Infinite Mindset

Hello and welcome to episode number thirty-one of the Strategy Corner where our goal is to get you to take action. I’m your host, Michel Zink, the owner of Intentional Solutions Corp. On today’s podcast, we’re gonna be talking about a gentleman by the name of Jim Quick who had a great podcast about infinite mindset. Jim has a podcast on his own that’s called Quick Brain. And he had guest Simon Sinek, who’s the author of multiple bestselling books including Start with Why, which I believe most of you have probably seen his YouTube video. It’s a really good video if you haven’t seen it about his whole theory of start with why leaders eat last, together is better and the new one, the infinite game. During his interview, he talked about the difference between having a finite and an infinite mindset.

So what Simon was talking about was how to adopt an infinite mindset. So I actually have the show notes and took some notes while I was listening to the podcast. And so I wanted to share with you this whole theory that he has. And then if you really like it, you can go buy his whole book, The Infinite Game, and see if you can even learn some more tidbits to apply in your life. But first, how to adopt an infinite mindset. Number one, have a just cause. Number two, build trusting teams, which I know that that’s a big thing in today’s day and age is having trust within teams. So that’s really important to create, he says, an infinite mindset.

Studying your worthy rivals. Now he gives examples in the podcast of how he used to look at his rivals, as you know, against him and wouldn’t want them to succeed. And almost not a hateful but just more from a place of less than more. And then he realized that actually the better way to be about it was to study them and to really see what they’re doing. And he’s actually has a rival that he used to, you know, would not want to be in the same room with. And now they’ve become friends and they share information. And he’s utilizing it from a more infinite mindset than more of a closed mindset where we need to be against each other. So I thought that was really interesting. So if you do have any rivals in your industry, he’s recommending that you study them instead of being closed off to them. Have a capacity for accidential flexibility. So have a capacity for accidential flexibility. So he was talking about being flexible when you’re dealing with different situations. And again, not being so close minded. Maintain the courage to lead.

Now, I know it takes a lot for us leaders out there to really have the courage to do it, because there’s a lot of people out there who will judge us and think maybe we’re doing things wrong or maybe even think that what we’re sharing was not important. But to maintain the courage to lead is something that if you are a natural born leader, it’s something that we have to deal with all the time. Recommitting ourselves, reevaluating how we’re communicating and always improving ourselves to be that better leader. The next thing he says to adopt an infinite mindset is just start. You’re going to have to do them all eventually. So just pick one and start from there. So this is kind of what they always say about different strategies. You know, if you want to lose weight or you want to get new clients, you just have to start. You don’t know exactly maybe the right way to get to a certain endpoint, but you’ve got to start in order to find it.

So he talks about this dash poem, which I thought was really interesting on the podcast. And it’s the Dash poem is mentioned on our tombstones between the day we were born and the day we die. It’s what we do with a dash, which I thought was really interesting. So what he’s saying is it’s not the beginning is not the end. It’s what we do in the middle. And you have to decide every day to have an infinite mindset, just as we have to make decisions about sleeping, eating, relationships and so on. It takes discipline, focus and hard work and it gives them examples about performance. He says sports and war analogies get overused to try and motivate people and businesses and other spaces with no finish lines. We are told to win in quotes, but they are the wrong analogies that direct the wrong behaviors.

I really loved this example. So he’s saying an infinite mindset goes on and on. Whereas a finite one has a beginning and an end. And his theory that sports analogies and war analogies are overused because they’re more focused on the winning is the wrong way to approach things when it comes to creating this long term success. And I really I never thought about that, to be honest. I mean, sometimes I’ll use sports analogies. And the reality is, is that we’re not just winning this time. You think about how if you won a big client or you win this client, you’re gonna win another one. You gotta win another one. So what I loved about this whole theory of Infinite was he’s so right. We have to have this mindset that we’re just continuously doing this. And by having that mindset, there means that there’s no almost holding us back. You know, a start and an end. So, for instance, if you want to achieve and grow your business by, let’s say, 40 percent, you have an infinite amount of time. So you need to start working on it. Right. But we don’t pigeonhole ourselves to think we need to get this done in three months. You know, we’re creating a long lasting strategy so that we can make sure that we get to where we want to be But we’re also not having a winning a one time winning. It is multiple winnings.

So I really liked how he pointed out that sports and war analogies are overused because it like he says, it directs the wrong behaviors. So you hear about people who become you know, people come greedy, right, because they just want to win. And the thing is, is that in the end, that doesn’t help anybody. You might win for the short term, but you don’t win for the long term. He also says you can have goals in the infinite game. There are finite games within the infinite game. It is the infinite game that provides the context for the finite goals. So finite goals or short term, you know, smaller goals, beginning end infinite is long term over a long period of time and actually can continue without you. For example, if you want to be healthy, you can have health goals and lose X pounds by X date. This will help you feel like you’re making progress. If you miss your goal, you haven’t failed. You’re still healthier than when you started. And the goal was important to drive and motivate you. Even if you do not hit the goal, you still have to work out for the rest of your life.

So did you hear that even if you do hit the goal, you still have to work out for the rest of your life? So the finite goal was I need to lose 10 pounds. Right? But once I get there, the infinite goal is working out for the rest of my life. Because I don’t know about you, but I’ve been on some fad diets where I’ve lost weight, you know, and gotten down. And then I say, OK, well, I haven’t had sweets or I haven’t had alcohol or haven’t had certain things over the last three months to lose this weight. But now that I’m here, I wanna go ahead and incorporate those things back into my diet. Well, guess what happens? I gain the weight back. And so what I love about this whole philosophy is the more that I can really think about my eating. Think about my strategy. Not from our perspective of I just need to gain sales between now and in three months. But I need to figure out something that’s sustainable and I’m always changing. So even if you get to your goal, even if you don’t incorporate those foods back in, we all know that in order to stay in a certain place, we need to continue going. Right. So even if you get to your goal and you don’t bring back those different foods, you have to change things up in order to stay just where you are.

And same with when you sell. If you get to a certain level of sales, you still need to do stuff to keep that level of sales or else naturally your weight’s going to go up and your sales are going to drop. So I love this whole philosophy of infinite because it creates more of abundance mindset and more of a long term strategy instead of just thinking of the short term. He also gives another example here that you can’t run a marathon without mile distance. We still need to measure how fast we are going and how far we have moved towards our just cause and vision and how to know we’re going in the right direction. There are always finite games, but to what end is the question the infinite game will ask. An infinite mindset is something you can maintain every day.

It’s not the absence of finite games. It’s the context within which those finite games exist. So again, it’s you might have a short term goal of losing weight or a short term goal of getting a certain amount of sales. But then what’s that infinite game shift to continue to keep up the eating well and exercising? And you also need to continue serving and meeting new clients. So I just really love this theory. Kind of help us to begin thinking more of an infinite mindset and more of a big picture instead of being so close minded and really just short thinking. And it helps to when we’re communicating with our employees to make them realize, you know, when you’re talking about culture, when talking about trust, that we’re not just building this trust for today, this afternoon as we do this trust exercise. This is something we want to continue for forever. Right? You think about some companies that have been in existence and have had like certain core values that they truly live. There’s generations of people who have worked there that have had that infinite mindset. This whole idea of, you know, whatever their core values have has been living on and on through different decades. And it’s not like they just live, you know, being honest or being open for a day. They’re living it for years and years.

So it’s just something to really think about. And also for us leaders out there and for managers of other individuals and for people who even have children, you can use this strategy with so many things. Right? Because with kids especially, you’re trying to teach them some morals, some values. They’re going to be infinitely thinking about you. Right? So you unfortunately might have to pass away some day, but your kids are still going to use things that you taught them when they’re a child. And remember you for that. This is the infinite mindset opportunity that we all have. So he talks about results. It says over time, the results from an infinite mindset are better. There are so many finite strategies that can create short term bumps, but it doesn’t last. He continues to say the finite game is about achievement. The infinite game is about advancing something bigger than ourselves and advancing towards something. And he ends with, metrics matter. But in an infinite mindset, we do things with the hope that others will take the torch and carry the idea on and that we will inspire others to take on a cause bigger than themselves.

I’m going to repeat that last part because this is where I think the key to infinite mindset thinking truly sets. It says, “We do things with the hope that others will take the torch and carry the idea on and that we will inspire others to take on a cause bigger than themselves.” And he gave an example of Dr. Martin Luther King, how he had a vision, he had a cause, he had a why. And unfortunately, you know, he died at a young age, but that he had an infinite mindset because others came in and took that torch and continued on the journey that he had. So when you think about you in your lifetime, just because you’re only here for X amount of years doesn’t mean that what you start won’t be continued by your children, by people that you work with, by the organization that you serve. So it’s really creating this thinking about how can we even be bigger than ourselves and really serve others on a bigger, deeper level so that this cause that we’re fighting for, whatever it might be, can continue on without us.

So I just want to go back and just review again how to adapt an infinite mindset. These are the keys that he says that help you to have that mindset. Number one, have a just cause. Number two, build trusting teams. Number three, study your worthy rivals. Number four, have a capacity for flexibility. Number five, maintain the courage to lead. And number six, just start. So now it’s your call to action. What I’d like you to do this week is to think about what is one thing that you want to start creating an infinite mindset about. I want you to start small and start thinking about how you can do it, utilize it in your life for just one thing.

Maybe it’s you’re managing a group of five individuals and maybe it’s creating a management training course for your five individuals to go through, because possibly as you grow up into within the organization, they can take over for you and they can move up within the organization.

Or it could be as simple as again, thinking about even losing weight. If you want to go ahead and lose weight, how can you really take this idea of an infinite mindset and apply it not only to losing a 10 pounds, but hiring to create a brand new lifestyle so that you not only lose the five or ten pounds, but are a healthier person today and 20 years from now. So again, your call to action is to think about just one thing that you can play with this idea of infinite mindset and how you can think about how you can create this mindset for yourself and to have this shift that could create some change in our lives and your life that you had never dreamed about. So it’s kind of exciting to think about. And I know for myself where I’m going with it is thinking about my business. I would love one day for my daughter to take over my business.

Again, I’ve only been a business for well, I’ve been a business for over two years, but, you know, totally by myself for a year because I was working before that part time as well. So I’m so new to the game and I still need to prove myself. I still need to have those finite goals and achieve more when it comes to sales. But my infinite mindset also sees that, you know, if I set my company up right now for success, if I get my financials in order, if I, you know, create a culture even just with myself, one that is results driven but is also very intentional, I will be able to cultivate this organization to grow and to build even without me. And that’s my ultimate goal. That would be where my daughter, like I said, could take over my business one day if she wanted to. So that’s where I’m trying and where my brain’s going when it comes to this infinite part. And then it just gets you to think more big picture and decide ahead of time. The person you want to be and you need to be knowing that your decisions not only affect your short term, but affect your long term life as well.

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