Questions answered from our webinar “Grow Beyond the Pandemic”

Thank you everyone who took the time to come on our call last Friday. And thank you to Franz and Sharon for sharing your growth mindset assessment results for all the world to see – and to having them analysed too! Thank you too, for everyone who posted questions. My one regret is we did not have the time to answer any questions from you – something I have learnt (see the learning dimension here?) and will make changes to. Hence, our next webinar will be 90 minutes long, and will start at 8PM Singapore time. (We started later this time around due to Ramadan).

Did you download the e-book yet?

For what it was worth, we knew that 60 minutes, or even 90 minutes, would not be able to adequately cover the information. We knew that you would have 101 questions which would not be adequately answered on the call. Hence, we decided to go light on the webinar and then throw in the heavy guns in the e-book. I hope you have already downloaded that. If not, here’s the link <https://media.wix.com/ugd/c3c24a_9299cc2262664dc1870752c0935e858b.pdf>

Additionally, there were questions that came on the chatbox during the webinar and also after it, that I would now like to take the opportunity to answer.

Question from Allen: A person with a high score on risk taking does it mean automatically the person has a high score on forward?

Good question, Allen. The answer is no. Of course, we do wish a person with a high Risk score also has a high Forward score because they lead the person to finding out what he/she does not know. But that does not happen all the time. When a person has a high Risk score and a lower Forward score, it means that the person is willing to take more risks within the confines of his planning. It means that the person will gather his confidence from the plans he/she makes in moving from Point A to Point Z. Now, it depends on the person’s Bounce Back to see if he/she will embark on that plan because we all know that plans will change as the environment changes. No one expected Covid19 to cause such a huge impact on our business at the dawn of this new decade, but now everyone is forced to deal with it, regardless of the type of mindset. But those who are able to deal with the uncertainty better, will be the ones who come out of Covid19 stronger. Hence, for someone who has a lower Forward score, we still need to see the impact of Bounce Back and Learning on it. I hope this answers your question.

Question from Tanya: Does demographics impact the score - So the younger we are, the less pride, the older more pride etc?

No, demographic does not affect the score. Of course, we have seen the stubbornness of older people during Covid19 lockdown period; but this is not a Pride response, it is probably the loneliness response we are seeing. The greatest impact to our mindset is really our experiences; did we have “failure” experiences or “success” experiences? Invariably, our upbringing, our social structure, our attitude towards success and failure – all these impact our mindset. In fact, if children grow up in an environment that eschews failure and is driven to always be the top student, and who are rewarded for attaining 99% and above, and punished for attaining 92% - these children may grow up with a fixed mindset very early on. Other families insulate their children from failure; they try to protect their children from failing, and as such, do not push them past their abilities. They will also grow up with the fixed mindset. Hence, experience makes the mindset, and the question we need to ask ourselves is, “Are we insulating ourselves from failure?” Because if we do not know how to deal with a setback from young, if we have always been successful from young (within the narrow confines of that success), if we have celebrated ONLY achievements from young, we would develop the fixed mindset from very early on. Hence demographic does not impact the mindset, environment and circumstances do!

Question from CM: How does this self-awareness help me in applying the 5 Dimensions?

Well, as they say, change comes first from awareness, then determination, then action. The first thing I need to say is that one does not need to be growth minded in all the dimensions; it all depends on what you are doing. Hence, if you are a custodian of wealth in a family office, we expect that your Pride dimension is low; since compliance and governance are key. Yet, if you are the investment manager of that same family office, then I expect that you have a mid-level score for Pride; since I want you to be flexible and not be stoic in your convictions, yet still be mindful of compliance. So really, the first thing you need to know is what profile does your job or role require for you to be successful in it. Second, you want to see which dimensions are higher and which are lower than what you need for your job; and then from there to see what you might need to develop yourself to do your job better. Finally, once you know what dimensions you should focus on to develop yourself, then start taking positive steps to move those dimensions forward. And from the call, we realise we don’t need to work on every dimension, just the key ones!

Question from CM: Supposing my profile fully meets the requirements of my job. Does this mean I am in my ideal job?