Mindset Ownership

I’m loving my 30s so far.

Brains are wild, and yeah, I dropped out of college, but I like to break life down into decades (maybe I’m a bit of a late bloomer):

0-10: Data – you’re just absorbing everything around you.

10-20: Information – you start sorting through that data and making sense of it.

20-30: Knowledge – you begin to actually understand the information and apply it.

30-40: Wisdom – this is when you really start to understand yourself.

40-50: ??? – I’ll let you know when I get there.

But wisdom in your 30s comes with a catch—you realize just how much of an idiot you were in your 20s, but now you can actually see why. It’s humbling but also empowering because you start building tools to stop making the same dumb mistakes.

One of the best tools I’ve picked up is the Ownership Mindset. It’s simple: act like you own the place. That mindset has had a crazy positive effect for me. Here’s why:

Confidence: acting like you own the place lets you poop in the hotel lobby bathroom on a roadtrip, lead a business meeting, and advocate for yourself. The core of this is a maintenance of agency. Taking initiative in problem-solving instead of waiting for others to provide solutions is a superpower.

1. Care: If you own the place, you not only pick up after yourself, but for others. If Kyle spills his beer in your kitchen, it's getting cleaned up whether he does it or not. A bit woo, but the core of this I've found is an admittance that you are the universe, and the universe cares about itself. Pick up the pillows when the wind pushes them. Fix the bug, because it exists.

2. Caution: You tend to tread lightly on a garden you planted yourself. Caution is subtly different than care: a hesitance to introduce bugs instead of simply fix them. The core of this is presence. To exercise agency, we must be present, but what a gift! The simple mindset of ownership can help you converge to presence, and away from worries of the past and future.

3. Curiosity: What's that dripping noise? Let's get to the bottom of it. If you own the place, you actively seek to improve it. Find the leaky pipe so you don't have to redo the finished basement. Refactor the tech debt so you don't have to wake up at midnight when the server goes down. Learn how your body works so you can play with your grandchildren.

The universe is your playground, but you're also the janitor.

Also check out Mindset by Carol Dweck. Game changer!