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Being outward and open-minded to grow your career

Being outward and open-minded to grow your career

Also: Book recommendation, hot jobs, and more

January 07, 2025

Mindset time!

Happy New Year! Hopefully, 2025 is starting well for you!

I love talking about and coaching people on mindsets. Mindsets drive our behavior, which drives our results.

So if you really want to shift something in this new year, addressing your mindsets is the way to go.

Today, we’ll talk about two different mindsets and how they can apply to you—the Outward Mindset and the Open Mindset.

Embrace these mindsets in 2025, and you’ll be glad you did.

In today’s newsletter:

How seeing people as people can make a huge difference
Embrace feedback with an open mind
Hot jobs

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MUST-READ

See People as People - The Simple Yet Difficult Mindset Adjustment to Impact Change

Many engineers and professionals that I talk to care a lot about the impact they have on their work. Will it make lives better? Does the company they work for promote social values they believe in? What is the overall societal impact of the work?

This is great! It's fabulous to desire impact beyond the paycheck and to work on something that provides meaning in our lives.

Yet, sometimes, we may be looking beyond the mark in the impact that we make. Does it really have to be just about the products/services we work on? What about the small impacts we make on those we work with, live with, and interact with on a daily basis?

What if we could actually change the world just by changing our own mindset?

I believe we can, if we embrace an Outward Mindset, as taught by the Arbinger Institute.

When we can truly see people as people, not as objects in our lives, then suddenly we treat them differently. We care more about learning about others' challenges, hopes, fears, and dreams. We are no longer only focused on our own cares and desires.

Think about what would happen if even just a few of us shifted in this way. The good news is, an Outward Mindset invites an Outward Mindset in other people. It would spread, and the ripple effect would be vast.

Sometimes it can be a great thing to think about products we work on that can impact the millions. Yet perhaps your greatest impact will be in the lives of the people closest to you, whom you are able to connect with in new ways simply because you shift how you see them.

CAREER TIPS

Feedback Is a Gift, so Be Open-Minded

Do you have all the answers all the time? Do you feel the constant need to be right? Are you willing to legitimately consider the opinions and inputs of others when they conflict with your own? Do you fear performance evaluations and critiquing from others?

These are just a few questions that will help you determine whether you have an open or closed mindset.

So many people are afraid of feedback and criticism. They take it extremely personally and look at anyone suggesting ways they can improve as a knock on their value as a person.

It's simply not true - receiving true feedback is a gift.

Without the truth, how can we do our best work?

Without the feedback, how will we be able to grow and progress in our careers?

Without being open, how can we impact others as well as we need to?

I've had periods of my life where I was extremely closed-minded. I didn't want to show vulnerability and I actively managed the impressions everyone had of me so I could show them I had everything figured out, even when I didn't. I even fooled myself into thinking I was open-minded!

Then, I had a 360-degree review and got feedback from a dozen people in my organization who worked closely with me. The feedback was anonymous - leaders, peers, and direct reports. I learned that even though I thought I was leading well and asking for feedback from others.

The truth was, I asked for it, but I didn't truly listen to them. I cut people off. I didn't legitimately take other opinions into account. I pretended to care, and then I just did what I wanted to do.

After that review, I finally recognized the need to change, and I've been committed to making progress ever since. I'm not perfect, but I'm trying to be more open to the input and feedback of others.

Feedback is a gift. Be grateful for it!

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📚 BOOK RECOMMENDATION

The Outward Mindset: Seeing Beyond Ourselves by The Arbinger Institute

Without even being aware of it, many of us operate from an inward mindset, a single-minded focus on our own goals and objectives. This book points out the many ways, some quite subtle and deceptive, that this mindset invites tension and conflict. But incredible things happen when people switch to an outward mindset.

They intuitively understand what coworkers, colleagues, family, and friends need to be successful and happy. Their organizations thrive, and astonishingly, by focusing on others they become happier and more successful themselves! This new mindset brings about deep and far-reaching changes.

The Outward Mindset presents compelling true stories to illustrate the gaps that individuals and organizations typically experience between their actual inward mindsets and their needed outward mindsets. And it provides simple yet profound guidance and tools to help bridge this mindset gap.

Changing the mindset that causes the behavior changes everything.