Mindset Needed To Make It BIG in Life

Consulting life can be treacherous. It's fast paced and really competitive. If you speak to anyone in the consulting world, you will often hear the idiom, it's a dog eat dog world. It is a place with an ever changing landscape and shifting priorities where everyone is vying to outflank one another - Darwinism at its best.

I remember working tirelessly for weeks on a client opportunity. And finally, when we felt we were ready to walk the client through it - the client went volte face and pivoted on a completely different business problem while being dismissive of our proposal! He went on talking about the biggest problem plaguing his business and went down to the brass tacks about its implications. Damn it. All the hard work out the window. It's fair to say that I was checked out for the rest of the meeting and whatever the client rattled after that landed on my deaf ears.

After the meeting, we regrouped internally for a debrief. "So, how do you think that went?", remarked the project partner. "Horrible! Could not have gone any worse", I thought to myself but preferred to remain silent so someone else could break the ice. Guess everyone else was thinking the same, the partner continued, "Well, I think that was one of the best meetings I've ever had with that client!".

Wait, what?

"The client thinks of us as a trusted partner to share so much with us", the partner continued. "Let's stay focussed whilst also solving this other business problem for them and show them what we've got".

Wow, I was blown away. The same room, the same meeting but such a profound vantage point. It was powerful.

In the ensuing days, I pondered about this. Was this the reason why he was the partner and not any of us? Is this the differentiator between mediocrity and making it BIG in life - not only merely surviving but dominating this 'dog eat dog world'?

Why causes that fire in the belly in some while complacency in others? Was it nature or nurture?

Prima facie, it appeared to be ahead of time thinking. Somehow turning into a psychic and being able to see your larger than life aura and being prepared.

I was deeply intrigued. I had long thought about this phenomenon but this really pushed me over the edge. I spent the next few days reading up a few books - I landed on some gold with a few amazing books, I also carried out research on how best to deconstruct this elusive topic I decided to call the 'Making it BIG' mindset. This coupled with my personal journey helped me unravel a few themes that could determine the level of success someone could accomplish in their life regardless of the socio economic factors.

---

The making it BIG mindset is best triggered if it is for someone, sustain it and it turns into a habit

In my view, you make it BIG not based on how you stack up against your peers but by really looking at where you started in life and where you end especially when the odds were against you. It's a personal and different yardstick for everyone and it's unfair to compare any two journeys cause they will never be alike.

Just for perspective, I come from very humble beginnings and in no way claim that I have arrived in life and made it BIG, not yet. I come from a family where the fact that my siblings and I were attending english medium schools in and of itself might be construed by many in our circle as a phenomenal success and so the textbook definition of 'making it BIG' might apply. But none of us chose to settle for that. We strived for excellence and rose to heights any of our cousins or acquaintances ever could. Why?

Yes, money is incredibly important but beyond a point, it ceases to be a motivator. The biggest form of ambition comes from if it is for someone else. Your 'who'. Who do you want to make it BIG for? It can be anything - a person, country, humanity or even religion.

Looking back, the tenets of my 'making it BIG' mindset birthed in the derision the society meted out to me and my other three siblings when we were little. Let me tell you, being a household dominated by girls in India in a lower middle class family is not easy. You get reminded how worthless you are every single day so much so that you lose your sense of identity. But instead of succumbing to it, we decided to use it to fuel our mindset to make it BIG. We elevated ourselves to look at the big picture of our lives and realised that we had all the arsenal and autonomy to paint it right there, right then.

And so it began. We started investing in ourselves by making better friends, reading better books and watching better TV. Instead of competing with others, we started competing with our former selves to become better versions of ourselves every day. This attitude set us up well for success by continually leapfrogging forward in life.

The reward system in our brain is interesting. Once you start winning, you get accustomed to the dopamine hit - it was not only enjoyable but also made us desire it more, like an addictive drug that was turning winning into a habit that started to stick.

The making it BIG mindset has since stuck with me.

---

The making it BIG mindset is strengthened with implacability and positivity

People with stunning feats are always positive, like my project partner. They see things for not how they are but what they can become in the future. They keep negativity at bay. They selectively use positive words while expounding ideas and they don't get into frivolity. For them, nothing is impossible - I know it may sound trite but it's true. They are resilient and don't give up easily. Hell, they even embrace failure with aplomb. In preparation for this blog, I researched stories of contemporary leaders like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos - they are shining examples of never giving up and having a larger than life vision.

Successful people also have an excellent power of visualisation. I have, a few times, tried to simulate a situation using the art of visualisation. Trust me, it wasn't easy as it entailed looking inwards and validating if I had what it took - this was daunting and horrifying but when I did in fact push myself to rise to the occasion by following through, I emerged victorious in real life situations. I totally swear by the power of visualisation and it's a shame I don't do that enough.

I am also guilty of frivolity and turning negative about situations. Sometimes, I choose to see the glass half empty and this has hindered my ability to identify valuable opportunities as I am often entangled with the challenges that seem insurmountable, making moving forward impossible. If I wanted to be more like my project partner, I had to focus only on the opportunity at hand without actively looking for where we could hit the brick wall, as that limits and constraints the thinking. Big mindset is like blue sky - limitless. It's quite difficult to stay in the thinking mode without jumping into mental execution.

Although, I had the right mindset to make it BIG, I wondered if I was tapping into it optimally. If I had the potential to further amplify my mindset by identifying the endless possibilities I had been refusing to see all along.

It was time to leave my blinkers behind...

---

And finally, the making it BIG mindset continues with extracting maximum value from every day

Because we have limited time on earth and the clock is ticking. And there is so much more to learn. As I age, I've started to realise how ignorant I am and there is so much more to learn. Now, I totally relate to the Socratic paradox:-

I know that I know nothing.

~Socrates

I believe this is the constant motivation behind continuing the 'making it BIG' mindset as it keeps people away from the complacency trap. Most successful leaders have great rituals and they abide by the "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish" dictum and use each waking hour of their day efficiently.

Now, my most productive days are not when I socialise a lot or I am at my professional best but days when I have truly learnt something new. It keeps me well stimulated and satisfied. I am very conscious of how I spend my time and actively choose to use it productively.

There also has to be a sense of urgency towards making it BIG - shifting from tomorrow to today and extracting maximum value from today to accomplish something in a much shorter time frame. It works so well that there is also a law based on it called Parkinson's Law which states "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". If you set aside only today to do something, chances are that you can very well pull it off.

In conclusion, the making it BIG mindset is ultimately the ability to take an expansive view of our lives and lifting ourselves from the drudgery, the weeds to attain our full potential by staying positive and making the most of today. We don't necessarily have to do different things but the same things a bit differently by drawing inspiration from the success stories of other people and mirroring them in our behaviour while keeping company with other successful people.

As we accumulate more success, the odds of success in the future shoot up as we surround ourselves with better people and are ready to take on more ambitious projects.

Did I just crack how my project partner made it BIG in my firm?