Mindsets That Matter: This Almost Held Me Back From Reaching My Goals

Read time: 4 minutes

Hi 👋

If you're new here, welcome to the Build Things That Matter newsletter. I share tips, strategies, and insights I’ve learned building an 8-figure organization that teaches hundreds of thousands of people technical skills and hope it inspires others to build things that matter, too.

From 2011 to 2018, the organization I was building doubled every year.

Double the funding. Double the team size. Double the number of people taught.

We had six-figure investments from Fortune 100 companies like Google, Microsoft, Shopify and Amazon. We had hundreds of volunteers and taught tens of thousands of people beginner-friendly technical skills.

Then, in 2018, everything changed.

We received our largest investment to date - almost $10 million to scale our popular and impactful Code Mobile initiative, a cargo van converted into a ‘computer lab-on-wheels’ that hosted pop-up technology workshops nationwide in cities.

As we prepared to scale up, my mentors and advisors offered lots of advice like “things start to break” when you start getting to a certain size as an organization - meaning that as your team grows, there are natural times your existing structures, processes and ways of working start getting in the way, or altogether fail.

While valuable, no one warned me that *I* might be the thing standing in the way of our success.

By the spring of 2018, we’d secured a deposit on a fleet of vehicles, were deep into onboarding for 30+ new roles on our team and designed our systems to scale.

As we grew, the weight of the org was growing heavily on me, too. What would happen if I couldn’t bring this bold ambition to life?

One day, I was on a call with seasoned tech entrepreneur when they stopped me mid-sentence. I don’t even remember what I was rambling on about, but I do remember saying something along the lines of “I hope we just don’t screw this up.”

What he said next will remain with me forever. He said:

“Mel, no one is supporting you, funding you or working with you just so that you don't fail. They're supporting you to win".

“They’re supporting you to win.”

Let that sink in.

When I reflected on the mindset I was in during that conversation (and truthfully, for weeks prior), it was a place of trying not to screw up.

Our funding got larger, our team got larger, our goals got larger. And, instead of racing towards our goals as I had in the past, I was stuck in a run - walk - stop cycle.

We were losing steam on our current project, losing valuable time and missing important internal milestones. I was making poor decisions, not making decisions and showing up for my team in a way that prioritized the short-term instead of the long-term.

If I kept course, I have no doubt we would have fallen short of our big goals.

Instead, I knew I needed to shift my mindset and how I showed up for myself and my team.

I needed to play to win again.

Here’s what I did next:

#1 - I got super clear about what winning looks like

I invested time to articulate and visualize what success looked like for our work. I focused on what would be different if we taught everyone in the country technical skills. Knowing how much better things could be and who I was fighting for helped me focus on that reality first and foremost. It turns out this visual was often helpful for my team and partners to rally behind too!

#2 - I started my work day with 3 simple questions

Reframing became a constant practice. I have returned to it repeatedly.

I’d ask myself:

• What am I so afraid of? Allowing myself to sit with this discomfort normalized it over time, diminishing its impact.

• Who am I fighting for? This question kept me motivated, reminding me of my team, our learners, and the far-reaching impact of our work.

• What happens when we succeed? Regularly revisiting the image of our ultimate success helped me focus on what was possible, not just what was at stake.

#3 - I got a coach

I hired a professional coach to act as a mirror in my decision-making and to help hold me accountable to my own vision of success. It was so valuable to have an external perspective to challenge my assumptions and work to strategize a path forward. I’ve been so lucky to work with many exceptional coaches over the years, and it’s one of the reasons I absolutely love coaching other early-stage founders, too.

These three steps helped me stay focused on winning.

We brought our bold vision for the Code Mobiles to life and last year we crossed 1 million learning experiences created for people.

We’re just getting started.

And you are, too!

What does winning look like for your work? Are you playing to win?

That’s all for this week…but one more thing. Building things is hard. And, we need more people to do it. My personal goal is to help 1,000,000 people build the skills and confidence to build things that matter.  If you enjoyed this newsletter, can you do me a favour and forward it to a friend? Thanks in advance!

Let’s keep building, together 🫶🚀

#Mel

Follow me on X/Instagram: @melsariffodeen

Forwarded this message? Sign up here.