Growth Mindset Style Guide Final

Index
Learning is About Creating, Not Discovering .................................................... 1

Specialisation, Not Categorisation .................................................................... 3
Strengths Are Relative, Not Absolute ................................................................ 5
Present Choices, Not Filters.............................................................................. 7
Group by Verbs, Not Adjectives ........................................................................ 9
Create Potential ............................................................................................... 11
Put Time Stamps on Performance .................................................................. 13
Build Better Brains........................................................................................... 15
Close the Greatness Gap ................................................................................ 18
Value the Backstory ........................................................................................ 22
It’s What You Do, Not Who You Are ............................................................... 26
Get Better, Not Busy ....................................................................................... 28
Stretch, Don’t Strain ........................................................................................ 32
Learn to be Smarter ........................................................................................ 36
Make Hard Things Easier ................................................................................ 40
It’s Only Ever Hard, Never Harder ................................................................... 42
Focus on Efficacy ............................................................................................ 46
Not All Effort is Created Equal ......................................................................... 48
Make Struggle Productive ............................................................................... 52
Stretch. Correct. Repeat. ................................................................................. 55
Count the Cost ................................................................................................ 57
Become a Talented Learner ............................................................................ 61
© James Anderson December 2019 Index - i www.jamesanderson.com.au

Produced for Growth Mindset Webcast April 2nd. NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION
Learning is About Creating, Not
Discovering
“Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating
yourself.”
George Bernard Shaw
Have you ever been the victim of a personality test?
You know the type of test I'm talking about. You're asked a bunch of questions, then you get
a nice, coloured chart that describes your strengths.
While these tests certainly have their place, if they are not used appropriately, they can
create powerful negative Mindset Movers.
You see, the problem is not the tests themselves. It’s the messages that come with how we
frame the tests and interpret the results.
Too often, we imply that the results of a personality test are a permanent reflection of the
person. The test looks inside the person to “discover” their abilities. As a result, that person is
categorised as a “type” who is suited (only) to a limited number of roles. Consequently, he or
she believes the type of person they are restricts their choices in life – they are "cut out" for
some roles, and not for others.
The more growth-oriented way to use a personality test is to recognise that it only measures
current strengths. A personality test is a measure of where we are, not who we are. It is a
measure of what we've learnt to do to date. It’s also an indicator of what we might need to do
to build our abilities and become the person we want or need to be.
If the results of these tests are used to identify areas of growth, and if they direct us towards
developing the abilities, we need to pursue our choices in life, they become powerful positive
Mindset Movers.
© James Anderson December 2019 Page 1 www.jamesanderson.com.au

Learning is About Creating, Not Discovering
And that's where this nudge comes in. It reminds us that learning is a creative process of
building new abilities, rather than a passive process of discovering our (fixed and limited)
abilities.
When we remind ourselves that life is about creating, not discovering, we realise that the
starting point for these tests should be the growth message of, "What would you like to do in
life?" This opens a discussion about using the test to evaluate our current strengths and
creating a plan to develop any strengths and abilities we need to reach our goals.
Of course, this nudge doesn’t only come into play for personality and aptitude tests. Have
you ever had a student ask you:
"Do you think I'll be good at this?"
The student is effectively asking you to look inside them, to tell them if they already have the
abilities they need to succeed at a task. They are asking you to discover their abilities for
them, and, in doing so, take away the risk of failure.
Similarly, teachers can perpetuate this idea. Imagine a teacher is starting a new topic in the
classroom. The teacher introduces the key ideas, then stops to ask, "Who already knows
how to do this?" For students who see the world through a more Fixed Mindset, this question
suggests that some students already have this ability; it’s a part of who they are.
The teacher probably meant to say, "Who has already learnt how to do to do this?" But
because they said, "Who already knows how to do this?", they create a negative Mindset
Mover.
By carrying the nudge of "learning is about creating, not discovering", we are encouraged to
create a positive Mindset Mover that tells the learner they are in charge of creating their
abilities, rather than the negative Mindset Mover that says abilities lie inside us, waiting to be
discovered. We help students develop an appreciation of themselves as active creators of
who they want to become.

Specialisation, Not Categorisation
“Behind any current categorisation is a long history of
specialisation.”
James Anderson
As we look around us, it's easy to see that different people have different strengths and
abilities.
For example, we may know people who have artistic abilities, so we call them artists. Others
seem to have mathematical skills, so we refer to them as mathematicians. Still others are in
leadership roles, with leadership abilities, so we call them leaders. The list goes on.
Our temptation is to categorise people and apply labels to them, based on the abilities we
see them demonstrate. Although this can sometimes be useful and practical, it has the
potential to create a powerful negative Mindset Mover: the idea that people are created as
different types.
Categorising people can lead to the perception that the category is permanent and inflexible.
For example, we may think someone who is an artist today has always been an artist. We
may also think that an artist is all they can be. Being an artist is just "who they are".
Our previous nudge, "learning is about creating, not discovering", reminds students that they
are in charge of creating their abilities. This nudge is about recognising the same process in
others. It's the understanding that behind any current categorisation is a long backstory of
specialisation.
The strengths and abilities we see in the people around us have been developed over time.
No one is created fully formed, with talents and abilities pre-installed. Nor are people
destined to develop a certain set of talents and abilities.
The person we see as "being musical" hasn't always had musical abilities. They have spent
many hours over many years practising and developing their abilities to become musical.
This separates them from the person we see as mathematical. This person has spent their
time developing their mathematical skills to become a mathematician.

Specialisation, Not Categorisation
The same could be said of every person we meet. We recognise them the way they are
today because they have spent their lives developing their current skills and abilities. Behind
the category we put them in is a lifetime of specialisation.
In other words, this nudge is about recognising the importance of becoming before being.
Applying this nudge helps us more accurately understand Howard Gardner’s work on
Multiple Intelligences. Gardner first recognised seven, then eight different types of
intelligence: linguistic, logical- mathematical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, musical, spatial,
bodily-kinaesthetic and naturalistic. In the forward of the 2011 edition of Frames of Mind,
Gardner points out that in the West, people interpreted his work by asking, "Which
intelligence do I have?" But in the East, they more correctly interpreted his work to ask, "How
do I get good at all of them?" The latter understood these intelligences were categories in
which we could all develop. They also recognised that some individuals demonstrated what a
lifetime of specialisation in these areas could achieve.
The challenge of recognising specialisation is that the long process of developing talents and
abilities is often hidden from view. We don't see it happening. We only see the individual
once they have acquired their talents, giving the impression they have always had them. As
we'll discuss when we explore the nudges of "value the backstory" and "close the Greatness
Gap", many nudges are designed to focus our attention on the importance of becoming over
time (specialisation), rather than the state of being, which is the category we are in at the
moment.

Strengths Are Relative, Not Absolute
“There's nothing wrong with building on your strengths, as long
as it's not at the expense of believing you can't build on your
weaknesses.”
James Anderson
Do you remember being identified as having a strength in a particular area when you were a
child? Borrowing from Gardner's work, perhaps you had a strength in linguistic intelligence.
You may have even been categorised and labelled as being the type of person who's good at
languages.
In the Fixed Mindset view of the world, a child with a strength in languages will become an
adult who is good at languages. And if your strength is in languages rather than, say, maths,
then languages will always be your strength. You'll always be better at languages and always
struggle with maths. Consequently, you're seen to be "better suited" to some paths in life
than others.
Of course, when we think about it, as a child, you were not actually very good at anything.
Children don't have adult-level abilities and can't perform to adult standards. You weren't
writing novels or composing powerful speeches as a child. You were simply "good for your
age". And it is the relative nature of your strengths that we focus on in this nudge.
A "strength" doesn't mean you're strong in that area; it just means you are stronger or better
in that area relative to others, or relative to a particular standard – in this case, the standard
of your peers. If you change what you measure against and compare your language abilities
as a child to those of someone who's spent many years developing their language abilities to
a high level, you suddenly look weak in languages.
Similarly, your "weakness" in maths does not necessarily mean you are bad at maths. If
you've put in significant practice, your relative weakness in maths might still allow you to
reach higher standards than someone whose "strength" is in maths, relative to the standards
they are reaching in other areas.
And that, of course, is as it should be. Significant talents and abilities take a long time to
develop – the specialisation process we focused on in the last nudge. And they don't develop

Strengths Are Relative, Not Absolute
simply because we get older. They develop because we engage in the learning process,
practising, rewiring our brains and developing greater abilities. The more we engage in that
process, the better we get. All of which takes time, so we get older during that process.
Why is this nudge so important? Because we often need reminding that a strength does not
necessarily make you good at something! And we also need reminding that our profile of
strengths and weaknesses is not static. Although languages might have been your strength
as a child, if you put more effort into maths, that could become your strength as an adult.
It's natural to want to compare ourselves to others. And it's natural to compare our abilities in
one area to our abilities in another. But we need to remember that these comparisons are
against moving measuring sticks. The people we compare ourselves to are also improving.
Similarly, our abilities in other areas are changing. Any relative comparisons we make are
only useful for that point in time; they’re not a judgement of our abilities for life. That's what
this nudge does. It reminds us that strengths are relative, not absolute.
The danger of being identified as having a strength as a child is that you become
categorised. As we've discussed, this acts as a negative Mindset Mover, potentially locking
you into the belief that you will always be that way. A similar story of categorisation is true for
people who are told they have a weakness. Rather than "being" something, they "aren't"
something.
The point of this nudge is to remind us that the talents and abilities a person has today do not
dictate where they will be in the future. We create our talents and abilities through our efforts.
And our future talents and abilities are certainly not determined, or limited by, comparing
ourselves to others.
What if you want to build on your strengths? That's fine! To reach a high level of performance
in any given area, you'll almost certainly need to do that. This nudge reminds us that we have
the choice to build on our current weaknesses and make them our future strengths. There's
nothing wrong with building on your strengths, as long as it's not at the expense of believing
you can't build on your weaknesses.

Present Choices, Not Filters
“There's a big difference between not getting better at
something because you don't want to, and not getting better
because you don't believe you can.”
James Anderson
The idea of choice and the exercise of free will is a recurring theme in our work with Growth
Mindset. Someone with a Fixed Mindset believes who they are today is the person they will
be tomorrow. As a result, their choices in life are limited by who they are. They are "cut out
for" some things and not others. A person with a Growth Mindset understands they have the
choice to change themselves. They can choose to become a different person tomorrow if
they want or need to be. They can "cut themselves out" for whatever role they choose.
Each nudge in this book is designed to remind learners they can exercise their free will and
choose who they become. This nudge – present choices, not filters – is no different.
Most schools would say they give students choice. We offer a wide range of subjects for
students to choose from. We provide multiple pathways. At the end of middle school, as
students move into their final years of schooling, they are offered choices that will lead them
to different career paths or courses at university. Choices empower students to take charge
of their learning.
Certainly, there's a wide range of subjects and pathways on offer. But consider, for a
moment, how students perceive these options. Do they perceive these options as choices
they can select? Or do they perceive these options as a filtering system that selects them?
The difference is critical. In the former, students have free will. In the latter, they don’t. Let's
take a moment to explore this.
Think of the way a filter works. It discriminates based on some fixed characteristic. What is
being filtered has no choice at all – the filter does the choosing. For example, your
sunglasses are likely to have a UV filter on the lenses. This coating lets visible light through
but blocks ultraviolet light. The filter essentially chooses – albeit passively – what type of light
is allowed to pass through the lens.

Present Choices, Not Filters
When students view the options their school presents, are they more likely to see choice or a
filter? Does the system appear to discriminate based on the type of student they are or
empower them to become the person they want to be? Do they feel they can choose from
any of the options presented? Or do they think the school decides which options they are
most suited to?
If a student believes decisions are being made about them, and that the system
discriminates between different types of students, this is a negative Mindset Mover. On the
other hand, if the system empowers the student to make choices and carefully prepares
them to succeed, this is a positive Mindset Mover.
This nudge, "present choices, not filters," is about this distinction. Who is perceived as really
making the choices? The system or the student?

Group by Verbs, Not Adjectives
“Labels are for jars, not for people.”
Anthony Rapp
We've explored some of the challenges associated with categorising students. Negative
Mindset Movers are created when these categories become labels, and the labels become
part of a student’s identity.
But there are times when it's helpful and practical to group students together. So, how can
we do this and not have the groups become categories, and categories become labels?
The solution is to group students by using verbs, not adjectives. We group students by what
they do, not by who they are.
Verbs are about what a student does. They describe their actions; the things a student
understands they have a choice and control over. As a result, when group by verbs they act
as positive Mindset Movers.
On the other hand, adjectives describe the qualities of a student. They are about who the
student is and describe the things a student does not see they have control over. As a result,
when we group by adjectives they may act as negative Mindset Movers.
For example, instead of using the term "music students", we'd say, "students studying
music". The first term describes a discrete category of student: musical students. The second
describes an action students undertake: studying music.
When we use the term "music students", students may ask themselves whether they are that
type of student. Are they musical? Do they have musical ability? Do they belong to that
category? The term itself acts like a filter and may create a negative Mindset Mover. It's
about "being" a music student, not becoming one.
When we use the term "students studying music", a student can easily decide whether they
want to study music or not. This is a positive Mindset Mover because it is clear the student
has a choice and they are in charge. They can choose to do the studying, and they can

Group by Verbs, Not Adjectives
choose whether they want to be a student who studies music. It's about the becoming, not
the being.
Similarly, instead of talking about our "high-achieving students", we'd talk about our "students
who are achieving highly". In this way, students who are achieving high standards are not a
type of student (“the smart kids”); they are normal students who are doing something to
achieve highly. Phrasing our groups using verbs keeps the group of "students" as a single
entity, without categorising or labelling them.
This nudge, like all the others, does not simply apply to the way we group students. It is a
message that needs repeating throughout schools and the wider community. For example,
applying this nudge to the way we talk about teachers means we wouldn’t have "science
teachers" or "Grade Two teachers". Instead, we'd have teachers of science and teachers of
Grade Twos.
"Group by verbs, not adjectives" helps us create positive Mindset Movers by placing a focus
on what students do, not who they are. When a student experiences this type of message
consistently and subtly throughout the school environment, it reinforces that the school is
focused on the process of becoming, not being.

Create Potential
“Learning is not a way of reaching your potential. Learning is a
way of building your potential.”
Anders Ericsson
Potential is an interesting word. Take a moment to Google the word "potential" and look at
the various memes and definitions that come up. Or talk to your friends and colleagues about
its meaning. Nearly all the definitions are about "reaching", “achieving" or "fulfilling" your
potential.
Theodore Roosevelt famously said, "You can't choose your potential, but you can choose to
fulfil it." This suggests that some people have great potential, and if they work hard, they may
one day achieve it. But if they don't work hard, they may fail to reach it. Others are born with
less potential, which they may reach more quickly, but they are unable to attain the level of
those lucky enough to be born with high potential.
In common usage, some people have lots of potential, others not so much. Sometimes, the
word “potential” is applied to a specific domain. For example, someone might be said to have
potential in music, or art, or leadership. Corporates spend large sums of money trying to
identify "high-potential employees". Overwhelmingly, the message is that our best hope in life
is to reach our full (pre-determined) potential.
Portraying potential as a limited and fixed quantity that lives inside us, waiting to be tapped
into, is a negative Mindset Mover. It speaks to the idea that we have no control over our
potential. It suggests that some people were lucky enough to have been born with lots of
potential, while others were not. In many ways, “having potential" is a generalised form of the
categories we've already spoken about.
This nudge steers us away from the limited notion of fixed potential and focuses on the
process of creating potential.
The truth is, there is no hidden reservoir of potential inside of us. There's nothing to "tap
into". Instead, we all work to the maximum of our current potential. We perform to the peak of
our current abilities. Our goal is not to tap into something that already exists, but to create
something that doesn’t exist! This echoes back to our first nudge, “learning is about creating,
not discovering”. The same holds true for the concept of potential. Anders Ericsson, the
Create Potential
expertise expert, describes it best when he says, "Learning isn't a way of reaching your
potential. Learning, is a way of building your potential!"
Our discussions about potential should not focus on identifying students with potential or
evaluating how much potential a student has. It should focus on the actions students and
teachers take to help students build new capacities and increase their abilities, making it
possible to do better and reach increasingly higher standards.
When we look closely at the idea that potential is a built-in part of us, it quickly falls apart. For
example, the standards achieved in world-class performances in any given field universally
rise year after year, decade after decade. What’s considered to be the world’s best is
eclipsed and becomes second best until eventually, it’s deemed average.
So, how is it that the world’s best keeps getting better? Could it be that previous “bests” only
used part of their potential – that they underperformed and could have done better? Could it
be that we use more of our potential today, or that people are being born with more potential
than in the past? Or is it the more likely explanation (and the one backed by the research of
people like Ericsson) that we've simply learnt how to build our potential? That once one
person has learnt how to reach a particular standard, it's relatively quicker for others to reach
that standard and then slowly build on it?
This nudge, “create potential”, reminds us that potential isn’t pre-determined. It’s something
we can choose to work on and build. Our discussion about potential, if we choose to discuss
it at all, should be focused on how we currently lack the potential to achieve at a higher
standard, and what we are doing to increase our potential and create an even higher
standard.
Put Time Stamps on Performance
“Your best is only your best when you measure it by
yesterday’s standards. By tomorrow’s standards, it will be your
second best.”
James Anderson
The concept of doing one’s best is something we often talk about. We ask students to do
their best. We expect their best work. But what do we really mean when we say we've “done
our best”?
In the world of the Fixed Mindset, "your best" is a problematic concept. When you believe
your talents and abilities are fixed, "your best" is also fixed. To do your best is to reveal your
limits – something that, from the Fixed Mindset perspective, you don't want to do.
On the other hand, someone with a Growth Mindset understands they can build their talents
and abilities. They know that as they build them, their standards will continue to grow. They
understand their best is only their current best when they measure it by yesterday's
standards. By tomorrow's standards, it will be their second best. Whatever standard they
achieve today, they are capable of bettering it.
This nudge is about recognising that constant growth is not only possible; it’s expected. And
the simple way to do this is to attach a time stamp to our current performance. Our best is
not our absolute best. It's our current best, our best to date, our best so far, our best this
year, etc.
Attaching a time stamp does not take away from an accomplishment or standard reached.
It's important to recognise the goals you have achieved as part of your learning journey. But
at the same time, it's also important to understand that these goals are milestones of a longer
journey. Every time we attach a time stamp to an achievement, we recognise that
improvement has taken place. We’ve reached a new high, but we also recognise there is a
future full of other achievements and higher standards in front of us.
It's important we don't become too attached to "our bests". By attaching time stamps, we
recognise that the milestones and achievements that mark "our best" belong to a moment in
time, not ourselves. Writing a book is undoubtedly an achievement. Most authors would
Put Time Stamps on Performance
consider their published book their best work (at the time). But the process of writing a book
can be described like this:
You work hard for about a year to produce your best work. It takes another 3 – 6 months to
get the work published (sometimes longer). Then you spend the next 12 months feeling
vaguely ill about what you've done! The reason, of course, is that by the time people read
your book, your work is a year or more old. It's no longer your best work. You've moved on.
But the book marks a point in time when it was your best work. Your next book will be even
better!
By putting time stamps on performances, we are reminded to acknowledge a milestone in

our growth, and a future that will be characterised by further improvement.
Build Better Brains
“Teachers are the 21st century’s neural engineers.”
James Anderson
Our understanding of how the brain works has burgeoned over the past 30 years. What we
used to think of as a mostly static and unchangeable organ has been revealed to be a highly
dynamic structure. Throughout our lives, the brain continually changes the way neurons are
connected, the strength of those connections and the way individual neurons behave in
networks.
This is the concept of neuroplasticity. It is this concept that underpins much of our work with
Growth Mindsets: the reality that our brain can rewire itself in response to learning to create
new talents and abilities.
If our brains were static and unchanging, it’s likely our talents and abilities would also be
static and unchanging. Our potential would be built into the existing architecture of the brain,
waiting to be tapped into (as we explored in the nudge, “create potential”). If you were born
with a brain that had certain abilities, then your learning would be about accessing those
abilities. If you were born with a brain that didn't have those abilities, then you could never
acquire them. The brain you’re born with and the brain you die with would look very similar,
the only changes being those accumulated through injury or disease.
But that’s not how our brains work. What we think of as talents and abilities are not pre-wired
into our brain. Instead, our experiences and learning rewire our brains to allow them to do
things they literally could not do before. Over a lifetime of learning, we physically build
ourselves a better brain! So, on a very practical level, learning is the process of rewiring our
brains.
Learning does not create a generally better brain. It creates a specifically better brain. People
who practise different things and develop different abilities have different brains as a result!
For example, when we look at the brains of violinists, we find they have very highly
developed areas controlling their left hand – the hand that does most of the work controlling
the strings. The area controlling their right hand, which controls the bow, is less well
developed. For people who don't play violin, these areas of the brain are less well developed.
Build Better Brains
For people who speak two or more languages, the languages "live" in different parts of their
brain. An injury or surgery to one part of the brain can destroy the capacity to speak one
language but leave the other language intact.
Furthermore, people who excel at maths have recognisably larger and more complex
development in certain parts of their brain.
The most exciting thing about the above examples is that these people didn't always have
brains with those talents and abilities. The process of practice and learning changed their
brains to create their abilities. The brain we are born with is not the same brain we die with!
Which is a good thing, because the brain we are born with isn’t capable of much in terms of
higher-order thinking, talents and abilities.
Of course, it's not as simple as looking at someone’s brain, pointing to a particular neuron
and saying, "That's the connection that does your six times tables!" The brain is an
enormously complex and still not fully understood organ. However, our growing knowledge of
the brain and how it functions clearly shows that learning results in physical changes to the
structure and function of the brain – which is exactly what this nudge, “build better brains”, is
all about.
This nudge creates a positive Mindset Mover because it reminds us that at its heart, learning
is about engaging students in a process that helps them build better brains. These "new"
brains create connections that make students capable of things they weren't capable of
before. (This is also the underlying reality of our earlier nudge, "specialisation, not
categorisation". Essentially, specialisation is the process of rewiring our brain to create new
abilities.)
In this sense, education is truly a transformative process. The role of the teacher is to rewire
a student’s brain. We truly are neural engineers!
So, when a student complains, "My brain doesn't do that," or, "I'm just not good at that sort of
thing," we can honestly tell them that their brain doesn't do that. But with the right sort of
practice, we can build them a better brain. And when they talk about how someone else has
an amazing brain for something, we can remind them that they didn't always have that brain.
They built themselves that brain, and our students can do that, too!
Close the Greatness Gap
“The overnight part of the ‘overnight success’ is just the
sudden recognition of all those years of hard work.”
Kent Clothier
Do you remember being amazed the first time you encountered someone with extraordinary
talents and abilities? Perhaps you were at a concert, and the musician was remarkably
talented. Or you read someone's book and were struck by the depth of their thinking. Or you
were studying someone in history and became dumbfounded by the scope of their
achievements.
We've all had moments like these. We witness someone’s achievements or abilities, usually
for the first time, and find them almost unbelievable. This is the experience of the Greatness
Gap.
Recognising differences between ourselves and other is easy. It’s how we explain these
differences to ourselves that’s the issue. And that’s why we create the Greatness Gap. We
believe in the illusion that somehow, some people can achieve great things, but we cannot.
There is a chasm between us we can never
There are two broad ways to explain the Greatness Gap. One acts as a very negative
Mindset Mover, and the other as a positive Mindset Mover. This nudge is designed to create
the positive Mindset Mover by "closing the Greatness Gap".
The problem with the Greatness Gap is that we usually find it difficult to explain how
someone is so different from ourselves or other people. Because they appear so different,
our first response is often to recognise, "I'm not like that." We attribute their abilities to who
they are, instead of what they've done. We tell ourselves we're "not like that" and, in doing
so, create a permanent Greatness Gap – one we can never close – because we aren't and
can never be like them. This is the negative Mindset Mover.
The positive Mindset Mover is to close the Greatness Gap. We do this by recognising that
although a difference exists, it's not because of who the person is, but rather, it’s because of

what they have done. There is no “gap”. Instead, there's a pathway we didn't see at first. It's
a pathway between the person they used to be without their current talents and abilities, and
the person they are today with their talents and abilities. Our focus shifts from "being"
different to the process of "becoming" different. The positive Mindset Mover is to fill in the
backstory to show how the person acquired their talents and abilities.
We need to fill in the backstory because we rarely see it happening. We create the
Greatness Gap because we see the person’s abilities in the absence of their backstory. We
didn't know them when they were a talentless teenager. We didn't know them through their
years of practice. No one celebrated them when they were "kind of good". We become aware
of them, for the first time, when we see them achieve something.
Filling in the backstory makes their achievements real. It's the story of their years of hard
work, dedication and time spent rewiring their brain to become the person they are now with
their talents and abilities. It provides the pathway between where they are today and where
they were in the past. And, as we'll see in our next nudge, "value the backstory", filling in the
backstory helps us appreciate the real achievement, which is the years spent becoming.
Recognising this pathway means we understand the person hasn't always had their talents
and abilities. It helps us recognise that a similar path is open to ourselves and others if we
choose to follow it. Perhaps more importantly, when we consistently close the Greatness
Gap, we recognise that all great talents and abilities have similar backstories of time and
practice. This helps us better appreciate that we aren't expected to find our talents and
abilities within us, but we are expected to build our backstory and develop the talents and
abilities we choose.
The genius of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is a classic example of the Greatness
Gap. In the community at large, Mozart is portrayed as a natural genius, someone unlike
other people. And although he was unlike (almost) anyone else, when we close the
Greatness Gap, his story becomes so much more remarkable.
In Mozart's time, most people didn't begin learning music until they were in their mid to late
teens. They certainly didn't reach standards that were considered expert and world-class
until their early 30s. But Mozart began practising when he was a child. In fact, it's been
calculated that he may have accumulated as many as 3,000 hours of practice by the age of
seven. This practice was conducted under the tutelage of his father, an accomplished
musician and composer with deep content knowledge and expertise, and who was also an
expert teacher.
Art historians tell us that far from being a child genius, Mozart’s early works were not
significant on an adult scale. It wasn't until he was 21 that he began writing and performing
works that recognised him as a genius. (If Mozart had died as an 18-year-old, history
probably would have forgotten him – he just wasn't that good then).
But to see a young man composing and performing music at that level at 21 years of age
was utterly unique at the time. No one had ever seen it before. People could not explain how
someone so young could reach such a level of expertise. After all, other experts were at least
10 years older. All people could see was the Greatness Gap.
Today, when we fill in critical aspects of Mozart’s backstory, we recognise his achievement
was not so different from other experts at the time. Mozart simply had the opportunity to
begin practising 10 years before most other people! Between the ages of 5 – 21, he
practised for about 10,000 hours. Other people also practised for about 10,000 hours, but
between the ages of 15 – 30. It's an almost identical backstory.
But most people only see the Greatness Gap, and, consequently, they see Mozart as
different. Of course, he was different from most people. Most people don't practise music for
10,000 hours before they are 21 years old, or have the opportunity to do it under the tutelage
of an expert musician, composer and teacher (who happens to be their father)! This was
what made him different – not a pre-determined or fixed trait.
Mozart himself made this point when, in a letter to his father, he wrote, "People make a great
mistake who think my art has come easily to me. No one has devoted so much time and
thought to composition as I."
By closing the Greatness Gap, we reveal the pathway between who the person was before
and who we see them as today. We also more clearly recognise the real achievement, which
is in the becoming, not the being, as we'll explore in our next nudge.
Value the Backstory
“Talents don't create a process; they are the end result of that
process.”
Anders Ericsson
The concept of the backstory is critical to developing a Growth Mindset. It brings our
attention to the becoming, rather than the being. And, in reality, the backstory is where the
value lies. This nudge is about ensuring we place value on the backstory.
It's appropriate that we celebrate successes and achievements. When, in 1953, Sir Edmund
Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first people to reach the summit of Mt Everest, we
celebrated their accomplishment. But we didn't call them mountain stander-on-top-of-ers! We
called them mountain climbers. Standing on top of Everest was just evidence of their
achievement. Their real achievement was their climb to the top – the backstory of their
ascent.
As we saw in the last nudge, when we recognise an achievement or ability in the absence of
the backstory, we create the negative Mindset Mover of the Greatness Gap. So, we
introduced the idea of "closing the Greatness Gap". In this nudge, “value the backstory”, we
not only close the Greatness Gap by filling in the backstory, but we also place the
appropriate value on it. It's about valuing, not merely recognising, the process of climbing the
mountain.
There is a story about Picasso that beautifully highlights this idea of the value being in the
backstory.
Picasso was in Central Park, New York, when a young woman recognised him and asked,
"Could you draw me a picture, please?”
Picasso got out his sketchpad and pencil and quickly sketched a portrait of the young
woman.
Thrilled with the result, she thanked Picasso as he handed her the finished sketch. But
before the woman could turn to leave, Picasso said, "That will be $10,000, please."

Value the Backstory
Shocked, the woman replied, "Ten thousand dollars?! How can you charge that much? It
only took you two minutes!"
Calmly, Picasso replied, "Young lady, you misunderstand me. That sketch didn't take me two
minutes. That sketch took me a lifetime."
Picasso understood the value was not in the short period of time it took to sketch the portrait.
The value was in the lifetime he had spent becoming the person who could sketch the
portrait in two minutes. So, he priced his work accordingly. When tasks require little skill, we
pay by the hour. When they require talents and abilities developed over long periods, we pay
by the backstory!
Too often, particularly in schools, we put all the value on the finished product and fail to put it
on the backstory. We view the finished product in the same way we view standing atop a
mountain – as evidence that you completed the task/climb. But this is not always appropriate.
What if Hillary and Norgay had fallen slightly short of the summit? Their climb would still have
been an extraordinary achievement! And what if the achievement is not so difficult? What if,
as can happen today, you climb to the top of Everest, but someone carries your bags,
organises the entire trip, solves all your problems, and all that’s left for you to do is reach the
top? Still not an easy task, but not the same achievement as Hillary and Norgay made.
This nudge, "value the backstory", encourages us not only to recognise the backstory, but to
respect it. In schools, we often recognise value in terms of grades, so it makes sense that a
component of that grade should be made up of the backstory. We might, for example, give a
portion of the final grade to how well the student engaged in the drafting process. In middle
school, we might give 50% of the final grade to the standard of the essay or assignment, and
the other 50% to how well the student engaged in the learning process – their backstory of
how they responded to feedback and improved between their first and final drafts.
Or we could value the backstory less quantitatively but more formally with school prizes. Our
premier award, instead of focusing on academic achievement, might be introduced like this:
“I'd like to introduce onto the stage our ‘School Name Award Winners’. The students
receiving this award are not necessarily the ones who have achieved the highest grades, as
we value and celebrate not just where a student is up to in their learning, but what they have
done to get there. We recognise that the value in learning, and the value in schooling in
general, is in the becoming, not the being. So, today we recognise those students who are
focused on becoming the best learners they can be."
Value the Backstory
Of course, at the end of the day, it's often the achievements that matter. We want students to
reach the standards we set them. We are interested in the person who reaches the summit,
not the one who falls short. However, these achievements are only reached when students
engage in and build their backstories. So, our award introduction continues like this:
"But please, make no mistake. The very fact these students have been engaging so carefully
in the process of learning, and are focused on becoming better learners, means that many of
them have, in fact, achieved some of the highest standards in the school. Nonetheless, we
recognise that any standard they are at today will become their second-best tomorrow as
they continue to grow. So, we value not just where they are up to, but also how effectively
they engage in the process that will help them to become the people they want to be
tomorrow."
Mindsets Masterclass Singapore
Growth Mindset Style
Guide
It’s What You Do, Not Who You Are
“Acting is what I do, it's not who I am.”
Sam Neill
We've already discussed the nudge "group by verbs, not by adjectives". This nudge applies
to how we label and identify groups, e.g. instead of saying “high-achieving students”, we say
“students who are achieving highly”. The focus is to group students by what they do, not who
they are. Being "high-achieving" is something students "are", while “achieving highly” is
something they “do”.
This same idea can be applied to ourselves as individuals. And when it is, it takes the form
of, "It's what I do, not who I am." This nudge helps separate ourselves – our identity – from
our actions. We are not our job. We are not our behaviours. These are just actions we
engage in, and they may change. This nudge reminds us to attach these changeable actions
to a moment in time, not to our core identity.
For example, how do you respond when someone asks you, "What do you do?" If you're like
most people, you don't actually answer the question, which is what do you do? Instead, you'll
respond with a statement that starts with, "I'm a ... (teacher, nurse, parent, musician, etc.).”
By default, we tend to respond by telling people what we are rather than what we do.
When we define ourselves by our role (“I'm a ...”), we essentially create a category for
ourselves. As we've already explored, a category attached to identity carries the danger of
acting as a negative Mindset Mover. Similarly, when we describe ourselves in the same way
to others, such as the students we teach, we perpetuate this same negative Mindset Mover.
For example, when this idea of “I’m a …” is repeated (and often combined with other
negative Mindset Movers), the person on the low-growth end of the Mindset Continuum will
ask themselves, "Well, if these people are all teachers, nurses, parents, musicians, etc., then
what am I?" They will start looking inside themselves to discover who they are and which
category they belong to, rather than looking outside themselves and asking, “How do I learn
to do the things these people do?”

It’s What You Do, Not Who You Are
The next time someone asks you, "What do you do?", this nudge of “it’s not what you do, it’s
who you are” may lead you to respond with, "I teach biology to 11th graders." If you combine
this nudge with the nudge of "put time stamps on performances", you could say, "At the
moment, I'm nursing at the local hospital." And if you also add the "close the Greatness Gap"
nudge, you could say, "I've spent the past 20 years learning and getting better at playing
guitar. Now I play in a band as the lead guitarist." This kind of answer changes the
information you communicate in an important way: it shifts the focus from who you are in a
permanent sense (your identity) to what you are doing at this moment.
Sam Neill, who has won numerous awards for acting, finds it useful to think of himself as
someone who acts, rather than an actor. He says, “Acting is what I do, it’s not who I am.” The
reason he makes this distinction is because he's often "between jobs", and if you are an
actor but you’re not acting, then who are you? On the other hand, if acting is something you
do, then when you're between jobs, you are simply not acting at that moment. You might be
doing something else, but it doesn't impact your identity.
And this nudge doesn’t only apply to our jobs. It applies to other actions we may risk
attaching to who we are. For example, the positive terms "clever" and "caring" and the
negative terms "naughty" and "rude" are sometimes applied to a person's identity: Michael is
a clever kid; Dad is a caring person; Sarah is a naughty girl; Phillip is a rude boy. In each
case, the behaviour is linked to who the person is. The words become a category these
people belong to, rather than a way of merely describing what they are doing. This nudge,
“it’s what you do, not who you are”, helps us reframe these statements to: Michael did a
clever thing; Dad cares for us all the time; Sarah did something naughty; Phillip was rude.
Bringing focus to the action makes it about choice, not identity.
Of course, as historian Will Durant said in paraphrasing Aristotle's work, "We are what we
repeatedly do." It feels natural to describe someone as "being" something if we witness them
repeatedly doing that thing. However, we should be wary of this way of thinking. Because
what we repeatedly do can change! What we repeatedly do is just what we do at the
moment.
Get Better, Not Busy
“Why get busy when you can be getting better?”
James Anderson
When Lev Vygotsky described the Zone of Proximal Development, he was talking about that
place just beyond our current abilities. It's where we are challenged, that feeling of being
stretched. It's not too far beyond our current abilities – it's a stretch, not a strain. Challenges
in this zone are just out of reach, but we get the sense that we can achieve them with effort. I
call this our Learning Zone because its where true learning takes place.
How we find ourselves in our Learning Zone varies. Sometimes, we take ourselves there. We
seek challenges to stretch ourselves. They might be difficult, but they are "desirable
difficulties" because they help us grow. Other times, the world forces us into our Learning
Zone. We face adversity because of circumstances beyond our control. And sometimes, a
teacher takes us there. School pushes us into our Learning Zone much of the time. However,
it happens, when we are in our Learning Zone, the situation asks more of us than we are
currently capable of, so if we are to succeed, we must grow and develop new abilities. In
other words, to succeed in increasingly difficult tasks, we must learn to behave more
intelligently.
But not all learning is like this. Sometimes, the things we need to do don't stretch us at all.
They are easy for us. We might be learning something entirely new, something we've never
known or done before, but we are not learning something more difficult. It's not stretching us.
This type of learning takes place in our Comfort Zone. All we need for this type of learning is
to apply the abilities we already have. Our Comfort Zone is full of things we have the ability to
do but have just never done. We are already "smart enough”. These tasks might take time
and energy to achieve, but they don't challenge us. They are "easy things we haven't done
yet".
The difference between the Learning Zone and the Comfort Zone is the difference between a
problem and a task. A problem demands we grow; it helps makes us smarter. A task takes
time and energy; it keeps us busy.
Each time you stretch yourself into your Learning Zone, two things must happen. Firstly, you
learn to do something more difficult. Secondly, and more importantly, you learn to behave in

a way that allows you to achieve it. You learn to be smarter. As a result, you not only learn to
do one new thing, but you also build the potential to do many more things. Learning to be
smarter increases the size of your Comfort Zone!
When you're young, your Comfort Zone isn't very big. If you think about it, there's not all that
much an eight-year-old can do compared to an adult. At that age, you need to get better just
to get by. Fortunately, we have schools and parents that intentionally stretch you and teach
you to behave more intelligently. As a result, the number of things you can do and, more
importantly, the number of things you could do grows. At some point, the number of things in
your Comfort Zone, the easy things you haven't done yet, gets enormous!
And that's when the problems start.
Many people reach this point in their lives when they've built their capacities and intelligence
to a level where the world opens up to them. They're "pretty clever". And they are seduced
into getting busy. The first part of their lives is spent getting better. The second part is spent
being busy!
You might wonder why this is a problem. After all, why not use your abilities to do the things
that come easily to you? Why continue to stretch yourself if you don't need to? The reason is
that once you stop stretching yourself and learning to be smarter, some problems will forever
be too difficult for you.
You see, there is a region beyond your Learning Zone, where the challenges are far too
difficult for you to achieve in one step. This is your Aspirational Zone.
Most of the things you do today, as an adult, were in your Aspirational Zone when you were
a child. You couldn't have done them even if you tried. But as you grew and learned how to
be smarter, the things that were once too hard for you moved into your Learning Zone, then
into your Comfort Zone. Even if you never choose to attempt some of these tasks, once
you’re smart enough, rather than being out of your reach, they are simply easy things you
haven't done yet.
When you stop growing, the challenges in your Aspirational Zone stay there forever. This is
where most people's regrets in life come from. At some point, they stop growing. Although
they may be busy, that busy-ness is spent on easy tasks that don’t enable them to grow.
From then on, everything that is out of their reach stays out of reach. Some things will always
be "too hard".
There are a lot of things you could do with your life. Just because you can do something
doesn't mean you should. We need to make choices. We don't live long enough to do
everything. This nudge, “get better, not busy”, is about reminding ourselves and others that
we should be in the habit of constantly getting a little better at the things we choose.
Ultimately, the pay-off for consistently spending some of our time growing is that our Comfort
Zone grows exponentially. As we get older and smarter, we realise the things that used to be
beyond us are now within our Comfort Zone.
If you have a choice between getting better and getting busy, choose to get better every
time!
Ask yourself and your students, did you spend today getting better, or did you spend it
getting busy?
Stretch, Don’t Strain
“Learning should involve stretch, not strain.”
James Anderson
Tasks you can complete easily, with little effort, are in your Comfort Zone. These may be
things you mastered a long time ago, or they may be the "easy things you haven't done yet".
The point is that when you're in your Comfort Zone, the task is well within your current
abilities.
When you're doing your best, you're in your Performance Zone. In this zone, you bring all
your current abilities to the task to achieve your best possible result. Your Performance Zone
is your (current) peak performance. But, like your Comfort Zone, you only use the skills
you've already got. They may be your most well-developed skills, but they are still skills you
already have.
The problem with your Comfort and Performance Zones is that when you're in them, you're
not improving. You're challenging yourself to do more, not better. You might "accomplish"
things and tick them off your list. They might even be important things. But these tasks
demand nothing more of you than what you already have. You’re not growing.
To grow, you have to push yourself beyond your current best. You need to stretch yourself
and attempt challenges that are just beyond your current abilities. You must go into your
Learning Zone.
Of course, the problem with stretching beyond your current abilities is that, at first, you tend
to fail. After all, if you could do better than your best, we'd call that your best! So, your
Learning Zone is characterised by making mistakes and often failing. This is a perfectly
normal part of the learning process, as we'll see again in the nudges about "normalising
struggle" and "Stretch. Correct. Repeat".
However, the key to successful learning is the information these struggles and mistakes
provide so we can find our way forward. Mistakes inform our learning. They help us build
new connections in our brains so we can develop the abilities that will allow us to work at this

new, higher level. We see small amounts of progress for the effort we put in. This only
happens when we work just beyond our current abilities. We want to be stretched, not
strained.
Not everything beyond our current best is in our Learning Zone. Only those problems just
beyond our current best are in this zone. When a problem demands much more than our
current abilities, when we are stretched too far and it becomes a strain, we enter our
Aspirational Zone. In this zone, the mistakes that occur make us scratch our head. They
don't give us enough information to see a clear way forward. We feel like the effort we put in
goes up and up, but progress stops.
Our Aspirational Zone is beyond our current reach. We can get there, eventually, but not in
one go. We must build our abilities slowly and incrementally.
It's important to note that building our abilities incrementally is not the same thing as breaking
a big (easy) task into smaller (easy) tasks. It’s about finding the problems that stretch you
just enough, creating mistakes and shortfalls, to inform your learning and help you grow.
Understanding the difference between the Learning and Aspirational Zones is of critical
importance in the classroom. Students who are stretched and supported in their Learning
Zone will grow. Students who are strained well beyond their current abilities into their
Aspirational Zone will fail. This isn't because of their lack of effort (although many will
eventually give up as they repeatedly experience failure). It is because learning can't take
place in the Aspirational Zone. We don't have the ability to work in our Aspirational Zone, and
we can't develop those abilities quickly. Our brains can only rewire a little bit at a time. We
build new abilities slowly.
When we truly understand the importance of the Learning Zone, it ensures we teach to each
student’s learning needs. We must meet them at their individual Learning Zone.
If, on the other hand, we try to force students to learn at a pace to suit our teaching needs,
making them learn what our curriculum demands, then we may set them up to fail. Of course,
our curriculums are designed to provide (typically) enough stretch, year after year, to ensure
growth. And they are mostly successful at this. However, if a student falls behind for any
reason, stretching them too far beyond their current abilities is time wasted.
True learning, learning that builds new abilities, takes place in the Learning Zone. We waste
students’ time when we keep them in their Comfort or Performance Zones for too long.
Although they may be busy in these zones, they are not getting better. We likewise waste
students’ time when we push them too far beyond their current abilities, into the Aspirational
Zone. Skilful teaching is about identifying students’ learning zones and targeting accordingly.
This nudge, “stretch, not strain”, is about getting the amount of stretch right. We should
stretch and challenge students. But we shouldn't strain them. As we'll see later, the struggle
needs to be Productive Struggle.
Learn to be Smarter
“Learning to be smarter makes hard things easier.”
James Anderson
Professor Carol Dweck defines the Growth Mindset as the belief that your most basic
characteristics, such as your talents and abilities, are malleable. I'd take this definition one
step further.
Based on our understanding of brain plasticity, the work on talent acquisition by people like
Professor Anders Ericsson, and the work on intelligent behaviours (Habits of Mind) by
Professor Art Costa and Dr Bena Kallick , I'd define the Growth Mindset as the understanding
that our most basic characteristics, such as our talents and abilities, are malleable.
The difference between a belief and an understanding is evidence. A belief requires no

evidence. An understanding must be defendable with evidence. Why is this distinction
important? Because we used to believe that intelligence was a fixed trait. We believed it was
something some people had in abundance, while others never would. The advantage, of
course, of "being" intelligent was that you could do more difficult things. As we'll see below,
we were only half right.
Through Dweck’s work, we discovered the evidence that people who believed they were
capable of growth behaved differently. They accepted challenges, listened to feedback, etc.
As a result, they often (not always) saw growth in their talents and abilities. Many of our
previous nudges – such as “close the Greatness Gap” and “value the backstory” – are
related to recognising and understanding this growth.
Thanks to Ericsson’s research on talent acquisition, we now understand this growth is the
result of a specific process. Ericsson tells us, "Talent is not the cause of something, but the
result. It doesn't create a process but is the end result of that process." This process involves
stretching ourselves just beyond our current abilities and, ideally, with the help of an expert to
guide us, responding to mistakes and feedback. Ericsson describes the process we need to
go through to develop new talents and abilities. Our previous nudges, “get better, not busy”
and “stretch, don’t strain”, remind us of this process.

Learn to be Smarter
The field of neuroplasticity has also informed us about how abilities are developed (not
discovered). The nudges of “build better brains” and “create potential” tap into our underlying
understanding that new abilities are a reflection of new connections in the brain.
Many people are happy to step outside their Comfort Zone, to stretch and challenge
themselves with more difficult tasks. But engaging in this process is only half the job. The
reason why we find our Learning Zone so difficult is because we are not smart enough to
solve these more difficult problems (if we were, we'd call it our Comfort or Performance
Zone). To succeed at problems in our Learning Zone, we must first engage in specific
actions that help us learn how to behave more intelligently.
Many of our nudges specifically focus on the importance of these actions. “Group by verbs,
not adjectives” brings our attention to the doing rather than the being. “It's what you do, not
who you are” likewise focuses on the importance of action.
Stretching into our Learning Zone requires us to engage in a set of actions described by
Costa and Kallick as the Habits of Mind (originally, they were called "Intelligent Behaviours").
Costa and Kallick define the Habits of Mind as the dispositions that are skilfully and mindfully
employed by characteristically successful people when confronted with problems, the
solutions to which are not immediately apparent. In other words, the Habits of Mind are the
behaviours we typically see people engage in effectively when they successfully meet
challenges in their Learning Zone.
And this is where this nudge, “learn to be smarter”, comes in. Believing you are capable of
growth is not the same as achieving the growth. As we've seen, achieving growth requires
you to stretch yourself beyond your current limits. You then must learn to behave more
intelligently by developing your Habits of Mind if you want to achieve those more difficult
goals.
Of the two – stretching yourself into your Learning Zone and developing your Habits of Mind
– it's the latter that’s probably the more difficult. This is because stretching into your learning
zone is something you repeat. However, the Habits of Mind are not static. Although we can
apply them over and over again in our Learning Zone, we don't simply learn them once and
that’s that. They are a developmental set of behaviours. They are behaviours we must learn
to use increasingly skilfully and mindfully. Progressively more difficult problems demand that
we learn to engage in these behaviours more effectively. Our intelligent behaviours, our
Habits of Mind, must be continually developed so we can become more intelligent. We must
“learn to be smarter”.
Learn to be Smarter
So, our original belief that people with intelligence could do more difficult things was
accurate. Our misunderstanding was the idea that the amount of intelligence people had was
fixed. Today, we understand we are capable of learning to be smarter. As we develop our
Habits of Mind, we can stretch ourselves to tackle increasingly difficult problems.
When something is too difficult for you, you find yourself in your Learning Zone. The solution
is to overcome the struggle by learning to be smarter!
Mindsets Masterclass Singapore
Growth Mindset Style
Guide
Make Hard Things Easier
“Rehearsal is the hard work. Performance is relaxing.”
Steve Martin
An interesting thing happens when you learn to be smarter. Things that used to be hard
become easy!
Think about it this way:
Your Performance Zone is where you are at your (current) peak level of performance. It's the
best you can do. It draws on your most well-developed Habits of Mind.
Your Learning Zone is one step beyond your current best, requiring you to develop your
Habits of Mind to succeed.
When you respond to the demands of your Learning Zone, you learn to behave more
intelligently. You engage in your Habits of Mind even more skilfully and mindfully. As a result,
you're able to master the problem that used to be a challenge. What used to be hard has
become easy.
What’s happened is that you pushed a challenge that used to be in your Aspirational Zone
into your Learning Zone. Then, the challenge that was in your Learning Zone became an
ability in your Performance Zone; your newly learned abilities are now your best. And what
you previously considered your best is now your second best.
Steve Martin captures this idea beautifully when he says, "Rehearsal is the hard work.
Performance is relaxing." In rehearsal, you're stretched, you make mistakes. You have to
push yourself to a new level. Once you've put in the work and built a backstory of increasing
ability, the performance becomes easy.
We have a similar experience every time we witness the Greatness Gap. We don't see the
person in their Learning Zone – that's part of their backstory. We see them in their
Performance Zone, or even their Comfort Zone, where they perform with the appearance of
effortlessness. But that’s because the effort was part of their backstory, which we didn't see!

Make Hard Things Easier
We sometimes refer to this process as "raising the bar" – the "bar" being our highest level of
performance. Raising the bar means increasing our current level of performance. This is not
something most people intuitively understand. Your Learning Zone is not a fixed point.
This is something we've all experienced, but somehow seem to forget. When we were in
Grade 1, learning to write was a challenge. It took lots of effort and focus. Today, we think of
writing as a simple task. When we first learn to drive a car, it's hard. Our early days behind
the wheel are among the most dangerous because we aren't yet smart enough to drive well.
But most of us learn to become smart enough so driving becomes second nature.
Similarly, our first year in a new job is often filled with difficulties. But these should be viewed
as desirable difficulties. They help us identify our Learning Zone and can be used to help us
grow. When we respond to difficulties by learning to behave more intelligently, we raise the
bar and increase our performance. With a promotion or two under our belt, we look back, and
the challenges we had in our first year seem easy. We've moved onto more difficult things.
And it's not that we underperformed in our first year of work. We worked to the maximum of
our current abilities. We did our very best at the time. We got on with the process of learning
to be smarter, raised the bar, and the things we used to find difficult became easy.
This nudge reminds us that hard things don't stay hard. When we get smarter, they become
easier.
It’s Only Ever Hard, Never Harder
“Learning is only ever hard, never harder.”
James Anderson
The process of growth boils down to this:
Stretch yourself beyond your current best. Develop the behaviours that will allow you to
succeed at this new level of difficulty. Grow a better brain. Achieve mastery at this new level.
Repeat.
Understanding the process isn't difficult. So, why do so many people avoid it?
As we’ll see when we get to the "count the cost" nudge, growth isn't free. You must be
prepared to put in the effort to succeed. You'll probably want some support along the way,
but most people have access to support, and the cost isn't all that high, so wouldn't you want
to grow?
Of course, just because you're capable of growth doesn't mean you have to. You have a
choice. If you don't want to grow, and you understand you are capable of growth, no one is
forcing you. But I reckon there's a lot of people in the world who wouldn't mind a bit of
growth, perhaps even a lot, yet they avoid the process that allows them to achieve it. Why?
A big part of the answer lies in the word repeat. We must repeat the process.
We've all experienced growth at some point. We remember what it involved. We struggled; it
took time and energy. If we had a Fixed Mindset view of the world, it might have led us to
(falsely) believe our effort was a sign of weakness, proof we didn't have the (natural) abilities.
But eventually, we mastered that difficult thing. Our effort paid off. Today, that thing is quite
possibly something we find easy.
So, why wouldn't you go through that process again?
Because most people misunderstand what it means to repeat. We assume that if mastering
the previous level of difficulty was hard, attempting the next level will be harder. The level
after that will be even harder. And the level after that will be ridiculously harder. On and on it

goes until you reach a level that's impossible! We incorrectly believe the "cost" of achieving
another step will get higher and higher.
This idea of increasing levels of difficulty is an echo of the Fixed Mindset view that prevails in
the world. It's based on the belief that our intelligence is a limited resource. It leads us to
believe that the closer we get to the limit of our intelligence, the harder things will become.
The truth is that our Performance Zone is the limit of our (current) intelligence. The minute
we step beyond our Performance Zone, we are beyond what our current intelligence can
deal with. That's why we make mistakes and struggle. We don't have a brain that's capable
of performing at that level of difficulty. The solution, as we've seen, is to build a better brain
and learn to be smarter, so those hard things become easy!
And that's where this nudge comes in. “It's only ever hard, never harder.”
In reality, learning doesn't get more difficult. It doesn’t increase to a level where progress
becomes impossible. In reality, it’s only the next step that's difficult. When we calibrate our
Learning Zone effectively (see the nudge of “count the cost” later on), we recognise that each
step in our learning, each new set of behaviours, each bit of rewiring in our brain takes a
similar amount of effort.
The next step is about as hard as our last step!
The cost of identifying our Learning Zone, developing our Habits of Mind and responding to
mistakes and feedback is fairly consistent, regardless of what level of difficulty or complexity
you’re working at.
In classrooms, this nudge becomes particularly important because we are inclined to create
negative Mindset Movers when we tell students things like, "The next topic is going to be
really hard."
This would only be true if the current topic was in their Comfort Zone and they'd only been
learning more, rather than if it was in their Learning Zone and they’d been learning
something more difficult. We'll explore this, and the impact it has on learning, in more detail
when we explore the "count the cost" nudge.
Reminding ourselves that any growth is hard, struggle is always expected and building our
abilities always takes effort is critically important. This nudge, “it’s only ever hard, never
harder”, leads us to say things like this as we guide students towards their new Learning
Zone:
"This topic, like every other topic, is going to challenge all of you. It's going to require effort,
and it will require you to learn to behave more intelligently as we develop your Habits of
Mind. Once you've done that, it will be easy. That's what happens when you learn to be
smarter. Hard things become easy!"
Focus on Efficacy
“Don't praise effort. Praise the effect of that effort.”
James Anderson
If there's one word that's become more associated with Growth Mindset than any other, it's
"effort". This is the big buzzword, and you'll see it all over social media. Unfortunately, most
social media messages get it wrong – or at least only half of it right.
On one level, the focus on effort is a way to draw attention to the backstory. As we've seen,
closing the Greatness Gap, valuing the backstory, normalising struggle and learning to be
smarter are all important Mindset Movers that highlight the importance of the backstory.
It's during a person's backstory that we recognise what we commonly call effort. And we
might interpret "praise effort" as a way to value the backstory and encourage people to build
their own.
But it's not. In fact, praising "effort" can backfire and act as a negative Mindset Mover.
Our challenge is that most of the time, the word “effort” is used to mean time and energy.
People think that putting in more time and energy means more effort. But it's not time and
energy alone that matter. What matters is how that time and energy are spent and,
ultimately, what is achieved.
Learner Agency is a way to describe how we spend our time and energy. As we will explore
in the nudge, "become a more talented learner", learning itself is a skilful process, and we
can learn to engage in it more effectively. The more skilled we become at the learning
process, the more effectively we spend our time and energy, and the less time and energy
we need to achieve the same outcome.
Achieving more for less should be our ultimate goal. Our praises should be usefully directed
to the student who has built a backstory of becoming better and learnt to behave so
efficiently and intelligently that they now complete tasks easily (until their next stretch).

Focus on Efficacy
This is why we need to shift our conversation from effort to efficacy. We might recognise
efficacy as growth, or we might recognise it as achievement, but it is growing and achieving
in the most effective way that should be our goal.
We can think of the relationship between effort, agency and growth like this:
Efficacy = (Effort) ^ Agency
Time and energy are limited resources, but you can continue to increase your Learner
Agency to achieve more growth with your available resources. On the other hand, if you don't
become a more skilful learner, your growth will be limited by your effort.
Professor Carol Dweck herself has commented that because some learners spend their time
ineffectively, praise for effort has become a consolation prize. Teachers often praise students
for their effort when they don't achieve growth. For example, a student who spends a lot of
time and energy on a task but fails to achieve growth is told, "As long as you've tried your
hardest, that's OK."
Stop for a moment and consider the above statement. The child has failed to achieve growth.
They are told that since they've put in as much effort as they could, the result is OK. The
underlying message is that once they have expended all their (limited) energy, we can't
expect them to do any better! This is the complete opposite of the Growth Mindset message
that we can grow our talents and abilities, and acts as a negative Mindset Mover.
In reality, it's not that the student can't grow; it's that they need to learn to spend their time
and energy more effectively to grow. If a student puts in effort and doesn’t achieve the
growth, they’re putting in the wrong sort of effort. The student needs to be taught how to
behave more intelligently to make the problem they are struggling with easier, and to see
progress.
When we remind ourselves that efficacy matters more than effort, it accurately focuses our
attention on how a student spends their time and energy, rather than on whether they are
spending all of it. We steer ourselves away from using effort as a consultation prize to ask,
“What type of effort is the student putting in?”
Because, as we'll see in the next nudge, not all effort is equal.
Not All Effort is Created Equal
“Not all effort is created equal.”
James Anderson
As we saw in the nudge, “focus on efficacy”, time and energy are limited resources. There's
little we can do to increase the amount available to us. Given this fact, our only choice is to
spend these resources wisely.
While we may think time and energy equal "effort", not all effort is created equal. The
Effective Effort Matrix allows us to think about effort in terms of where we spend our time and
energy. Do we spend them above or below the bar? It also allows us to think about how we
spend our time and energy. Do we use them to engage in mature Habits of Mind, behaving
intelligently, or in less well-developed Habits of Mind?
Thinking about effort this way gives us a much clearer picture. It helps us identify the type of
effort students are engaged in and allows us to direct them towards more efficacious effort.

Low Effort: This is cruising. It's working on and completing easy tasks successfully by
drawing on long-established skills. Time and energy are spent, but there’s no stretch, and
little skilfulness is involved.
There are times when you want to be engaged in Low Effort. Some tasks are well within your
abilities, but they still need to be done. The issue with Low Effort is recognising when it's
appropriate, and when you shouldn’t spend too much time there.
Performance Effort: This is when you are doing your best. You engage in your most well-
developed Habits of Mind to produce your best performance. Time and energy are involved,
and you engage in your most well-developed behaviours, but there is no stretch. It's your
best, but not better.
Again, there are times when it's appropriate to engage in Performance Effort. Performance
situations demand it. For many of us, work is a performance situation. We get paid to do our
best.
The problem is that we can spend too much time in Performance Effort when we are in a
learning situation. This is particularly relevant in schools. Students often put too much focus
on doing their best work instead of stretching beyond their best. When they stretch, their
standards are likely to fall temporarily, but this is where they learn.
Ineffective Effort: This is struggle. It is attempting to do better than your best, but there is
little growth because you are yet to learn to be smart enough to work at this level. As we'll
see in the nudge, "make struggle productive", we often need to go through this type of effort
before we become effective.
Being in Ineffective Effort is a natural part of the learning process. You know you’re here
when your time and energy go up, but your progress stops or slows dramatically. It’s critical
you recognise when your effort isn't efficacious, and then take steps to change it. It's no use
pouring more time and energy into a task if you're not being effective.
Ineffective Effort is a sign you're not currently smart enough. The solution is to learn to be
smarter. To get out of Ineffective Effort, you need to stop working on what you are learning
and focus on how you are learning.
Effective Effort: This is where we need to spend our time and energy to achieve growth. It’s
"stretching, not straining", plus "learning to be smarter". This is the type of effort we need to
recognise and value the most in our classrooms, as it leads to growth.
When you shift from Ineffective Effort to Effective Effort, time and energy decrease and
progress increases. Once you've learnt to be smart enough, the things you used to find
difficult become easy.
Again, it's not that we want students to be engaged in Effective Effort all the time. In most
cases, they can only get there by moving through the struggle of Ineffective Effort. The
question to ask is, “How quickly and effectively are students gathering the information that
allows them to shift from Ineffective to Effective Effort?”
Using the Effective Effort Matrix helps us understand how and where we spend our time and
energy. There are times in any given day, week or year when each type of effort is
appropriate. As teachers, we must ask: How is our students’ effort distributed across the
matrix? How much time do they spend in each quadrant?
Too much time in Low Effort is lazy, but too much time in Ineffective Effort leads to burn-out.
Too much time in Performance Effort leaves little time to invest in growth, while maximising
time – not spending all of it – in Effective Effort is the key to achieving maximum efficacy.
Make Struggle Productive
As we've discussed, there's an important difference between working above the bar and
below the bar. Things in our Comfort Zone, that we called Tasks , as well as performances
that are in our Performance Zone, are below the bar. They call upon the skills and abilities
you already have. Of course, they take focus, time, energy and concentration to complete.
They might not feel easy, the problems might be complex, and you’ll need to work through
them, but working below the bar doesn't stretch you. You know how to succeed; you just
need to do the work.
Above the bar, we are stretched. We are working on something more difficult than we've
succeeded at before. It's beyond our current abilities. We need to learn to be smarter. We
don't know how, or if, we'll be able to succeed, and that's a struggle.
Of course, struggle is a perfectly normal part of learning. If we aren't struggling to some

degree, we aren't working on something hard enough. When we see people perform
"effortlessly", it's because all their struggle and effort have already happened. As we'll see
later in the nudge, "count the cost”, these people have paid the price for learning – we just
didn't see it. Although we didn't witness their backstory, we can be assured it included
struggle.
But, like effort, not all struggle is the same. There is productive struggle and there is
unproductive struggle. Understanding the difference, recognising it and quickly moving from
unproductive to productive struggle is key to achieving growth. Let me explain.
Have you ever struggled with something for so long that you felt like you were getting
nowhere? Time and energy went up and up, but progress stopped. You made plenty of
attempts and mistakes, but you still couldn't see your way forward. That's unproductive
struggle.
On the other hand, have you ever felt like you were struggling, but made slow progress?
Each failed attempt gave you a little more insight into the way forward. It might still have
taken a long time, many false starts and missteps, but eventually, you taught yourself how to
be smart enough to solve the problem. That's productive struggle. You see slow progress
and ultimately succeed.

Make Struggle Productive
The difference between productive and unproductive struggle is information. Productive

struggle produces enough accessible information that it informs your effort. The mistakes you
make signpost the way towards a solution.
Unproductive struggle doesn’t produce enough information, or what it does produce isn't
immediately accessible. Rather than making you think, "Ah, so it must work like this ...," your
mistakes leave you scratching your head, wondering what went wrong and why it didn't work.
What often stops us from growing is the failure to recognise unproductive struggle. We put in
longer hours; we spend more energy. In other words, we put in more effort. But the results
don’t come. We must remember that it's not an “effort mindset” we want to nurture. It's a
Growth Mindset. So, if the effort you put in does not lead to growth, it's not because you're
not capable of growth – it's because you're putting in the wrong sort of effort. You're stuck in
Ineffective Effort.
To get out of unproductive struggle, you first must stop focusing on what you are learning
and start focusing on how you are learning. The reason you're seeing no progress is that
you're not smart enough yet to progress. When you learn to be smart enough, the time and
energy you put in decrease, and your progress increases. So, look at the Habits of Mind
relevant to overcoming the problem, and start working on getting better at those behaviours.
Secondly, get more information. If your efforts aren't producing the information you need to
progress, get a new source of information. There are a few ways you can do this. You could
more carefully design your efforts to produce better information. Think like a scientist and
control the sources of error, so that when mistakes happen, they give you the best possible
information (see "there's a time and place for mistakes").
Or you could simply ask for help. Seek the support of someone who's done it before. And
when you do, don't focus only on the solution, letting the other person do the work. Focus on
the process that produces the solution. Learn how to be smarter.
There could be another reason why you're struggling – you may be in your Aspirational Zone.
You’re strained, not stretched. In this case, the task needs to be broken down into smaller
amounts of stretch.
As we will see in the next nudge, struggle is a normal part of learning. The most effective
learners are quick to identify when their struggle is unproductive. They know when to stop
wasting their time and energy, and take actions to move into productive struggle and
Effective Effort. Because once you're smart enough, hard things become easy.
Stretch. Correct. Repeat.
When it comes to mindset memes, few are more popular or misleading than "praise
mistakes".
Mistakes used to be considered a bad thing. When students made a mistake, they got a red
cross on their page. When they got the right answer, they got a green tick and were
rewarded with praise and good grades.
Unfortunately, this focus on being correct may have encouraged some students to stay in
their Comfort and Performance Zones. This was where they could get things right easily and
reduce their chances of making mistakes.
As we've discussed, we need to stretch beyond our current best to grow. We don't get better
by doing what we can already do, and we don't get better by doing "easy things we haven't
done yet". We only grow when we are stretched in our Learning Zone, and this often results
in mistakes.
When the concept of Growth Mindset came along, getting into the Learning Zone became
important. Suddenly, mistakes were considered a good thing, something to be encouraged.
Social media is now full of memes such as "celebrate mistakes", "mistakes help me learn",
"every mistake I make is progress" and "mistakes are proof you are trying". While the intent
of these memes is to encourage students to be in their Learning Zone, their execution often
misses the mark.
The problem is they emphasise the wrong thing. It's not the mistake we should celebrate; it's
the student’s actions – the verbs that we should celebrate. Actions are what help students
achieve growth and these need to be the focus of our praise and encouragement. Mistakes
are simply a natural consequence of students being in their Learning Zone.
For example, consider the popular meme, "mistakes are proof you are trying". This correctly
recognises that mistakes are simply the result of effort, of students stretching into their
Learning Zone. But this phrase doesn't go far enough. Stretching is only half the issue. To
grow, students must correct their mistakes. It would be more accurate and helpful for the
meme to say, "correcting mistakes is proof you are growing". After all, it’s a Growth Mindset
we want, not an effort or mistakes mindset.

Stretch. Correct. Repeat.
When we are in our Learning Zone, it’s critical we extract information from the mistakes we
make and correct them. If we don't, we stay in Ineffective Effort and don't grow. It's not every
mistake you make that is progress – it's every mistake you correct that is progress.
It's also important to recognise there are different types of mistakes, and not all of them are
desirable or valuable to learning.
Mistakes aren't always a sign we are stretching ourselves. Sometimes, we make "sloppy
mistakes" or what we might call "unforced errors". These types of mistakes happen in our
Comfort Zone and are not the result of stretch, but of carelessness or lack of concentration.
They give us little information on how to grow, and we should seek to eliminate them from
our work.
Similarly, there are times when mistakes should be avoided. High-stakes situations require
error-free performances. Mistakes are not OK when we’re doing a test, flying a plane or
performing surgery! These mistakes occur in our Performance Zone and can have serious
consequences. When they occur, we can learn from them – hence black box recorders,
autopsies and test results – but in these situations, we'd prefer not to make them.
Other mistakes are not helpful at all. The mistakes we make in our Aspirational Zone are
often uninformative. Because we are so far beyond our current best, we might not be in a
position to extract information from these mistakes. They make us scratch our heads,
wondering what went wrong, rather than inform our progress.
Mistakes should not be the focus of praise. Instead, we should direct our praise and
encouragement should at the things that will help students achieve growth: stretching beyond
their current best, extracting the information from those mistakes and correcting them.
Growth can be summarised like this: "Stretch. Correct. Repeat." This nudge helps us focus
on the learner’s actions, rather than the mistakes that are the natural consequence of those
actions.
Count the Cost
“Growth is possible. But it's not free.”
A Growth Mindset is the understanding that we are capable of developing our most basic
characteristics, such as our talents, abilities and intelligence. All the previous nudges have
focused on either recognising this growth (such as “close the Greatness Gap”) or how to
achieve growth (such as “make hard things easy” and “Stretch. Correct. Repeat.”).
This nudge is about recognising the costs involved in achieving growth.
We are all capable of enormous growth. However, that growth is not free. Memes such as
"believe and you can achieve" mislead us. We don't believe our way to growth. Growth
requires action, and action incurs the costs of time, energy and resources. When we can
accurately count the costs, we are more likely to achieve.
Research from McKinsey & Company introduced the term "Motivation Calibration".
Essentially, Motivation Calibration is a Growth Mindset with a budget. It's not only the
understanding that you're capable of growth, but it’s also an ability to accurately describe the
cost of achieving growth. It turns out that people with good Motivation Calibration are even
more likely to succeed than those with a Growth Mindset alone.
Some people are over-calibrated. This means they overestimate the cost of growth. At best,
they believe the cost of achieving growth is much higher for them than for others who
"naturally" have that ability. At worst, they believe the cost is infinite, and any effort expended
trying to achieve growth is wasted. The problem with being over-calibrated is that when your
estimates are so high, you are unlikely to take any action at all.
Other people are under-calibrated. They underestimate the cost of growth. They buy into the
"believe and you can achieve" mantra and expect achievements to come without much effort.
Being under-calibrated might help get you started – after all, who wouldn't want free and
easy growth? But the problem is you quickly spend your anticipated budget without achieving
the growth. As the real cost of growth becomes apparent, it feels like you’re overspending,
and you tend to give up.

Count the Cost
To become well-calibrated and have high Motivation Calibration, you must deeply
understand how talents and abilities are created. In this way, many of the preceding nudges
will help calibrate you correctly.
The nudge "learning is about creating, not discovering" introduces the idea that our abilities
don't come built-in and for free. “Close the Greatness Gap” and the story of Picasso in “value
the backstory” help us understand that people who perform “effortlessly” have already paid
the price for their achievements. Their performance is only possible because their backstory
is full of paying the price for growth.
Furthermore, “not all effort is created equal” helps us understand that the cost we need to
measure is not merely the amount of time and energy we spend, but how we spend that time
and energy. We can make significant savings in terms of time and energy when we learn to
be smarter, become more efficacious and make hard things easier.
But perhaps one of the most important nudges to help us calibrate correctly is “get better, not
busy”. This nudge helps us recognise the difference between getting busy and getting better.
Busying yourself with "easy things you haven't done yet" is relatively cheap. Sure, it will take
some time and energy, but you already have the necessary skills and abilities, so the cost is
relatively low. However, getting busy with these tasks does not have the longer-term pay-off
of growth.
Performing at your current best is also relatively cheap. Again, you already have the ability
because you've done something similar before. In this case, the cost is well-known and
relatively low, so you are also very well-calibrated. But, as we’ve explored, we do not grow in
our Performance Zone. To grow, we need to pay a bit extra and be in our Learning Zone.
Miscalibration occurs when we expect the cost of getting better and solving problems above
the bar to be the same as completing tasks below the bar. Doing better is much more
expensive than doing more. Doing better requires us to not only complete a task or perform,
it also requires us to learn how to be smarter. It's this added cost of getting smarter that
many people get wrong.
This nudge, “count the cost”, reminds us to budget for the cost of growth. For example, when
goal setting, we need to remember that the cost of a growth goal will be higher than the cost
of a performance goal. It will involve more mistakes, a greater need for new information and
support, and more time and energy above the bar.
Count the Cost
The good news is that the cost of growth is an investment. It raises the bar, and once raised,
your Comfort Zone becomes larger. The cost of raising the bar not only allows you to do one
more better thing, it also decreases the cost of everything that's now in your Comfort Zone.
All the new “easy things you haven't done yet” are now cheaper!
Become a Talented Learner
We often talk about what it means to become more skilful in maths, languages, parenting or
any number of domains. Ironically, though, we tend to have fewer conversations about what
it means to engage more skilfully in the learning process itself. What does it mean to be a
highly skilful and effective learner? What does a talented learner look like?
This nudge reminds us that learning is a skilful process we must develop and engage in
more effectively. We must become talented at building talents!
Firstly, becoming a talented learner involves understanding the difference between learning
something more and learning something better. The nudge, "get better, not busy", reminds
us to spend some of our time above the bar developing our talents and abilities, rather than
spending all our time below the bar doing "easy things we haven't done yet".
But there are above-the-bar learners, and then there are highly skilful and effective above-
the-bar learners. Skilful learners improve how they respond to challenges, develop their
Habits of Mind, gather information from mistakes and feedback, and distribute their effort.
At the most basic level, a learner engages in the learning process as a reaction to the
teacher. The teacher determines where the student's Learning Zone is and sets challenges
accordingly. The teacher is responsible for identifying when the student is in Ineffective
Effort, then teaches the student how to be smarter, providing feedback and helping them
correct mistakes when they arise. In this case, the learner is a Directed Learner. Without a
teacher to tell them what to do next, the learner would likely become a below-the-line learner.
As the student becomes a more talented and skilful learner, they develop the ability to take
responsibility for their learning. Rather than reacting to the direction of the teacher, they
respond to their personal learning needs. They become an Independent Learner.
An Independent Learner has learned how to set their own goals. They have learnt how to
identify their Learning Zone and are familiar with the feeling of stretch. As they encounter
challenges, they recognise gaps or shortfalls in their Habits of Mind and take responsibility
for developing these behaviours, so they can become smart enough to succeed at these
challenges. They use the mistakes they make to inform their learning and are quick to seek
feedback when needed.

Become a Talented Learner
By taking charge of their learning, Independent Learners are far more adaptable than
Directed Learners. They are capable of creating their own learning journey in response to the
challenges before them.
While the Directed Learner reacts to the teacher, the Independent Learner learns in
response to the needs of their goals. They respond to the goals they want to pursue and the
challenges their environment presents. The element to take note of here is that the learning
comes after the need arises.
In comparison, the Agile Learner is proactive. Their focus is on becoming the most skilful
learner they can be. They understand their investment in raising the bar will pay off in the
long run. They embrace challenges not necessarily because they need to master them, but
because they will help them become smarter. The Agile Learner recognises that embracing
challenges now will better prepare them for succeeding at challenges in the future. Their
learning to be a better learner often comes before the need arises.
This nudge, “become a talented learner”, is a reminder that we need to build expertise as a
learner. It's easy to focus on building expertise in our areas of interest: music, parenting,
language, etc. But learning itself is a skilful process we need to develop. In fact, an
investment in becoming a better learner is likely to pay off many times over, as it makes
getting better in other areas easier.

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Index

Learning is About Creating, Not Discovering .................................................... 1

© James Anderson December 2019 Index - i www.jamesanderson.com.au

George Bernard Shaw

Have you ever been the victim of a personality test?

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 1 www.jamesanderson.com.au

"Do you think I'll be good at this?"

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 2 www.jamesanderson.com.au

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 3 www.jamesanderson.com.au

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 4 www.jamesanderson.com.au

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 5 www.jamesanderson.com.au

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 6 www.jamesanderson.com.au

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 7 www.jamesanderson.com.au

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 8 www.jamesanderson.com.au

“Labels are for jars, not for people.”

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 9 www.jamesanderson.com.au

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 10 www.jamesanderson.com.au

By putting time stamps on performances, we are reminded to acknowledge a milestone in

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 18 www.jamesanderson.com.au

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 22 www.jamesanderson.com.au

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 26 www.jamesanderson.com.au

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 28 www.jamesanderson.com.au

And that's when the problems start.

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 32 www.jamesanderson.com.au

The difference between a belief and an understanding is evidence. A belief requires no

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 36 www.jamesanderson.com.au

Think about it this way:

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 40 www.jamesanderson.com.au

The process of growth boils down to this:

So, why wouldn't you go through that process again?

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 42 www.jamesanderson.com.au

The next step is about as hard as our last step!

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 46 www.jamesanderson.com.au

Efficacy = (Effort) ^ Agency

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 48 www.jamesanderson.com.au

Of course, struggle is a perfectly normal part of learning. If we aren't struggling to some

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 52 www.jamesanderson.com.au

The difference between productive and unproductive struggle is information. Productive

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 55 www.jamesanderson.com.au

This nudge is about recognising the costs involved in achieving growth.

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 57 www.jamesanderson.com.au

© James Anderson December 2019 Page 61 www.jamesanderson.com.au

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