Speaker 1: I want to give a big shout out to our
Speaker 1: newest Patreon members Barbara Kay, Barbara H, Joanne m Agnes C,
Speaker 1: Miriam H, Adam g Rosa, Diane A, Derek B, Nita S,
Speaker 1: and Patty Q. Thanks so much to all of you,
Speaker 1: and thanks so much to all of our Patreon members.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to experience being a Patreon member and
Speaker 1: all the benefits that come with it, go to one
Speaker 1: you Feed dot net slash join. Also, in case you're
Speaker 1: just recently joining us, or however long you've been a
Speaker 1: listener of the show, you may not realize that we
Speaker 1: have over seven years of incredible episodes in our archive.
Speaker 1: We've had so many wonderful guests that we've decided to
Speaker 1: hand pick one of our favorites that may be new
Speaker 1: to you, but if it's not, is definitely worth another liston.
Speaker 1: We hope you'll enjoy this episode with Carol Dweck. Nothing
Speaker 1: is carved in stone. Everything can be expanded and develop.
Speaker 1: I loved Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time,
Speaker 1: great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we
Speaker 1: have quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are
Speaker 1: what you think Ring true, and yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest today is Carol S. Dweck, PhD.
Speaker 1: Carol is one of the world's leading researchers in the
Speaker 1: field of motivation and is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton
Speaker 1: Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. Her research has focused
Speaker 1: on why people succeed and how to foster success. Carol
Speaker 1: has held professorships at Columbia and Harvard Universities, has lectured
Speaker 1: all over the world, and has been elected to the
Speaker 1: American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her book Mindset is
Speaker 1: considered one of the most influential books in the psychology
Speaker 1: of success and motivation. Here's the interview Hi Carol welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1: Thank you for taking the time to talk to us.
Speaker 1: I think this is going to be a really interesting
Speaker 1: episode for a lot of listeners. I find that this
Speaker 1: concept seems to be coming up a lot recently with
Speaker 1: people I've been talking to and working with, so I'm
Speaker 1: excited to get more into it. But let's start off
Speaker 1: with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson.
Speaker 1: He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of
Speaker 1: us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and
Speaker 1: the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like
Speaker 1: greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and
Speaker 1: he thinks about it for a second. He looks up
Speaker 1: at his grandfather and he says, grandfather, which one wins?
Speaker 1: And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 1: like to start off by asking you how that parable
Speaker 1: applies to you in your life and in the work
Speaker 1: you do. It really applies to my work, and my
Speaker 1: work applies to my life. Um. In my work, I've
Speaker 1: identified two different mindsets, a fixed and a growth mindset.
Speaker 1: One where you feel, oh, my qualities are just fixed.
Speaker 1: They are what they are. That's it. The other where
Speaker 1: is one in which the growth mindset is one in
Speaker 1: which you feel you can develop in a lifelong way. Um,
Speaker 1: bad outcomes are disappointing, but they don't lay able you forever.
Speaker 1: And I think it's in the fixed mindset that the
Speaker 1: bad wolf is fed that. When you think everything tells
Speaker 1: you about your worth, your status, your basic qualities, your
Speaker 1: ability to succeed in the future, you become fearful. You
Speaker 1: start being greedy because these are symbols of your worth,
Speaker 1: of your qualities. You start fearing things. What if I'm
Speaker 1: not good enough you? You start lording it over people,
Speaker 1: so you'll feel that you're better than other people. But
Speaker 1: in a growth mindset, nothing is carved in stone. Everything
Speaker 1: can be expanded and developed, So there people work together.
Speaker 1: Your success is not my face. Failure, your um good
Speaker 1: fortune doesn't undermine me, so I can be kind and collaborative.
Speaker 1: I could take challenges because failures don't mean negative things
Speaker 1: about me. I can be brave. So I think it
Speaker 1: really relates directly and personally. I became a much more
Speaker 1: courageous person when I developed my growth mindset, which of
Speaker 1: course I developed through my work. Um, I had grown
Speaker 1: up thinking this is fixed, that's fixed. I've got to
Speaker 1: prove this. I've got to prove that, and then you
Speaker 1: play it safe. You make sure you can succeed before
Speaker 1: you throw yourself into anything. And when I developed this idea, wow,
Speaker 1: you just do throw yourself in. You see where it
Speaker 1: takes you. Almost always it takes you something to a
Speaker 1: good place. You learn things about yourself, You discover that
Speaker 1: you can do things you never imagine you could do before.
Speaker 1: So this bravery, this kindness, this expansiveness comes right out
Speaker 1: of that growth mindset. That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: So to break down these two so you it's pretty straightforward.
Speaker 1: But as you said, a fixed mindset tends to believe
Speaker 1: that whatever the quality is, whether it be intelligence or
Speaker 1: say musical ability or any sort of ability in general,
Speaker 1: is sort of fixed. We have talent, the natural talent,
Speaker 1: yet we have it or we don't. And the growth
Speaker 1: mind says, mindset says that whatever those different things are,
Speaker 1: they can be developed and improved. On one hand, you
Speaker 1: read it and it's you learn it instuitively makes complete sense.
Speaker 1: What are ways that people go about changing the mindset.
Speaker 1: Is it hard to change the mindset? Is it just
Speaker 1: a matter of remembering to to go? Oh wait, that's
Speaker 1: I'm thinking in a fixed mindset. Let me switch back
Speaker 1: to a growth mindset. Um, what are the ways that
Speaker 1: people can apply this more in their own life? That's
Speaker 1: a great question. The first thing I think people need
Speaker 1: to do is UM acknowledge the growth the excuse me,
Speaker 1: acknowledge the fixed mindset and all of us we're all mixture.
Speaker 1: It's not UM shouldn't be shameful to have a fixed mindset,
Speaker 1: and it's part of who we are where we have
Speaker 1: UM both. So start paying attention to that fixed mindset
Speaker 1: voice in your head when it says you're not good
Speaker 1: at this, or don't try this hard thing, you'll humiliate yourself,
Speaker 1: or oh it's better to think you could be good
Speaker 1: at it than to actually find out that you're not
Speaker 1: all up, or I'll never be as good as that
Speaker 1: person who has the natural talent. Listen to those things
Speaker 1: just for a week or so, or to accept them,
Speaker 1: just acknowledge that they're there, and then after a while
Speaker 1: start talking back to them with a growth mindset. That
Speaker 1: hard thing, I can get better at it, even though
Speaker 1: I tried it once then I failed. I'll try it
Speaker 1: again in a different way. That person who's better than me,
Speaker 1: maybe they can mentor me. Maybe they've had more experience,
Speaker 1: maybe they have great tips for me. That setback doesn't
Speaker 1: mean I'm no good. It means I just have to
Speaker 1: find other ways to go about it. So start talking
Speaker 1: back and finally recognize that you have a choice. You
Speaker 1: have a choice used to live in a fixed world
Speaker 1: that limits your accomplishments, your growth, or to live in
Speaker 1: this world where anything is possible. So I know that
Speaker 1: we all can have a fixed or growth mindset in
Speaker 1: different areas of our lives. So I may have a
Speaker 1: fixed mindset around, you know, my ability to be athletic,
Speaker 1: but have a growth mindset around my intelligence. So we
Speaker 1: we can have these in different areas of our lives.
Speaker 1: It seems like we can also have a fixed and
Speaker 1: a growth mindset around the same thing. The example I'll give,
Speaker 1: and you just used it just a second ago, is
Speaker 1: musical ability. So I started playing guitar sometime around the
Speaker 1: time my friend Chris started playing the guitar the guy
Speaker 1: who's here doing the show. And what's interesting is just
Speaker 1: how incredibly naturally that came to him and just in
Speaker 1: a very different way. And so but I've I persisted
Speaker 1: and kept learning and playing and working at it, and
Speaker 1: yet there's still a real distinct difference there in in
Speaker 1: talent and what I what I think is interesting is
Speaker 1: I seem to have a little of both. And I
Speaker 1: sometimes wonder though. I was thinking about this today in
Speaker 1: preparation for the interview, and I realized that where the
Speaker 1: fixed mindset gets me in trouble in that in music
Speaker 1: in particular, is that if something got difficult, I just
Speaker 1: would sort of give up on trying to learn something
Speaker 1: difficult and move on to something else that I was
Speaker 1: able to do. And I realized, like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: that is a That's where the fixed mindset was holding
Speaker 1: me back in that area. Yeah, you can have sort
Speaker 1: of both in one area, because the growth mindset actually
Speaker 1: doesn't deny that people can differ in that their talent
Speaker 1: and how easily skills might come to them. But as
Speaker 1: you point out, your fixed mindset about it held you
Speaker 1: back further, maybe kept you from growing in ways you
Speaker 1: could have grown. The growth mindset only promises that you'll
Speaker 1: get better or not that you'll overtake someone else. But
Speaker 1: at the same time it shifts your focus. Maybe he'll
Speaker 1: always pick up techniques more easily than you. Um, but
Speaker 1: maybe you could invent some techniques, or maybe you have
Speaker 1: a distinctive style that is your unique contribution to playing guitar. Uh,
Speaker 1: maybe you have a way of doing it that is
Speaker 1: original that may be really important and may set you apart.
Speaker 1: So it's not just how quickly someone learns. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of other um facets of becoming good at something.
Speaker 1: I've invented. The strangled cat guitar sound wonderful to hear.
Speaker 1: The other part of that, there's a couple of things
Speaker 1: I've heard you say. One is like you said that
Speaker 1: the growth mindset doesn't mean that you are like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, if anybody has a growth mindset, they can
Speaker 1: play basketball like Michael Jordan's. But what I did find
Speaker 1: really interesting about what you said, though, is that the
Speaker 1: growth mindset says that we don't know, we can't know
Speaker 1: how far we go with it or where it goes,
Speaker 1: and so that it's that, Um, it's not necessarily stating
Speaker 1: affirmatively like I can do anything with this, but it
Speaker 1: is a you know, I can grow and I don't
Speaker 1: know how far. And I really like what you said.
Speaker 1: They're about that bringing your unique contribution to it, because
Speaker 1: we talk about comparison on the show a lot um
Speaker 1: you know, I just it's something I'm interested in. And
Speaker 1: and I realized how often that just by being who
Speaker 1: we are, we bring something very different than what anybody
Speaker 1: else can bring to certain things, and that that it's
Speaker 1: not always a better. There's not necessarily in a lot
Speaker 1: of these things a better or a word or some
Speaker 1: etched in stone, you know, scale of one to ten
Speaker 1: on a lot of this stuff, particularly when you get
Speaker 1: into anything that is slightly artistic or intellectual, or there's
Speaker 1: just different. So just to reiterate that important point of
Speaker 1: when you throw yourself into something deeply and passionately, you
Speaker 1: have no idea how good you could become. In wempsy
Speaker 1: amazing things I learned as I was writing my book
Speaker 1: Mindset was how many people who became great in their fields,
Speaker 1: we're pretty awful when they started out, And if they
Speaker 1: had compared themselves to other people and said, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: just not as talented as that one, they would have stopped.
Speaker 1: But instead they really developed that unique thing that they
Speaker 1: had to contribute, you point out that they're you know,
Speaker 1: people who have these mindsets, you'll see them behave differently
Speaker 1: in certain circumstances. And one that I thought was really
Speaker 1: interesting is that people who have a fixed mindset feel
Speaker 1: threatened by the success of others. But even to put
Speaker 1: it a little bit more specifically, they are not inspired
Speaker 1: by role models. They can be very much discouraged by
Speaker 1: role models. Um, whereas a growth mindset, you can be
Speaker 1: inspired and and see how you can get there. And
Speaker 1: I think Ira Glass had this really interesting thing online
Speaker 1: about creativity, and he talks about how the challenge for
Speaker 1: a lot of people is you get into this thing
Speaker 1: because you have an appreciation for you know, this type
Speaker 1: of art. You can hear it or you can see it,
Speaker 1: or but you have no ability to do it at
Speaker 1: that moment, right and you're you're cognizant of that gap.
Speaker 1: And if you're cognizant of the gap in a way
Speaker 1: of like, yes, there's a gap, and I'm gonna slowly
Speaker 1: work my way through it, versus there's a gap because
Speaker 1: I'm just not any good exactly exactly. So people in
Speaker 1: a growth mindset who believe they can get better will
Speaker 1: look at someone who is better and say, all right,
Speaker 1: I can go from here to there. Maybe they can
Speaker 1: mentor me, maybe they can inspire me. But people in
Speaker 1: a fixed mindset just see that gap. That's a person
Speaker 1: who's more talented than I am. I'll never get there.
Speaker 1: Have you done much looking into how this applies to
Speaker 1: personality traits or what we would define as a personality trait? So,
Speaker 1: for example, UM, I'm a person who's you know, I
Speaker 1: have anger issues. Um. Does this apply in the same way?
Speaker 1: Do we find does the research show that those sort
Speaker 1: of things are as malleable, perhaps as um intelligence or
Speaker 1: other abilities. We have a whole program of research on
Speaker 1: whether people think personality is fixed or can change, and
Speaker 1: we find that when people feel personality is fixed UM,
Speaker 1: they respond poorly to social setbacks, seeing it as measuring them.
Speaker 1: Whereas when they think it can be developed UM. And
Speaker 1: this is work, our work and other people's work. When
Speaker 1: they think it can be developed, they keep going, they
Speaker 1: keep trying, They put themselves in challenging social situations to
Speaker 1: learn from them. But some of the most even more
Speaker 1: interesting work was done UM with and by my former
Speaker 1: student David Yeager, showing that adolescents who have a fixed
Speaker 1: mindset about their personality, show a lot more aggression and
Speaker 1: retaliation when they are excluded or picked on because they think, oh,
Speaker 1: you're making me feel like a loser. I hate you,
Speaker 1: I want to get back at you. But the kids
Speaker 1: who feel no, I can change, you can change. You know,
Speaker 1: we're all struggling with this thing called adolescents. They don't
Speaker 1: react that way. They understand they're not happy someone excluded
Speaker 1: them or picked them them, but they they understand this
Speaker 1: is a kind of a temporary thing that they're growing.
Speaker 1: People are growing, and they're much more pre social as
Speaker 1: a result. Plus, um Yeager has found that when you
Speaker 1: teach adolescents a growth mindset about their personality, not only
Speaker 1: do they become less aggressive, they're less likely to get
Speaker 1: depressed over that transition to high school when we know
Speaker 1: depression escalates. Yeah, and so when you say we when
Speaker 1: we teach the mindset, the growth mindset to two kids,
Speaker 1: is there? What is it that? And I guess it
Speaker 1: gets back to my earlier question about what do we
Speaker 1: need to know in order to apply this? Is it?
Speaker 1: Basically these things we've talked about, that there's a fixture
Speaker 1: or a growth mindset and recognizing what the traits are.
Speaker 1: So for example, you know, with the growth mindset, you'll
Speaker 1: you'll see effort as a positive thing. Um you just look,
Speaker 1: you just you hear that and you work to internalize
Speaker 1: it and that you'll you know, you can learn from criticism.
Speaker 1: Is that is that what teaching it means? Or is
Speaker 1: there some when when you talk about you know in
Speaker 1: a lot of these studies that you know, once you
Speaker 1: teach the growth mindset to these children that the the
Speaker 1: change is dramatic. What is the extent of that teaching?
Speaker 1: Is it really like you know in our exposure to
Speaker 1: these ideas, or what does that look like? We change
Speaker 1: them that every time when we teach the growth mindset
Speaker 1: about intelligence, we teach them every time they take on
Speaker 1: a hard, challenging task and stick to it, the neurons
Speaker 1: in their brain form new, stronger connections and they get smarter.
Speaker 1: We teach them that if they take on a really
Speaker 1: hard math problem and stick to it, they're growing their
Speaker 1: math brain, and we show them how to apply that
Speaker 1: to their school work. When we teach them a growth
Speaker 1: mindset about personality, first we teach them what I just said,
Speaker 1: and then on top of that, we say well, it's
Speaker 1: true about your personality too. Those are just thoughts and
Speaker 1: fee sellings that live in your brain and they can
Speaker 1: be changed too. It may not be easy, it may
Speaker 1: not be immediate, but everybody has the potential to grow
Speaker 1: and change. And again, then we show them how that
Speaker 1: can be applied in their daily interactions. I think since
Speaker 1: I've been preparing for this interview for a while, we
Speaker 1: were originally going to have it earlier and I had
Speaker 1: to had to reschedule it. So I've had this idea
Speaker 1: in my mind a lot lately, and I've noticed it
Speaker 1: with a lot of people that I've been working with
Speaker 1: this um the personality side of it, things like I'm
Speaker 1: the kind of person who just always procrastinates, or I'm
Speaker 1: the kind of you know, I'm a person who starts
Speaker 1: things and never finishes, and and I recognize that, like
Speaker 1: you know, and we start talking about that. But what
Speaker 1: was funny was I don't remember how long, periodically, you know,
Speaker 1: someone be like, oh, you gotta go take this personality test,
Speaker 1: right every whether it be Myers, Briggs are different things,
Speaker 1: and and I did one. I don't remember how long
Speaker 1: ago it was, but I was going through it and
Speaker 1: I I realized I was answering some questions in a
Speaker 1: way that described me twenty years ago. So so I'm
Speaker 1: a recovering alcoholic and addicts. So I'd always described myself
Speaker 1: as impulsive and undisciplined. And when I and I started
Speaker 1: to fill those out like I was, and I stopped
Speaker 1: and I went, We'll wait a minute. That does not
Speaker 1: describe my behavior really in any way, shape or form
Speaker 1: in the last decade. But yet I would still if
Speaker 1: you asked me, would have said, well, I'm an impulsive person. Um.
Speaker 1: And I was just struck by that. How even knowing
Speaker 1: all that, it's still you know, knowing all this stuff,
Speaker 1: How how those things tend to sort of still be there.
Speaker 1: And so I've just been thinking a lot more about
Speaker 1: that idea of not identifying so strongly with picular traits
Speaker 1: that we've had before and recognized, like, um, you can
Speaker 1: really make dramatic change. It's so powerful once you put
Speaker 1: a fixed label on yourself, it's so powerful. It's like
Speaker 1: a prison. You don't think you can break out of that.
Speaker 1: It dogs you. I wanted to talk about growth mindset
Speaker 1: and fixed mindset in how we handle criticism and communication.
Speaker 1: Can you can you talk a little bit more about that. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Research has shown that when people are in a fixed mindset,
Speaker 1: whether it be they're doing it tsk UM or they're
Speaker 1: in a relationship and there's a disagreement that they're in
Speaker 1: a negotiation, there's a disagreement. When you're in a fixed mindset,
Speaker 1: criticism labels you. It's like a failure. Students in a
Speaker 1: fixed mindset cringe when they get red marks on their paper.
Speaker 1: They don't say, oh, boy, now I can make it better.
Speaker 1: In a relationship, if there's a disagreement, you're fighting for
Speaker 1: your life. You don't want to be the loser who
Speaker 1: was wrong. But in a growth mindset, you realize that
Speaker 1: things can only get better when you get good feedback. Boy,
Speaker 1: that's helpful. That's going to help you in the future.
Speaker 1: In a relationship, people in a growth mindset understand the
Speaker 1: relationship can grow from airing disagreements. Honestly. In a negotiation,
Speaker 1: it's been shown people in a growth mindset seek solutions
Speaker 1: that um create a better outcome for everybody. It's not
Speaker 1: my win is your loss and your win is my loss.
Speaker 1: So the criticism, feedback, failure, disagreement is catastrophic in a
Speaker 1: fixed mindset, but is stepping stone offen to better things
Speaker 1: in a growth mindset. Yeah, when I read that, and
Speaker 1: I kind of was thinking along the lines of what
Speaker 1: you were just describing with with relationships, where from a
Speaker 1: fixed mindset, it's the defense level is immediately so high
Speaker 1: on anything that anyone says, whether it be UM, even
Speaker 1: just the slightest twinge of like you said, feedback or
Speaker 1: or criticism, it's like the level of um. And I'm
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know anybody like this, of course,
Speaker 1: um who who might react this way? But but it's
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the level of defensiveness is so high,
Speaker 1: and once that level of defensiveness gets triggered, then you know,
Speaker 1: the level of emotionality jumps, and then that whole idea
Speaker 1: of you know, at least that I I've noticed is
Speaker 1: the sort of you know, I call it sort of
Speaker 1: regressing right when you when you're stressed or emotional, you're
Speaker 1: regressing even further. And all that happens just lickety split, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's almost and uh, the we had
Speaker 1: Lewis House on the show, Who's the first person I
Speaker 1: think who showed me your book? And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: He talked a lot about that, this idea of in
Speaker 1: a in a communication with another person really taking what
Speaker 1: they're saying as feedback, like Okay, what's working here and
Speaker 1: what's not not? So much like which is it is
Speaker 1: hard to do, but I think what it's this idea
Speaker 1: of of remembering to try and go into the growth mindset.
Speaker 1: Do you find that you learn this concept, but it's
Speaker 1: something you need to be reminded of all the time.
Speaker 1: You absolutely need to be reminded of it. It's not
Speaker 1: that you learn it and you're set for life. You
Speaker 1: keep slipping back and you've got to notice when that's happening.
Speaker 1: And also, as you were saying, it's almost reflective. Sometimes
Speaker 1: growth mindset legacy UM a fixed mindset legacy to become uh,
Speaker 1: fall into a defensive mode. My husband and I had
Speaker 1: to invent a third party named Maurice UM so that
Speaker 1: when we had when we disagreed about something where something
Speaker 1: went wrong, immediately said, Okay, it's more recissful. Now we
Speaker 1: can talk about it. We don't have to play the
Speaker 1: blame game right right. Well, Carol, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for taking the time. This has been a great conversation.
Speaker 1: The book has been um. You know, it's just such
Speaker 1: a really simple, pool but powerful idea that that can
Speaker 1: make so many changes. Thank you, thank you, this was
Speaker 1: such a pleasure. Okay, well take care and we will
Speaker 1: we'll talk again soon, yes, all right bye. You can
Speaker 1: learn more about Carolstwick and this podcast at one you
Speaker 1: Feed dot net slash Carol