Latest / The Action Catalyst / Update: Becoming Better, with Ryan Gottfredson (Mindset, Growth, Healing, Personal Development)

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Update: Becoming Better, with Ryan Gottfredson (Mindset, Growth, Healing, Personal Development) · The Action Catalyst

0:00
Host: We're here today once again, actually, with best
0:15
selling author, professor and leadership expert Ryan
0:31
Gottfredson, Ryan, good to see you.
0:42
Ryan Gottfredson: Yeah, great to be back on. I was looking at the
0:45
notes and my notes, and I think the last time I was on was over
0:48
five years ago.
0:49
Host: Yes. So episode 317 back in January of 2020. Is what we
0:53
last had you on. And boy, did things change abruptly right
0:58
after that.
0:59
Ryan Gottfredson: Yeah. So that was January, and fast forward a
1:01
couple months, and I was with my publisher in Nashville for my
1:05
first book, success mindsets in March, and we're there second
1:10
week of March. I think it was like a Wednesday, Thursday,
1:13
Friday. We're doing this red carpet event. I get an email,
1:17
you know, essentially, schools are shutting down, and I'm in
1:21
Nashville, I'm thinking, oh my goodness, what is happening? Am
1:24
I even going to get a flight back home? And that was the
1:26
weekend that, of course, the world essentially shut down. And
1:31
then fast forward, two months later, is when my book actually
1:35
hit the shelves. And so it was, in some ways, I think there were
1:39
some good things with that, with the book coming out of that time
1:42
and other things, it just made things really difficult. So I
1:46
think in some ways it was good because a lot of people were
1:48
maybe spending a little bit more time reading. But on the other
1:51
hand, is I do a lot of consulting work with
1:53
organizations, and that completely shut down. So I think
1:57
there were some good things and that helped it hit the Wall
1:59
Street Journal and USA Today bestseller list. But then my
2:03
business slowed down for a little bit, like many others
2:05
did. But that's okay, it picked back up. And you know, we are
2:09
where we are now, which is a different type of crazy.
2:12
Host: Just a little refresher for our audience, we talk a lot
2:14
on the Action Catalyst, about growth mindset, fixed mindset,
2:17
about mindset general for you, there's actually four. It's not
2:21
growth and fixed. Do you mind just kind of walking our
2:23
audience through that just as part of our table setting for
2:26
the conversation today?
2:28
Ryan Gottfredson: One of the things that I've learned is
2:30
mindsets is a term that is thrown out, I feel like rather
2:35
loosely, right? A lot of people talk about maybe leader mindset
2:39
or entrepreneurial mindset, and oftentimes, when people talk
2:43
about mindsets, they talk about mindsets as our attitude towards
2:47
something. But actually at a scientific level, even a
2:51
neuroscientific level, our mindsets are much deeper than
2:55
our attitude towards something. They're actually the mental
2:58
lenses that we wear that shape how we view the world around us.
3:01
And so what that means is our mindsets are the part of
3:05
ourselves that automatically interprets information in
3:09
certain ways. So for example, this is what explains why some
3:13
people can see failure as something to avoid, but other
3:18
people see failure as an opportunity to learn and grow
3:21
and in our mindsets, they really are the most foundational part
3:25
of who we are. And for most of us, we're not conscious of our
3:29
mindsets, nor do we know the quality of our mindsets. So the
3:34
quality of our mindsets exist along along a continuum from
3:38
being more wired for self protection to be more wired for
3:43
value creation and whether we have a self protective mindset
3:48
or a value creating mindset, both feel right to us, but one
3:54
helps us stay safe in the short term, but holds us back in the
3:58
long term. That's the self protective mindset and the value
4:01
creating mindsets allow us to step into short term discomfort
4:05
for long term value creation. So I coach my son's basketball
4:09
team. My son is 10 years old. That means that he and his
4:13
teammates are not very good, so it's my job as a coach to help
4:17
them to develop. And so one of the things that I'm trying to
4:20
help them develop at this age is, is they're all right handed,
4:24
and I want to help them learn how to shoot a layup with their
4:27
left hand when they're on the left side of the hoop. So this
4:31
is a pretty important skill for a basketball player, and so I'll
4:34
instruct them. When we do, we call them lay up lines. They
4:37
land up on the left side, and they take turns to shoot a
4:39
layup. And I'll ask them, all, right, try to shoot this with
4:42
your left hand. And I get three different responses. The first
4:46
response that I get is I get some players that don't even try
4:49
to shoot with their left hand. Well, why wouldn't they try to
4:52
shoot with their left hand? Well, it feels uncomfortable.
4:56
They're going to look awkward, and they're probably going to
4:58
miss their shot. You. So there's some justifiable reasons for
5:02
them to not try that. The second response that I get is I get
5:06
some players that are willing to try and practice, but they're
5:09
not willing to try in games. Well, why aren't we willing to
5:12
try in games? Well, it's because now my my parents are recording
5:17
me for the rest of posterity to see, right? And of course, I
5:20
don't want to let my team down. I want to win the game. There's
5:22
a lot more pressure in that moment. So that's the second
5:26
response that I get. But then the third response that again, I
5:29
only have a couple of players that are willing to do this, but
5:31
they're willing to try in practice and in the games. Well,
5:35
why are they willing to do this? Well, they're they've developed
5:38
this capacity to be able to feel uncomfortable, look
5:43
uncomfortable, and miss the shot, which may even mean
5:45
letting their team down in that moment or even in that game. But
5:50
for what benefit, it's because they will actually improve their
5:54
development of that skill so that they could be a greater
5:57
value creator for themselves and for their future teams down the
6:01
road. So there's some responses that are more self protective in
6:06
that moment, and others that are more value creating meaning.
6:09
They're willing to step into discomfort in that moment to
6:12
become a better value creator over the long term. Are these
6:16
responses by my players? Are they intentional, thought out
6:20
responses, or instinctual knee jerk reactions, and that's the
6:24
role that our mindsets play. Right? It's our it's my players
6:28
mindsets that are dictating when I invite them, do they move
6:32
towards self protection, or do they move towards value
6:35
creation? And that's the mindsets. And if, then, if I
6:38
also ask these players, do you have good mindsets? I think that
6:43
all of them say yes, because they could justify it. Well, one
6:47
the one that's more self protective, well, it helps me
6:50
feel more safe and more comfortable in that moment, and
6:52
the one that has the more value creating mindset is, oh yeah,
6:55
I've got a better mindset, because it's gonna help me
6:57
become a better basketball player for the future, right? So
7:00
that's the inherent challenge that we as people face, is we
7:06
generally think that our mindsets are good, but we
7:10
generally don't know the quality of our mindsets. And so the
7:13
reason why I bring this up is it's really helpful to have a
7:16
mindset framework to help us to start to investigate the true
7:20
quality of our mindsets, and that's what I put together. Is
7:23
what you said, is these four different sets of mindsets.
7:27
Host: If they're something that's so foundational to us and
7:30
kind of ingrained and shape the way we approach and view
7:34
everything else, how can we influence or adjust our mindset?
7:38
Ryan Gottfredson: Yeah, great question, and it all starts with
7:41
awareness, and that's where the framework is so powerful,
7:44
because if I don't have labels for mindsets, if I don't have
7:48
descriptions for mindsets, then I can never investigate them.
7:52
They're going to continue to reside below the level of my
7:55
consciousness. But if I could put labels on it and
7:58
descriptions now I could start to develop greater level of
8:02
consciousness about my mindsets, and that's been part of my
8:06
personal journey. Is when I first learned about these
8:09
different sets of mindsets, I quickly learned that I had self
8:13
protective mindsets, which is normal. Most of us have self
8:17
protective mindsets, and I just didn't know what better mindsets
8:21
to have. So the first thing I needed to do is to deepen my
8:24
awareness, and then once I deepen my awareness, then I
8:27
could come up with plans and strategies and interventions to
8:31
be able to elevate my mindset.
8:33
Host: Shifting from mindset to growth. The science really
8:36
points to there being two main types of growth, those
8:40
incremental, transformational I think people think they know
8:44
what each of those means. But could you define those for us?
8:47
Ryan Gottfredson: Yeah, for sure. And it's really helpful
8:50
for us to understand that there's two different sides of
8:54
ourselves. So I'm going to give you some characters that you
8:57
probably recognize who they are, and I want you to tell me what
9:00
you think they have in common? Michael Jackson, Tiger Woods,
9:05
Ellen DeGeneres, uh, Bill Clinton, Gordon, Ramsay Shia,
9:09
LaBeouf. What do they have in common? They got multiple things
9:12
in common. I think so. I think most simply, they're all famous
9:16
and well known. They have all been incredibly successful
9:19
within their within their industry. I mean that they may
9:22
be at the peak. I mean, we've got the king of pop in there for
9:25
goodness sakes, right? So, so all incredibly successful
9:29
people. But the other thing that they have in common is they all
9:32
have some controversy. And so the reason why I've kind of
9:35
cherry picked these examples is to demonstrate this idea that we
9:38
have two different sides of ourselves. One side of ourselves
9:41
is what I call our doing side. It's our talent, our knowledge,
9:44
our skills and our abilities. And all of these individuals are
9:48
incredibly talented, knowledgeable and skillful
9:51
individuals, and it's their talent, knowledge and skills
9:54
that has allowed them to reach the success that they've
9:57
experienced, or at least their popularity. Priority. But then
10:01
their controversy doesn't really have anything to do with their
10:04
talent, knowledge, skills and abilities. Their controversy has
10:08
to do with a different side of themselves, and that's what I
10:10
call our being side. And our being side is the quality of our
10:15
character, our mindsets, our psyche, the quality of our
10:19
emotional regulation abilities. I call it as a whole our
10:24
internal operating system, how our bodies are wired to operate.
10:29
So each of these individuals were incredibly talented,
10:31
knowledgeable and skillful, but they lack some emotional
10:35
regulation abilities that caused them to misstep at different
10:40
points of time in their life and and so the reason why I bring
10:43
this up is coming back to your question is there's a difference
10:46
between incremental growth and transformational growth. And
10:49
what I've learned is that when we improve along our doing side,
10:55
it is helpful, but I find that it is only incrementally
10:59
helpful, and if we really want to transformationally grow and
11:04
improve, we've got to focus on our being side. We've got to
11:08
we've actually got to focus on our internal operating system,
11:11
our mindsets, our emotional regulation abilities, and when
11:14
we could elevate along our being side, we transformationally
11:19
become better people and better leaders. And what's interesting
11:23
about this is that when we think about development efforts in
11:27
general, is almost all development efforts focus on our
11:30
doing side. Think about our education systems, our athletic
11:34
programs and our organizational development efforts, they almost
11:37
all focus on gaining knowledge and skills. Yet it's only
11:40
incrementally helpful. And so my new book, becoming better is all
11:45
about helping people learn that they have a being side, learn
11:49
what it is, help them connect with it and evaluate their
11:52
altitude along their being side. And then how do they elevate
11:56
along their being side, so that they can transformationally
11:59
become better
12:00
Host: When it comes to the doing side, most of the time, we know
12:04
what we don't know, right? We know what we need to improve on,
12:09
what we need to do to get better. How do we assess our
12:13
being side so we know where to go from there?
12:16
Ryan Gottfredson: Yeah, and what's interesting, and there's
12:19
a variety of different ways that we can do this, right? So I'm
12:23
going to step into a few different ways. One way is to
12:26
look at our mindsets. Our mindsets are intimately
12:29
connected to this, to our being side, because they're about how
12:33
our bodies are wired to operate more self protective or more
12:37
value creating. So if you're listening to this, I've
12:41
developed a mindset assessment on my website called the
12:44
personal mindset assessment. It's free. Anybody could take
12:48
it, and it will help them to evaluate the quality of their
12:52
mindset. So that's a helpful tool, but not everybody has
12:55
access to that. I mean, it's free. Now you've heard about it,
12:59
but not everybody knows about it. But beyond that, another way
13:03
to kind of gage This is window of tolerance. The window of
13:07
tolerance was popularized by a psychologist called his name is
13:11
Daniel Siegel. He's written a great book called Mindsight, and
13:15
he dives into this concept there, as well as in other
13:18
places. But window of tolerance is effectively, how easily
13:22
triggered are we to difference, to stress, pressure, complexity,
13:26
uncertainty, etc. So we have a window that when, when the
13:30
stress is low in our lives. It's a it's a window in which our
13:34
body's nervous system is regulated. And so when you know
13:37
when challenges come our way, when we're in this regulated
13:41
state, we can navigate those challenges rather effectively.
13:45
We are in cognitive and emotional control, but the more
13:49
stress that we experience, or if you're anything like me, if you
13:53
get hangry, then you kind of sense that you're moving closer
13:57
to the edge of your window of tolerance, where you're losing
14:01
cognitive and emotional control. And there's even times where we
14:05
get we'll call it triggered, and we actually go outside of our
14:09
window of tolerance, and we've lost almost all cognitive and
14:13
emotional control. And so when we when we move closer to the
14:16
edge of our window of tolerance, or even beyond it, we become
14:20
more reactive, as opposed to intentionally responsive. So one
14:24
of the things that we need to recognize is all of us, the
14:28
width of our window of tolerance differs just as we differ in
14:32
height or weight. And so the wider our window of tolerance,
14:36
our greater capacity to stay in cognitive and emotional control
14:40
across difficult situations. And our window tolerance is also
14:44
something that we could widen. We can expand. In fact, as we
14:48
elevate along our being side, that's what happens. So people
14:51
with a wider window of tolerance are at a higher altitude along
14:56
their being side. People with a narrower window of tolerance
14:59
more reactive individuals, for example, then they're going to
15:03
be low. That's a. Find that they're lower on their being
15:07
side. So that's another, I think, a helpful way to kind of
15:11
gage our altitude along that being side. The field of
15:14
developmental psychology is the field that has actually done the
15:18
most research along our being side. Now, developmental
15:22
psychology has historically focused on child development. We
15:26
know that children go through different developmental stages.
15:30
They go from infancy to adulthood, but a narrow kind of
15:33
area of focus for developmental psychologists is adult
15:37
development, and what they've found is that just as children
15:41
go through different development stages, adults can go through
15:45
different adult development stages. In fact, what they found
15:48
is that there's three primary adult development stages or
15:52
levels. And what's interesting about this is that while adults
15:56
can develop what they've found is that most adults don't
16:00
develop in adulthood along their being side. So if there's three
16:04
levels along our being side, let's just call them for now,
16:08
level one, level two, level 360. 4% of adults operate in level
16:12
one and never get to level 230, 5% get to level two, and only 1%
16:16
gets to level three. So there's not many that operate there. And
16:20
so one of the things that I've learned as I've kind of
16:23
understand this, is the reality is, is that most of us, and most
16:28
of the people that we know, operate at this base level,
16:31
which is a rather self protective way to operate,
16:34
right? So for example, if I were to say to you, how do most
16:38
people respond to constructive criticism? Criticism, you would
16:42
say they get defensive, right? And that's a self protective
16:46
strategy in that moment, but it's one that probably is
16:49
something that holds them back from learning, growing and
16:53
developing. So that's a self protective reaction, as opposed
16:57
to a value creating response. So most of us and most of the
17:01
people we associate with, are people that operate at this
17:04
lower being side level. So this kind of becomes the norm, but it
17:09
doesn't necessarily mean that it's very cognitively and
17:12
emotionally sophisticated. And so when we understand this
17:16
framework, that's another way to gage it. And in fact, I've got
17:20
another free assessment on my website that will allow you to
17:24
kind of gage what level you tend to operate at. It's called a
17:28
vertical development assessment.
17:30
Host: Very literally, once we've assessed that, once we know
17:34
where we're at, what is this trick to leveling up?
17:38
Ryan Gottfredson: Yeah, at its core, what we've got to
17:40
recognize is, is our being side is connected to our internal
17:45
operating system, which really is our nervous system. So we've
17:49
got to engage in efforts to better regulate and upgrade our
17:54
body's nervous system. And I think that there's three
17:57
different levels that we could think about doing work on our
18:01
nervous system. So I'm going to say that there's surface level
18:04
approaches, there's deeper level approaches, and there's deepest
18:07
level approaches. So at the surface level are things that I
18:12
think are fairly common and they're being increasingly
18:15
promoted. These are things like meditation, uh, journaling,
18:19
gratitude journaling, engaging in self talk, doing like we see,
18:24
cold plunges. These are all actually activities that help us
18:28
better regulate our body's nervous system. And so I think
18:32
that there's surface level in that they holistically help us
18:36
better regulate ourselves to get into the deeper level. I think
18:39
that's where mindsets reside, if, because, again, most people
18:43
aren't conscious of our mindsets, and so if we could
18:46
help them to become conscious of our mindsets, we are getting
18:49
directly at one of the primary jobs of our internal operating
18:54
system, which is how our body makes meaning of our world. And
18:58
if we can awaken to how we make meaning of our world, or how
19:01
we're prone to make meaning of our world, then we could do the
19:04
work of adjusting and improving how we make meaning of our
19:08
world. So for me, and that's where this is the space that I
19:11
primarily play, in terms of the coaching and the consulting that
19:14
I do, is I help do some of this deeper level ver it's called
19:19
vertical development work, as opposed to horizontal
19:22
development work. So that's a deeper the deeper level
19:26
strategy. At the deepest level, this is where we find things
19:30
like therapy, like psychological therapy, trauma healing therapy,
19:36
and even if people have neuro divergence, then we like ADHD,
19:40
for example, is something that impacts our being side that
19:44
there's what's called neuro feedback therapy, and that could
19:48
help us, help us rewire our brain. And then one of the
19:52
things that I've kind of got my ear to the ground on is some of
19:56
the latest research coming out with psychedelic assisted
19:59
therapy. So all of the initial research that seems to be coming
20:02
out now is suggesting that it's one of the most effective ways
20:06
of rewiring our body's nervous system. And so those are I don't
20:12
play at that level, because I don't have the training for
20:15
either any of those things, but I've participated, for example,
20:19
in trauma healing therapy that's been a part of my own personal
20:24
development journey. And I would say, I'm currently not engaging
20:29
with my therapist, but I started that process that's about four
20:32
years ago, and I spent two years working with a trauma therapist
20:36
to heal from some stuff in my past, right? So, and I would say
20:40
five years ago, when I was on the podcast, if you would have
20:43
asked me if I had trauma in my past, I would have said no, I
20:47
had great parents. They stayed married, they went to every
20:50
basketball game I ever played. But what I've come to realize is
20:54
that while my parents were always there for me physically,
20:57
they were rarely there for me emotionally. So I've got some
21:01
emotional neglect in my background, and I didn't know
21:05
that five years ago, and I've come to awaken to that and
21:09
engage with the trauma therapist to help me kind of heal my body
21:13
from that experience. I guess one of the things that I've
21:17
learned is how we are wired to survive our childhood is not the
21:23
wiring that we need to be successful as adults and as
21:26
leaders. And that's ultimately what we're talking about, is,
21:29
how do we rewire ourselves? And what I've learned just engaging
21:32
in this deepest level strategy of engaging with a trauma
21:36
therapist is doing that healing work has done. I have, I have
21:40
grown and developed more as a person in that two years than I
21:44
had the prior 16 years of my adult life. And I think at the
21:48
end of the day, that's why doing you know, coming on this
21:52
podcast, sharing these ideas, is meaningful to me, because at the
21:56
end of the day, if we want to elevate along our being side at
21:59
a foundational level, it's about healing our minds, our bodies
22:04
and our hearts. And if we want to become transformationally
22:07
better, that's what it requires. It requires healing. And I've
22:14
just come to learn that most of us need some healing.
22:16
Host: The first time you joined the program, we discussed your
22:19
book, which was just about to release, Success Mindsets. We've
22:22
touched today on a lot of the material that's in Becoming
22:25
Better your latest book, but in the meantime, you've also put
22:28
out another great book, The Elevated Leader. We don't want
22:31
to overlook that.
22:32
Ryan Gottfredson: For sure. And thank you for bringing it up.
22:34
And in fact, we have talked about it. So when I talked about
22:37
those three adult development levels, level one, level two,
22:40
level three, that's what the elevated leader is all about,
22:44
getting to know those three levels and allowing us to use
22:47
that framework to introspect about the at the time, I wasn't
22:50
calling it this, but the I was calling it the quality of our
22:53
internal operating system. But now the terminology we've used
22:57
here is that plus elevating along our being side.
22:59
Host: You mentioned a number of assessments available on your
23:03
website today that people can go and start taking action on what
23:07
they've heard about today, lay that website on us one more time
23:11
and talk about what some of those assessments are and any
23:15
other free tools.
23:16
Ryan Gottfredson: For sure. So there's the two on my website.
23:19
RyanGottfredson.com, there's a free personal mindset
23:22
assessment, a free vertical development assessment, again,
23:25
both of those are help us to awaken to the quality along our
23:29
being side. And then, if you wanted to do deeper work for
23:33
yourself, you know, I help, I do engage in coaching to help
23:36
people to upgrade themselves. Or when I work with organizations,
23:40
what I'll generally do is I'll have groups or teams or even the
23:44
entire organization, take these assessments, and then I could
23:48
aggregate those results up to a collective level, and we could
23:52
look at the collective mindsets of an organization, of a group
23:55
of leaders or of a team. So if anybody wants to do some of that
23:59
deeper work beyond just taking a couple of assessments, would
24:03
love to have some conversations with folks. What I've
24:06
experienced, because I've worked with hundreds of organizations
24:10
and 1000s of leaders, is for every group that I've worked
24:14
with, this is an incredibly eye opening experience and which
24:17
allows for transformation to occur. And I just feel blessed
24:21
to kind of be playing in a, in a spot, and in a in a place where
24:25
I could help people to awaken to the deeper sense of themselves,
24:29
so that they can elevate themselves at this foundational level.
24:32
Host: Well, Ryan, thank you so much for taking some time to
24:35
join us in the program today and for helping us become better.
24:38
Ryan Gottfredson: Thanks for having me, and thanks for
24:43
creating this platform. I know having a podcast is not an easy
24:52
thing to do, and it's actually a very generous thing to do, so
25:00
appreciate your willingness to do that so that people like me
25:08
can share our ideas.