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Beginner’s Mindset… This Strategy Makes Sense
Beginner’s Mindset… this strategy makes sense… dollars and cents!
What is beginner’s mindset? It’s dropping our expectations and preconceived ideas about something, and seeing things with an open mind and fresh eyes, just like a beginner. If you think back to when you learned something new, you can remember what that’s like: you may have felt confused, because you didn’t know how to do whatever you were learning, but you were also looking at everything as if was brand new, perhaps with curiosity and wonder. That’s beginner’s mindset.
Beginner’s mind is actually a concept from Zen Buddhism called Shoshin: “having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner in that subject would.”
Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. Our knowledge has jaded us. And, it becomes difficult for us to share our knowledge with others, because we can’t readily re-create others’ state of mind. I’ve gone contrarian with this concept since coming online sixteen years ago…
I teach and mentor with the beginner’s mindset top of mind. I focus on helping my students and mentees to forget everything they know (or think they know!)…
