This Mindset Shift Changed My Life — And Gave Me the Courage to Leave My Well-Paid Full-Time Job. Discover the power of unlearning as Amy Chambers shares her journey of changing her mind and its transformative impact on her life and career.
By Mark Klekas Edited by Mark Klekas
There is always something new to learn.
And for the most part, humans are pretty good at learning new things. But what's a little more difficult is to unlearn — especially when it comes to unwinding bad habits or unhelpful thought processes. Mark Bonchek wrote about this subject in Harvard Business Review and summed up the issue:
"The problem isn't learning: it's unlearning. In every aspect of business, we are operating with mental models that have grown outdated or obsolete, from strategy to marketing to organization to leadership. To embrace the new logic of value creation, we have to unlearn the old one."
A large part of leadership and management is using the correct crucial thinking skills, and that might involve unlearning a particular way of conducting business or strategy. Executive coach and speaker Amy M Chambers is well-versed on this topic and believes it's easy to lose sight of what matters and become disconnected from your beliefs due to external influences — like social media or peer pressure.
"If you're looking to feel fulfilled and happy, it's incredibly important to constantly be checking in with yourself to ensure your beliefs and viewpoints still serve you," Chambers says. "Unlearning and rethinking are critical skills in today's day and age."
In her upcoming book, 6 H.A.B.I.T.S, Chambers says it's your right — and responsibility — to change your mind at any time. We often think that changing our minds is a sign of indecisiveness or poor decision-making, but Chambers challenges that way of thinking. The following is a story from Chambers' forthcoming book that you might find helpful if you are struggling with how to change your mind effectively and how to unlearn to become a better version of yourself.
During much of 2020 and 2021, my boyfriend David and I both worked from home. Fortunately, we were able to work on separate floors without disturbing each other much. Periodically, we'd walk by each other's work areas and hear snippets of conversation from a variety of meetings. David became familiar with not only the topics regularly discussed but also the personalities of everyone discussing them. Each day, he probably overheard five to 10 minutes of discussion. At some point, I grew accustomed to the faint sound of his movements from the adjoining room and tuned them out. I became oblivious to when David was around, what he was hearing and who he was learning it from.
Related: 5 Things You Really Need to Do When Starting Your Own Business
One night, David and I were discussing an important upcoming decision, and he shared his perspective with me. "Wait a minute," I quickly objected. "We talked about this last week, and you had a different opinion. I thought we agreed on this. What happened?"
I'll never forget what David said, in part because of its sheer simplicity and truth. It also reminded me of the unprecedented realities of our Covid world: There hadn't ever been a time or an environment where would David have been able to do this.
"Well, it's like Scott Ko said last week," David began, citing my company's chief financial officer. "I reserve the right to change my mind."
It was hard to argue with that. I didn't feel I could argue with it because I hadn't argued with Scott when he'd said it the prior week! I knew the exact moment David was referencing. It was during a passionate meeting regarding next year's budget and what projects we'd commit to. I could even remember Scott making the comment. Scott was right; we all reserve the right to change our minds, whenever we want and as many times as we want. I couldn't help but chuckle. Thanks to Covid, David could learn things from my CFO without me even knowing.
Around the time this happened, I was reading Adam Grant's book, Think Again. On the second page of the book, Grant writes, "Intelligence is traditionally viewed as the ability to think and learn. Yet in a turbulent world, there's another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn." In other words, we must be open to changing our minds, just like Scott Ko said. Grant's book is filled with examples of how beneficial it is to unlearn what we once knew so we can relearn new things and rethink previous positions we once held that may no longer hold true or serve us.
How about you? How good are you at unlearning what you once knew or rethinking your positions? What about even rethinking yourself as a whole? It's incredibly important to recognize that you can change your beliefs any time you want.
People who fully trust themselves will question themselves. They don't necessarily believe everything they've been taught, especially things they were taught at a young age. People who fully trust themselves set out to find their own truths and answers. Over the past eight years, I've gone through the complex process of unlearning and rethinking. I've reconsidered many of my beliefs and values, and I've recreated new ones. Until I began this process, I hadn't noticed that certain beliefs and values of mine hadn't even felt like beliefs or values — they felt like universal truths because I was taught in childhood to view them as such.
At some point, I realized they weren't truths at all; they were simply viewed as truths by our family. It took a great deal of trust and belief in myself, but over time, I was able to decide what beliefs and values I wanted to make true for myself. Life has been infinitely better since I've done that. Since doing this, I became a COO, started my own business, wrote a bestselling book, bought my dream home and became both a marathon runner and skier. None of that would've happened without an incredible amount of unlearning and rethinking.
Unlearning and rethinking are not easy. I've been questioned a lot, especially by friends and family. Years ago, when I told a close friend that I was considering leaving corporate America so that I could become a speaker and coach, my friend told me that I had a good, solid job. He didn't think I needed to leave it to "make inspirational videos and write books." He encouraged me to "play it safe."
Related: Check Out Amy Chamber's Youtube Channel For Motivation Content
When I ultimately did venture out on my own to become a coach, another friend asked, "Don't you need some sort of certification to do that? Aren't you supposed to have your own life in order before you try to help other people?" I didn't feel my own life was out of order, especially because I (now) believe acceptance of yourself and your life not always being entirely in order is probably one the healthiest things you can do.
When I told my dad about my latest venture, he commented, "Isn't that going to be hard?" As much as all these comments stung, I decided not to let any of them deter me.
My dad wasn't wrong. Deciding what's right for us, especially when it conflicts with what we've done in the past, is hard. Making any decision to change our minds and start something new is hard. However, as hard as it might be, updating our thinking and unlearning what we once knew so we can develop new beliefs is often worth it.
Check out Amy Chambers' other book, 7 V.I.R.T.U.E.S. of Exceptional Leaders which is out now. Buy it now from Good Reads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Walmart
