Good Student Mentality vs. Con Man Mentality (Part 4)
Today’s newsletter concludes the Good Student Mentality vs. Con Man Mentality series (for now :)
This has been my multi-part campaign to convince you to be a little less like a Good Student and a little more like a Con Man :)
So far I’ve told you…
Good Students play the game. Con Men see the board. (Part 1)
Good Students are brittle. They crumble at the first mistake. Con Men expect things to go wrong. That’s when they get smart and scrappy. (Part 2)
Good Students wait for permission. Con Men show people what’s possible. (Part 3)
Today, here’s the fourth way Con Men are different from Good Students—
Good Students think they have to do it all themselves.
Con Men build great teams around them.
In season 3, episode 15 of White Collar, Neal Caffrey gets an opportunity to work with one of the best con men in the business — Gordon Taylor.
What makes Gordon Taylor so good?
Is he the fastest safecracker?
The best document forger?
The savviest hacker?
The smoothest fast-talker?
Nope. Gordon Taylor builds the best teams.
Being picked to be on his crew is an honor.
Everyone is treated with courtesy and respect.
His jobs are bold and visionary enough to be exciting — but also meticulously planned and thoroughly de-risked.
In a world where everyone lies and no one can be trusted, Gordon creates an environment of professionalism and trust.
He has a simple motto that he always delivers on: “Nobody gets caught. Everybody gets paid.”
It’s a promise that’s unheard of in the world of con men — and the best in the business clamor to work with him.
Good Students tie their self-worth to their individual performance.
And this often makes them hesitate to build a team.
Admitting that you need other people…
Allowing those people to do things their way, not your way…
Or, god forbid, admitting that someone can do things better than you…
Seems like admitting defeat.
Con Men take a realistic and impersonal view of what it takes to get a job done.
They don’t have all the skills necessary.
They can’t be in multiple places at once.
They need other people and other skillsets to make this happen.
And none of this is a blow to their ego.
This is just a realistic assessment of the situation.
They don’t shrink their ambitions so that they can be achieved single-handedly.
They don’t micro-manage so that every little thing is done exactly how they would have done it.
They don’t let the reality that they need other people shrink their self-worth.
Instead, they take pride in being the kind of leader that can make a team greater than the sum of its parts.
And then they go make big things happen.
Where are you martyring yourself on the altar of “high performance”?
Ugh, my team member isn’t good at this yet — I’ll just do it myself.
Just let me do the chores — you don’t do it right!
Hire help? Delegate? So you’re telling me I’m doing a terrible job??? 😭😭
And how can you start looking at the situation like a Con Man crew leader?
The rookie is a little green — that’s normal. How can I train them up until they’re ready to stand on their own?
So my getaway driver doesn’t keep the car as clean as I’d like it. Does it MATTER? Does it move the needle? If not, let me just leave him to it.
Hire help? Delegate? Of course! This job is obviously too big for one person to do alone.
Here’s the magic secret to changing your mental habits and embedding a new way of being into your day-to-day life.
The magic secret to stop living in Good Student Mentality and start living in Con Man Mentality all of the time.
That secret is… Marination.
Changing your mental habits is NOT about making one big push and then you’re done.
It’s about doing a little bit every day, until the change has happened before you even know it.
Changing your mental habits is NOT about doing tons and tons of active work.
Passively dripping new ideas into your brain — in the background, while you do other things — is plenty to shake your brain up and start to rewire it.
How did most of the ideas that are currently in your brain get formed? Marination.
You didn’t sit down and decide: “This is what’s successful vs. not successful. This is what’s beautiful vs. ugly. This is what’s lazy vs. productive. This is what’s rude vs. polite.”
You just marinated in all the inputs your environment gave you…
…And your brain formed those ideas automatically, through that marination.
Marination is one of the key principles my course & coaching program is built around.
When you join, you’ll get:
A course that lay out the core concepts and frameworks that underlie all the coaching we’ll do.
Access to coaching from me — we can talk live during my coaching office hours, or we can talk asynchronously if you submit your scenario through the write-in form.
A library of case studies to marinate in. All of the coaching in the program is also a case study for everyone else.
Because listening to other people get coached is one of the most powerful ways for these concepts to sink into your head and rewire your brain.
Course + Coaching + Case Studies
Just marinate in all three.
And your brain will change. I guarantee it.
Join the program waitlist today :)
What my clients have to say…
“Pooja strikes a really strong balance between troubleshooting immediate problems but at the same time, really tying in that there are tools I need to solve all my problems.
And that even though a problem I run into this week is different from a problem I run into next week, you can use the same frameworks to work your way out of it.
Now, I feel like I have a nice tool chest of frameworks and habits that I can rely on that not just change my work life, but also my personal life too.”
—Client | VP at Major Financial Institution
Did you know I have a full table of contents, where all my work is categorized by topic, so you can easily find what you need right now? Check it out below! :)
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