“Ninety percent of the game is half mental” – Yogi Berra
Professional golfers are extraordinarily skilled and disciplined individuals. They also possess an unparalleled level of concentration. What separates the golfers who consistently place near the top of the leader board from those struggling to make the cut every week is largely their mental toughness.
For these elite professionals, keeping a positive, growth-minded perspective (steering clear of proverbial fixed mindset traps) is more important than avoiding fairway bunkers.
Battling Scarcity
My upbringing was quite the opposite of a growth mindset filled with abundance. My Great Depression-era parents were instilled with a fixed, scarcity mindset. There’s no denying the 1930’s were an incredibly difficult time to grow up. However, my dad never learned that one’s mindset is a choice, and positivity can be achieved by framing situations differently. Instead, he’s always just played the hand he was dealt and never attempted to influence the outcomes of his life.
As a result, my dad doesn’t trust anyone, isn’t intellectually curious, and never embraces challenges as opportunities. He also has an unhealthy relationship with money.
Unfortunately, these self-limiting beliefs were passed along to me. This led me to live for many years believing life was something that happened to you, rather than something that could be influenced in a different, more positive direction.
Choosing A Growth Mindset
My first glimpse of an abundance-minded, growth perspective capable of changing one’s lifetime trajectory came as a college freshman. I chose to pay my own tuition at the local community college. It wasn’t much money, but when I started paying for my education, I soon realized grades and learning outcomes were under my control. I started studying and working hard in my classes, so I’d get my money’s worth from the experience, and I did. As a result, I became financially independent, never again asking my parents for another dime of monetary support.
I worked for two years in Minneapolis after graduating from college. My second significant “growth mindset” decision was to take control of my living environment, escape the harsh Minnesota winters, and expand my personal experience opportunities by moving to Dallas, Texas.
My quick decision wasn’t well received by my parents. They asked, from a typical scarcity mindset perspective , “Why are you leaving us?”
The whole process, from interview to offer and acceptance, packing everything I owned into my Mazda 626 and moving into a Dallas apartment, took three weeks. It would have been quicker, but I gave my employer two weeks’ notice.
These decisions were critical to my breaking free from the strong pull of a negative, fixed mindset and choosing growth and abundance.
A Lifetime of Overcoming Obstacles
Every major accomplishment in my life required making important decisions and mental toughness to overcome obstacles thrown up internally in my mind and externally by fixed-minded people.
This was especially true when facing long odds in becoming self-employed as a financial advisor twenty-nine years ago, and currently in completing my entrepreneurial vision by building a financial services firm, Sandene Strategies, LLC.
I inherited my dad’s fixed, scarcity mindset. It’s not easy to break away from such an ingrained perspective, and I lived with it for a long time. Thankfully, I discovered a growth and abundance mindset soon enough enjoy the resulting positivity and make the most of the opportunities and experiences in my future.