7 Mindsets of Success

What You Really Need to Do to Achieve Rapid, Top-level Success

Sten Morgan

• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781683503019
• eBook ISBN: 9781683503033
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Personal Success

Put yourself in the driver's seat of your success with tools from time management and planning for the future to conflict and accountability.
 
In The Seven Mindsets of Success, readers will not only explore topics like embracing discomfort, healthy conflict, time management, perspective, safety nets, and future self, but the intrinsic motivation behind their success. They will learn secrets and steps that are easily overlooked in business today. They will weigh the cost of their success and ask themselves, "Am I willing to do everything it takes?"
 
What if success could be as easy as changing your mindset to see your business or job differently, and in turn, see the world differently? Sten Morgan has become one of the youngest, top financial advisors in the country, and he built his business all in just three years. He is in the top percentile of people in his business, and more successful than advisors with thirty years or more experience, and he believes these seven psychological mindsets will unlock success for you too.
 
What's stopping you from reaching rapid, top-level success in your industry? The answer lies inside.
 
"A great book . . . You need to know why you are doing this and why you want to be successful. Otherwise, your enthusiasm will fade and you won't reach the levels of success that you want to reach. I give this book 5 out of 5 stars." — Medium
 
"Challenges entrepreneurs to change their mindsets, and see their businesses, and the world, differently." — Between Now and Success podcast

Mindset 1

Future Self

To simply want success is not going to help you achieve it. You need to stop and imagine who you want to be personally and professionally in five years. Then, you need to figure out how to get there.

The Future Self Mindset is the secret to getting refocused, to figuring out what you need to be doing right now to achieve your goals, and to get the motivation to actually go do it.

You’ve tried to increase your sales. You’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing. But you keep asking yourself, “Why aren’t I experiencing the results?”

You might even be growing tired of the whole mundane process: the tasks, phone calls, and emails you have to send to make even one sale. It’s easy to feel aimless in the midst of your daily to-do list.

Eventually, you’ll feel tempted to stop doing those meaningless tasks, and you’ll lose sight of where you were headed. You’ll start waking up wondering why you go to work each day. I’ve been in this business long enough that I’ve watched this happen again and again.

I want it to stop happening. Over the last few years I’ve discovered a way to re-focus yourself and get motivated again. That’s what Future Self is all about.

The Marshmallow Experiment

In the late 60’s and early 70’s, an experiment was done to test the concept of delayed gratification⁷. The results of the experiment are an example of how the Future Self Mindset will set you up for success.

In the experiment, children were given a marshmallow and told they could either eat the marshmallow right then, or wait for a few minutes and get a second marshmallow.

It was a simple question: Would the kids prioritize momentary pleasure, or would they hold out for the chance to double the fun. Unsurprisingly, most of the kids tried to wait—two marshmallows are better than one, after all—but only a fraction could hold out long enough to get their second marshmallow.

Interestingly, there was a direct correlation between waiting for a future reward and success later in life. The children who waited had higher SAT scores and were “significantly more competent” than the ones who couldn’t wait.

On the other hand, the kids who couldn’t wait had lower grades and experienced more difficulty in school and in relationships. They had a harder time saying no to peer pressure and lacked self-control.

What’s going on here? And what, on earth, does a marshmallow have to do with Rapid, Top Level Success.

The first group of kids, the ones who only got one marshmallow, weren’t intrinsically bad kids. Like most people, they wanted what they wanted right now, not later. We can all relate to that feeling of wanting something, even if it might not be good for us long term.

What I find amazing is not that the first group of kids who only got one marshmallow couldn’t wait. What’s interesting about this experiment, especially for our purposes, is what it shows about the power of the future self for success.

How to Get a Second Marshmallow

If you’ve ever watched a child waiting to eat the dessert sitting right in front of them, you can imagine the scene from this experiment. The kids with the marshmallow in front of them, desperately trying to wait, passed the time by poking their marshmallow, smelling it, or even licking it. To distract themselves, some turned their chairs around so they wouldn’t have to look at the marshmallow. Others paced around the room.

But the most successful talked to themselves. They reminded themselves why they were waiting and how great it would be to have two marshmallows instead of just one. For some reason, when the children actively imagined the future, one in which they got the object of their desire, they were much more successful. Waiting for that marshmallow took effort, but that effort was made easier if the participants thought about the future.

The kids who waited weren’t better people: they were employing the Future Self Mindset. They were imagining the future and reminding themselves of the payoff in waiting.

The creator of this experiment, Walter Mischel, almost fifty years after the experiments commented⁸, “It’s really not about candy. The studies are about achievement situations and what influences a child to reach his or her choice.”

What prompts the children to choose to wait for the second marshmallow? They know their future self will be happier with two marshmallows. Later in life, what prompted these kids to do better on their SAT’s? They probably knew their future self would be a lot happier if they studied and took the effort to succeed.

This isn’t just about marshmallows anymore.

The Three Questions

Close your eyes and imagine this with me. You’re at your favorite, local coffee shop and someone walks through the door and sits across from you. You look at them intently and realize that they are you. Maybe with a few more grays or wrinkles, they are slightly older, but still you. You begin to ask them about the future, where they are, what they’re doing, maybe how much they’re making—and every single answer is perfect. They are doing exactly what you want to be doing in five years. They look at you, smile, and say, “What you do now determines whether I will exist.”

Your future self is who you want to be in five, ten, and twenty years. We’re going through this mindset first because knowing what you want your life to actually look like is the first step to achieving it. Future Self is a tool that helps you identify what you want and what steps to take to achieve it.

When you imagine your future self, ask three questions:

1. What am I doing well?

“What am I doing well? What am I doing now that is bringing me closer to my goal?”

Evaluate your last few months of work, and pick out the things you are doing that are bringing you closer to your goals. Allow yourself to acknowledge your strengths so you can focus more deeply on them.

When I asked myself this question, I found that there were a lot of things I was doing really well that I wasn’t giving enough time to.

2. What could I be doing better?

Ask your future self, “What could I be doing better that would help me grow faster?”

The benefit of asking this question is that you are able to cut out the distractions that are keeping you from achieving your goals, the tasks that might be draining your creativity, or the things you are doing out of obligation but not strategy.

Go so far as to ask, “Will you be proud of me in this moment?”

In fifty years when I look back on my life, I want to know that I worked as hard as I could have and didn’t miss out on opportunities for growth. Asking this question helps me do that.

This can be a hard question to ask. You are probably doing things right now that are taking you further from your future self rather than closer. Be brutally honest with yourself. The payoff is worth it.

3. What should I do next?

The Future Self Mindset shows us where we are now and where we want to be. It reveals a large gap that can seem daunting, but allows us to create a plan.

The Future Self Mindset helps us answer the question, “What should I do next?”

For me, this looked like being able to take tests and get certifications. I was able to make decisions that build upon each other by evaluating what next steps were needed in my process. The plan looks different for everyone, but it is important to determine what comes next.

Look at the diagram above. Take a minute to create your own Future Self Plan. Draw a line on a blank piece of paper. On the left side write your name and present year. This is your current self. On the far right side, put your name and the year you are imagining your future self. This could be five, ten, or twenty years in the future. Now evaluate the steps that will get you closer to the other side.

I’m not saying that you can plan the future, but you can be smart about the next steps you take towards achieving your future self, while realizing not everything goes according to plan.

Your Future Self

Each person’s future self will be different because each of us are aiming for different dreams. There are moments that help you shape your future self. One big moment for me happened when I was very young.

When I was three years old, my family was living in Arizona and my mom had just married my stepdad. One night I remember hearing my mom and stepdad fighting in the room next to me. The door was closed and despite my countless efforts, I couldn’t open it. The shouting from the other side was getting louder and louder. At three years old, I didn’t really know what was happening, but I remember crying and relentlessly pounding on the door.

The image of me pounding on the door and not being able to help my mom is forever seared into my memory. I felt powerless in that moment and it’s something I remember often. Overcoming that feeling of powerlessness was a huge part of what shaped my future self.

I made the decision that I never wanted to be in a situation where I felt that powerless and unable to help someone I cared about. It is important for me that my future self always be able to take care of and help the people I love. That’s part of why today my future self-values security, success, and helping others.

There are smaller moments, too, that define your future self. I didn’t always know I wanted to be a financial advisor, but when I was a junior in college, I came one step closer to realizing what I wanted to be. I was sitting in finance class, listening to a guest speaker, a Certified Financial Analyst. He explained how he analyzed patterns in stocks and developed plans for investments and retirements. After hearing him speak, I ruled out his job, not wanting to sit behind a computer all day. But I did know I wanted to help people with their finances. I loved helping people and I was good with money and numbers. That’s when I realized that what I was thinking about did have a name. It was a financial advisor. So, right there in finance class, my life completely changed course.

But just because I knew what I wanted to do, didn’t mean I was using the mindset effectively. Knowing what you want to be when you grow up is not the same as using the Future Self Mindset.

It’s what I asked next that made the difference. Alone in my dorm room, I imagined myself five years from that moment. I was a successful CFP. I was wearing a suit and tie, working at a top firm, making more money than anyone in my family ever had before.

“What do I need to do to get to where you are at?” I asked my future self. “What can I do right now that will get me to where I want to go?”

At that point I had no example. I had no mentor.

Honestly, I didn’t have a good answer to that question. At twenty years old, I had no idea what it took to become a financial planner. But I knew just wanting to be a CFP wouldn’t get me there. I began to do research, and I found that every financial advisor had to pass a set of certification tests. Most people took these tests once they had gotten a job at an investment firm, who basically pays them to take the tests for six months. My future self-wanted something faster, though. I guessed that I would be much more likely to get a good job if I already had passed the tests.

So, in my senior year of college, I decided I was going to do something different, something against the grain, something that wasn’t very comfortable, but which would help me reach my future self much faster: I started studying for my certification tests. After I identified who I wanted to be, I had a clearer idea of what steps I could take so that I could start moving closer to becoming that person.

This Mindset Will Change Your Life

Your future self is...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Why Mindsets?
• Mindset 1 Future Self
• Mindset 2 Remove Your Safety Net
• Mindset 3 Perspective
• Mindset 4 Circumstances
• Mindset 5 Discomfort
• Mindset 6 Conflict
• Mindset 7 Time Balance
• Motivation Behind Success: Generosity
• Conclusion
• Promo Page
• About the Author
• Sources