What’s a better mindset to start with?
Last week I wrote about mindset. I spoke of a mindset that achieves very little. In this article, I will discuss a mindset that can achieve extraordinary results.
As I said, the person who complains, protests, winds, whines, etc. he is the person who secretly believes that he will never get what he wants. As a result, they waste time taking action that makes it appear that they are committed to a cause. That action is protesting. If you ask about their cause, they usually tell you what they don’t want.
When I’m with clients, I talk about the idea of talking about what you don’t want. I use the illustration that goes like this: in that corner is everything you don’t want or don’t like. You go out of your way to make sure that the things you don’t want stay in that corner. Fight against them. Yell at them. And you can even get others to help you contain what you don’t want. However, in the corner behind you is everything you want. Except, you will need the same fervor and commitment that you use on the things you don’t want to achieve, those things in the corner that you do want.
This is the dilemma most find themselves in. They believe that it is powerful and strong to fight against what they do not want. As you can imagine, they fill their lives with what they don’t want. All they have to do is turn around and focus on the corner behind them.
To change that mindset, you will have to do a paradigm shift. If a community has been focused on fighting what it doesn’t want for generations, it will be a challenge to make a mindset shift. To make sustainable change, it will take work.
On the one hand, the current mentality will have to be addressed. The complainant’s mindset is most likely full of real and imagined trauma. That trauma, if left unaddressed, will continue to force you to make decisions that may appear to protect you. But, you will still be focused on what you don’t want. As a note, healing has nothing to do with tackling it. It is more effective to face it head-on. Healing requires you to wait. Facing requires action. Once addressed effectively, it becomes easier to discern how you sabotage your own efforts, personally, socially, and professionally. Then you have the freedom to choose another paradigm.
Second, it is imperative to be clear about what it represents. When you can articulate your stand, it is important to know what you are committed to.
Third, what actions correlate with your position and commitment? In other words, what actions reflect your position and commitment? This is the question to ask yourself when things are not going as expected, such as when breakdowns occur.
Fourth, be honest about the political structure of the United States. It is not and never was a democracy. It is a republic. In a republic, the government serves the large landowners and merchants. These landowners and merchants write laws. If you are just a consumer, you will never have the financial power to influence legislators. With financial power, you can write, not influence, the laws that affect your community.
If you look at the African American community, you can ask the individual and the entire community what they represent. Too often people talk about niceties, like world peace and making a difference. Except your actions don’t reflect world peace. Look at the riots.
If the black community stood up for economic power, they would commit to building organizations that employ, provide products and services, and empower the community. Instead of the black dollar staying in the community for six hours, it would stay in the community for six months. For example, black Americans would no longer buy Nike. They would only support sneakers made and owned by black Americans. Employees, investors and suppliers would also be African American and could outsource to Africa. While this may seem like a pipe dream, it is not. There is a trillion dollars that comes out of the black community each year. Yet black Americans protest that they have no economic power when it is already in their own hands.
Nike is a company that absorbs huge amounts of money from the American black community. Tommy Hilfiger, Christian Louboutin, and McDonald’s are others. In return, they offer very little. While Nike has black American board members and executives, it is an insufficient representation of the economic power that is available in the black community – $ 1 trillion. Build trillion dollar organizations.
That will require commitment, training, planning organization, and a whole new mindset. Protesting won’t get you there, unless you want the things you don’t want. Construction is needed. In the 21st century, there are enough rich and wealthy black Americans who can raise money and build: John Rogers, Russell Simmons, Sean Combs, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Michael Jordan, Bob Johnson, Oprah, and many, many more. If not now when?
