Mindset coach Jet Xavier talks about the FEED method to re-wiring your brain for success in your career, and why optimism is the new performance tool.
Having been a mindset coach for a number of years now in the real estate industry, I am still perplexed by the number of agents who do not address the biggest limiting factor to their success. Yes, I am a mindset coach and you’re going to expect me to say that, however, it is clear if agents understood, developed, improved and changed their mindsets most would be far more successful.
So why, is it that mindset is an issue that agents find it so hard – on a personal development level – to address? What can you do to help get over this hurdle and become more successful?
Here are three ways that you can start learning more, and making positive changes to your mindset.
1. Historically, an agents approach to dealing with limiting mindset issues (those which resulted in bad performance) were based in old “pseudo positive” thinking methods and the “will power” trap – “just think positive and try again” was the motto. We know this does not work because no matter how much some agents try there is always some mindset issue that limits their success in the long term. There was no neural change, which created new thinking and behaviour. How many times have you just tried to be positive and try only to get stuck in a failure loop again? The mindset performance tools in the past are now being replaced by more innovative research and approaches. It has only been since 1998 that we have started to understand what positive psychology is all about and how to apply it for greater success. The advancement in the neuroscience field has also created a paradigm shift in how we understand the brain, mindset, and personal success. The new school of performance psychology has arrived. It is time to embrace new ways of dealing with the limiting mindsets from a fresh perspective and a new science. A great place to start is the book “Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman”. Optimism is the new performance tool.
2. Agents have not been educated on how to address limiting mindsets. How the brain and mindset works was not something historically taught in schools. Agents have not been educated about it at any deeper level for practical change or performance. There are very few programs they can access to learn about this area. In the past, it has been the domain of only psychologists and practitioners. The good news is that now thanks to the work of Professor Carol Dweck from Stanford University, and her studies on growth and fixed mindsets agents can get educated themselves and start to control how their brain and mindset works in relation to their performance. Check out “Mindset – The New Psychology of Success”, by Carol S. Dweck. This will help you identify what type of mindset you have and how that relates to your success.
3. Training in the real estate industry has always been on skills sets not mindsets. Skill set training is essential for an agent to be successful, but we now understand for most agents that it is not enough. There needs to be a mix of skills sets and mindset training for agents now to reach their full potential. There is a wave of mindset and brain training starting to sweep the training platform landscape globally. You can start this training yourself now by applying the F.E.E.D method developed by John B. Arden who wrote the book “Rewire your Brain”. The F.E.E.D method works by utilising “focus, effort, effortlessness and determination”, to actually re wire your brain for success. In short, you start by focusing on the behaviour change you want. Focus starts the process of neuroplasticity, which is the brain’s natural ability to form new connections in order to compensate for changes in one’s environments. Then you apply effort to the process, which helps you establish new synaptic connections. Once you have established a new behaviour through this, it becomes easier and effortless. Determination is then the key by staying in practice or as Arden puts it feeding the brain or continuing to engage in the thinking and behaviour that has become effortless.
So I challenge you join the mindset revolution and take the new steps to your success.
