Embracing the Catalytic Mindset: Celebrating 100 Episodes of Transformational Leadership Insights

I have had the opportunity and the privilege to speak to so many leaders in so many different places in their journey , from people who are just really getting started out and beginning to rise to people who have hit major milestones in their success and in their journey .

I would challenge you if you haven't listened to many up to this point , jump in , go back and listen to some of the highlights of so many episodes that you will benefit from . What I want to do today for this special episode is share with you some thoughts that I'm having around my next book that's going to be coming out later this year .

What I want to talk about is what I call the catalytic mindset .

I want you to think about your mind as what is producing the fuel

that is going to propel your success . The thoughts that you have matter your thoughts , man over time will yield behaviors . Your behaviors yield your habits , and your habits are what lead to success or the lack of it . And this is a challenge for a whole lot of leaders , because we don't often think about the power of the mindset that we have .

Carol Dweck , in her classic book on mindset , dove into and explained to all of us the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset , between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset .

A growth mindset believes that the sky's the limit , that you have potential for growth and that you can continue to improve and get better , that you have the potential to learn and grow far beyond where you are today . By contrast , a fixed mindset believes that , well , it's all pre-decided and pre-determined and you have what you have .

So there's really no point in leaning into possibility and potential , because your capacity is what it is today . What I want for you to understand is there is a catalytic mindset , just like there's catalytic leadership that I wrote about in my last book .

I want you to understand that the mindset that you have can lead to greater and greater potential , growth and success , but you have to adopt it , and changing your mindset is not like changing your shoes . It's not something that happens in a few seconds Now . This is something that you have to be intentional about .

There are three components that I talk about in the book that are , I believe , critical to developing a catalytic mindset . The first one is clear-minded focus . Clear-minded focus what is that ?

Well , it's understanding where you are and it's understanding where you want to go , and then , once you have defined those two points , it's simply a matter of building a bridge from here to there , but you have to have clarity around where you are today .

You have to define reality as it is , like Max Dupree taught all of us , and then you have to define where you want to go . Where's the goal right ? That's where you focus . You focus on what you want more of . I want to hit my goals , so I'm going to focus there . I understand where I am , I understand where I want to go .

Then it's simply a matter of building the bridge from here to there . It's developing the steps , week by week , day by day , hour by hour , that are going to get me from here to there . Clear-minded focus is absolutely critical there . Clear-minded focus is absolutely critical .

If you don't know clearly where you want to go , then you may be doing things that will take you to a different destination . You may be taking actions , you may be busy , incredibly busy but you're not busy doing the right things that are going

to get you where you want to go . That's why clear-minded focus is so important . You have to begin there . You have to clearly define and delineate where you want to go after you determine where you are . That's clear-minded focus . The second component of a catalytic mindset is calm , control , calm , control .

I get this concept from David Allen , who was a guest on the podcast . If you haven't heard that episode , you need to go back and listen to it , because David did a phenomenal job of explaining so many of the concepts in his Getting Things Done system that I've been using for nearly two decades now and have benefited from so incredibly .

Calm control is a concept that I pull from David's work . He talked about a mind like water in his book . It's a concept from the martial arts world , this idea of imagine a lake in the middle of the mountains , right , and the mountains are a windbreak , and so the water is just incredibly calm , incredibly peaceful , there's not a ripple on it .

Now imagine taking a rock and throwing it into that water . What happens ? Splash and ripples , right , but the splash and the ripples are exactly proportionate to the size of the rock and the velocity of my throw . That water does not overreact and it does not underreact . It proportionately reacts and then it returns to its calm state .

This is what I talk about with calm control . What I want you to understand is that if you are not appropriately responding to what's going on around you , if you are overreacting or underreacting , that's going to be a problem in your leadership . This is a mindset issue , and this is one thing I work with my clients to help them develop .

Is this calm control , where they can proportionately

react to what's going to happen . See , you're going to get rocks thrown into your water . So am I . That's part of life . You can't control that , but how you respond , that is in your control .

What I want you to learn to do is to respond appropriately not overreacting , where you just blow up at somebody who really wasn't part of the problem , maybe , or underreacting , stuffing it all inside , hoping that well , I'll just sweep it under the rug and it'll go away . Yeah , problems never go away when you sweep them under the rug .

As another one of my guests , steve Cain , says , bad news is not like a fine wine . It does not get better with age . If you stuff it inside , what's going to happen is just like the steam in a tea kettle Eventually it's going to come out and most often it's going to come out at a time , at a place and at a person not of your choosing .

This is not what I want for you . I want what I call calm control , where you have ways to release the pressure , where you have ways to release the steam from the tea kettle and maintain that calm control . This is what I want for you . This is what I work with my clients to achieve .

When you add calm control to clear-minded focus , the results grow exponentially , and the reason is that you're not sabotaging yourself . Self-sabotage is a real thing and so often it's because we are lacking calm control . We are instead just reacting to what's going on and so often our reactions are not healthy and they're not going to get us where we want to go .

Right . Go back to the clear-minded focus . So you have clear-minded focus . You add to that calm control and the third component of a catalytic mindset well , that's confidence , and confidence is something that most people would love to have . They want to have more confidence .

But a lack of confidence so often is because we don't have clear-minded focus and we don't have calm control , because we don't have clear-minded focus and we don't have calm control . When you have those two components first and you add confidence , it begins to grow , it begins to build .

Confidence is based on your past results and what's going on in the present . So often , and when you are intentional , and when there is alignment , like I talk about in my strata process , when there is alignment

between what you do every day , between the projects that you currently have on your list and between your three , four and five-year goals , when there's alignment there , this gives you confidence in the day-to-day .

This gives you confidence that you are taking steps , that you are moving the ball up the field , one yard at a time , and you will make it to the end zone . That's the confidence I want for my clients and this is what I see .

As they begin to build each one of these components into this catalytic mindset , they begin to see the results , they begin to see the fruit from all of this intentionality . And truly , this is the undergirding piece of all of it , isn't it ? It's being intentional and truly this is the undergirding piece of all of it , isn't it ? It's being intentional .

It's saying I'm going to be purposeful in what I do and how I do it . I'm going to be purposeful even about the mindset that I create , and a mindset is created every single day . In my last book , catalytic Leadership , I talked about the importance of a teachable spirit . No-transcript .

We decide every morning are we going to be the most teachable person in every room we're in today ? Are we going to be the most teachable person in every conversation we're in today ? You and I get to decide that we can pre-decide and pre-determine long before we're in the situation .

And if you will maintain that , what you will find is alignment with the catalytic mindset principles , as you understand , I want to learn . I want to learn , I want to grow . I'm going to do that intentionally and purposefully and nothing is going to stop me . There will be obstacles , there will be rocks thrown into the water and I can't control all of that .

But I can control how I respond . I can control the mindset that I'm building intentionally , one day , one week , one month at a time . What are you going to be glad , five years from now , that you started doing today ? Here's what I want for you . I want you to lead , not just in a catalytic way , but I want you to lead from a catalytic mindset .

When this book comes out , I'll be sharing more about it , but I wanted to share with you some of the principles that I'll be sharing more about it . But I wanted to share with you some of the principles that I'm talking about as I write , because I believe this can be a game changer for so many of you .

If you will step into this , if you will intentionally design

the alignment , if you will intentionally design the mindset , then you will see the fruit that comes from that kind of intentionality . Imagine , if you get this right . Imagine what that's going to mean for your business , for your family , for your team , for your clients . Imagine what that's going to look like .

This is what I want for you as we celebrate 100 episodes . I want you to know that I'm not done . I've got so many great conversations ahead . I've got so many people that I can't wait for you to hear from . I've got so many learnings that I think are going to benefit you as we move forward together . Continue .

If you haven't subscribed yet to the Catalytic Leadership Podcast , I'm going to challenge you to go ahead and subscribe . You can click the subscribe button in whatever app you're listening to the podcast on or in YouTube . Stay up to date and remember you can learn from anybody . Sometimes you learn what not to do , but that can be incredibly valuable .

Remember , the questions that we ask determine the answers that we get . It begins with your mindset , and my goal , for you and for me , is to lead with a catalytic mindset . Will you join me in that ? Let's head into the next hundred episodes together and let's see what happens next .