Building an empowered mindset with Ben Crowe

This year, for many of us, the world seemed to stand still. In this way the pandemic has acted as an equaliser, with people across the globe sharing similar experiences. Small businesses have been no different – having faced extraordinary challenges in their professional lives along with many changes that have affected their personal lives as well. 

We sat down with Ben Crowe from Mojo Crowe – one of Australia’s leading mindset and performance experts – to learn about the tools we can put in place for a positive and empowered 2021. 

You often talk about the premise that all people are in search of the two same things. What are they?

Ultimately, everyone is in search of confidence and happiness. This means confidence in themselves and confidence in how they perform. And happiness in terms of where they’re going in their lives and what will fulfil them. In order to find these two things, we need to answer two simple (but not necessarily easy) questions. The first one is, ‘Who am I?’ And the second is, ‘What do I want?’

Answering ‘Who am I?’ is typically where we’ll find confidence in terms of being comfortable in our own skin and celebrating our imperfections. Answering ‘What do I want?’ is typically where we’ll find happiness, especially if we identify not only our personal and professional goals, but also our sense of purpose.

You’ve done a lot of work educating others about the power of different mindsets. Can you explain more about this philosophy, and how we might use it in our day-to-day lives?

From my experience there are three key mindsets that, if working in alignment with each other, work to help us find confidence and happiness.

The first one is the connection mindset, which is about connecting with ourselves, first and foremost, before we connect with others.

The second is the purpose mindset, which helps us establish what we want in life and find purpose and meaning.

And the third is the performance mindset, which speaks to how we show up in the world and go about achieving our goals.

These three mindsets work in tandem to answer the questions mentioned previously: who am I and what do I want? They help us get there.

You’ve worked with high-performance athletes, such as tennis star Ash Barty. What mental techniques do elite sportspeople practice?

It all comes down to accepting the things we can’t control and focusing on the things we can. Finding the best version of yourself requires constant practice, and it helps to recognise what it is that distracts you and then learn how to let those things go.

Ultimately, harnessing the performance mindset means accepting how much is out of your control. Following the arrival of the pandemic, the majority of my work with executives, CEOs, and small business owners has been focused on this as it’s so easy to get caught up in distractions right now. 

This year has been incredibly tough for small businesses. What tools can help us all become more resilient when facing the unknown?

Resilience comes from the perspective that it is our decisions, not the conditions, that determine our mindset, self-worth and attitude. Once we realise that we’re in total control of our decisions, we can start to choose how we respond to the external conditions of our reality.

The secondary approach to building resilience is to embrace vulnerability as a strength rather than a weakness. This way, we can lean into the risk and uncertainty that comes with our world – especially right now – rather than being hard on ourselves. 

Finally, what tips do you have for small business owners to reset over the holiday break and to ensure they are in the best mindset for 2021?

It’s really important to separate your self-worth from what you do professionally. Whether you own a travel agency or a cafe – it’s not your fault if your business has suffered dramatically because the pandemic has been entirely out of your control.

One of the biggest distractions today is that we’ve become ‘human doings’ at the expense of human beings. In doing so, we’ve attached our self-worth to being recognised for our achievements rather than simply being connected and present. 

So my tip would be to use this holiday break to spend time just ‘being’. Try and relax where possible and take the opportunity to reconnect with the things that matter most to you.