Latest / Better Together / How Your Beliefs Shape Your Business: Andrey Kazantsev on Leadership and Mindset
Transcript
- Shawn Sundsvold: Hey everyone, welcome back to Better Together, the podcast where we talk about what it really takes to build something that lasts. I'm your host, Sean Sonsvold, joined by my partner in business and in life, Kelly Sonsvold. Before strategy, before scaling, and before revenue, there are your beliefs. And those beliefs are either building your business or quietly limiting it. Today we're joined by Andrey Kazantsev, who brings more than 15 years of experience working with companies of all sizes. and helping leaders uncover how their thinking shapes their decisions, their behaviors, and the company culture. Through his work at the Mentality Innovation Center, Andre turns deep insight about belief systems into practical tools business owners can actually use. In this conversation, we dive into the hidden mindsets that hold leaders back, why resilience starts with examining the story you're telling yourself, and how choosing your beliefs instead of inheriting them can change the trajectory of your business. If you're leading through uncertainty, growth, or pressure, this episode will challenge you in the very best way possible. Andre, thanks so much for joining us today on the show. Andrey Kazantsev: Thank you, Sean. Very nice to be here. Hi, Kelly. Kelly Sundsvold: Hello, thank you. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, thanks for being here. So I want to start this with, this is a little bit different episode than we've done in the past, because usually we interview business leaders about what their journey is like. And when you and I actually had a conversation and really started diving into how leaders think and how they really shape the direction they want to go, I really thought this would be a fun episode to start to bring on for our guests and our listeners. So I want you to do this. So take us back to the beginning. How did you get into studying beliefs, mindset, and human behavior? Andrey Kazantsev: Yeah, good question. So originally I started from a tech side. I'm an engineer by my first degree. And when I joined the workforce, I really quickly realized that machines do not work themselves. People operate the machines and people work around and basically everything that that is happening is happening by before people. because of people and machines are just tools. So after that, I switched more on the management side because I wanted to be more, create more impact. I worked on strategies and rules for a while. And after that, I realized even more than... It doesn't matter how many rules do you have and how good your rules are. If people do not follow them, nothing is working as you expect. So human factor is key here. I realized it really early on in my career, like around my 20s. And since then, I focus on humans and on human side of every business, even if it is a tech business or something else. Basically, human do things and I to work on that side and focus on that side of any business. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, that's really awesome. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, no, that's good. You spent more than 15 years with companies of all different sizes. When did you really realize that the beliefs, not just strategy, were driving the outcomes of these businesses? Andrey Kazantsev: Yeah, so it was my second company I worked for. The first one was huge, 30,000 people airport, the largest airport of that time of Eastern Europe. and, it was very, you know, process focused organization because of the safety, security rules and other things. But then I switched to a smaller company, just like thousand people. And when I started implementing rules and policies there, like improving business processes and doing automation, I realized that human factors like place a bigger role there. And that was the moment when I was like, okay. Rule, like people are not machines. they're not going to follow the script that management creates for them. People are people. They have their own perspectives. And they can decide themselves to read or not to read the rules, to understand or not to understand, and how to understand them, and what follows, what does not follow. And it's true for strategy or any requirement you may have or anything else, even if it is a direct order from the leadership. So the person themselves decide how to follow that and all the details. And this really heavily depends on their internal life, their belief system, their values, how they see the situation, how they see the world around them in the bigger picture. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, and I think it's interesting you start, there's that process, right? That beliefs shape behaviors, right? And then our behaviors shape our vision and view of the world, right? And how we show up in the world. So I wanna do some term defining here in this conversation. So when you say beliefs, what are we actually talking about in the context of business leadership? Andrey Kazantsev: Great question. So beliefs basically is what we think is true. Especially things that we think are true in general. Example, everything will be all right. Progress will bring improvements. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Andrey Kazantsev: Or people are rational beings. Things of the sort that we... keep as true, that we understand as true may or may not be true, but we act as if they're true. And this is what belief is. Shawn Sundsvold: Okay, yeah. Yeah, Andrey Kazantsev: Is it clear enough? Shawn Sundsvold: yeah, that is clear. I love the examples you gave, you know, of just those things we come into that, you know, like you said, they may or they may not, but we were kind of, because we believe them for such a long time, you know, that they're just kind of stuck there and we don't necessarily question those things. Andrey Kazantsev: Exactly. And in some cases even questioning does not help because in many cases they are the questions of the sort when we cannot obtain the knowledge per se in the strict word of in strict sense of this word. We don't know if humans are rational or irrational or something else. We either choose to believe that humans are rational beings or choose to believe in something else. Like it's almost impossible to know how it is in reality in many cases. And we have nothing else to like accept just believe in something, choose one of the sides. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, mean, beliefs are such a powerful core of who we are and shaping our decisions, our behaviors, maybe even like who we marry, how we raise our kids, and even company culture can play in that. why is it? Why is it that those beliefs shape company culture and all the people around it? Andrey Kazantsev: Great question. So beliefs have this property that they do not influence just one context. They usually influence multiple contexts. And if it is a core belief, it influence almost all contexts, which as you said, choosing of a partner, how you behave publicly, what hobbies do you prefer, how do you behave at work, how you approach tasks, and so on and so on and so on. So the score beliefs are very deep ontological beliefs. They're basically so deep in our mentalities, so many other things are based on them. That's why they influence meaning different contexts, including the context, professional business context. And speaking about corporate culture, one of my, like the most useful definition of corporate culture that I use, I prefer is culture is, is a rules when we don't have rules. Shawn Sundsvold: Hmm. Andrey Kazantsev: Culture is how people act how people behave when they don't have specifically written rules how to behave in this situation. And corporate culture is exactly this example. We cannot define every and each tiny detailed step of behavior. That's why we rely on people themselves and this called corporate culture. There's values, there's things that we keep in focus, our goals, corporate values and other things like that. So if we don't have rules on the corporate level for such things, these things are ruled by what people bring with them, what constitutes the culture. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I... Those beliefs, you know, I know we talked about it right at the beginning of the show is that a lot of them are inherited right like we we get these things that are told to us when we're a young kid and they just kind of stick and we never really Grow up learning to challenge those things, right? So and let bringing that forward into the business world, you know We've got these in inherited beliefs that we do and we they become you know We we don't question them and then we become in this case business owners, right? So how does that for business owners, how does that show up in the way they lead? Andrey Kazantsev: Yeah, great question. You're right, we develop our mentality, our belief system mostly during childhood. When we are kids, when we are tabula rasa, when we do not know anything, we try to figure out how the world works. And we learn from adults, we learn from culture around us, we learn from peers, we learn from listening to them and we learn from watching them. And we reflect on what we see and we create these inner rules, inner beliefs about how the world works. And because the beliefs act in different contexts, in multiple contexts, of course they act in a business context also. Some of us learn in childhood that, let's say, you can do everything. You can achieve whatever you want. Some others learn that we cannot do much. We're just small people. We cannot change the world. These two approaches, these two ways of seeing the world influence heavily how the person approaches business in the future. even if the person decide to do business or not or like how challenging the business area would be for this person. Now and other things of this sort like I already mentioned people are rational beings. It may help, it may not help but some people learn that from their childhood, some people don't and we usually We usually, as you said, we not get used to challenge that because when we build our belief system, we do not think about it as a belief system. We think about it as we exploring the world. We learn about the world. We learn about objective, objectively existing things of the world. But in reality, we create our subjective understanding of these objective things. And later on, we act from these subjective understandings from our beliefs rather than the objective world itself. So yes, you're right. We build most of our, create most of our... beliefs during childhood. And later on, we rarely challenge that with probably few exceptions. Crisis is when we usually start challenging our beliefs. And what is crisis from that perspective, from this perspective? Crisis is when the world tells me so vividly, that my beliefs are wrong. It's when like my expectations are not met Shawn Sundsvold: Okay. Andrey Kazantsev: so much that I hardly can keep my beliefs, my expectations. And that's why I like what that's when I reveal my beliefs, my values, my inner world. But aside that, we really not often challenge our beliefs. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, so we've talked a lot on the show about mindset in leadership and the difference that it takes for a leader to be able to kind of take it to the next level through their mindset. So kind of along the same lines, what are some of the most common limiting beliefs that you see in leaders? Kind of along those lines of mindset, but more along the lines of limiting beliefs. Andrey Kazantsev: Also great question. So I would say I cannot make mistakes or one should not Kelly Sundsvold: Mmm. Andrey Kazantsev: make mistakes. This is a big thing and it can be rooted in many other important beliefs and values inside the mentality. It leads to the situation when, let's say, the leader asks for more information and more and more and more and more and decision may never be made. or just time can be spent. Or when some risky but necessary decisions are never made because the chance of mistake is high. It also can lead easily to burnout when mistake happens, like a heavy reaction, because sometimes mistake happens. It also leads to... difficulties with acceptance that I made a mistake, which means for me, if I have this mindset, if I have this belief, it's difficult to me to change my decision if I made it once, which may lead to more and more and more problems on the business side. fear of mistakes or one should not make mistakes, one of them. Another one I would say, By the way, connected to this one, I need to do everything myself. You probably heard about that or maybe experienced. Shawn Sundsvold: Mmm. Yeah. Andrey Kazantsev: Yeah, I cannot trust anyone else enough because they will do things worse that I want it to be done, which is mistake, which is a problem. So Kelly Sundsvold: Yes. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Andrey Kazantsev: I have to do everything myself and this limits the business growth because I'm a bottleneck. all the decisions, Kelly Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Andrey Kazantsev: even small decisions, must be made by me. And it slows everything down. My teammates, my employees, do not have any, they don't want to do anything themselves because they need to run from me and so on. So this thing is connected. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Andrey Kazantsev: Different one. I cannot or I can I cannot do something or I cannot change something whatever it may be it's more like belief in my limited abilities Shawn Sundsvold: Hmm. Kelly Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Andrey Kazantsev: and I don't want to say that we want we can't change everything but usually this belief limits us like much lower than we really can do Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah. Andrey Kazantsev: People usually believe that they cannot do something that they in reality can. That's the problem. That's why it limits. Another thing... It should be perfect. It should be perfect before launching, before starting or for something. So this perfectionism, also very limited thing. And this is connected with not good enough. I'm not good enough. I do not perform good enough. And all this other context of not good enough. So this is also a belief. I need to do something perfectly to be good enough. Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Andrey Kazantsev: Yep. I have a more if you want. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah, and so, no, I wanna keep on that, but in a little bit of a different way, because you think about leaders, right? And Andrey Kazantsev: Mm-hmm. Shawn Sundsvold: a leader makes a decision and realizes it's a bad decision, right? And rather than stepping back and trying to evaluate it, they double down and make another bad decision. Right? So why is it that some leaders do that? They double down on those bad decisions instead of pausing and trying to figure out and adapt to what happened. Andrey Kazantsev: Mm-hmm. This is a really good question. So surface level, like one reason that may be, is that they truly see that decision as a good decision. Because Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Andrey Kazantsev: they have their system of beliefs, they have their perspective, and other people see different perspective. So they may sincerely see this decision as a good decision and just, you know, we need push a little bit more. or just wait a little bit more and everything will work out. That's possible. But it seems you asked more about different situations. When the leader already understands, realizes that the decision was bad, but still continue kind of keeping this with this decision. The reason for that is, again, should not make mistakes, cannot make mistakes, belief. Because until I accepted that it was a mistake, it's not a mistake. If I do not say that yes, I made a mistake, if I do not recognize it as a mistake, it's not a mistake in my worldview. So I can continue trying to win with this and pretend it's not a mistake. And this also maybe, like, may have a lot of different roots, like... If I make mistake once, if I make mistake in this context, I can make mistake anything else, anywhere else. If I can make mistake anywhere else, I can make mistake everywhere. If so, I do not understand anything. If so, I'm not good enough. I'm stupid, I'm... blah, blah, blah, and so on and so forth. So it can be rooted really deeply in the personality and understanding of how things work. How the person position themselves into the world. And for the business leaders, another thing that I see from time to time is like when you build a business, When you build something amazing, cool that works, that employs people and helps the community, it's really difficult not to associate yourself with this thing. To some degree, your business is your child. You invest many years of your life, many effort in it, and it tells a lot of things about you. Like my successful business means I'm successful, means I'm good, I'm cool, I'm great, and so on and so on. And this, it's like in one hand it helps, it helps a lot to invest more, but from the other side... It does not allow the business owner, the leader to distance themselves from the business and say, okay, mistake in the business does not mean that I'm bad or I'm stupid Kelly Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Andrey Kazantsev: or I'm something else. Business is business, is me and the business does not define me. And this step is very difficult to me. Kelly Sundsvold: Yeah, yeah, I think that's a really good explanation of that. And I'm just thinking too that, know, beliefs sometimes can be hidden, right? And like it fuels anger or frustration or blame, especially when expectations aren't met. how do you advise on that? if there's some suppressed... Like was talking to someone earlier today who had some trauma, unfortunately, in their early life. And so they had suppressed it down and it started coming out in a lot of weird ways, like anger and frustration at work. Talk to me through that. Andrey Kazantsev: Yeah, so, feelings, anger, frustration, shame, other feelings are often the consequences of what's going on in the belief system. Basically, when I have a belief, I expect something from the world, because in my mind, this is how the world works. If I believe that people are rational beings, I expect from my employees to be rational. I really do not understand when they do something from my perspective for rational something stupid like I'm really kind of can be angry because You're a human being you should be rational. Why why wasn't you? Why weren't you? Why Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Andrey Kazantsev: didn't you do it in the rational way? so anger is a way to Press the reality to comply with your beliefs It may not work of course Usually it's not gonna work, but it is a good indicator that Your belief in this specific case does not match the reality it's a good way to kind of figure out where you should invest a little bit of your time in the reflection and see What's like what is mismatch? It can tell you more about reality and make you just more effective leader more effective person and so on. Suppressing that is not helpful. It can help short term, but long term it's difficult. It can lead Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Andrey Kazantsev: to health problems and it can lead to the situation when like one day you is not able to suppress it anymore and you can have some, can do something that you're gonna regret later on. So. Reflecting, working with that is the way to go, is better way to go. How to address that? I would say write things down and reflect from the paper. Like purely technically is better way to address things that just ruminating in your mind. Write things, if you're angry or shame or frustrated, write things down. You can ask yourself like why exactly I am angry in this situation? What was my expectation? What was the reality? And from the expectation see what's like what belief is behind this expectation and like if you do it Reflectively enough and sincerely with yourself. You can see some things that like yeah I expect people to be rational and then you should ask yourself why? because if like as I said beliefs we treat beliefs as if they're actual objective truths and Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Andrey Kazantsev: that's the trickiest point when you see some objective truth about the world people must be rational everyone wants to be happy people wants to be free, something like that. That's the moment when you should challenge, like think about challenging that. How do you know that this is the case? Like, what, can you prove it to someone else? Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Andrey Kazantsev: Imagine if like an alien came to earth, never living there and you need to explain, how do you explain it? Do you have Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Andrey Kazantsev: evidence for that? Do you have strong facts? Can you validate it? You probably can. Cannot so it means it is a belief it means it is something that you Choose to believe in back then in the past and never challenge challenged it since then It doesn't mean that every belief should be challenged but those beliefs that cause you troubles Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Andrey Kazantsev: Probably should be challenged if you don't want to give up with the troubles all the time So if you feel anger, if you feel frustration about something, you can go through this exercise yourself and see where it leads. Or you also can talk to someone else. It's very helpful, especially if you have a mentor, if you have an older friend, someone who is wiser, someone who is more experienced in business and working with people. Especially like kind of mentorship position, if you have this mentorship relationships. Another person can help with this a lot because they have different perspective, they have different worldview, they have different beliefs and they can easily point you to like, why do you think this is the case? Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Yeah, and I think it's important that we all have a mentor, right? And somebody we can bounce some of these ideas off of and these things we're thinking off of. And I think that leads to a really good moment to kind of ask you, know, tell me about the Mentality Innovation Center and, you know, the type of work you're doing there with people and how you're helping them through that type of process. Andrey Kazantsev: Yep, yep. So we help people to see their beliefs and if they want to change them, change them. If they want to just keep them and don't want to change and pay the price of changes, that's okay. It also helps a lot because in many cases, like, you know, it's more difficult to deal with problems when you do not understand the root cause of the problem. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Andrey Kazantsev: Imagine you you feel pain somewhere in your stomach, and you don't know what it is. It may be scary I don't know what it is. Maybe it's gonna kill me Maybe not whether when you know that it is just you know bad sandwich It's not a big deal like you Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Andrey Kazantsev: you you can do this same thing with? beliefs sometimes people like have anxiety have depression have just problems with connecting with people or some specific problems like cannot find a job, cannot start a business, cannot succeed, cannot get promoted, basically cannot achieve some goals or just achieve the way of life that they want. And when they realize that it's just part of their worldview, some beliefs are stopping them from achieving the goals. It changes situations. because sometimes Shawn Sundsvold: Mm-hmm. Andrey Kazantsev: people say like, okay, like maybe this belief is more important to me than whatever the promotion or like next level of revenue. And sometimes people say, okay, I'm ready to pay the price. Let's work through that. Let's understand that. And we help them to go deeper in their mentality. We ask the questions that people usually do not ask themselves. We... lead people through their belief system to the point, to the moment, to the belief that is connected to the problem with the situation. And basically help resolve it if it's needed. Shawn Sundsvold: Yeah. Kelly Sundsvold: That's great. So how do people contact you if they're interested in learning more about you? Andrey Kazantsev: Yeah, they can come to our website, mentality.center or email us info at mentality.center or just find me in LinkedIn or Facebook. My name is Andrey Kazantsev. So that's also possible. Kelly Sundsvold: And we'll link that in the caption here so that way they Andrey Kazantsev: I appreciate it. Kelly Sundsvold: can find you. Yeah. Well, awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time and being on a podcast. think the conversations about mindset, belief, all in leadership, entrepreneurship is so relevant right now that I think this is perfect for listeners. And if you're interested in learning more, be sure to reach out. Andrey Kazantsev: Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting.