🔥Welcome to volume 0007!🔥
I’m Christian Champ. This is the ☯️Middleway Newsletter ☯️. It is a place where I write, explore and share.
🧗Potential, Possibilities and Play🎨
What’s your typical mindset? Do you see potential, possibilities and play or do you see hurdles, blocks and walls? Are you willing to take some steps towards something new or do you just keep on walking? Do you see borders or an unlimited horizon?
The past two weeks I’ve been acting as a coach/mentor for the Flow Genome Project Flow for Leaders Course. The class is highly recommended and helps level up yourself, your leadership and your life. If your interested in the course please reach out.
One of the tasks of week one focused on noticing when you had a fixed vs. growth mindsets. Carol Dweck’s book Mindset laid out this concept. Most of us believe that we always have a growth mindset. When we pay attention to our actions and responses (verbal, physical or even emotional) we will notice when we shift to fixed by putting up walls and shutting down ideas.
The real magic in the exercise is the noticing what you notice, the metacognition. The fixed mindset arises, and you get to notice why it arose and ask yourself what am I feeling? Why am I pushing back against this? Am I defending something I actually believe in or is this a system one gut reaction? Am I doubling down on a cultural or programming relic? Like a good meditation you get to ask yourself “is this true” or “why can’t that be”?
I have an ingrained belief that I’m not good at art. This manifested in grade school after poor feedback and grades in art and handwriting. These comments forced me away from art and branding myself not artistic. Opportunities to play and grow came and went because other people can do the artistic things not me. This mindset didn’t serve me not was it true.
What fixed (or ingrained if you prefer that term) beliefs and programming are limiting you? When do you need to say YES AND vs. no? When should you be opening up to the possibilities?
In each instances when a fixed mindset pops up, ask yourself if there is another way you could view this situation? You will become a better listener, thinker and your future self will thank you.
Believing in possibilities unlocks our potential and let’s life become play. We ride along on the wave and see where we end up. The ego drops away and the journey becomes the thing. We let go of preconceived notions and accept that life is change. We embrace the big now and stay in the moment. That is the Middleway.
📓Articles to Read📓
Universal Laws by Morgan Housel
My two favs
Sayre’s law: In a dispute, emotions are inversely related to what’s at stake.
Hickam’s dictum: Problems in complex systems rarely have one cause.
Advantage Flywheels tackles the power of feedback loops.
Jim O’Shaughnessey tweet storm on How to Live Your Life
Don’t spend a minute worrying about something that you can’t control. If something can’t be changed by you taking direct action, put it out of your mind. Today’s society is overrun with useless distractions that misdirect your attention—life is filled with focus being wasted on the trivial and unimportant.
David Perell on Who is Peter Thiel
In an epic exchange between two billionaires, Jeff Bezos said:
“Peter Thiel is a contrarian, first and foremost. You just have to remember that contrarians are usually wrong.”
In an email to Ryan Holiday, Peter responded as such:
“Contrarians may be mostly wrong, but when they get it right, they get it really right.”
Choose your enemies well. Like two children who fight for a toy, the more you fight somebody, the more you resemble your enemy.
📚 Books to Read 📚
Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
Given the current political climate, this is some perfect sci-fi to things into perspective
Conscious by Annaka Harris
This is a great dive into the world of what the heck is the mind.
🎙️ Listen / Watch 📺
Dr. Peter Attia on alcohol consumption and health
“I’m not convinced there’s a single benefit to ethanol in the human body”
Mindmeld podcast w Annika Harris
Discussion of the book linked to above
💣Quote Bombs and Tweets💣
If we throw up our hands when the going gets tough, we get what we deserve. So take a deep breath, do some gentle stretching, and make the world a better place. Do a favor for a stranger. Be kind when instinct calls for harshness. Question your assumptions. Make good art. Tell your loved ones how grateful you are to have them in your life. Lend a hand to those in need. Take real risks to do the right thing. Oh, and remember that in an age of acceleration, contemplation is power.
👍👍👍👍
Hoping you run into some fixed mindset moments and are able to smash them with a 🔨.
Thanks for reading.
Any thoughts or comments, please reach out.
Namaste,
Christian