Guru shouts “mindset” at crying client for the 103rd time

You could say that I’m obsessed with the inner life of human beings.

 

There’s a reason I spend so much time up to my scalp follicles in books about human nature.

 

Inner game? I’m here for that.

 

Existential philosophy? I got that.

 

Talk to me with your Woo all day long.

 

Even as unoriginal and useless as most neuroscience is, I’ll take a glance at it.

 

All of which makes it amusing when I come across a life-coach influence or a management guru — they may as well be the same thing — carrying on about “mindset”.

 

Positive thinking. Positive mental attitude. You know. Mindset.

 

I don’t object to close examination of our mental lives.

 

The trouble with “mindset” starts with the word itself.

 

“Mindset” is an example of a thin concept.

 

That means it is too abstract, therefore too vague, confused, and murky, to create any connection with a relatable experience.

 

You can say the word to a room of 600 people and end up with 850 different meanings.

 

“Mindset” begins with an good intention and ends with terrible execution.

 

Vague, ambiguous, and confused language comes down to bad communication.

 

The influencer is trying to communicate an idea with genuine worth.

 

They’re just doing a bad job of it by resting on meaningless jargon.

 

It tells you nothing actionable. You can’t use “mindset” as anything more than a temporary rush of excitement, which we call by the (also misleading) word “motivation”.

 

That’s assuming it lands at all. Most people simply don’t have the background and won’t relate. The folks who talk about “mindset” tend to come from backgrounds in sports, or some other competitive enterprise, so they already “speak that language”.

 

The audience isn’t fluent. They get lost.

 

Effectively communicating what they mean to that audience isn’t so easy.

 

You may as well give a talk to the Association for the Blind and shout “you just have to see red!”

 

Same principle.

 

The word “mindset” creates no connection to useful actions, behavior changes, or even that “Aha!” moment of insight when a new idea hits home.

 

“Mindset” is the psychological equivalent of a sugar rush. Woooo lots of energy…

 

Then the crash and the frustration of “now what?”

 

Mindset isn’t a plan of action. It’s not anything besides a slogan.

 

Which is a shame, because learning how to do things with your mental life is tremendously valuable. It’s a shame none of these people know what to do with it.

 

 

Matt Perryman
https://matts.email