Introduction
Everybody wants to be the boss. Only a few people have the mindset to lead a team, a tribe or a nation to success.
Before you can be the boss, you must first learn how to think like a boss. We will discuss the power of mindset.
Having the right mindset has allowed me to start a 6-Figure business that took me from being a broke minister to a thriving minister who invests in people businesses and real estate.
Who’s The Boss?
Everyone wants to be the chief and no one wants to be an Indian. I have, personally, found this statement to be true in life.
People think that simply screaming at the top of their lungs or demanding respect, dominating poor souls and crushed spirits, is the way to be the boss.
I’m not the oldest guy on the block but I’ve been around long enough to see the end of this leadership style. Spoiler alert: it’s not good.
There are, however, certain qualities that I believe every boss should have. Let’s explore them.
Definition
First of all, I found three definitions for the word boss and I think we should briefly discuss them so you know what we’re talking about here. Modern language has shaped this word into being either a title, an action, or an overall attribute.
- noun = a person in charge of a worker, group, or organization.
- verb = to give (someone) orders in a domineering manner.
- adjective = Something that is excellent; outstanding.
So, a boss usually pays the employees, writes their check, or orders them around. You can be bossy by bossing someone around. A boss move is doing something amazing in your organization,
The person who takes up the responsibility
Every boss takes responsibility. I like to think of it as doing something no one asked you to do, because you know it needs to be done.
Think about it. If everyone says someone else will do it there’s a good chance that no one will do it. A boss takes on the burden of responding to the need or problem they see.
There’s a good chance that they’re not the only ones who see the problem, yet they are the only ones who are brave enough to do something about it. This is why they are called leaders.
Bosses don’t wait
Time is valuable. Living long enough teaches you this lesson. Bosses don’t wait for someone to do what they can do themselves. Anyone can complain. Bosses do something about it.
I remember hearing a news story about a man on Long Island New York who lived on the block that had suffered flooding which over time, eroded the asphalt. Over time, his street turned into a minefield of potholes, damaging vehicles, and posing a hazard to children riding their bikes.
Nassau County was responsible for maintaining the road. They didn’t responding to the constant complaints about the hazardous road. This long-time resident of this community took matters into his own hands.
He didn’t have fancy equipment or industrial strength asphalt. He was, however, equipped with resourcefulness. Taking sand from the beach, he shoveled it into the holes to fill them up. Was this ideal? Not at all.
In fact, the sand makes it harder to actually repair the roads. How did I learn this?
I learned this from the Nassau County Department of Transportation representative’s comment in a news story about a local hero who didn’t wait for the county to fix their roads.
I guess we all know what happened shortly after. That’s right, they fixed the roads. Bosses don’t wait when they know they must act. They know that if they delay something will be lost or someone can get hurt.
At least he had his neighbors’ support.
“It’s wonderful, he’s definitely going to heaven,” one man said. “It’s nice that somebody’s doing something. I mean, the town guys can only do so much.”
“He should get a commendation for that,” another man said.
I call this the duty of leadership. This shows up in the way a person carries themselves. They do not wait for things to get worse. They know that the longer you wait to fix something, the more it will cost to remedy the situation.
Leadership is taken not given
Some of the confusion about being a boss or a leader comes from the fact that leadership is a calling. That simply means it’s more than just a title or label.
Yes, leadership titles are given. When you get promoted, you take on a new title. However, this does not mean that you are a leader or a boss.
It just means that in the organization employees or teammates are required to call you a leader. Does this mean you are their leader, though?
“They say that leadership is take and not given.”
This means that the quality of taking charge and bearing the burden of responsibility isn’t given to someone, as in some ceremony where a person is knighted or anointed.
Each boss, in their quiet time of solitude, counts the cost and then makes a decision to put the weight on their own shoulders. In this way, they do not wait for leadership to be given to them. They stand up and say, “I will lead the way.”
Enrolling others in your vision
Bosses are required to be visionaries. People want to know that their boss or leader knows where they are taking the organization or community.
A part of being a boss is learning how to be influential. Learning how to enroll people into your vision. You must first have a vision of what things can be. Then, learn how to cast that vision to others.
When does this become important? As a boss you will most definitely meet tough personalities and challenges. Both can destroy your vision or distract you from the focused path to victory.
I’ve seen leaders get sidetracked because of personalities they couldn’t deal with in their tribe. Bosses know how to deal with every personality. They have a space carved out for that person in their vision.
Both the loud-mouth and the overly-analytical thinker can be annoying to certain leaders. I learned, a long time ago, that if you do not give these people a place in your vision they will be idle, roaming around your team and causing trouble.
Look past their quirks and give them a reason to be. Enroll them in your vision.
Why Is Mindset Necessary?
If you’re going to think like a boss you have to consider your mindset. In fact, this is the first step to thinking like a boss. Evaluating how your mind is set.
What are the default settings of your thinking? Never gave much thought to it? That’s okay, we’ll dive into it together.
Doing starts in the mind
Mindset is necessary because every action that we take is either multiplied or divided by our thoughts. Simply put, what you think about the action you’re about to do, affects how strong or weak your action will be.
Your mindset affects your intensity. Some people do things with the pure belief that they are making a difference. It shows in their actions. They do it with all their might.
Other people believe there’s no point in doing anything, because nothing’s going to work anyway. This also shows in week or half-baked action which lacks commitment or conviction.
Perspective affects your attitude
As in our physical world, your perspective on an idea will affect your attitude towards it. Imagine two people were standing by a girl wearing a shirt with words on it.
The front of the shirt says “Love.” The back of the shirt says “Hate.” One person is standing in front of the girl. The other is standing behind her. Regardless of what is on the shirt, the girl is happy and smiling.
The person standing in front of her sees the smile and is aware of her happiness. Does the person standing behind her, seeing the back of her head and a shirt that says “Hate” know that she is happy?
Do you think they might have different impressions of her as they approach her? Absolutely!
Mindset is powerful because it helps us to set and frame how you see things and how you think thoughts.
People never think about how they frame, set up, and think thoughts. We aren’t taught this stuff in school.
- Do you have a positive bias to your thoughts?
- Do you automatically see things in a positive way?
- Do you, on the other hand, have a negative bias?
- Are you just waiting for something bad or negative to creep its head up in every situation?
Your mindset is your default setting for how you frame your thoughts. The way you frame your thoughts, in turn, affects how you act.
Doing is easier said than done
How you act is a result of how you first think. The thinking is important. Doing will always be easier said than done.
You can talk for days about doing something, free in your imagination to go from one end of that glorious horizon to the other, flying and soaring around obstacles, letting nothing get in the way.
When it comes to taking that first step, however, the realities of life present a whole slew of obstacles for you to overcome. some of them are:
- Will it work?
- Are you ready?
- Are you competent?
- Do you believe?
- Do you care if other people don’t believe?
- What’s the first step?
- What’s the next step?
- Do you have the energy?
- Do you have the time?
- What’s the end goal again?
These are just a few of the many questions we ask ourselves when we take the first step.
Especially when you are starting something new, those first actions expose you. They leave you vulnerable to criticism and embarrassment.
Something as simple as getting a business card with a new title printed on it can make you feel like an imposter to those friends and family members who know you very well.
This is why you must evaluate the settings of your mind and how you think. You must upgrade your mindset in order for you to frame your thoughts properly.
Benefits of Mindset Training
There are key benefits to mindset training. They include helping you weed out destructive thoughts, giving you a track to run on, and putting success on autopilot.
Mindset training helps you weed out destructive thoughts
We talked about the connection between our thoughts and our actions in previous sections. Hopefully, you can see those connections more clearly than you did before.
If you do, you and I will agree that we will take better action when we take control of our thoughts. I’ve learned that the value in training comes from the confidence that it brings.
Think about a firefighter who trains around different types of fires. If normal citizens see a fire, they run away from it hysterically yelling and screaming.
Because the firefighter is trained to face fires, they are foremost calm while untrained people are frantic and overly-excited at the site of a burning building. Firefighters have been there before.
It’s not as exciting to them because they have faced it in training many times over.
Secondly, while citizens run away from a fire, the firefighter has enough confidence to approach the fire.
Mindset training is similar. Things that we find difficult to do, like running to a burning building or waking up at 5:00 a.m. every day, can become second nature.
In the same way that training for the firefighters removes fear and excitement, Mindset training helps us to get rid of the bad and destructive thoughts that taint our actions and hold back our intensity.
Gives you a track to run on
Once you get going you find you must be responsible for finishing. That means, actually knowing where this journey ends.
Do you have enough energy to get you over the finish line? Or are you like me, fighting and struggling with the shiny object syndrome? Do you look for other things that are exciting when you’re doing becomes difficult?
Mindset training helps you to stay focused and committed even when what you’re doing loses its luster and excitement.
When you think like a boss you are committing yourself to a goal even when it doesn’t seem fun. This is especially important when making the decision to switch from financial struggle to Financial Freedom.
You will have to make some tough decisions. You will have to sacrifice fun, convenience, and entertainment in the name of future wealth.
Puts success on automatic
Although what I just shared does not sound fun, the benefit of mindset training is about making success almost automatic.
It may sound strange but when you modify the settings of your thoughts, it puts your mind in a state of forming habits that bring you success. Once you form the habits, they will work for you.
Why would anyone put in the work to do this? People don’t realize that their minds have already been programmed to give an automatic result. What result is that?
Well, it’s the life you have right now. Nothing more. Nothing less. Your mind is set up to get you exactly what you have right now . Problems and all. That’s the way it works.
So if you want to go higher or become better, you will have to set the mind up to go there and stay there. You will have to train your mind to be, do, or have more.
How to Develop The Proper Boss Mindset
You’re either discouraged or encouraged. Discouraged by the fact that your current situation was determined solely by the way you think. If encouraged, because you now know that you can make changes to the way you think to better your life.
If the latter is true, then you’ve already taken the next step. Growing and developing into a boss is something within reach. Let’s discuss how you can develop the proper boss mindset.
Find someone who has what you want
One of the easiest systems for finding success is to find someone who already has the success you want and do the exact things they did.
Although this is an oversimplified version of the idea. The fact is that you need to turn your vision towards what you want and where you want to go. Finding someone who already has that success is the first step to getting there.
Interview them to discover their mindset
Once you find the person who has the success that you desire, take some time to ask questions. When you’re the newbie in the room that’s all you should be doing, asking questions.
Don’t concern yourself with telling, sharing or trying to impress. They’ve seen that before and it’s one of the quickest ways to get kicked out of a circle you’re not even qualified to be in.
Also, remember not to sound like an FBI agent or an interrogator. Show genuine interest and a desire to learn. Ask questions like:
- “What led you to____?”
- “What would you do if _____?(A what should I do question)”
- “How would you handle this?”
- etc.
Once they see genuine interest, they will do what they can to help you out.
Pattern the hidden exercises not the visible swag
Okay, so the secret is to find the hidden back-end coding, that programs the front-end visible success. Obviously, they will have a bit more confidence and swag than you because they are living in the place that their mind has set them up for.
The mistake most hopefuls make is blindly patterning their outward behavior without making the mental switch that powered that behavior.
Fake it till you make it some people call it. I guess it works to a certain extent. However, if you want lasting success from a completely changed mindset, you cannot stay at the surface level. You have to dig to find the core belief that powers the action.
Once you find that core belief, make it your own. You will find that once you have adjusted that core belief, the action will become second nature.
For example, maybe their diet consists of way more greens than yours. Sure, you can stuff your face full of greens, blindly copying that action. It will work for a bit.
Unfortunately, because you did not adopt the core belief, you don’t have deep enough roots to keep you in the habit of eating those greens.
Now, if you had interviewed your boss, somewhere in the conversation they would have told you their core belief, “FOOD IS FUEL!” You would finally understand the motivation behind the positive habit of eating more healthy foods.
Their belief reminds them that food is not for their taste buds. It’s to power their body to Peak Performance. This is why they can sacrifice taste for health.
Now we’re talking. If you would work at adopting this belief until you started believing it for yourself, you would eventually take on the habit of automatically eating more consciously.
Rinse and repeat
As you discover these source codes and adopt them, you will form habits. Habits are repeated actions done with little to no effort.
You want to get to the place where you are doing the things that get you success, without even thinking about them. As Og Mandino said in, The Greatest Salesman in the World, “Develop good habits and make them your master.”
Keep doing the right things and you will see success.
Coaching gets the gold
The previous sections, telling you how to develop the boss mindset are both the most important and critical steps. This is where the change is made. This is where you transition from the life you have now to the life you want.
Of course, you can try to do these things on your own. Some have successfully. The other option, is to find a coach. I believe this is the faster option. This is because you will be short cutting the process, saving time.
A coach will help you to fine-tune and focus on the areas of impact and change. They will also be honest with you whereas sometimes we are not honest with ourselves. That is a big one.
I don’t think we understand how much we actually lie to ourselves, just to keep our lives stable and stress-free. A coach will challenge you, not to destroy you, but to enhance you.
I remembered when I hired my coach, something I thought I would never be able to do, they got me to do it in 30 days. That’s when I realized that hiring a coach is basically buying a shortcut.
This isn’t cheating, as some might believe. This is saving time and accelerating your success. There is no guilt in that.
Although I do coaching in these four areas:
- Discovering life purpose
- Mastering money mindset
- Developing winning leadership
- Doubling productivity
My style may not be a perfect fit for everyone. So, you should find a coach who has the ability to take you to where you want to go.
Look at their fee as an investment. If your coach costs $1,000 but they will be able to unleash You to the tune of $20,000 More business in the next year, was that a good investment?
Conclusion
We learned that having the right mindset will help you to have the right action and habits. The right habits will help you to achieve success virtually on autopilot.
If you want to stay the same, don’t do anything. If you want a change in your life, start by changing how you frame your thoughts.
Change your mindset change your life. What was the biggest mindset shift that you made in your life?
