The incredible side effect of mindset shifting

“He doesn’t have it in him.”

Others were nodding in agreement. While the person was skilled and well-practiced in the art of Tai Chi, he lacked the essential ingredient to become the successor…

His mindset had regressed as he shifted his focus to the business side of running a school and recruiting students…or followers.

Since the passing of my late master, our local region has been missing his presence, his experience, and his wisdom. There are those who have been attempting to take his place, but not without incident. It’s more of a hostile takeover than a succession in some regards, and my discovery of this struggle behind the scenes struck me as small and petty.

This is not the way forward, and my master would not have wanted it this way.

You earn the mindset shift. Once achieved, something incredible happens. Your focus shifts from the internal to the external. You start to see yourself as a leader, an avatar, a pathfinder. You become an authority figure in the field, a teacher of the discipline.

It can go to your head.

Mindset shifting leads to influence and inheritance

The digital heirloom project is one that has this component at its core.

You’re building a digital footprint so that others can inherit your wisdom, your habits, and your perspectives. They may not agree with or take to heart everything that you leave behind, but that’s their prerogative. Your friends, your colleagues, your family, indeed, your community inherits your “will of fire” (IYKYK). The shift from the growth mindset to the aspirational one requires empathy, compassion, and patience.

This is what the teacher in question was lacking.

While he had a school and a following, his methods were abrasive, and he was an arrogant and self-serving individual. Whatever his original goals were in the martial art had become secondary to acquisition of wealth and authority. Nobody wants to see themselves as the villain or the antagonist of a larger story, but that’s what happens when you lose your way.

The leap from the growth mindset to the aspirational mindset can just as easily collapse to a fixed one.

Fear, scarcity, hope, and confidence are all components that require careful balance. Too much of any one of these, and the scales easily tip towards the pursuit of power for the sake of the authority and privilege it grants.

There’s a lot to be said about how this jump corrupts people.

Look at what’s happening now in politically across the world.

The long-term focus requires this one thing

The aspirational mindset requires focus on intent.

You must live it in order to teach it. The saying “those that can’t do, teach” is an insult to be sure, but it’s also one that makes a tremendous oversight about the profession.

The quality of the instruction is completely ignored.

A better saying would be “those that can’t or don’t, teach poorly”.

This is why I left the tenure-track professor position that I secured when I was a freshly-minted PhD fifteen years ago. As a professor teaching at night to those who were returning to finish their bachelors in engineering technology, I was providing instruction straight from the textbook with absolutely no experience of my own in the courses I was creating.

That didn’t sit well with me as a lifelong performer across multiple artistic disciplines.

I learned more from my students about real-world applications of what I was teaching than I cared to admit. Each of them had a 9-5 job that they came from to hear me prattle on for three hours a night, four days a week. This was their sacrifice for their evenings, away from their families, so that they could complete the four-year degree that would increase their paycheck.

I realized that in order to truly become an effective engineering professor, I would need to have a career of my own.

I’m doing that now. Someday, I want to return to the teaching profession. Intentional influence based on real-world experience is far more valuable than relying on textbook concepts.

Those can now be learned on any internet course platform and using AI agents.

The aspirational mindset of teaching from experience with intention and context are the future of in-person instruction. Teachers may not be the highest paid-profession right now, but this distinction may very well place a premium in the future.

That’s the answer to the title of today’s issue. The side effect of the mindset shift from growth to aspirational is that you become the teacher, the leader, the pathfinder without realizing it. You naturally want to help those a few steps behind you because it’s the right thing to do, not just because it can be lucrative to do so.

A teacher with patience, curiosity, and compassion is on the true path to mastery.

What is at the core of your digital heirloom?

Taking action and building a digital footprint is the first step towards an aspirational mindset.

I’m sharing what I’ve learned about the importance of identity, mentorship, and critical thinking as my core pillars so far.

What belief or behavior or perspective do you want your children and community to adopt from you? If you can answer this question with clarity and conviction, then you are that much closer to finding a calling that transcends beyond making a buck.

It makes you incorruptible to outside forces that would repurpose your legacy for their own gain.

In the final issue of this series, I’ll go into more detail about something I touched on earlier: that this is not a passive thing that magically happens.