Navigating major life changes can feel overwhelming. Adapting to new stages requires not just effort, but also a flexible mindset. Every transition carries an opportunity for growth and learning. How can we turn uncertain moments into launchpads? What role does curiosity play in times of change? How can we turn our transition story into a success story? These are some of the questions we explore in episode number 93 of "Poder aprender".

Adopting a growth mindset is essential during life transitions. Without this perspective, challenges can feel like threats, but with it, every obstacle becomes an opportunity to learn and evolve. In this episode, we discuss how this mindset shift was key in moving from solopreneur to entrepreneur and in facing other personal challenges.

Curiosity is another powerful tool during times of change. Instead of being paralyzed by uncertainty, we can choose to explore, ask questions, and open new possibilities. Through personal stories and coaching anecdotes, we see how curiosity can turn fear into fascination and how every interaction can become an opportunity for connection and learning.

Celebrating small wins is a strategy that helps maintain motivation and momentum in times of transition. Even if big achievements take time, recognizing daily progress—no matter how small—helps build confidence and consistency. In this episode, we explore how recording just one positive sentence a day can have a profound impact on self-esteem and the ability to keep going.

Finally, turning our transition story into a success story means reframing difficult experiences. Every change can be seen as a new beginning, an opportunity to show resilience and creativity. We share how some people have reinvented themselves in new countries, cultures, and environments, proving that it’s possible to recreate our passions and activities, no matter the context.

These are the topics of episode #93:

• Growth mindset in life transitions
• Curiosity to reframe uncertainty
• Tracking small wins
• Turning transitions into success stories

¡Sigan aprendiendo y acuérdense de practicar bien!

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Sitio web: https://poderaprender.com

Instagram: https://instagram.com/poder.aprender

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@poder-aprender

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Sitio personal: https://walterfreiberg.com

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"Poder aprender", el pódcast que te

ayuda a aprender idiomas, hobbies

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y skills de manera más efectiva.

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Acá hablamos sobre hábitos de

aprendizaje, práctica deliberada

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y estrategias para aprender mejor.

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Mi nombre es Walter Freiberg y

te invito a desarrollar tu poder

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de aprender para alcanzar tus

metas personales y profesionales.

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When life changes, most people freeze,

panic, or wait for things to settle.

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But what if change is actually

the best time to grow?

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Today, I'm sharing four

mindset shifts that turn life

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transitions into launchpads.

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This is what we're talking about in

episode number 93 of "Poder aprender".

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I've coached people through major

life transitions: relocating to new

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countries, switching careers, starting

a new business, and I faced my own.

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What I've learned is simple: you

can't control the change and you can

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control the mindset you bring to it.

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In my early twenties, I went from being

an atheist and having no faith, no

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spiritual practice at all, to having a

very strong spiritual context in my life.

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This happened after participating

in a meditation retreat.

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That was a Buddhist meditation retreat,

and when I finished that meditation

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retreat, I suddenly was a Buddhist.

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And I didn't expect that.

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That didn't happen with the most

people, so... it is not just based

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on the persuasion powers of the

people who were leading the retreats.

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It was, in a sense, something more

in terms of being open and being

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available to a transition, to a change.

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Even though I didn't have an spiritual

context in my life and I didn't have a

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path, I knew that spiritual growth could

be part of personal development and

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it could be a part of personal growth.

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I was open to that and I was curious.

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And that's how it happened.

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And I embraced that.

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And since then, I now I have

a spiritual path and I have a

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very strong spiritual context.

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What I like the most about this is

that this change, not only increased

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my faith and my sense of purpose,

it also taught me to embrace

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the unknown in other life areas.

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In this episode, I'll give you four

mindset tools to help you not just

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survive, but grow through change.

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Let's take a look at the first tool, and

the first thing I wanna say is growth

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mindset is not an optional during a life

transition, it's something essential.

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You could say that in normal life

growth mindset is helpful, and when

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you are doing some sort of transition,

that it's absolutely essential.

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That's so important.

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Without embodying it, without

adopting this growth mindset, every

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challenge feels like a threat.

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And with the growth mindset,

every challenge feels more

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like a chance to learn.

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At one point in my author's career

when I was in the process of writing my

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ebooks for Spanish learners, I thought it

would be a cool idea to have audiobooks.

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I had written ebooks and paperbacks,

so they were available as books, and

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there was a demand on audiobooks.

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My readers wanted to have an

audio version great books.

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And I knew this, and I created so

many ways of putting that off, and

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I would tell myself I don't have the

money, I don't have the skills and

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I don't have the talent to do this.

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My frame of mind was that of a

solopreneur, a person who is very

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proud of doing everything themself.

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And up until that point, I had created

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the covers of the books,

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I had written the books myself.

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I had done my own web design, email

marketing and I thought: if I'm

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going to create or if audiobooks

are going to be available, I am the

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one who has to do the audiobooks.

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And my reasoning was: "I don't have

the money to invest in the equipment."

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I was thinking, if I'm going to

record this professional audiobooks,

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I need like the most expensive

microphones and I need, so much

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equipment and a proper recording room.

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Or maybe, I would need to rent

a place to record the audio

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And I didn't have the training and I

thought: " I don't have the skills."

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And this might sound funny as a... the

host of a skill-building podcast, right?

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I have a podcast and it's

all about skill-building,

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learning, personal development.

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And here I'm telling I cannot

learn how to narrate audiobooks.

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And the thing is that, I, it's not

that I thought I couldn't do that.

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I was realistic and I thought,

this is going to take time.

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I can learn this and

it's going to take time.

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Here, the big transition was going

from a person who does everything on

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their own to even considering getting

help and collaborating with others,

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hiring people, leading a big project.

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And, at the end, I decided to

open myself to that possibility.

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Hiring voice talents, hiring audio

editors... and now I have audiobooks.

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It was challenging, it was hard.

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And, in the process, I found out that

leadership was not all about delegation

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and finding who's gonna do something.

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There was much more, there was more about

trust, letting go of being in control of

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everything, or this pride of "I'm gonna do

everything. I'm the powerful solopreneur."

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That meant to me the difference, the

transition between solopreneur to

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entrepreneur.

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A person who

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is doing everything on their own to

someone who is able to collaborate

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with others, who's able to hire people,

who's able to lead people in a project.

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That was huge for me, and I

think this is very in line with

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what I am sharing in this point.

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A growth mindset keeps you adaptable,

keeps you hopeful, keeps you

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moving forward when everything

around you feels uncertain.

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When you are second guessing yourself.

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At the end of the day, your outcome

will depend on your ability to learn

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faster than your situation changes.

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And that was my experience.

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The second component in a growth

mindset through life transitions

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is the role of curiosity.

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Curiosity and how it helps us frame

uncertainty or reframe uncertainty.

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Sometimes we see uncertainty

as something connected to fear.

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Uncertainty creates fear, and

truth is, fear closes doors.

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And what opens doors?

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Curiosity.

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And you can't be afraid and

curious at the same time.

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It's like you have to pick one.

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One of my coaching

clients is great at sales.

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He actually leads a sales team

and he's living a bilingual life.

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He was born in the United States, so his

native language is English, and he started

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learning Spanish a few years ago, and now

he lives in a Spanish speaking country.

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And even though he's fluent in

Spanish and he hasn't started

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learning it a long time ago, there

are times where there's uncertainty,

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there are moments of insecurity.

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There are moments where

he's very self-conscious.

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And I was curious: "is this present for

him when he's doing his sales calls?".

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And I wasn't surprised to

hear that that's not the case.

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When he's at work, when he's doing his

sales calls in English, he's very curious.

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He's curious about the other person

and he wants to learn, he wants

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to know about the other person.

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He's very relaxed and he

noticed that he can apply that

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to his Spanish conversations.

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He's already great at communication.

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He's a very good listener.

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He's very empathetic, very

high in emotional intelligence.

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And you know what?

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All that is available to him in Spanish.

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That's available to him

as well, in Spanish.

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It was about connecting those two things.

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He's fully utilizing that now.

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He can remember: I'm a relaxed person.

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I'm good at connecting with people.

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I'm good at interacting with people.

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I'm good at creating rapport with people,

and this is what I do for a living.

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This is something I'm good at.

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This is something I've been

practicing for years and years.

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And I don't know how many calls, how

many sales calls he's being through.

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So he has so many hours under his

belt, and that is in his blood

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and that's part of who he is.

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And that's something that he can use

when he is approaching strangers, when

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he is starting conversations in Spanish.

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When he's feeling unsure about his

skills, he can remember that there's

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something he doesn't feel so unsure about.

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There are all the soft skills and the

personal skills, the communicational

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skills that he already mastered in a

first language, and he can transfer that

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to the other languages that he learns.

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What happens when you replace

'what if this goes wrong?' with,

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'what could I learn here?'.

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You are shifting from

paralysis to exploration.

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What happens when you replace 'I'm not

good at having conversations in Spanish'

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with, ' I'm great at connecting with

people in any language.' Curiosity can

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be a strategy, and it's something that

can transform fear into fascination.

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It can be very helpful to

reframe uncertainty into

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opportunities, into new learnings.

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When we are going through a big

life transition, sometimes we are

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tracking big changes, big shifts,

and it can be hard to keep momentum.

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What if you were to track the tiny wins?

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Big transitions feel overwhelming,

and that's why most people quit.

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The

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secret is in the small

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wins and stacking small wins.

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That's what builds momentum.

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One of my favorite stories with

this is practicing journaling,

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writing just one sentence a day.

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This is something I, I had

heard, I think that it was in

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'Atomic Habits', by James Clear.

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I think that was two years

ago, when I was getting back

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to building a journaling habit.

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And I also wanted to keep track of what I

was doing, what was occurring in my life.

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And I think this is a good example,

because many times when we feel like

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journaling is because part of us feels

that something important is going

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on or there's something that's worth

committing to paper, like writing down.

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And that's how I was feeling.

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And my context for

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journaling was 'The

Artist's Way.' And I thought

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I would need to write pages and pages.

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If it's not less than two or three

pages a day, it's not worth it.

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I need to spend 20, 30

minutes a day minimum.

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Otherwise it doesn't count.

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What I decided to do is, I

told myself: 'you know what?

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I'm going to do one sentence a

day, and I'm going to make it

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about something that went well that

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day.' A self-acknowledgment.

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And it worked nicely.

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For example, today I could write something

like: 'I recorded a podcast episode.'

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Or I could say, I don't know: 'I ran

for 30 minutes', 'I went to the gym.'

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It doesn't matter so much what the win is.

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It's just a reminder of something

that is inspiring to us, something

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that uplift us, and at the same time,

it's helpful in building a practice

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of recognizing the good things

that are happening in our lives.

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It's not that we are using

that one single sentence to

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complain... that's not the idea.

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The idea is to use something positive

and that's in the direction that... of

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creating the life we want to create.

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It might sound silly and like not

a big deal, and like... this is not

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as powerful as writing for 20 or 30

minutes, and it builds self-confidence

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and it builds self-esteem in

terms of what we can control.

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For that reason, I think it's important

to track what you can control.

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You can celebrate tiny steps.

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And tiny steps today,.

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the tiny wins today become

bigger and massive wins tomorrow.

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Progress compounds over time.

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If you keep tracking your

tiny wins, you'll stay in the

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game long enough to win big.

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And to continue winning.

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Even if... these are small

wins, it doesn't matter.

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They are still wins.

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Even if it's just one

sentence, even if it's three

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words or ten words or twenty words, it's

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still a sentence.

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And that's a complete thought.

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That's what counts.

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The fourth and last point in adopting

a growth mindset in life transitions

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is about turning your transition

story into your next success story.

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The thing is that

transitions don't define you.

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It's how you are responding

to that transition.

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In every difficult chapter in

your life, there's going to be

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a seed of a next breakthrough,

something that you can do to evolve.

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When I

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moved to Uruguay in 2022,

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I started appreciating how

people is able to quickly

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start engaging in a new

country, start engaging with

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the culture, with the people.

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And that's something I started

seeing more when I left Argentina,

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when I became an expat myself.

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And I noticed that it's possible

to create a new life and to start

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engaging with the culture even

before mastering the language.

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You can tell yourself the story

that moving countries, especially,

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going from Russia to Uruguay,

from the United States to Uruguay,

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you can tell yourself the story that

this is a very difficult transition,

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this is going to be very hard.

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And you can also create these

stories in such a way that inspire

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you and inspire other people.

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One of the clients I work here in Uruguay,

he's an expat from Russia, and he

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decided to spend time with his favorite

activities even before he was fully ready.

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So he was learning Spanish,

he wasn't fluent, and he loved

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cinema, and he loved bird watching.

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After some time, he decided to

start recreating his favorite

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hobbies in this new country.

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Even though he was a bit clumsy and

uncomfortable, he created opportunities

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to go to the cinema, to go to events

around arts, to find and to connect

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with groups of other bird watchers,

to go on trips, to take photos.

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To continue enjoying the activities and

the hobbies that he always liked, and

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he was able to take all those activities

and recreate them in a new language.

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He was able to recreate all of that

in a new language, in a new country.

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Your story could inspire someone else.

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And, more importantly, it

can inspire your future self.

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You can tell yourself your own story

in such a way that it will create

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even more possibility for yourself.

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In this case, this person can tell

himself the story: 'I am able to recreate

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my activities and my hobbies in any

country.' if I can do it once, I can do

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it twice, and I can do it over and over.

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This is something I can do.

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What other things would

be available to him?

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Your transition is not the end.

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Actually, it's more of a plot

twist, and it's something that

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sets you up for your next win.

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If you're navigating a big life

change right now, lean into growth.

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Stay curious, track your tiny

wins, and trust your story is

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unfolding in the right direction.

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Share this episode with

someone who needs it.

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If you want extra resources and support

through your transition, visit my

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personal site walterfreiberg.com and

sign up to my email newsletter.

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Find a link in the notes of this episode.

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Podés escuchar "Poder aprender"

en las principales plataformas

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También te invito a suscribirte al

newsletter semanal en poderaprender.com

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para enterarte de los nuevos

episodios del pódcast y otras

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En redes sociales podés buscar

este pódcast como "poder aprender".

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links en la descripción.

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Y, si te gusta mucho, si te sirve el

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una reseña y una calificación de cinco

estrellas en Spotify o Apple Podcasts para

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que estos episodios lleguen a más personas

y que más gente pueda aprender mejor.

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Eso es todo por ahora.

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Nos vemos en un próximo episodio.

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Sigan aprendiendo y

acuérdense de practicar bien.