Speaker 1: Nothing is carved in stone. Everything can be expanded and developed.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 1: think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
Speaker 1: 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. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks 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 a
Speaker 1: where is one in which the growth mindset is one
Speaker 1: in which you feel you can develop in a lifelong way. UM.
Speaker 1: Bad outcomes are disappointing, but they don't label 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 they're people work together.
Speaker 1: Your success is not my failure. Your UM good fortune
Speaker 1: 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 that excuse me,
Speaker 1: acknowledge the fixed mindset and all of us. We're all
Speaker 1: a mixture. It's not UM. Shouldn't be shameful to have
Speaker 1: a fixed mindset, and it's part of who we are
Speaker 1: where we have UM both. So start paying attention to
Speaker 1: that fixed mindset voice in your head when it says
Speaker 1: you're not good at this, or don't try this hard thing,
Speaker 1: you'll humiliate yourself, or oh it's better to think you
Speaker 1: could be good at it than to actually find out
Speaker 1: that you're not, or I'll never be as good as
Speaker 1: that person. Who has the natural talent listen to those
Speaker 1: things 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, record eyes that you have a choice.
Speaker 1: You have a choice 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
Speaker 1: give and you just used it just a second ago.
Speaker 1: Is musical ability. So I started playing guitar sometime around
Speaker 1: the time my friend Chris started playing the guitar, the
Speaker 1: guy who's here doing the show. And what's interesting is
Speaker 1: just how incredibly naturally that came to him, and just
Speaker 1: in a very different way. And so but I've I
Speaker 1: persisted and kept learning and playing and working at it,
Speaker 1: and yet there's still a real distinct difference there in
Speaker 1: in talent and what I what I think is interesting
Speaker 1: is I seem to have a little of both. And
Speaker 1: I sometimes wonder though. I was thinking about this today
Speaker 1: in preparation for the interview, and I realized that where
Speaker 1: the fixed mindset gets me in trouble in that in
Speaker 1: music in particular, is that if something got difficult, I
Speaker 1: just would sort of give up on trying to learn
Speaker 1: something difficult and move on to something else that I
Speaker 1: was 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 of about it held
Speaker 1: you back further, maybe kept you from growing in ways
Speaker 1: you could have grown. The growth mindset only promises that
Speaker 1: you'll get better or not that you'll overtake someone else,
Speaker 1: But at the same time it shifts your focus. Maybe
Speaker 1: he'll always pick up techniques more easily than you. UM,
Speaker 1: but maybe you could invent some techniques, or maybe you
Speaker 1: have a distinctive style that is your unique contribution to
Speaker 1: playing guitar. Uh. Maybe you have a way of doing
Speaker 1: it that is original that may be really important and
Speaker 1: may set you apart. So it's not just how quickly
Speaker 1: someone learns. There are a lot of other um facets
Speaker 1: of becoming good at something. I've invented the strangled cat
Speaker 1: uh guitar sound wonderful. The other part of that, there's
Speaker 1: a couple of things I've heard you say. One is
Speaker 1: like you said that the growth mindset doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: you are like, well, you know, if anybody has a
Speaker 1: growth mindset, they can play basketball like Michael Jordan's. But
Speaker 1: what I did find really interesting about what you said, though,
Speaker 1: is that the growth mindset says that we don't know,
Speaker 1: we can't know how far we go with it or
Speaker 1: where it goes, and so that it's that, um, it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily stating affirmatively like I can do anything with this,
Speaker 1: but it is a you know, I can grow and
Speaker 1: I don't know how far. And I really like what
Speaker 1: you said They're about that bringing your unique contribution to it,
Speaker 1: because 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 worse 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
Speaker 1: field or pretty awful when they started out, And if
Speaker 1: they had compared themselves to other people and said, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm just not as talented as that one, they would
Speaker 1: have stopped. But instead they really developed that unique thing
Speaker 1: that they had to contribute. You point out that they're
Speaker 1: you know, people who have these mindsets, You'll see them
Speaker 1: behave differently in certain circumstances. And one that I thought
Speaker 1: was really interesting is that people who have a fixed
Speaker 1: mindset feel threatened by the success of others. But even
Speaker 1: to put it a little bit more specifically, they are
Speaker 1: not inspired by role models. They can be very much
Speaker 1: discouraged by role models. Um, whereas a growth mindset, you
Speaker 1: can be inspired and see how you can get there.
Speaker 1: And I think Ira Glass had this really interesting thing
Speaker 1: online about creativity, and he talks about how the challenge
Speaker 1: for a lot of people is you get into this
Speaker 1: thing because you have an appreciation for you know, this
Speaker 1: type of art. You can hear it or you can
Speaker 1: see it, or but you have no ability to do
Speaker 1: it at that moment, right and you're you're cognizant of
Speaker 1: that gap. And if you're cognizant of the gap in
Speaker 1: a way of like, yes, there's a gap and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna slowly work my way through it, versus there's a
Speaker 1: gap because I'm just not any good exactly exactly. So
Speaker 1: people in a growth mindset who believe they can get
Speaker 1: better will look at someone who is better and say,
Speaker 1: all right, I can go from here to there. Maybe
Speaker 1: they can mentor me, maybe they can inspire me. But
Speaker 1: people in a fixed mindset just see that gap. That's
Speaker 1: a person who's more talented than I am. I'll never
Speaker 1: get there. Have you done much looking into how this
Speaker 1: applies to personality traits or what we would define as
Speaker 1: a personality trait? So for example, um, I'm a person
Speaker 1: who's anger. You know I have anger issues. Um? Does
Speaker 1: this apply in the same way? Do we find Does
Speaker 1: the research show that those sort of things are as
Speaker 1: malleable perhaps as um intelligence or other abilities. We have
Speaker 1: a whole program of research on whether people think personality
Speaker 1: is fixed or can change, and we find them. When
Speaker 1: people feel personality is fixed, um, they respond poorly to
Speaker 1: social setbacks, seeing it as measuring them. Whereas when they
Speaker 1: think it can be developed um and this is work,
Speaker 1: our work and other people's work. When they think it
Speaker 1: can be developed, they keep going, they keep trying. They
Speaker 1: put themselves in challenging social situations to learn from them,
Speaker 1: but some of them. Even more interesting work was done
Speaker 1: UM with and by my former student David Yeager, showing
Speaker 1: that adolescents who have a fixed mindset about their personality
Speaker 1: show a lot more aggression and retaliation when they are
Speaker 1: excluded or picked on because they think, oh, you're making
Speaker 1: me feel like a loser. I hate you, I want
Speaker 1: to get back at you. But the kids who feel no,
Speaker 1: I can change, you can change. You know, we're all
Speaker 1: struggling with this thing called adolescents. They don't react that way.
Speaker 1: They understand they're not happy someone excluded them or picked
Speaker 1: on them, but they they understand this is a kind
Speaker 1: of a temporary thing that they're growing. People are growing,
Speaker 1: and they're much more pre social as a result. Plus,
Speaker 1: um Yeager has found that when you teach adolescents a
Speaker 1: growth mindset about their personality, not only do they become
Speaker 1: less aggressive, they're less likely to get depressed over that
Speaker 1: transition to high school, when we know depression escalates. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so when you say we when we teach the mindset,
Speaker 1: the growth mindset to two kids, is there what is
Speaker 1: it that and I guess it gets back to my
Speaker 1: earlier question about what do we need to know in
Speaker 1: order to apply this? Is it basically these things we've
Speaker 1: talked about, that there's a fixture or a growth mindset
Speaker 1: and recognizing what the traits are. So for example, you know,
Speaker 1: with the growth mindset, you'll you'll see effort as a
Speaker 1: positive thing. Um you just look, you just you hear
Speaker 1: that and you work to internalize it and that you'll
Speaker 1: you know, you can learn from criticism. Is that? Is
Speaker 1: that what teaching it means? Or is there some when
Speaker 1: when you talk about you know in a lot of
Speaker 1: these studies that you know once you teach the growth
Speaker 1: mindset to children that the change is dramatic. What is
Speaker 1: the extent of that teaching? Is it really like you know,
Speaker 1: in our exposure to these ideas, or what does that
Speaker 1: look like? We change them that every time when we
Speaker 1: teach the growth mindset about intelligence. We teach them every
Speaker 1: time they take on a hard, challenging task and stick
Speaker 1: to it, the neurons in their brain form new, stronger
Speaker 1: connections and they get smarter. We teach them that if
Speaker 1: they take on a really hard math problem and stick
Speaker 1: to it, they're growing their math brain, and we show
Speaker 1: them how to apply that to their school work when
Speaker 1: we teach them a growth mindset about personality. First we
Speaker 1: teach them what I just said, and then on top
Speaker 1: of that, we say, well, it's true about your personality
Speaker 1: to those are just thoughts and feelings that live in
Speaker 1: your brain, and they can be changed too. It may
Speaker 1: not be easy, it may not be immediate, but everybody
Speaker 1: has the potential to grow and change. And again then
Speaker 1: we show them how that can be applied in their
Speaker 1: daily interactions. I think since I've been preparing for this
Speaker 1: interview for a while, we were originally going to have
Speaker 1: it earlier and I had to had to reschedule it.
Speaker 1: So I've had this idea in my mind a lot lately,
Speaker 1: and I've noticed it with a lot of people that
Speaker 1: I've been working with this um, the personality side of it,
Speaker 1: things like I'm the kind of person who just always procrastinates,
Speaker 1: or I'm the kind of you know, I'm a person
Speaker 1: who starts things and never finishes, and and I recognize that,
Speaker 1: like you know, and we start talking about that. But
Speaker 1: what was funny was I don't remember how long, periodically,
Speaker 1: you know, someone be like, oh, you gotta go take
Speaker 1: this personality test rightever, whether it be Myers Briggs or
Speaker 1: different things. And and I did one. I don't remember
Speaker 1: how long ago it was, but I was going through it,
Speaker 1: and I I realized I was answering some questions in
Speaker 1: a way that described me twenty years ago. So so
Speaker 1: I'm a recovering alcoholic and addicts. So I'd always described
Speaker 1: myself as impulsive and undisciplined. And when I and I
Speaker 1: started to fill those out like I was, and I
Speaker 1: stopped and I went, We'll wait a minute. That does
Speaker 1: not describe my behavior really in any way, shape or
Speaker 1: form in the last decade. But yet I would still,
Speaker 1: if you asked me, would have said, well, I'm an
Speaker 1: impulsive person. Um. And I was just struck by that.
Speaker 1: How even knowing all that, it's still you know, knowing
Speaker 1: all this stuff, How how those things tend to sort
Speaker 1: of still be there. And So I've just been thinking
Speaker 1: a lot more about that idea of not identifying so
Speaker 1: strongly with particular traits that we've had before and recognized, like, um,
Speaker 1: you can really make dramatic change. It's so powerful once
Speaker 1: you put a fixed label on yourself, it's so powerful.
Speaker 1: It's like a prison. You don't think you can break
Speaker 1: out of that. It dogs you. We're getting near the
Speaker 1: end of time. But I wanted to talk about growth
Speaker 1: mindset 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: we're there. Has shown that when people are in a
Speaker 1: fixed mindset, whether it be they're doing a task um
Speaker 1: or they're in a relationship and there's a disagreement that
Speaker 1: they're in a negotiation, there's a disagreement. When you're in
Speaker 1: a fixed mindset, criticism labels you. It's like a failure.
Speaker 1: Students in a fixed mindset cringe when they get red
Speaker 1: marks on their paper. They don't say, oh, boy, now
Speaker 1: I can make it better. In a relationship, if there's
Speaker 1: a disagreement, you're fighting for your life. You don't want
Speaker 1: to be the loser who was wrong. But in a
Speaker 1: growth mindset, you realize that things can only get better
Speaker 1: when you get good feedback. Boy, that's helpful. That's going
Speaker 1: to help you in the future. In a relationship, people
Speaker 1: in a growth mindset understand the relationship can grow from
Speaker 1: airing disagreements. Honestly, in a negotiation, it's been shown people
Speaker 1: in a growth mindset seek solutions that um create a
Speaker 1: better outcome for everybody. It's not my win is your loss,
Speaker 1: and your win is my lass. So the criticism, feedback, failure,
Speaker 1: disagreement is catastrophic in a fixed mindset, but is stepping
Speaker 1: stone off and to better things in a growth mindset. Yeah.
Speaker 1: When I read that, and I kind of was thinking
Speaker 1: along the lines of what you were just describing with
Speaker 1: with relationships, where from a fixed mindset, it's the defense
Speaker 1: level is immediately so high on anything that anyone's says,
Speaker 1: whether it be UM, even just the slightest twinge of
Speaker 1: like you said, feedback or or criticism, it's like the
Speaker 1: level of UM. And I'm you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: anybody like this, of course, UM who who might react
Speaker 1: this way? But but it's all of a sudden, the
Speaker 1: level of defensiveness is so high, and once that level
Speaker 1: of defensiveness gets triggered, then you know, the level of
Speaker 1: emotionality jumps, and then that whole idea of you know,
Speaker 1: at least that I I've noticed is the sort of
Speaker 1: you know, I call it sort of regressing right when
Speaker 1: you when you're stressed or emotional, you're regressing even further
Speaker 1: and all that happens just lickety split, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's almost and uh, the we had Lewis House
Speaker 1: on the show Who's the first person I think who
Speaker 1: showed me your book? And uh, you know, he talked
Speaker 1: a lot about that, this idea of in a in
Speaker 1: a communication with another person really taking what they're saying
Speaker 1: as fee back, like Okay, what's working here and what's not? Not?
Speaker 1: So much like which is it is hard to do,
Speaker 1: but I think what it's this idea of of remembering
Speaker 1: to try and go into the growth mindset? Do you
Speaker 1: find that you learn this concept, but it's something you
Speaker 1: need to be reminded of all the time. You absolutely
Speaker 1: need to be reminded of it. It's not that you
Speaker 1: learn it and you're set for life. You keep slipping
Speaker 1: back and you've got to notice when that's happening. And also,
Speaker 1: as you were saying, it's almost reflective. Sometimes a growth
Speaker 1: 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 but powerful idea that that can make
Speaker 1: so many changes. Thank you, thank you. This was such
Speaker 1: a pleasure. Okay, well take care and we will we'll
Speaker 1: talk again soon. Yes, all right bye. You can learn
Speaker 1: more about Carol Astwick and this podcast at one you
Speaker 1: feed dot net slash Carol