SNM008: Escape the Cubicle Mindset

Our beliefs control our behavior.  The way you see the world will affect every thought you have throughout the day.  And those thoughts will go on to control every decision, big and small.

We are raised from birth to accept the cubicle mindset.  The only purpose of standardized education is to train you to sit at your desk quietly all day long and obey the teacher at the front of the room.  The educational format punishes creativity, free-thinking, and finishing early.  Nobody gets to leave school early if they finish on time.

We are trained to trade time for money.

The cubicle mindset punishes efficiency.  At school, you are told to be quiet and lay your head on your desk when you finish work early – or they just give you more meaningless work.  Teachers are trapped in a cubicle mindset.  They are paid for their time.  They can’t leave school early if the students learn extra fast.  Lessons are designed around the length of the class. I know this because I was a teacher for ten years.

In Australia, they talk about the tall poppy getting cut down.  They call it “tall poppy syndrome.”  Punishing the exceptional is so ingrained in our culture that we have an expression for it.

As long as you think of your value as “time for money”, you will be trapped.  Your ability to grow will be limited.

We must disconnect income from time.

Start by tracking tasks rather than time.  This is the first step on the path to breaking free of the cubicle mindset. In my business, I track tasks, which gives my employees great freedom and they flourish.  They do great work, have amazing lives, and will never quit.

Writing is a great place to begin retraining your brain.  With writing projects, you get paid per project rather than per hour.  If you write faster you get rewarded.

Time is worth more than money.

On your deathbed, what will you ask for?  Nobody asks for more money in the end.  Time is more valuable, even if we don’t see it yet.

When I’m deciding how much to charge for a project, I always factor in how much I will enjoy working on it.  The less enjoyment the higher the price.  This is how you demonstrate that time is more valuable than money.

We don’t take the long view.

Short term thinking is the root cause of many of life’s ills.  Eating poorly and failure to exercise can cut your life by thirty percent or more.  Smoking can slash your life in half.  Yet we still do both because they are enjoyable in the short term.  Focus on the long term to unlock your future.

If you come home from work with this short-term mindset, you will never put in the extra hours to start a new business.  You have to put in extra hours at the start in order to get back many more hours in the future.  If you work an extra ten hours a week now, you could retire ten years early.  You get back thousands or even tens of thousands of hours of freedom in return for the hours you invest now.

Focus on the long term goal and stay the course.

We don’t take risks because we are trapped by fear.  We blame everyone else for our lot in life.  As long as you aren’t responsible for your life, you cannot change it.

We waste time watching commercials and doing stuff with no value.  Is that really more important than getting out of debt?

You want to do something once and generate money over and over.  This is why I love royalties.  I can write a book and get paid for the rest of my life.

Would you rather get paid $10,000 today or $100 a month for the rest of your life?  Most people choose the lump payment today.  That’s what lottery winners do.

When you have real royalties and passive income, that is a gift you can pass on to your children.

Starting with a blog is wonderful because you are building a permanent asset. You can use that blog to generate revenue for the rest of your life.

Switch from the cubicle mindset to the wealthy mindset.

We look at the wealthy and see their success but we fail to see their struggle.  We think they got there by luck.

Luck is where preparation meets opportunity.

Preparation means changing your beliefs.  Without changing your beliefs there is no hope for success.  If you believe that you will never be successful or that the world is out to get you, those beliefs will become reality.  You can destroy your entire destiny with those little thoughts.

A person with a cubicle mindset will reject amazing opportunities that don’t match their worldview.   They will then change how they remember everything to justify their massive mistake.  They will do everything they can to avoid taking responsibility for their bad decisions.

Successful people are drawn to each other because they have the same mindset.

We are still building on the networking training from episode six.

If you can transition to a wealthy mindset, you will attract other wealthy people.  They will network with you because of synchronicity of belief.  This is how you can start to create your own “luck.”

Are you looking for an external force to save you?

That force is not coming.  People that are waiting for opportunity end up waiting forever.  You can make your own luck simply by taking action.

Lack of implementation, not lack of knowledge keeps people from success.

Beliefs control behavior which controls habits.

Are you limited by negative beliefs about online money?

Do you think that blogs are stupid?  Do you think that the idea of making money is a scam?  Maybe you believe that money is evil and that most rich people are bad.

Those beliefs will ensure that you never become wealthy.  They are a barrier between you and the success you desire.

If you believe correctly, you will change your behavior and alter the people around you.

This creates the opportunities that other people think are luck.

Key Points:

1. Beliefs control everything else
2. Stop thinking of time and money as connected
3. Eliminate negative beliefs about wealth

Resources Mentioned:

Serve No Master on Amazon

Words to Profit Mastery – Get paid to write per project.

Send in your questions to podcast [at] servenomaster [dot] com

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