as I had to think about illustrations,then that led me to new ways of thinking.
(21:35):
And when I obviously in interviewingpeople, you're asking questions,
you're learning. So it seemsto me like in your work,
performance and learning is integrated,
which I think is the greatest opportunityfor all of us because we spend so much
time working in shifting the waywe work so that we do it not only
through getting things done,
but with the two goals of getting thingsdone while also learning and improving
(21:57):
along the way. It seems to me likethat's what you do, but before,
answer your question,
what are your reflections around whenyou thought about those things for
yourself?
Well, I think I'm probably not a greatexample because the nature of my job,
like yours is reading books and watchingTED Talks and interviewing people.
And so my job is by very naturea learning kind of zone job.
(22:18):
But I've been thinking about,so is it just more of the same?
What are my goals not confusingthe success I have with some of the
frustrations I've had around successmeasures? Am I measuring success properly?
I guess what your book didfor me was to ask myself,
should I just quadruple down anddo more of the same and it will
(22:42):
pop big for me, or should I pivotsignificantly and say, yeah, I did that.
I wrote seven books and I hosted threepodcasts and now that's done and I should
move to something entirely different.I'm not sure I'm a great example,
but your book certainly got me thinkingabout how much am I sort of working
harder and just doubling downmore and more and more versus
(23:05):
is there a pivot in mind?
Is the learning zone not learninghow to do what I'm doing now better,
but learning maybe somethingelse new and better?
Great.
So I would offer that for anybody foryou or for your wife or anybody else.
A lot of this is about beingintentional and to be intentional,
(23:28):
we need to be clear. Andso what do I mean by that?
One very simple strategy thatanybody can use, for example,
is to remind ourselves everymorning of what one area am I
trying to proactively improveand how am I going about it?
So if we build eventually an automatichabit where we are reminding ourselves of
(23:50):
some important things every morning,
one of them is what I'm working to improveand how then that's going to get me
into learning zone habits every day,where I'm going to improve at that thing.
And so then you can ask questionslike the ones that you're asking,
is it that I want to get betterat what I'm currently doing?
And so if I am going to be
(24:10):
an author or a podcast host,
what aspect of that specificallyam I going to be working to improve
and how? But it can be somethingcompletely different like you're saying.
And in order to answerthose types of questions,
I think we need to be clear aboutwhat we care most about in our lives,
what psychologists callour hierarchy of goals.
(24:32):
If I am a podcast host, we can askthe question, why am I a podcast host?
Why is that important to me?And that'll give me an answer.
And then I can ask why againand why again, and why again?
And that gets us to the highest levelvalues and goals that we have in our lives
or pursuits. And then we can askourselves, how do I get better at that,
at the thing that I care most about?
(24:54):
And the answer might be becominga better and better podcast host,
or it might be something different ormight be to add something to what you do
to your cadence and to
the mix of work and personalthings that you do in your life.
So those are some of thethings that we can think about.
And then think about do we want to engagein those things on my own or also do I
(25:17):
want to build a community of people thatI'm learning with and performing with
in order to do those things together?
Well, I don't have answersto any of those questions,
but I'll certainly be thinkingabout them more. When you opened,
you said something I thoughtthat was really resonant with me,
and that is I have sharedmy social platforms quite
vulnerably that at 56 years old,
(25:38):
I'm not quite sure what it isI want to do professionally.
I'm not quite sure what it is thatbrings me meaning and purpose and joy and
happiness.
I think one of the gifts thatperhaps the younger generation has,
and I'm still very much not at the endof my career by any means as my wife
reminds me because of the billsthat I am responsible for,
but I think the younger generationmay have afforded themselves
(26:02):
a little more deliberation aroundpursuing what does bring them joy,
what does bring them meaning I'm56, I was raised in the eighties.
I don't know anybody that wasever asked what brings you joy,
brings you meeting. We went anddid what it took to pay the bills.
We went and pursued what ourparents told us we should do
in most cases. I don't thinkthat's the case anymore.
(26:25):
I do think you give people a gift.
You're certainly giving me a giftaround some introspection on why am I a
podcast host?
I'm a podcast host because I havebills to pay and it's a talent
subjectively that I've built and building.
I'm not going to pivot to be a dentist.I'm not going to be a federal judge,
(26:46):
and I probably won't own a cardealership. But to your point,
I am really thinkingfrom reading your book,
what is that balance betweenbeing in the performance zone,
especially when I tape 6, 8,
10 interviews a week across allthree podcasts versus being in the
learning zone? And do I want to learnto be a better podcast host an author,
(27:07):
or do I want to learnto be something better?
I think it's just a question that I'masking myself as a result of reading your
book. I want to pivot because you teacha model in your book called The Growth
Propeller,
and I'd like to take the remainingminutes of our time and talk about that.
It has five elements, you call it thegrowth, propeller, identity, purpose,
(27:27):
belief, habits, and community.Would you explain first,
what is the growth propeller and maybetake a minute on each of those five
elements?
Sure.
So the growth propeller is a frameworkwith five elements on things that we can
think about and work on in order tobecome master learners and performers.
(27:50):
And so as you said, so picturea propeller with three blades.
One is beliefs, one ishabits, and one is community.
And in the center of thepropeller, the access,
we have those two elementsof identity and purpose.
So when it comes to identity,
who are we evolving to be both in,
(28:12):
how we think aboutourselves, how we think,
how we want others to think about us.
And sometimes we are really tied to avery fixed sense of identity that prevents
us from changing. And if we can'tchange, then we can't improve.
So one thing that we can workon identity and think about is
do I think of myself as a learner?
(28:33):
Do I think of myself as someone who'salways continuing to evolve as my default
proactively know something? Growth andlearning shouldn't be just reactive.
When we make a mistake, we learn,but rather is change the default?
And how am I driving my own change?Is that part of my identity?
That's the identity piece.
The purpose is what gives usenergy to do everything that we
(28:58):
do, including engaging in the learningzone and the performance zone.
So in terms of organizations,
organizations with a strong sense ofpurpose and mission that they feel they're
making a big difference in the worldand they foster that in their staff.
That gives people an energy to collaborateand to put effort into learning and
performing. And for you,and for a lot of parents,
(29:19):
it might be just tohelp their kids thrive.
And so if for parents who areworking only for paycheck,
that can give them a strong sense ofpurpose if that's providing something
that's really important to them andthat's going to help their kids thrive.
But for me, eventually,
my wife and I like tospend below our means.
(29:42):
And so when I was making a lot ofmoney in venture capital and investment
banking,
at some point I had a strongsense of purpose in driving for
money before that. But when that wentaway, I felt a void. So I got sick.
And so I needed adifferent sense of purpose.
That's where I connected with contributingto others and making a difference in
other people's lives. So that wasmy path. When it comes to belief,
(30:04):
there's lots of implicit beliefs that wehaven't examined that lead us to behave
in different ways.
One example is growth mindset and fixedmindset when we view ourselves and
others as set the waythey are or as able to
change and grow. But anotherexample is transparency, right?
When I'm transparent with others andI share with them my beliefs and my
(30:27):
emotions, is that somethingthat puts me at risk?
Is that something thatpeople can use against me?
So it keeps me fearful of doing that.
Or do I think transparencyis a good thing?
Do I want to share more authenticallywith other people around me,
especially around information thatis relevant to our shared goals?
And is that going to make usstronger in learning and performing?
Is that going to deepen relationshipsrather than harm relationships,
(30:51):
if I'm honest with other people andmaybe engage in difficult conversations
sometimes?
So those are some examples of beliefsthat change the way we approach learning
and performing. Then there's habits.
Most of our behavior isdriven by unconscious and automatic habits rather than
by rational decision making.
And so being mindful about thehabits and systems that we put
(31:14):
together to perform and to learn.Often in our lives and in our work,
we have lots of habits and systemsthat are driven toward performance,
and those are important,
but we often don't have enough systemsand habits that are driven for learning.
And so what do they look like?
How do I continue to evolve andget better at those? And finally,
there's community. The peoplearound us, whether it's our team,
(31:35):
our organization, our family, ourfriends, our church, whatever it is,
are those people, peoplethat I see as learners,
people who want to continueto change and evolve and grow.
Are they interested in soliciting feedbackand examining mistakes and sharing
with each other what they'relooking to improve upon?
And are we collaborating onthat? And very importantly,
(31:57):
do I feel like I trust them? Do Ifeel like I belong in that community?
So who am I surrounded surrounding myselfwith and how am I building a culture
with them toward collaborativelearning and performing?
Never have the words my wifeand I like to live beneath.
Our means come out of my mouth,
but it's a concept we will bediscussing this evening. Hey,
(32:19):
let's end our discussion today. Eduardo,
you wrote something that Ithink is really inspiring to me,
and that is that our purposeand our identities are
not static. They are evolving. AndI don't think that's an epiphany,
but I liked reading it in the book.
And I want you to end our discussiontoday reminding everybody that our purpose
(32:41):
is not predetermined. I mean,
maybe someone thinks that because oftheir religion, that's fine as well.
I like to think that it's not,
I like cleaving to the idea that ouridentities of course change and evolve
and so do our purposes.
How does that concept helpto reinforce the need for a
growth mindset and to findourselves in the learning zone?
(33:05):
Connect those two and we'll end?
Sure. Well,
sometimes when we areasked to mentor younger
people, for example,
we might suggest that they workon finding their passions or
finding their purpose.
And something that growth mindset researchhas uncovered is that that can have
(33:26):
negative consequences because it canfoster a fixed mindset about trying to
find out what is the onething that we were born to
do as opposed to developing our purpose by
exploring and tinkering with thingsthat we might find interesting,
understanding that we mightevolve in different ways.
(33:46):
And there are different possible ways,
a lot of different ways that we couldthrive in terms of evolving ourselves,
in terms of evolving how we want to live,
how we want to be goodstewards of our life,
how we want to contribute to other people.
And so that is very freeing forus to think that there's not a
one truth inside us to discover,
(34:09):
but rather there's lots of possibilities,lots of choices we can make.
And it is up to us to thinkabout how do I want to
continue to evolve and howdo I want to continue to make
life meaningful to me and tofeel like I'm living life well?
And how do I work atgetting better at that?
Not looking for flawlessness,
(34:32):
but looking to get better at thatand explore and try some things.
Some things might work, some things mightnot work. That decreases our stress,
it decreases our sense of anxiety andincreases our joy and happiness along
our joy and happiness along the waybecause a growth mindset doesn't just
lead to higher growthand higher performance.
So it's not just about the outcomes,
(34:53):
but it's also about thejourney along the way.
The process is a lot more joyfulbecause we're asking more questions,
listening better, experimenting,discovering more about each other,
building deeper relationships,
and that makes for a morejoyful and fulfilling life.
Eduardo Briceno, your bookis The Performance Paradox:
Turning the Power of Mindset into Action.
(35:15):
You are the CEO of Growth.how,
and the co-founder of MindsetWorks. Thanks for your time today.
Thank you, Scott. Great to be here.
And we'll see you back here next weekfor a new conversation On Leadership.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.