Air Date: 8/23/21
The Upgrade by Lifehacker How to Change Your Mindset to Get Better at Anything, With EduardoBriceño
Jordan
Hey, and welcome to The Upgrade, the podcastfrom the team at Lifehacker,where we help you improve your life one week at atime. I'm Jordan Calhoun, editor inchief of Lifehacker.
Meghan
And I'm Meghan Walbert, Lifehaccker's managingeditor.
Jordan
And this week, we're learning how to reframeour thinking a bit.
Meghan
That's right. We are learning how and whento shift our thinking from a fixedmindset perspective to a growth mindset perspectivewith help from expert EduardoBriseño.
Eduardo Briceño
But if we have done some examinationof mindsets and how they affectus, it's kind of like a vaccine. It immunized us alittle bit against those fixed mindsets thatwe might see in movies or from our teacher or otherpeople because we can see what'shappening and the negative things that can affectus so we can work against it.
Jordan
And you've probably heard of Eduardo before.He's the most booked keynotespeaker on growth mindset and his TED talks and hiswork with Carol Dweck hasinfluenced millions and millions of people to fostera culture of development and innovationand, you know, growth.
Meghan
In addition to that, he's also the co-founderof Mindset Works, which is a pioneer in growth mindset development services and programswhich he created alongside CarolDweck and Lisa Blackwell.
Jordan
Megan, where do you fall on the growth mindsetspectrum? Are you more fixed or are you more growth if you toggle between the two?
Meghan
You know, I hadn't ever really thought aboutit until we started kind of exploringthis topic for the podcast. I think of it more interms of my son, I think because I really dowant him to cultivate that sort of growth mindsetperspective where he's not pigeonholinghimself into a certain area or feeling like he can'timprove or try new things. And then whenI look at myself, I think there are ways that I amgrowth minded in terms of...I'm someonewho likes to do new things, try new things like I'mgoing to be one of those people when Ihave time who will, like, take college classes justfor the sake of learning something newand exploring different topics. But I also do considermyself fixed in certain ways, like I'mdefinitely one of those people who will say I'm notgood at math.
Jordan
Yeah, yeah.
Meghan
And and that's it's actually not true becauseI'm the one who handles, like, all thethe budgeting and stuff for my family. And I pay allthe bills and I, I do all that stuff. So I'mactually probably pretty good at it. But I've gotthis perspective, like I didn't like math as akid. I got bad grades one year in like middle schooland it stuck with me. It's like I suck at1
Air Date: 8/23/21
math, like forever. What about you, Jordan? I've heard that you have a little experienceactually teaching about growth mindset.
Jordan
Yeah, yeah. I've been infatuated, mildly infatuatedwith growth mindset for a whilenow. I used to teach lesson plans of it to high schoolstudents and I like to consider myself as pretty growth mindset oriented. The times thatI'm more in a fixed mindset, I think whenI am being honest with myself is usually what I'musing it as a cop out for my own lazinessor just not wanting to do something. So for your mathexample, it would be more like, oh,I'm not good at math because I really just don't feellike putting in the effort to, like, figuringout this bill or figuring out this thing that is goingto be annoying. So I mostly fall into a fixedmindset, whenever I'm just trying to get myself outof the effort that it takes to dosomething or to improve it something. But generallyspeaking, in terms of understandingthat I can do anything or learn anything that I'mputting my mind to, I fall into that bucket alot more heavily. And it's it's really awesome. Justthe idea that this seemingly minor perspective shift can have such a positive, sort ofprofound impact on your life and howyou approach things. So I'm all in on the power ofgrowth mindset. I'm looking forward tohearing what Eduardo has to say about it.
Meghan
Yeah, me too. Let's go.
Jordan
Eduardo, thanks for joining The Upgrade, soglad to have you.
Eduardo Briceño
Great to be here. Thanks for havingme.
Jordan
All right. So you've done this research withCarol Dweck. I want to talk aboutmindset, and I've been mildly obsessed with this foryears now. But I want to start at thevery beginning. There's a fixed mindset and growthmindset. Can you give a simpleexplanation of what those two things are and whatare the differences between the two?
Eduardo Briceño
Sure, growth mindset and fixed mindsetare beliefs about the nature of our human abilities or qualities. So it's basicallyhow we see ourselves, whether we seeourselves as fixed and set in stone or as people whocan change and continue to developthroughout lives and mindsets can relate to differentabilities. So we might see, for example, our ability to work with numbers as eithersomething that's fixed or developed. And we might see our ability to be creative in theopposite way. So we might see numbersas a growth mindset and creativity in a fixed mindset.We might also see those abilities inourselves as, for example, malleable and other peopleas fixed. Some mindsets arecontextual and they really affect how we see the worldand how we behave.
Meghan
Can you give us an example of how this wouldplay out in the real world? So giveme a scenario. Maybe you're applying for a new joband you don't you don't get the job.You don't land it. How would someone with a fixedmindset view that as opposed tosomeone with a growth mindset?
Eduardo Briceño
Yes.[00:05:40]So somebody with afixed mindset might take that asevidence, either that they are incapable and not ableto do that type of job, or they mightlabel the other person as saying, this person is inept,they can't see the good in me. Andeither of those things lead us to not take action,to get better and to be able to better position ourselves for the future. So if we go toan interview with somebody and it doesn'tgo really well, it goes really poorly, we might reallyget down and say, oh, my God, I'm suchan idiot. I can't do interviews. So what could I dowithout needing to do an interview?2
Air Date: 8/23/21
Versus: what can I learn from this interview? What can I practice differently? Who mighthelp me prepare for my next interview and how canI get better in order to position myself for the future?[46.5s]
Jordan
And this is all based on how we were raised,like where do these mindsetsdevelop? Is this something that we can change in ourselves?Or is this innate, whichseems like sort of a weird meta question, like havinga growth mindset about having agrowth mindset, like where do these mindsets comefrom and how did we end up having agrowth or a fixed mindset?
Eduardo Briceño
Yeah, so[00:06:48]we develop thesemindsets in our early years andthroughout our lives. And the really good news isthat we can change them at any point inour time. And they're also not static. They reallyare fluid. We might be in a situation wherewe're more in a growth mindset and then we might receivesome feedback that triggers usinto a fixed mindset. So being able to notice whatmindset we're in helps us increase our self awareness and then work with those mindsets.[27.4s]But to answer your question,there's research, for example, that looked at howparents speak to their kids when the kidsare about two years old, just in their natural settingin their homes. And the[00:07:30]researchers coded how the parents spoketo the kids based on whether theylabeled the kids as, for example, "You are so smartand you are so talented," or commenting on the kid's behaviors, like what the strategyis you're using. "Oh, that's sogreat how you're persevering." And obviously thisare two year olds, but it's how how theyare encouraging the kids behaviors rather than labelingthe kid. So then they looked at thesame children five years later and they assessed thechildren's mindset. And it turns outthat for the parents who talk more about behaviors,they encourage more of our growthmindset in their children. They had about more ofa growth mindset five years later. Andthe opposite was true. When we label other people,we foster more of a fixed mindset. Andthen two years after that, that showed up in the academicachievement of those children.So for those in a growth mindset, they were achievingmore highly than those in a fixedmindset.[55.8s]So so mindsets are something that—they'rebeliefs about the nature of human beings. And we develop our beliefs from ourobservation of the world, especially of the other people around us. How do they speak? Howdo they behave? Does it seem likethey think that abilities are malleable? This is notjust our parents. When we go into a new job, we look at people around and do they seem tojust want people to be geniuses? Anddo they think that people either have or not haveit? Or are they constantly trying to solicitfeedback and examine mistakes and doing things thatlead to improve?[00:09:00]Theother study that's really interesting that we've donewith parents and children, it's done byKyla Haimovitz, who was a former Carol Dweck student,and what she noticed in her research is that a very strong determinant of thechildren's mindset is how parents viewfailure if they see failure as something that is enhancing,something that is a sign of tryingthings that are hard, that are going to expand ourabilities and something we can learnfrom then the children it to be more in a growth mindset.If the parents weren't comfortablewith failure like the one of their children, onlyto get A's and to do things well all the time,then that encourage more of a fixed mindset into children.[37.8s]
Meghan
This is so tough, too, I think, for parents,because we can we can do that at homeand we can phrase things in a certain way that's goingto promote that growth mindset. And then we send them to school where they're gradedfor every homework assignmentand they're trying to get straight A's on their reportcard. And it's like sometimes feels likethe message that maybe we're trying to send our kidsis not the message that they're alsoreceiving out in the out in the world, out in school,when they're socializing, when they're3