Andrew Sillitoe is a business psychologist, a performance coach, and author from Kent, England. He’s worked with everyone from athletes to CEO’s to help them master their mindset for success in all areas of life.
In his most recent book, The 4 Keys: How To Win In Business, Body, Relationships, And Mindset, Sillitoe shows how the four keys (business, body, relationships, and mindset) intersect to form a balanced life. In our most recent podcast, Sillitoe and I talked about how your mindset affects every aspect of your life and how to master it to succeed.
Your mindset governs how you approach every aspect of your life. With the right mindset, you can approach your challenges and opportunities from the right perspective to make choices that will help you succeed.
Your mindset manifests itself in business, your personal life, or your health. If you get that wrong, it’s tough to get the rest of your life right.
[Mindset] is starting to recognize those unwanted patterns that have developed over the years that are playing out unconsciously.
Mindset is mental toughness. It’s how we control the inner voice, manage the fear of failure, and maintain our perspective. When our mindset is off, it affects every aspect of life.
Listen to the full interview here (or continue reading below):
Let’s take a common example, growing a business. Say you start up a business. In the beginning you do all the work. You’re in all the meetings, signing all the contracts, and doing all the deals. You’re the HR department, the sales team, and the accountant.
If you want the business to grow, however, you can’t do it all. You have to let go, let go of your baby.
It’s so hard.
But the business can’t grow unless you trust the people to do the work you hired them to do. The need for control gets in your way.
Frequently, Sillitoe says, that pattern manifests itself in all aspects of your life as well. The need for control keeps you away from family, or it affects your mental and physical health.
How do you turn it around? It’s all about mindset.
Leadership is about letting go of the ego. It’s not about status. It’s saying, ‘I don’t have all the answers.
No one is born with the ideal mindset. It’s something everyone has to work on to succeed.
The problem, though, is the difference between knowing what you should do and internalizing it. Sillitoe describes his process to help them change their mindset and internalize those ideas.
He starts by visually mapping out the four keys: business, relationships, body, and mindset. It’s powerful when you can literally see what you want in all areas of life.
From there, you develop a three-year plan. Imagine yourself three years from now, having accomplished everything on the board. What does that look like? How do you feel?
Once you have tangible goals mapped out, you can suss out the patterns behind them to find your purpose. What will get you out of bed in the morning? What will get you moving to achieve those goals.
It’s not just ‘I want to make a lot of money.’ or ‘I want to grow my business.’ It’s some kind of purpose behind it.
Purpose is how you motivate yourself to achieve those goals. It’s more than a number on a bank account or a spreadsheet. It’s what you really want to achieve, how you really want to feel when you hit those goals.
Sillitoe has his clients write a postcard from their future self. What is it like when you achieve everything from your three-year plan?
I know it sounds cheesy, writing a postcard to yourself. Sillitoe himself used to keep this step a secret. But it really works.
You stop examining your future self as if it were someone else, and you begin to internalize what it would be like to live that way. How do you imagine your patterns of emotions? What do you think your habits will be?
Next, make those feelings and habits part of your life now.
This is where you get more concrete. You develop a ninety day game plan to work toward your goals. Look at real metrics, goals you can measure in the four keys.
The game plan should be intense. It should push you far outside your comfort zone for those ninety days so you can develop more capacity.
Sillitoe likens it to an elastic band. You stretch it out for ninety days, and, when you let go, it’s gotten a little bigger. You’ve developed more capacity.
But you don’t want to push it further. You don’t stretch the band until it snaps. Ninety days is just enough to push yourself.
This is why many New Year’s resolutions fail. If you have a fitness goal, you can’t go from the couch to running five miles a day immediately. You’re body will blow up.
Think about the ninety-day plan as an experiment. Sillitoe says, “It’s like a muscle that has to be developed. Let’s test it. Let’s try it. The brain likes that. Try it for a week. See what happens.”
Mindset is about how your feelings and patterns of behavior manifest throughout all areas of your life. Where your mindset is strong, you’ll get the behaviors you want in the key areas of your life.Where you mindset has weaknesses, you’ll see patterns of behavior that hold you back.
Mastering your mindset is about examining and changing those patterns so you can be the person you envision in your three-year plan. Here’s how you can get started:
Follow these steps to focus your life on that which you care about most so you can change your actions and your mindset to achieve your goals.
But don't forget to listen to this week's Conquer and Win podcast, featuring a business psychologist, a performance coach, and author: Andrew Sillitoe.
