Alchemy Mindset

Do you believe that your talents, skills, characteristics, and personality are set in stone? You are who you are, and there is nothing you can do about it? If you say “yes," then you are right. If you say “no,” you are right too.

As Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.”

Whichever you choose to believe will ultimately be the mindset that you have. But, the one that will help you the most throughout life is believing that you are a continually growing and malleable individual. This is what Carol Dweck coined; ‘The Growth Mindset’. If having extreme ownership in your life is a gun, then this is the silver bullet, The Cubans. This is the Cohibas, the Montecristos. This is the Eiffel Tower. This is Rachmaninoff's Third. The 'piece de resistance' (Yes, I stole that sentence from iron man).

Understand - you can acquire any skillset on earth at any point. Let me repeat this one more time. You can acquire any skillset at anytime.

I’ll put this another way. Your most recent failure, your problem, your situation is because you aren’t good enough. Because you do not have the knowledge or skillset necessary to keep yourself from being in your situation. “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them” - Albert Einstein. If you were good enough, you wouldn’t have failed. Be honest with yourself and admit it. Because it is a good thing, it is liberating, if you have a growth mindset. Admitting this with a fixed mindset would be paralyzing, because it would mean you would never get any better.

But that's not you. I’ll give you an example for me.

I have struggled with being in shape most of my life. I had a bad psychological relationship with food. This was compounded when i was boxing because I would go hard 3 months, lose 40 lbs, fight, and after it was over, binge and get fat again. I could always get in shape, but i could never break the 12-13% body fat mark nor could i maintain it. Even if i was eating less than 2000 calories a day and working out twice a day. For a long time I accepted that this was my genetics. It was what it was, i would do the best I could but my body was set.

After reading Carol Dweck’s Mindset. I accepted that it's my fault, and it's my lack of knowledge. So i went on a mission to acquire as much knowledge as possible. After several books, dozens of articles, hundreds of youtube videos. I finally found the 1 piece of knowledge that i needed - Metabolic Adaptation. It was the last piece that was missing. After losing 50lbs and rehabbing my metabolism, I finally have a solid relationship with food. Its insane to think about, had i not had a growth mindset, i’d still be 265lbs.

The problem is not the problem, the problem is that you don’t know everything there is to know about the problem. So get up, and go learning everything you can about the problem. Just like you learned to walk, you can learn anything else if you are just willing to be horrible at it for a little bit of time in the beginning. Your potential is nearly limitless.

IG @das_ivan