- [Instructor] If you want to be successful in life,
then you need to understand this one mindset.
People like Joe Rogan, Bill Gates and Elon Musk
have all talked about how important
this single mindset is for success.
And no, it's not something like work hard or be disciplined.
This is something that very few people actually talk about.
Back in the sixth grade, everybody in my class
had to take this exam
that was supposed to test where our reading level was at.
And I felt really nervous for this test,
because I was somebody at that time
who didn't really read very much at all.
In fact, I think I had read like one book
up until that point in my life.
And I really didn't want to get a grade
that said I had like a grade two reading level,
because that would be very hard on my self-esteem.
But unfortunately, because I was so nervous,
I ended up doing pretty poorly on that exam.
So from that point on, I labeled myself
as somebody who had very poor reading skills,
because that's what my school told me.
And at that time, I thought that everything
that my school told me
or my parents and my peers told me was the absolute truth.
So I went through middle school, high school
and even my college years only reading the books
that I have to read for school,
because I told myself that I wasn't the book guy.
When I got to college,
I had to take this creative writing class.
And in that class, I had a professor
who really didn't like my writing very much.
He also didn't really like me very much either.
And I ended up getting something like a B minus
in that class.
But this didn't really surprise me
because I had it in my head that I was a poor reader.
So it makes sense that I would be a poor writer too, right?
But one day I came across a guy
on YouTube named Elliott Hulse,
who introduced me to the idea of personal development,
which is basically the idea that we all have the power
to improve ourselves if we want to.
I began reading books that he recommended,
like "The Alchemist" and "Deep Work" or "The Power of Now",
which are all books that talk about the idea of improving.
And for the first time in my life,
I was actually enjoying reading books.
And then when I started listening to audio books,
I really started to enjoy reading,
so much so that I would read or listen to books
for about an hour every single day.
Fast forward another year,
and then I became interested in the world of YouTube
and I started sitting down
and typing out all of my own ideas about personal growth.
And the more I wrote,
the more ideas started flowing out of me.
I started to write these elaborate stories
with real plots and real character development.
And then I would try to weave
some sort of self-development topic into the story
in order to make it more relatable
and interesting compared to traditional self-help.
Fast forward another year,
and now I've created a real business
that is pretty much centered around my writing skills.
And on top of that, I usually get my video ideas
from all the books that I read, petty interesting for a guy
who did poorly in reading and writing.
The reason why I'm telling you the story
is because I did something that pretty much all people do,
and it's called having a fixed mindset.
People who have a fixed mindset,
think that having certain traits or talents are fixed,
and they cannot be learned.
They will often say things like,
oh, I'm not a book person,
or a creative person, or a math person.
And they think that these traits
are the ones that make people successful.
So therefore, they can be successful
because they don't naturally have them.
But somebody with a growth mindset
believes that new abilities
can be developed through practice,
and that anyone can become successful
if they're willing to put the effort in.
This mindset creates a love for learning,
and having a love for learning is something
that pretty much all great leaders have in common.
In order to cultivate this mindset,
you need to stop celebrating
and focusing just on the results,
and you need to start celebrating the effort
that is being put into getting the results.
Now, just to be clear,
I'm not saying that results don't matter at all
because obviously they do, but what I am saying
is that you have to start viewing your brain
like it's a muscle.
If you work certain parts of your brain up more,
whether it's the math part or the creative part,
the stronger that part will become.
It's just like how some people out there
are naturally very muscular,
and that other people are naturally very skinny,
just because that person is skinny,
doesn't mean they cannot one day become as big or bigger
than the naturally muscular person,
it will just require more work.
I'm also not saying that you should just ignore
what you're naturally good at,
or what you're naturally bad at.
In fact, a lot of times, it's actually a good idea
to pursue the thing that you're naturally good at.
But the way society and the way the school system is set up,
you're not really given a healthy opportunity to discover
what we are naturally good at,
or what we're naturally bad at.
Here's a really basic example.
I have a friend in high school who hated math class,
and he labeled himself as not a math guy,
but now he actually makes a lot of money in sports betting,
which is essentially just being good at math
and probability.
But the difference is, is that he loves sports.
So under the right circumstances, he can be great at math.
When you start doing something
that you are passionate about,
you'll be shocked at what hidden talents
that passion will bring up within you.
And once again, if you actually want
to discover your passion, you have to go out and find it.
And the best place to find your passion
is a website called Skillshare.
Skillshare is an online learning community
that can teach you any skill you want.
And they have over 25,000 classes in design,
business, technology,
they can even teach you how to make money online,
like how to start an e-commerce store,
or social media marketing agency.
And the first 500 people who sign up
using my link in the description
will gain access to all of this 100% free
for the first two months.
And I promise you that if you go to that website
or not even that website, if you go on YouTube
and you actively try and discover what your passion is,
you will be shocked at what hidden talents lay within you.
Thanks for watching, and I'll see you soon.