When I decided to write an article on Referral Mindset, I googled “referral mindset” and I got several pages of articles and videos from guys who talk about being in the habit of asking for referrals, getting referrals from your customers every time you sit down with them. Wowing your clients so they want to refer you. Those all seemed like strategies to me so I looked up “Mindset”by Carol Dweck and learned something completely different.

Mindsets are beliefs—beliefs about yourself and your most basic qualities. Think about your intelligence, your talents, your personality. Are these qualities simply fixed traits, carved in stone and that’s that? Or are they things you can cultivate throughout your life?

People with a fixed mindset believe that their traits are just givens. They have a certain amount of brains and talent and nothing can change that. So people in this mindset worry about their traits and how adequate they are. They have something to prove to themselves and others.

People with a growth mindset, see their qualities as things that can be developed through their dedication and effort. Sure they’re happy if they’re brainy or talented, but that’s just the starting point. They understand that no one has ever accomplished great things—not Mozart, Darwin, or Michael Jordan—without years of passionate practice and learning.

A referral mindset is the belief that you can be good at networking and the desire and willingness to learn more about referrals. We often think that people who are good at networking are just born with a networking or referral mindset, but the reality of it is this, if you want to get referrals, if you want to build a strong network, you have to be open to learning more about the process. Your referral mindset is your choice, you can let your self talk tell you that you are not good at it, or you can let your self talk encourage you to learn more and get good at it.