Mindset or Strategy — Which is Better? with Jarrod Haning

Courtney Elmer 0:00  

Welcome to the AntiFragile Entrepreneurship™ podcast! You're listening to Episode 67 about mindset vs. business strategy. You hear a lot about both mindset and business strategy in the world of entrepreneurship. But, which one is more effective for reaching your goals? We've got a special guest joining us today who's going to unpack what mindset and business strategy mean when it comes to business and the way you solve problems, and why they're different. And the surprising truth about mindset and business strategy that nobody's talking about. That's all coming up next, so stay tuned. 

[INTRO TRACK]

Today's guest is someone who I was introduced to when my PR and media agent pitched him for me to be on his podcast, called Mindset Performance. I remember when I first saw his Mindset Performance and thought, ok this guy looks pretty cool, talks about mindset, great. Then I started scrolling through some of his episodes and realizing he was having these interviews with these six and seven and eight and nine-figure entrepreneurs, and diving into the mindset, business strategies, and habits that propelled them to these incredible levels of success. I was fascinated by that. 

Jarrod is incredibly systematic in what he does, which was evident when I went through his process to be a guest on his podcast. After my media agent had pitched him with how I could help support his listeners, he asked for me to send him a video talking about why I was a good fit for his show. So I did that. He messaged back and said great, we want to bring you on, but first I need you to take this assessment called a MindScan. That MindScan was mind-blowing. It revealed things about my current mindset which gave me clarity on why some of the business strategies I was using weren't working, and we unpacked it all in my episode on his podcast, which hasn’t aired just yet, but you can check out his show called Mindset Performance everywhere podcasts are found.

Today we're diving into the science behind why you're not getting the results you want in your business. It's not your skillset. It's not even the business strategies that you're employing or your current mindset — which might come as a bit of a surprise, given how much our industry here in the world of entrepreneurship touts mindset and business strategy as keys to success. 

What it boils down to is your habits and the way that your mindset is currently wired to solve problems. What this MindScan did was it revealed how I think, on a neuroscientific, biological level. It literally mapped it out on the page and showed me the opportunities for growth in terms of my problem-solving ability, in terms of how I think about the problems, and in terms of how and where to tweak my habits. Because the good news is that you can change your current mindset and your current habits, but you have to recognize what they are first and which ones aren't serving you. And Jarrod is here today to show you how. So let's dive right into that interview.

Courtney Elmer 6:01

Jarrod, welcome! I’m so excited for our conversation today about mindset vs. business strategy and cannot wait to dive in.

Jarrod Haning 6:20  

Thanks for having me.

Courtney Elmer 6:24: 

You have an interesting background, so before we dive into what we'll be talking about today, which is developing this growth mindset and how specifically we do that. First, tell us about your background and how you got to where you are today. 

Jarrod Haning 6:35

My college undergraduate and graduate was Music Performance. I spent 20 years as a full-time classical musician. At that time, I was also training and speaking and traveling, teaching people how to shift their mindset and access different parts of their brain on demand. For the past 10 years, I've been full-time Mindset Performance. We've got a Nobel nominated process that actually shows you what it looks like when you are accessing different parts of your brain and thinking from a higher level. 

Courtney Elmer 8:42

Tell us a bit about this process and how you help people break through to higher levels of income by learning how to shift their mindset, think differently and identify and implement better business strategies.

Jarrod Haning 9:51

Sure, we'll start with the three rules that explain why we're living the current life that we are. Whether you feel like you don’t have enough time, don't have enough money, don't have the right relationship, or you have the relationship but it's not going the right way. Whatever it is, these three things are happening.

• Number one, you're not a slacker, you're already doing everything you know to do. If there was something else you could be doing, you'd be doing it. And what that means is that trying harder isn't going to work. Otherwise, it would have by now.
  
  
  
• Number two, everything you were coming up with to try to solve that problem makes sense. It's logical and reasonable, rational, it's well thought out. What that tells us is that working smarter isn't going to make a difference, or it would have by now.
  
  
  
• Number three, what that means is a breakthrough in your situation, a thing that's actually going to transform your experience so that you never again have trouble with money or never again have trouble with free time or never again have trouble in relationships, is that the breakthrough will at first sound a bad idea because if it made sense to do it, you'd already be doing it, right? And that's the problem, the brain cannot think of what doesn't already make sense.

In my work, we look at your current mindset by mapping out your current thinking patterns. By getting it out of your head and onto the paper, you're able to see where the blind spots are, that were tripping your mindset up, why subsequently the business strategies you're using aren't working, and where the breakthroughs are waiting for you. Then through a series of what I call mindset push-ups, we rewire the neural connections and how they communicate with each other. So you're effectively solving problems by thinking at a higher level, which can help you identify and implement more effective business strategies in your business.

Courtney Elmer 12:04

In the coaching world, we interact with clients on a daily basis. Sometimes people get stuck, and it can be difficult to help them learn how to think differently or even to understand that there is a new level of being that they can access because they can't see it. Literally like you said, it is that blind spot in their brain. 

You hear a lot about "shifting your mindset" but a lot of the “solutions” out there (the self-help books, different podcasts, etc.) don’t necessarily teach you tangible ways to rewire those pathways, they just tell you that it’s possible. But how do you actually do that? How does the MindScan differ from a personality test or something you can go online and take?

Jarrod Haning 13:26

When you take something: DISC, or Myers Briggs, Strength Finders, etc. they’re certainly fun. It’s exciting to share the results and talk about it with your friends and hop in a Facebook group dedicated solely to people that got the same results that you do, and get lots of affirmation for why you experience life the way you do.

But they’re problematic because first, they tend to be questionnaire-based. While you are responding to questions, your subconscious mind is gaming the system. It's predicting what they're looking for, trying to be portrayed in a certain light, or maybe you subconsciously answer based on a trait that you want to develop in the future. So we have some self-reporting error going on. 

 So the result you get is like you going to see the doctor and the doctor coming into your room with somebody else's test results. You can imagine what a disaster that would be. So using those types of assessments for professional development poses that problem. 

 But there's another problem slightly more insidious. These tests give you information that might feel exciting and reveal elements of your mindset, but don’t actually make a difference. If you went to the doctor, and the doctor said, Hey, you have this condition, but don't worry, because we have a 60% success rate treating it, that's information. But it's not helpful information. What you would want to know is what side of that 60% line are you? 

 The other assessments that tend to be personality-based, tend to give you a label: you're a rabbit, you're a tree, you're an INFJ, or whatever. But this information doesn't actually tell you what to do to shift your mindset and experience life differently. There's not a clear map and a clear path. The process we use is a nobel nominated process that was invented by Robert Hartman in the 1950s. It's easy to take on your laptop real quick. I've seen 30% of the people who take it in tears because they find what it reveals about their situation and what's possible in their situation in a way that's so personally meaningful, which isn't an experience that I find people having when they take DISC or Myers Briggs. 

Courtney Elmer 16:02

You highlighted so accurately the frustration of taking one of those other tests, and you said, winding up with great information — but now how do I use this info to shift my mindset? We're getting labeled and classified as this or that but it’s not unique or specific to you and how you think, based on your past beliefs and life's experiences, and the memories that you hold.

 When you took me through this process, it’s a very simple test. You match up a couple of things and it doesn’t take very long to complete. But what it yielded on the back end about my mindset was so intriguing. Not only did it highlight areas of strength, but it also talked about how those strengths can be potential weaknesses, then we talked about how to navigate around that. It also gave me a clue into why certain business strategies I was using weren't working, and it gave me a much clearer path forward in terms of what I needed to be doing differently to bring about the results that I want. 

 There was something that you said about how no amount of information can change the way you do things. Tell us about that. 

Jarrod Haning 15:43  

Until you have viscerally experienced something for yourself, no amount of information makes a difference. Yet after you have felt viscerally experienced the shift, then no amount of information is needed. 

 This is why positive thinking, like saying affirmations in the mirror to shift your mindset, fake it till you make it, or whatever, frequently makes the problem worse. Because as you’re saying your affirmations, you know, I’m this, I’m that, your brain is going No, you're not No, you're not, you're not — it just reinforces the story that already exists in your subconscious mind. It's also why some of the business strategies you're using aren't working because they aren't unique to how you're wired to think. 

 When you were learning how to ride a bicycle and they first took off the training wheels, and you're a little wobbly, maybe you put a foot down, you don't crash, you're doing everything that makes sense. You're working hard, you're trying. And your crazy Aunt Jenny comes by with some advice. Crazy Aunt Jenny says you need to go faster because when you go faster, it's easier to balance. And you think, Okay, this is why they call her crazy Aunt Jenny because that's the dumbest idea I have ever heard. If I can't balance going slow, how is going fast gonna help, that's just gonna make it worse.

 Then, one day, you went faster. For a brief second, you felt balance inside your body. And the instant your body felt the difference, your brain went, Okay. All right, I get it. This is what crazy Aunt Jenny was talking about! 

 But notice, before you felt the difference, no amount of information made a difference. And this is why having a life coach give you advice on what you should do is one of the worst things you can do to try and shift your mindset or business strategy. Because when they say, “Why don't you try this” you say that won't work because no amount of info makes a difference until your body has viscerally experienced the difference. There's a difference between real coaching to help you shift your mindset, and simply giving advice about your mindset or business strategy, which doesn't do anything.

 Yet after your body felt balance, no more information was needed, no more explanation was needed. That's the power of doing the mindset push-ups because they rewire your brain, your brain now has the experience of thinking that way. At which point, no more explanation is needed. 

Courtney Elmer 20:24

This is profound because it highlights something we’ve all experienced but haven’t been able to describe. This is also why it's interesting how after doing these mindset push-ups and working to rewire those blind spots and change current thinking patterns in your mindset, you can take the assessment again and visibly see on paper how things have changed.

Jarrod Haning 21:20

Yes, yes, yes.

Courtney Elmer 21:23

So give us some examples of people that you've taken through this process and how it has helped them in terms of their business strategy as well. Maybe those people that have just been hustling their sweet little heart out trying to make, six figures in their business but are feeling stuck. They think they’re doing everything that logically makes sense to do. Why is it not working? 

Jarrod Haning 22:45

Yeah. So remember until you feel it, more information or advice won't make a difference. Trying harder doesn't make a difference. After you feel it, though, then information advice is no longer needed. I had a lady who had a multiple six-figure business and was making around $300,000 a year with her current business strategies. She's doing over $500,000 now since our work together. At home, she had four little kids all under the age of eight. You can imagine what it's like having eight blenders in your house that don't have a top. 

Courtney Elmer 19:56  

I’ve got one who is two and a half — I can’t imagine four. 

Jarrod Haning 20:00  

I know, right? Amazing. So she would come home and she realized she wasn't able to be present with her kids, she was just busy in the same house with them. She tried getting help from her spouse. Now, he's a great guy. But it wasn't working. She tried asking for help. She tried explaining, she tried all the normal stuff that you might have tried. And you know how well that works. This had been going on for a couple of years, and she's starting to feel resigned and think, Well, maybe that's just how life is. 

 She’s losing some of that connection with herself and loss of freedom, loss of power, and ultimately a loss of self-expression. So we took her through the MindScan, got her thinking patterns mapped out, took a look at her current mindset, and she was able to see how her brain was solving the problem. By doing that, she was able to see why everything she was trying to get help from her spouse and be seen and valued and heard, were actually blind spots. She was able to see there on the paper, structurally, what's happening in the way her mind is trying to solve those problems.

 So, we took her through a couple of mindset push-ups which rewires the way your brain solves that problem, and she took this new way of thinking back to the conversation with her spouse. This is the same conversation she’s been trying to have for the past eight years, and within 10 minutes, he heard her for the first time in a way he’d not heard before. Remember, he's somebody who cares and is involved. It was just the way her brain was trying to solve that problem was actually her blind spot. So within 10 minutes, he sees it, he hears it, he values it in a way that he never had before in that conversation. It printed 10 free hours for her every week to be just present with her kids.

 So she takes that to her work and applies the same new thinking to her business strategy and created 30 free hours every week by implementing a few business strategies that she hadn't implemented before. Simply because her mind learned how to start thinking at a higher level. And her brain was able to see why what made sense, was actually what was getting in the way. 

Courtney Elmer 24:16  

The point that you touched on is that that stood out to me that our brains are wired to problem-solve. If you continue to keep trying to solve the problem the way you've always solved it, and that's not working, then how are you going to get the different result that you want? It brings to mind this idea of a vicious cycle. They term this in the field of psychology where you've got a problem, a fear, that's driving your behavior. Many entrepreneurs will try implementing random business strategies in order to fix it, but because they don't know what the right business strategy is, it only reinforces the problem. So you try all the harder to solve it with the wrong strategy, and you keep going in a circle. So this breaks that cycle.

Jarrod Haning 25:25  

Yes, when you can evaluate your current mindset, learn how to shift that mindset and viscerally experience it, and start thinking at a higher level, your brain sees solutions in a much different way. Just like when you're in a corn maze, and you're running down the rows, and you're not sure if you should go left or right. Well, we stand you on a ladder now you can see the whole maze, you know which way to go. That's the power of when your mind starts thinking at a higher level.

Courtney Elmer 26:59  

It made me think of when you're trying to fly from LA to New York City. If the nose of that plane is off just a degree or two, you're not going to wind up in New York City, you're going to wind up in I don't know where, further north or further south, depending on where that nose was pointing. But you're not going to wind up where you want to be. It's just a small change, it doesn't have to be a big change, you don't have to completely turn your life inside out. But like you said, when you can just rise up to that higher level of thinking and look out over the corn maze, you begin to see things a different way than you see problems turn into possibilities, and ways to solve them become clearer. So you have a book coming out, don't you?

Jarrod Haning 27:47  

 Yes, ma'am. The Thinking Patterns of Success. We went and interviewed seven, eight, even some nine-figure earners, and mapped out their mindset and thinking patterns. We took a look at why that way of thinking has served them, and what they changed in their own thinking and subsequently in their business strategy to go to the next level.

Courtney Elmer 31:09  

Jarrod, thank you for your time here today to share about mindset and business strategy with our listeners, and why their current mindset is likely preventing them from implementing the right business strategies in their businesses. Where can people connect with you and find you online? 

Jarrod Haning 31:17  

You can hit me up at mindsetperformance.co

Courtney Elmer 31:22  

And you’ve got a podcast too, by the same name, right? 

Jarrod Haning 31:24  

Yes, ma'am. 

Courtney Elmer 31:25  

Jarrod, we appreciate you being here today.

Jarrod Haning 31:33  

Thanks for having me.

 Wasn't that fascinating. Since I had my interview with Jarrod, it is amazing how by pinpointing these habits, and making these small tweaks within my own mindset and business strategy, and more importantly, knowing what tweaks to make in my mindset and business strategy, how much has impacted the results we've been able to get in our business. 

 A lot of people go about changing their habits with a shotgun. There's some kind of vague target off in the distance, some kind of goal that they want to hit that they're probably not as crystal clear on as they could be. And they take a shotgun approach, meaning they shoot the shotgun, and it shatters shot everywhere and it might hit the target, it might not. It's a waste of time, it's a waste of energy, it's a waste of resources. 

 That's why when it comes to changing habits, so many people give up because they get tired of shooting the shotgun.

Courtney Elmer 32:55  

What you need to do is taking the rifle approach. When you have clarity on what habits specifically are preventing you from attaining the outcome you want, it becomes so much easier to shift the habit. And subsequently, to shift your mindset and the business strategies you're using to bring about better results.

 I hope this was a helpful conversation for you to recognize that it's not your mindset or business strategy that is the key to success. It’s your current habits and the way in which you are currently solving problems. 

 Chances are in your business right now, your vision is cloudy, that vision is unclear. And you're not sure how to attain it, because you’ve been so busy building the dream that you can't live it.

 So I want to invite you to something special - listen closely. We have a top-secret program here that is application only, called the Visionary Leader Incubator. What this program is designed to do is help you learn what systems you need to put in place in your business, help you implement those systems, and help you tweak and adjust those systems to optimize them for performance. Imagine it like the dashboard of your business. Most businesses are running without a dashboard. There's a pilot in the cockpit. But there's no clear dashboard, there's no metrics, there's no tracking, there's no awareness of where people are falling out of your funnel, and what's broken in your business, why your clients aren't converting why you haven't been able to sustain consistent income and revenue.

 You need the dashboard in order to be able to go on to make seven and eight and nine figures. So if you’d like to get more information on this program and apply, head to theeffortlesslife.co right now and fill out that short application so we can help you determine if this program is the right fit for you and if you’re a right fit for the program.

We hope you enjoyed today's conversation about mindset and business strategy. We'll see you back here next week on the AntiFragile Entrepreneurship™ podcast. Until then, go live your EffortLESS Life.