Schizophrenia and Mindset

As we all know the inter­net is chock full of dis­trac­tions. A lot of times this is bad because it detracts from the work that needs done. But some­times it can be a learn­ing expe­ri­ence. Or at least clar­i­fy­ing some­thing you already know.

Keep in mind this isn’t the hap­pi­est of sto­ries, but it got me think­ing about things so I thought I would share.

So this morn­ing I was dis­tracted by the inter­est­ing story of Louis Wain. He was an artist that drew cats in the early 1900’s. His draw­ings por­trayed cats in human sit­u­a­tions, such as play­ing golf. While the pic­tures are pretty weird as is, they changed quite a bit when Louis reached his 50’s and devel­oped schiz­o­phre­nia. This is when it got interesting.

He con­tin­ued to paint and draw but his paint­ings appar­ently changed as his ill­ness pro­gressed. Over time his art went from cats in human sit­u­a­tions to just the cats them­selves. After that the draw­ings became more erratic and strange look­ing. He started draw­ing cats in jagged lines and shapes. Even­tu­ally the cats became pat­terns were hardly rec­og­niz­able as cats. It was a com­plete dif­fer­ence from his ear­lier work.

So what exactly am I get­ting and what the heck does this have to do with marketing?

Well, this is what I was talk­ing about when I say to learn from every­thing. Your mind­set has a huge impact on how you han­dle things and how you run your busi­ness. If your con­fi­dence is low and you often won­der if any­thing is going to work it’s going to show in your efforts towards your busi­ness. On the other hand if you have a good mind­set and your con­fi­dent and have faith in your­self to suc­ceed it will show in your efforts. You will work harder and make things work to reach success.

Unlike poor Louis, you have con­trol of your mind­set. It effects every­thing you do. Lead­ers have a par­tic­u­lar mind­set. It’s what dri­ves them to con­stantly do what they do. You can develop your mind­set as you grow your busi­ness and learn. And chang­ing your mind­set for the bet­ter will make a world of dif­fer­ence in your pro­duc­tiv­ity and achiev­ing your goals.

I know that some­day I will reach my idea of suc­cess. Which is live com­fort­ably and be able to sup­port my fam­ily. And fur­ther­more I want to make some­thing of myself and help oth­ers. In order to reach those goals I need to get myself in the right mind­set. While not always easy, over time every­thing I do will per­tain to these goals and reach­ing them.

Your mind­set isn’t just for long term goals either. It can be as sim­ple as get­ting into the mind­set of sit­ting down and work­ing on some­thing. When I sit down to write an arti­cle or blog post I get into a writ­ing mind­set. I focus on get­ting my thoughts down on the paper/screen and get­ting my mes­sage across.

I try to get into the mind­set of work­ing on cer­tain things every­day to improve my busi­ness. It can be any­thing, just remem­ber you can change your mind­set to work for you instead of against you. For exam­ple I’ve lived most of my life going from pay­check to pay­check and not much else. It’s what I’m used to. That can actu­ally be a hin­drance to mak­ing more money and more impor­tantly man­ag­ing money. So I have to change my mindset.

The point is this: Your mind­set affects every­thing you do and can have pro­found effects on your goals. Both good and bad. Take a look at Louis’ art and you can see the dif­fer­ence. Although an ill­ness, he had a dif­fer­ent mind­set then before and that reflected in his art. I just thought it was inter­est­ing the stark dif­fer­ences between pictures.

Think about your mind­set and use it as a tool. Shape it to what you need and use it to your advan­tage. Learn to become what you want to be with your mindset.

Update: F.Y.I. After doing some more research on Louis Wain there are sev­eral the­o­ries on his art relat­ing to schiz­o­phre­nia. Some even say he may not of even had it. It may have been some­thing else. Either way you can still take the same les­son from it though.

~Chris

note: I, in no way, take schiz­o­phre­nia lightly. It’s def­i­nitely a big thing that some peo­ple have to live with. Advances in med­i­cine have come a long way but there is still no cure for it. So I write this with all due respect for the peo­ple and their fam­i­lies that are affected by this.

Also if you would like to learn more about Louis Wain and his fas­ci­nat­ing story check out this wiki page or search on google. You might get dis­tracted like I did though.

Have you changed your mind­set on things before? How did it effect your work or even your life?

Sim­i­lar Posts:

• How Has 2009 Been For You?
• What a Stop Smok­ing Book is Teach­ing Me About People
• Rules Are Meant To Be Broken

I’m glad to see you back at The OMV. I hope your enjoy­ing your time. Feel free to con­tact me for any­thing and if you haven’t already, don’t for­get to sub­scribe to The OMV Newslet­ter. Leave a com­ment too! I’d love to hear from you.