Ep 195: The Mindset of Success

Ruth Gotian, author of The Success Factor, explains how teens can
cultivate the right mindset for success. Plus, how our kids can
figure out their life’s purpose and find strong mentors to guide
them.


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Full show notes


We want our kids to be successful: find and excel at their
passions, achieve remarkable things and of course, make enough
money to be independent from us! But how can we help them get
there? Some teens have plenty of ambition but can’t quite match
it with work ethic. Others seem pretty apathetic to their future
career, and some just don’t know what to do with their
lives! 


Whatever situation your teen is in, the road to success is bound
to be a rocky one. 





Luckily, there are ways we can help our teens make success a
reality! Teens can achieve anything–if we just guide them towards
developing the right mindset. There are tools we can use to help
lost teens find their spark, and bring already ambitious teens
even closer to their dreams and goals.





Our guest this week is here to share some incredible tips for
cultivating a prosperous life! Her name is Ruth Gotian, and she’s
the author of The Success Factor: Developing the Mindset and
Skillset for Peak Business Performance. Ruth is the Chief
Learning Officer and an Assistant Professor of Education in
Anesthesiology at Weill Cornell Medicine. Her work is featured
regularly in Forbes, Psychology Today, and the Harvard Business
Review, and she is internationally recognized as an influential
thinker in the world of management and leadership.





In our interview, we’re talking about how teens can develop the
right mindset for success. We’re also discussing how we can help
teens find their life’s passion and why mentors and social
circles are so critical to finding success.


How Our Mindset Can Make or Break Us


When we talk about becoming successful people, we tend to talk
about habits. We imagine waking up at 5 AM to exercise, mediate,
drink green smoothies and watch the stock market. Then we try all
that….and it we just end up tired, hungry and still far from
successful! While these habits can help some people, they’re
realistically not for everyone, says Ruth–especially not for
teens! With the grueling schedule of high school, homework and
extracurriculars, these kinds of habits are only going to exhaust
them, not bring them closer to success.





Instead, Ruth suggests that we help teens emulate the same
mindset, but figure out their own habits. She recommends we
prompt teens to evaluate their schedule to figure out the hours
in which they’re the most productive–which is likely not 5 AM!
Ruth refers to these as “peak performance hours”, when teens can
do the most challenging active tasks. Then, during times when
they typically get more tired, they can schedule in some passive
tasks like answering emails or reviewing flashcards! Figuring out
how to optimize productivity is one of the most essential parts
of having a success-oriented mindset.





In the episode, Ruth and I also discuss how the right mindset can
help teens block out negativity! Ruth explains how we can act
like either teflon or velcro when someone tries to bring us down.
If we act like velcro, we allow their negative words to stick to
us all day and make us feel less than. But if we decide to adopt
a teflon mindset, we can deflect their comments, and let them
slide off of us without a care. Easier said than done though,
right? In our interview, Ruth shares some tips for adopting this
teflon mentality.





Even if teens have the ambition and mindset for success, they
might not know what to apply it to! It’s not always easy for
teens to find their purpose, but with Ruth’s help, we can guide
teens to figure out their life’s passion.


Helping Teens Find Their “Why”


It can be frustrating when teens seem to quit everything they
try, leading us to wonder if they’ll ever figure out what they’re
passionate about. Ruth encourages us to be patient and let them
try lots of things until they discover  what’s right for
them. Doing this allows teens to find their “why”, which Ruth
defines as the underlying motivation for anything and everything
they do. In her work with med students, Ruth has found that those
with the strongest “why” are the ones who persevere through every
challenge.





For some people, their “why” is self-improvement, pushing them to
become great athletes or musicians. Others may have lost a loved
one to an illness, and want to join the medical field to help
others in need. Some are angered and saddened by injustice,
leading them to become lawyers or politicians. The sooner your
teen can figure out what gets them out of bed in the morning and
motivates them to work hard, the sooner they’ll start seeing
successes in their lives. 





In the interview, Ruth and I talk about how teens often don’t
feel passionate about what they’re learning in school–and how we
can change that. As an educator and former PhD student herself,
Ruth knows what makes students thrive or struggle. She explains
that subject based learning, where teens master facts and
numbers, doesn’t quite stick the same way as applied learning.
When young adults understand how they can actually use the
information being taught to them, they’re much more likely to
retain it. We discuss this further in the episode!





If teens have the right mindset and a passion-fuelled goal to
work towards, they can also benefit immensely from having mentors
and the right social circle.


Why Mentors and Peers Make a Difference


It can be pretty hard for teens to find strong mentors, but it’s
often because they’re not looking in the right places, says Ruth.
Teens often search for people with whom they share many
similarities, but oftentimes those people aren’t going to help
teens break out of their comfort zones and consider new
perspectives, says Ruth. Ideally, teens should have lots of
different mentors from different industries and corners of life.
Together, these people can shape your teen in individual ways
that are altogether greater than the sum of their parts.





Ruth advises against asking someone outright to be a mentor. This
can make people feel nervous or uncomfortable, and they may not
feel like they have time for another commitment in their busy
life! Instead, she suggests that teens simply ask them for help
with a specific task, and demonstrate how interested they are in
the achievement at hand. For example, if teens want to become
educators, asking a teacher for some college teaching program
recommendations could be a great way to show a possible mentor
that they’ve got ambitions and may need some advice!





Ruth and I also talk a lot about how the right social circle can
either elevate a teen to success or bring them down. When they’re
spending time with other high achievers, they’re constantly
surrounded by a high standard. This encourages them to push
themselves towards their full potential. Teens who spend time
with slackers might not see the value of striving towards success
when the standard set by their peers is lower. Finding the right
set of peers is one of the most important parts of becoming a
successful individual, says Ruth.


In The Episode…


Ruth has a lot of great advice, whether your teen is a go-getter
or still needs a little push to reach...