I’ve described to you, in 5 Ways Movement Impacts Arthritis, the two essentials that every cell needs to live and thrive. All living cells need to first, produce and eliminate waste, and second, absorb nutrients for their growth and regeneration. I discuss this at length in previous blogs and relate how cellular regeneration is the key to combating arthritic joints.
This same process is widely understood when it comes to hypertrophy of muscle tissue. This is better known as the sport of bodybuilding. This same rule also applies to the osseous tissue of bone. Read about Wolff’s law. Would you be shocked if I told you that you need these same things to grow as an individual?
Remember for life to grow it needs to give and receive. It must give effort in the form of strain and then receive nutrients to rebuild and regenerate. This process will create a hormetic effect in which the stress load placed on the body will lead to a stronger body as it recovers.
Growth vs Fixed Mindset
In my first post on Mindset, I relate that a growth mindset is needed for change. I relate that you need to be open-minded and willing to listen to others. You can always learn something new if your willing to listen. A Growth Mindset needs to be open, amiable, tolerant, and humble.
A fixed mindset on the other hand is closed, intolerant, stubborn, and arrogant. The Fixed Mindset can still succeed and produce, but in time it will become calcified, aged, and brittle.
Human progress occurs like inflation and its cost will continually increase with time. Adaptation is the most successful trait in the evolution of the human species. A fixed being cannot evolve.
The original blog post was brief as I focused on highlighting the 5 Mindsets Needed for an Attitude Adjustment. I feel the need to expand on the Growth vs Fixed Mindset and explain that I see at least two alternative ways to have a growth mindset.
Just as I related above, living cells and tissue need to produce and absorb. You need the same principles to optimally grow mentally and emotionally.
For a true growth-focused mindset, you too must be able to produce and absorb. That is to say that you must first be open to absorbing new information and second be able to implement what you have absorbed. To produce action from knowledge and potential.
So let’s look at these two sides of a Growth Mindset.
2 Alternatives to a Growth Mindset
1. Growth Mindset Nutrition
A Growth Mindset requires a high level of humility to start. To grow and change, it is required to assume that there is knowledge that exists in the world that you don’t know and that you need in order to grow. There is also knowledge in this world that you don’t know that you don’t know. (Read that again.) Be open to this fact.
Adding these unknowns to the knowledge you do know and the direction of growth you want is where growth happens.
When pursuing the knowledge you don’t know, your perceptions and pathways will likely change. This will bring into existence knowledge you don’t know that you don’t know and you may ultimately be required to alter your perception, pathway, and destination. But having some path or destination goal is better than having none at all.
I speak about this in the Self-Awareness Roadmap. Pinpoint the destination of your choice. Follow the best pathway you can perceive leading you to it single-mindedly. Along the way you may run into unknown obstacles, thus creating a new pathway and possibly altering your destination.
This absorption of new knowledge will lead to the growth of your life if you know how to implement it.
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
-John Lennon
Brain Nutrition for Making Gains
Listening
One of the easiest ways to gain knowledge, to absorb nutrition for mental and emotional growth, is to listen on a regular basis. Listening is probably the easiest thing you can do to access new knowledge in your surroundings. It is the first step for a Growth Mindset.
Rule 9 of Jordan Peterson’s bestselling book 12 Rules For Life, is “Assume That The Person You Are Listening To Might Know Something You Don’t.”
“So, listen, to yourself and to those with whom you are speaking. Your wisdom then consists not of the knowledge you already have, but the continual search for knowledge, which is the highest form of wisdom.” -JBP
Absorb as much information as possible. Make well-rounded decisions and have a view of the world that is wide open.
This of course can be problematic when we run into propaganda and/or an echo chamber as described below.
Being open and willing to listen doesn’t mean you need to sacrifice yourself, your identity, or your boundaries. Instead, open your ears and think critically. You may learn something new.
Reading
One of the best ways of absorbing new knowledge is reading. Reading, you could say is one way we open up to stories in which we would or could never have experienced.
There is great knowledge in the books being written today as well as the books of yesterday. The Bible is often criticized as a book of fairy tales by many modern nonbelievers. Historically though, it contains stories rich in how to live life.
Its depiction may not scientifically describe what the world is made of but yet captures the essence of how men and women lived for centuries before scientific thinking.
The point here is the same as above. You never know how something you read or hear may absorb into your knowledge base thus changing your life. Fact or fiction, the words form a story for impact and knowledge.
Reading is no longer bound by words on a paper. You may choose podcasts, aubdiles, and other mediums to receive nourishment for your brain.
Circle of Influence
There is a saying, “Be wary of the company you keep for they reflect who you are or who you want to be.”
This is often sadly true. Sad because as you age and grow the people around you may not grow in the same way. This can be difficult to leave behind those who are loyal and good to you. It is often necessary for you to grow.
Also, be aware of the people you meet and trust. Vulnerability and naivety are ripe conditions for those looking to manipulate their peers/prey.
That being said, your circle of influence can also elevate you when you are careful about who you choose to associate with.
Power, money, and success aren’t the only things you should focus on when looking for a great circle. Loyalty, intelligence, and integrity are valuable traits for a complete circle.
Pay attention to who you spend your time with.
Pay Attention
It is difficult to know which information is valuable and which is not. Do your best to utilize what is valuable to you and your destination.
Pay close attention to what consistently enters into your environment and psyche. It’s impossible to shut out all potential obstacles in life and so you must learn to navigate them with skill. Good luck and Pay Attention to the malnourishment that surrounds you.
You are what you eat, read, and surround yourself with. The mental and emotional nutrition you absorb will be a determining factor in how you grow.
Individual Gains
Personally, I have been preparing for years to change aspects of my life. Learning, listening, deciphering, and building. I have used my postgraduate time to create stability and security for the next chapter of my life. I am now ready to apply what I have learned to produce a new path. I have absorbed what I needed, removed what I don’t, and am now onto a better path for myself and my family. Now I must produce what I have envisioned.
2. Growth Mindset Production
You can purchase a new Bowflex and eat all the best nutrients available for building muscle but without doing the work you will never produce the results you’re after. Essentially, you must put in the work to grow and produce.
I need to confess, this is where I stumble every damn time. Learning is easy. Learning is exhilarating. Producing and acting in the world for all to see and judge you by is the hard part.
I believe that these feelings are common for most. Our insecurities and a lack of fully understanding the process to gain your desired product can be overwhelming. This shuts down the majority of the world before they ever get started.
You have to start somewhere and anyone who has done what you’re looking to do had to start from the beginning no different. This is where the fool comes in.
“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Fool
No one wants to be the fool. This is a common feeling among everyone but it seems even more prominent today with those who want to rise to the top without ever being at the bottom.
The idea of the fool is that for most productions in your life you will need to start from scratch. You will be at the beginning of the learning curve, but with enough time and effort, you’ll create the expert or the producer.
The fool may stumble around, make mistakes and ultimately fail, but that is how the fool turns into the expert. There is no other way. No quick fix, fast forward, or cheat code. Just do the work, fall on your face and ship the product to the best of your abilities. Then do it again and again.
It will get better. You will grow from your productions. Keep absorbing the mental nutrition and creating your product. You will transform into who you need to be.
“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist”
– Pablo Picasso
The Imposter
Being the first fool ever, now that would be impressive. However, most of us will start as the fool and move into the imposter rather quickly. Most of the ideas we will conjure will have already been produced to some degree. It is a small minority of people that create truly innovative inventions and ideas. The rest of us will usually observe what others before us have done and we will then build upon that. We will stand on the shoulders of giants.
The fool is a bumbling idiot but the imposter has a path. The imposter is emulating what someone else has done before them. Usually with a unique twist to make it relevant and marketable.
As I related above the people you surround yourself with, listen to and read are your influencers. They will set up a path for you to follow. So, do that. Be the imposter. Be the fake while you are perfecting your craft. Practice, Practice, Practice. Routines Build Dreams.
It is no coincidence that in Chiropractic and Medicine, the art of applying learned protocols on a patient is known as being in practice. No one wants the doctor that’s the fool so we learn from our mentors and our ancestors for what they did and we grow upon that. We act as imposters while we build our repertoire of tools for producing an intended outcome in our fashion.
The Producer
Be authentically you. Produce your brand. Produce your vision. There is no one else in the world like you now and there will never be again. Show up as yourself. Be the Purple Cow.
God created you for a reason. Your purpose in life is to produce. To create an impact on the world. What that product is and what impact you will have will be up to you.
Absorb the knowledge, fail as the fool, find a path as the imposter and begin to show up as the producer.
Don’t get stuck in a fixed mindset following all the sheep. Stand out and be different.
Personal Product
Unhappy with the pace at which we were living life or really just passing through it. Unhappy with the way I was showing up to care for my patients. Unhappy with my focus on home first. My family and I made a decision to grow. To change for the better. To leave old habits, bad habits, and the like behind and start fresh in a place where we felt community. Where we felt like we belonged. God was calling us and we bravely answered. Our family has left California, traveled for the year and we are now on to greener pastures in Prescott Arizona. You can read about our adventures here at True North Together.
I look forward to caring for the community and raising my family in a slower pace of life. They deserve it. Look out for our new office opening in 2021. Prescott Family Chiropractic.
Fixed Mindset
Fixed Mindset Follies
Have you ever known an individual resistant to change? Fixed to their story and mindset. The high school hero that peaked and tried desperately to maintain his story. We have all witnessed this in some form or another. How about a lesson less personal to any of us, like the story of Blockbuster and Netflix.
Blockbuster in its prime was a multibillion-dollar company. Netflix a small competitor in a newer niche market was offered to Blockbuster for a 50 million dollar buyout. Blockbuster passed on the deal because of their fixed mindset. The rest of the story is history. They were on a fixed pathway with a fixed mindset in an ever-changing world.
Now, this doesn’t do any justice to the difficulty of an infinite amount of options one may have. Analyzing every opportunity that comes across your plate is often a guessing game. Making decisions without a crystal ball will always carry some risk. Risk and Reward Stress is part of a healthy growth mindset.
Step outside of your comfort zone and allow for new opportunities to come in. Step outside of your echo chambers and be open to hearing what else may exist in the world. It’s difficult and life-altering but necessary.
Echo Chambers
Be cognizant about your circle of influence. It is much easier to fall into comfortable patterns that support what you may already think than it is to face life-changing information.
This is obvious today in our political and cultural landscape. Many live in their perspective echo chambers regurgitating only what they have been educated to repeat. This isn’t always due to a fixed and stubborn mindset but moreover a lack of understanding of the world outside of yourself or your circle of influence.
This can be seen on both sides of the aisle. Tolerance, as many preach, is expected from all points of view. This admittedly can be a difficult tightrope to walk when your freedoms and lifestyle are being threatened.
The scene can often turn ugly as a mob mentality gathers and begins to rule with anti-democratic, gang-like tactics. The echo chambers that they encompass tend to become louder and louder assuring them that they are on the “right” side of the argument. A positive feedback loop reverberating out their short-sided bias.
I find it rather ironic that the same people who abhor colonialism are often the same people who lobby to have governments mandate their ideal ways of living on the rest of the world and nation.
Their advanced civilized and moral high ground are fixed in the name of progress and the greater good. “To help civilize the savages for their own good.” or more recently “Gemeinnutz vor Eigennutz.”
They don’t see themselves as colonialists or ideologues. Instead, they see themselves on the right side of history, making progress for humanity. This kind of thinking is not only intolerant, it is willfully ignorant given the history of the 19th century.
This same mindset created some of the darkest times in the last century. Leaders and groups who thought they were doing the right thing forcefully applied their ideals and laws to their respective nations. In all cases, these elitist ideals and ideologies ended in mass destruction as well as genocide.
Often you will hear someone repeat that “the science is settled.” I hate that echo. This is a fixed mindset and unscientific. Without a growth mindset, the world would still be flat.
As I stated above, you cannot stop progress as it is necessary to our growth but you can find a rate of progress that is more sustainable. You can respect tradition and progress at the same time.
“To repeat what others have said requires education; to challenge it, requires brains.”
― Mary Pettibone Poole
Chiropractic and My Practice
Often we will have patients come in with no intention of getting better. They are stuck in a fixed mindset and cycling their issues over and over. They can make progress and see change only to be defeated by their mindset. This is common to see in any practice or therapeutic endeavor. Some of us just don’t want or know how to change.
At times, we will have patients who see the light. We have patients who will experience the unexpected change. They will feel better and they will pull out of their fixed mindset and become growth machines. This is why I wake up every day. To see the change in people. To witness their miracle and enjoy it with them.
In chiropractic and life, the same is true. A person must be poised to want change and be willing to navigate the unknown. The unknown is the only way to find a new order. You cannot want the change more than the patient wants the change.
One Adjustment Action Step
1.) Read up on some of the other mindsets I have listed.
2.) Practice getting out of your echo chambers. Remove distractions and see Reality outside of the regularly scheduled program.
3.) Don’t conform because the masses do. Be authentically you and practice Self-Awareness.
4.) Fight back. Be proactive. Offense is the Best Defense
“Beware of unearned wisdom” – Carl Jung
I want to point out that a growth mindset can be erratic or careless and shouldn’t be taken lightly. A new trend of using psychedelics has become a way to expand the mind. I am not against this, but again I think it should be approached with caution and respect.
Grow, search, read and be open to all things. You will eventually need a base to build upon. Don’t be afraid to have a strong base like the Innate Essentials. Create a great structure to produce for the world’s betterment. A new lens to view the world though. A Growth Mindset should be included in these.
Love,
Nick the DC
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