Good Student Mentality vs. Con Man Mentality (Part 1)
Yes, I’m about to tell you to be more like a con man
I love con man stories.
White Collar (now on Netflix!)
Catch Me If You Can
Imposters (a fantastic, very underrated show on Netflix)
Better Call Saul (also a drug lord story but with major con man elements)
I think one of the reasons I love con man stories is because Con Man Mentality is the complete opposite of Good Student Mentality.
(And I spend a lot of time fruitlessly trapped in Good Student Mentality =/)
And over the next few days, I’m going to tell you how they’re different.
Here’s the first way—
Good Students play the game.
Con Men see the board.
In the first episode of White Collar, Neal Caffrey (the con man) is caught for one of his crimes and put in prison for 5 years.
Good Student Mentality would say: “I broke the rules. Now I have to pay the price. I have to serve out my five-year prison sentence.”
Neal does the opposite of that.
Instead of dutifully serving out his prison sentence…
He immediately contacts the FBI agent who put him away and says:
“Let’s make a deal.
I have something you want: I can help you solve cases way faster than your team can.
You have something I want: You can get me out of prison and let me serve out my prison sentence on the outside, while working with you.
What do you say?”
This is what it means to see the board rather than play the game.
Good Students tend to follow the rules as if they were the Word of God.
Good Students tend to trust the system and think that if they just put their head down and do good work, fairness will prevail and they will be rewarded.
Con Men see the rules for what they are — just an arbitrary system made by fallible human beings.
And Con Men don’t put ALL their faith in the system. It was made by people after all!
People aren’t perfect.
People CAN be good and fair…but they can also be lazy, biased, short-sighted, and self-centered. Which means systems can be that way too.
So Con Men step back, see the board, and make sure the system works for THEM.
Where are you following the rules?
“I’ll just work twice as hard and THEN my manager will be happy with me.”
“I can’t just go talk to that leader by myself — that’s crazy.”
“If I’m being asked to give feedback, I should answer with full transparency and honesty every time.”
And how can you step back and see the board instead?
“If I want my manager to be happy with me, how can I make THEIR lives easier?”
“I can go talk to anyone. Now how can I make it interesting for THEM to talk to ME?”
“If I’m being asked to give feedback…let me step back and think about the context, think about my overall agenda, and be thoughtful about what I want to say.”
Too often, people call this “politicking” and say “I don’t want to do that.”
And yes, toxic politicking and power games absolutely exist.
But a lot of what people call “politicking” isn’t nearly as toxic as the term implies.
It’s just stepping back and seeing the board instead of blindly playing the game.
This series of pieces is inspired by something I shared inside my course & coaching program.
It was a mini-lesson I shared to the group, and now I’m sharing it with all of you :)
Here’s what you’ll get when you join my program:
Less Stress, More Flow
You’ll learn how to break free from fight-or-flight, step back into your power, get out of your own way, and get back to doing your best work.
Because contrary to what you might believe, less stress doesn’t mean less work.
You might think your stress is keeping you productive…
But this is one of the first myths we’ll bust inside the program.
Your stress is actually preventing you from doing as much as you want to do, and it’s blocking you from doing your absolute best work.
You don’t need more pressure, more urgency, more discipline, more deadlines.
You need more FLOW.
You need to learn how to consistently access the best, calmest, wisest, clearest-eyed version of you.
That person already exists inside you! You’ve accessed them plenty of times before.
This program is going to help you access that best version of you more systematically and more reliably, across a wider variety of scenarios in your career and your life.
That’s what More Flow really means.
The program is currently in pilot mode, and it’s going to be available for everyone to join soon.
Join the waitlist today :)
What my clients have to say…
“If you're just starting out, you should learn this toolkit with an expert like Pooja.
Now I'm able to open up a Google Doc and make good progress on my own.
But if you want to do it the right way, you really should have someone listening to what you're saying, guiding you, and course-correcting you.”
—Client | Solutions Engineer at Fintech company
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