About the Mindset Quotient^® Test

Great question. Allow us to share how this test came to be:

Leslie Householder spent over 27 years studying and painstakingly experimenting with different ways of thinking, tracing her conscious shifts to the outcomes (or lack thereof) that they ultimately produced. As this was a long, frustrating, and sometimes confusing process, she documented her attempts, catalogued her results, and began sharing what she learned to hopefully shortcut the process for others who were seeking changes in their lives but didn’t know how to realize them. 

Leslie was not alone on this journey. Her husband Trevan lived the experiment with her, as they together spent their first seven years trying to pay the bills, working multiple jobs and going to school, while starting a family and dealing with major medical challenges and expenses. They dealt with job losses, overdrawn accounts, car accidents, cars that wouldn’t work, getting around in 20-30 year old vehicles. (Their first one had the heater stuck on in the Arizona summer, and their second – a soft-top dune buggy – required a plug-in space heater perched on the passenger seat during the snowy winter.) They cleaned commercial offices at night, and Leslie, at least, sometimes even ate leftovers out of the trash.

But once they finally figured out the right way to think, the breakthrough was swift. They faced another challenge, consciously chose to think about it differently against their nature, and tripled their income in 3 months. Again, she documented what shift in their mindset finally made the difference, and her passion for helping others learn what they had learned was born.

She began sharing what they had learned with others, and pretty soon friends and family were reporting significant improvements in their own results. Having proven that a shift in mindset really can change your life, they invested in additional mindset training with various mentors. From there, Leslie started teaching weekend seminars, became the best-selling author of The Jackrabbit Factor, created a 14-week Mindset Mastery course, and within a few more years, Leslie and her husband Trevan co-founded of the School of Life Mastery. 

Twenty years after their first big breakthrough, this Mindset Quotient Test was developed, based not only on their own personal experiences working through the mindset levels it quantifies, but also based on the collective experiences of the thousands of students and readers they’ve had the privilege to serve. Over the years, the Householders observed at which levels of thinking many of their students plateaued, and what kinds of life experiences they tended to be having in connection with those levels. Observable indicators over the years included: Do the students feel stuck? Are they able to obtain everything they need when they need it? Are they able to experience peace of mind or joy despite the unwanted conditions in which they find themselves?

The Householders will be the first to tell you that even now, they themselves wouldn’t ace this test. They believe it will be a life-long pursuit to truly master the skills. But with each step forward in progress, real significant improvements can be enjoyed all along the way. You don’t have to ace this test to experience that. After all, this is about enjoying a “progressive realization of a worthy ideal” (Earl Nightingale). 

So while there may be few individuals qualified to represent the true nature of one who would achieve an honest perfect score, it was the study of exemplary lives throughout history and the Householder’s own personal moments of clarity (via challenges, eventual shifts, and subsequent breakthroughs), that allowed the Householders to get glimpses of and gain confidence in the direction of where the path of mindset improvement leads. 

The development of this test was overseen by Dr. Cari Skrdla, who currently serves as the Executive Assistant & Project Coordinator for both Householder’s main company Thoughts Alive LLC, and their Institute for Personal and Business Development. Dr. Skrdla is a successful entrepreneur and business owner herself (having earned her first million in her twenties), and she became a neuroscientist with a B.S. in Psychology, a Masters in Business Administration focused on Global Innovation, and a Doctorate in Industrial/Organizational Psychology. She has held positions as the Director of Training, Leadership Development, and Strategic Planning at Disney. She was a Sales trainer for MCI, Siemens, and Level 3. She was a Senior Project Manager for the City of Detroit 2006 Super Bowl, a University Business Development Representative, Supervisor of over 45 department leaders and 300 volunteers, University Director for Workforce Development, and she earned a Project Management Certification as well as a certification in Ontology from Harvard University.

So while Leslie took an intuitive and experiential approach to the test development, she relied on Dr. Cari Skrdla’s professional training, skill set, and vast experience in human resources and psychology to help design the test and provide sound feedback in the analyses. Other successful business owners and academic leaders and administrators from higher education have contributed to this project, providing valuable insight relative to their respective disciplines.

Q. Can a test-taker “game” the system?

This concern was intentionally addressed in the creation of the test. While our first version was easily gamed, our most recent version, not so much. However, we recognize that some may still think one way and yet respond in another. That may be the case with almost any assessment of this nature. Nevertheless, we believe that when students answer the way they think they SHOULD feel, the results may be more impactful and revealing than they anticipate. If a test is truly ‘game-able’, then it should be easy to get 100%, or close to it. However, if people attempt to game this system, we believe they’ll discover that doing so may impact their score in unintended ways, and they may actually learn something about themselves that they did not expect. 

The point of the test is to start a conversation which we are confident will lead to improved lives. We believe the purpose will be accomplished regardless of whether a student takes the test honestly, or in attempting to get the highest score possible.

Q. What if a person cannot remember instances of thinking a certain way in order to answer the questions accurately?

If people struggle to recall how they think, it won’t matter. They don’t have to have a great memory, because it will be the answer they choose (for whatever reason) that will reveal clues about how they think. We’re less concerned about the actual experiences they’ve had as we are about the way they respond to the questions.