Mindset, Motivation, and Committing to Growth with Dr. Omid Fotuhi

[00:00:00] If you get a bad grade, for instance, for whatever reason, let's say you focused, you studied really well, but you focused on the wrong parts, or in the moment you interpreted that question in a different way. Now you've got to determine what does this mean? Now let's say you have a growth mindset, and you're able to understand that you don't always get perfect grades, and that's when you're falling short, it's an opportunity to try to invest more time and learn better and actually do better next time.

[00:00:24] And so when you have that belief, you're more likely to talk to your teachers, to talk to your parents, to try to sit back down and wrestle with the problem so you can understand what you did wrong, so you can do it better next time. And your chances of doing better the next time are better compared to someone with a fixed mindset who, upon getting a bad grade, concludes that this is evidence that I'm not smart enough, I shouldn't bother.

[00:00:47] So they're going to study a little bit less, which means that they're less likely to do well on that subsequent test. That one initial setback, depending on how you interpret it, starts to create these divergent paths where it invests more, and that next outcome becomes more positive, which then reinforces your initial belief that this isn't a sign that I can't do this.

[00:01:08] On contrast, someone who does believe that this is a sign that I can't do this disengages, studies less, does more poorly, and now they have more concrete evidence in their hands because they've done more poorly, which reconfirms their initial belief that I can't do this.

[00:01:23] That's Dr. Omid Fautui, PhD and researcher in the field of social psychology, describing how our interpretation of challenges can affect behavior and outcomes, which in turn reinforce our mindset and, for better or worse, lead to long-term consequences.

[00:01:39] Dr. Fautui shares what he's learned from his research about the power of mindset and how to harness it for performance and well-being.

[00:01:46] You're listening to the Be a Good Wheel podcast, the show where we explore what it means to be a good wheel by digging into scientific research and personal stories about human potential and performance.

[00:01:57] I'm your host, Amber Pierce.

[00:02:01] Today, we get to speak with Dr. Omid Fautui, a visionary psychologist, educator, and a leading researcher in the science of resilience and growth mindset.

[00:02:10] Dr. Fautui is widely known for his innovative research, which goes beyond traditional studies to address real-life applications.

[00:02:16] As he has discovered in his work, simply knowing about growth mindset is one thing, but cultivating it as a personal and professional tool is quite another.

[00:02:25] Dr. Fautui has pioneered practical frameworks that help individuals internalize this mindset, transforming resilience from a buzzword to a lived experience.

[00:02:34] Throughout his career, Dr. Fautui has been involved in multiple groundbreaking initiatives aimed at integrating psychological research with on-the-ground educational programs.

[00:02:43] He has conducted research with the World Health Organization, Stanford University, and is the Director of Learning Innovation at WGU Labs and a research associate at the University of Pittsburgh.

[00:02:55] Dr. Fautui's expertise in social science, behavioral economics, leadership, and performance optimization has made him a renowned thought leader on motivation and performance.

[00:03:03] His initiatives have helped thousands of people, from students to CEOs, to redefine their relationship with learning and failure.

[00:03:11] A passionate educator at heart, Dr. Fautui also brings his expertise into university classrooms, teaching students how to apply the principles of growth mindset and resilience in their everyday lives.

[00:03:21] He has also designed and implemented programs that empower educators to foster these mindsets in their students, helping shape school cultures and environments.

[00:03:29] Dr. Fautui's career includes collaborations with some of the most renowned thinkers in psychology, including the esteemed Dr. Carol Dweck, whose pioneering research first brought the concept of growth mindset to the world stage.

[00:03:41] Whether you want to navigate a recent setback, improve your approach to learning, or find ways to be more adaptable in an ever-changing world, Dr. Fautui offers a practical guide on how we can foster resilient mindsets in our own lives and in those around us.

[00:03:55] I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

[00:03:59] Omid, welcome to the show.

[00:04:00] Thank you.

[00:04:01] Thanks for having me.

[00:04:02] It's so great to have you here.

[00:04:03] I'm really excited to be able to pick your brain and your expertise on this incredible topic of growth mindset, which I think is wildly beneficial, especially to athletes, but really to anyone in any walk of life.

[00:04:17] And before we dig into that, I think it makes sense to establish some good definitions.

[00:04:22] So let's start out with a basic one.

[00:04:25] What is mindset in the first place?

[00:04:28] Yeah, that's a great question.

[00:04:29] I think people sort of take it for granted that our brains are these supercomputers processing more information than we can even fathom in terms of the visual, the audio, the sensory.

[00:04:45] But even some of the subtle information that we have to manage and digest, like social cues, the pressures of work, how to prioritize, how to experience and process feelings.

[00:04:58] There's a lot going on all of the time.

[00:05:02] And so one way of thinking about mindset is that essentially what they are are convenient interpretations for the experiences that we have, both internal and external.

[00:05:12] Essentially, it's the stories we come up with to explain the events in our lives.

[00:05:17] That's kind of the most general way of talking about mindsets.

[00:05:21] And where they're useful is because they do help to create efficiencies in the way that we process information.

[00:05:28] Because absent mindsets, absent these sort of convenient heuristics, we would be processing a lot more information all of the time, which would actually be debilitating.

[00:05:36] Because we would never really have a sense of confidence about what the things in our lives mean.

[00:05:42] So simply said, mindsets are kind of these like simple shortcut heuristics or explanations about the things in our lives.

[00:05:49] That's really I love that.

[00:05:50] I love that explanation.

[00:05:51] And this makes a lot of sense.

[00:05:52] One of the things we've talked about on the show before is in sport, anytime you're learning a new sport, beginners tend to pay attention to too many things.

[00:06:02] There's just so much stimulus happening all around them.

[00:06:06] They're really trying to take it all in.

[00:06:08] They haven't learned what to prioritize and what they can get away with not paying attention to.

[00:06:15] And then the more expert they become, they become more efficient at learning what they don't have to pay attention to and focusing their attention on the things that actually matter.

[00:06:24] And that seems like kind of what you're getting at with mindset.

[00:06:27] Is that an accurate representation?

[00:06:29] Yeah, that's a really great beginning sort of position.

[00:06:33] Which is to say that when you're starting off, that's exactly right.

[00:06:37] Everything is still so new that you're in the beginning to try to formulate and create your mindsets.

[00:06:43] But as you get more experience, as you're able to sort of over time see the pattern within the noise, then that's kind of the beginnings of a mindset.

[00:06:53] So you tend to filter out the non-essential cues or signals.

[00:06:59] And you focus on kind of the overall interpretation of what it is.

[00:07:04] So for instance, if you're first side running and you're out of breath, it's actually a really powerful experience to be out of breath.

[00:07:11] When your heart is beating really quickly, you're sweating, you're struggling to get enough oxygen.

[00:07:17] It can actually be kind of a stressful experience.

[00:07:20] And so in that moment, you have to decide what does this physiological arousal mean about what I'm doing and how I'm going to do it.

[00:07:30] And the first time you experience that, chances are it might be a little bit unnerving.

[00:07:33] It might be a little bit stressing because it's such a powerful experience that you don't have a precedent for.

[00:07:39] But if you're on a soccer team or any kind of sports sort of team, then you become pretty acquainted with this experience over time.

[00:07:50] And then so you start to worry about it less.

[00:07:52] And if you associate that experience with something positive like training, like exercise, like racing, that also has a positive outcome,

[00:08:01] now your brain is connecting that physiological experience to that positive outcome.

[00:08:06] So that's a great example of mindset.

[00:08:08] Now, one thing I'll say, and I think the reason why you and I are here talking about mindsets is that we're not interested just in these general interpretations of when it is that our minds make assumptions about the experiences in our lives.

[00:08:22] But we're more interested specifically in moments where things are not going well.

[00:08:27] When things seem to be, you know, you're struggling and you're just uncertain about the outcome.

[00:08:33] And so that's when mindset actually becomes really particular.

[00:08:36] So like when things are going really well, mindset doesn't really matter.

[00:08:40] It's not really that predictive.

[00:08:41] So like, let's say you're, you know, at the front of the pack in a race or you're doing a training routine and you're in that state of flow because your body is actually equipped enough and ready enough to engage in that exercise.

[00:08:55] Everything seems to be going well.

[00:08:56] But where mindset actually becomes critical and where we want to try to focus on is when things are either really novel or really hard or you're not doing as well as you'd like to.

[00:09:07] That's where mindset becomes really, really useful to think about because these interpretations that we have about the meaning of events also determine your behavior.

[00:09:17] So let's go back to that example of when I'm breathing heavily, my heart rate is sort of at a very high rate, I'm sweating and I'm running, for instance, as part of a training program.

[00:09:30] If I feel that this is actually a normal part of the running and I feel like this is something that I can maintain, then I won't be discouraged by those physiological cues.

[00:09:41] My mindset tells me that I can do this.

[00:09:43] But in that same example, if I have the same physiological experiences and now instead of saying that I can do this and this is a sign that I'm like exercising well, my mind interprets that as, hey, you're not fast enough.

[00:09:56] And that's why your body is struggling.

[00:09:59] All of a sudden, a mindset comes in to make an interpretation that is harmful, which actually causes you to slow down.

[00:10:06] It causes you to feel discouraged.

[00:10:07] It causes you to be anxious about moments when you have those same physiological strengths.

[00:10:12] So when things are going well, mindsets are great, but they're not predictive of your behavior.

[00:10:17] It's only when things are actually kind of challenging and uncertain and you're struggling and you start to wonder about the associated outcome with that experience, that that's when mindsets become really useful.

[00:10:29] And in particular, you know, I think why we're talking about all of this is the fact that there's a certain level of experiences that we have that are just kind of like normal day-to-day, non-deterministic kinds of behaviors.

[00:10:42] Like if you wake up in the morning and you have breakfast, mindset doesn't really matter there either, right?

[00:10:47] But it's when the stakes are high.

[00:10:48] It's when the stakes are high and when we're in competitive domains, that's where you see the science and mindset actually being really useful.

[00:10:55] Because, you know, if all things being equal, let's imagine that you're on a lineup for a track race and you look around and everyone's kind of ready to go.

[00:11:06] The gun goes off and you're the only person to take off.

[00:11:10] If everybody else is kind of like, oh, there, because they didn't take off with a gun.

[00:11:15] Now, what are the chances of you winning compared to other people?

[00:11:17] That's pretty good, right?

[00:11:18] Because you've taken off earlier.

[00:11:19] And if the only difference is that you understand what that signal of the gun means, others interpret it slightly differently.

[00:11:26] Here's an example of where mindset might set you at an advantage and others at a disadvantage.

[00:11:32] So mindset, again, also becomes really important in competitive domains because if all things being equal, you have that more adaptive mindset.

[00:11:40] That allows you to stay engaged, that allows you to take action, that allows you to take initiative, that allows you to stay persistent with long-term endeavors.

[00:11:49] Then over time, you will have a physiological advantage as well.

[00:11:54] So that was kind of like a little bit of context setting for like what mindset is and why it matters in these particular domains, which I think is a really great context to start the conversation.

[00:12:03] Oh, this is great.

[00:12:04] So I love this idea because this isn't something I've ever really explicitly thought about, but I have absolutely experienced,

[00:12:10] which is that mindset is really, really useful when the stakes are high and when things feel uncertain or like they're not going your way.

[00:12:18] I haven't ever really thought about how mindset might affect me eating breakfast and how that's not as relevant, but you're absolutely right.

[00:12:25] And that definition helps so much.

[00:12:28] I think one thing that would be really useful to talk about as we dig into this is how much control do we have over mindset?

[00:12:35] Because I can imagine that mindset as this filter that helps us interpret patterns and determine, you know, isolate the signal from the noise would be adaptive, right?

[00:12:48] So like from an evolutionary standpoint, that would be very, it would be a competitive advantage.

[00:12:51] It makes sense that we would evolve to have this mindset to help us gain this efficiency.

[00:12:56] How much of this is under our conscious control versus unconscious control?

[00:13:00] Is this something that just happens automatically or how much control do we have over creating or adapting our own mindsets?

[00:13:06] Yeah, that's a good question.

[00:13:08] And I think it sort of taps into the broader question of like, where do mindsets come from?

[00:13:13] Which I think is a really great question.

[00:13:15] As I mentioned earlier, mindsets are kind of these convenient interpretations about the events in our lives, both internal and external.

[00:13:24] And you can't assume that you can just make up mindsets.

[00:13:27] Like you can't just say that I'm going to believe that, you know, the sky is yellow and I'm the best.

[00:13:36] That's just how it is.

[00:13:37] Like you can't really see that.

[00:13:39] If you did, then I think you'd have a different kind of set of problems.

[00:13:45] And the reason is that, you know, mindset are actually, again, are sort of the accumulation of experiences in addition to an adding in or filling of the gaps where there isn't explicit data on.

[00:13:57] So, and that's usually where the internal stuff comes in.

[00:14:00] So like from an external perspective, let's say you're competing and you're not thinking about anything that's happening internally.

[00:14:07] Your body will perform at a certain level.

[00:14:10] And so how you perform is becomes part of how it is that you form that mindset about your performance.

[00:14:17] So like, just imagine that I could just turn off your brain and only program it to do as best as you can.

[00:14:24] Even if I did that relative to other people, you may or may not be at the top of the race or the outcomes.

[00:14:30] And then once you've accomplished that, especially over repeated times, then your brain will say, okay, on average, I come in the top third.

[00:14:36] So that becomes part of your mindset about your performance.

[00:14:40] However, our brains have two things to also manage and navigate.

[00:14:45] One is there's a lot of missing information in general.

[00:14:49] And the other is how it is that we experience and process the internal experiences and data that come.

[00:14:55] So like if you're feeling like you're breathing hard, how hard are you breathing?

[00:15:00] That's where a mindset comes in to answer that question.

[00:15:03] How hard are you?

[00:15:04] Are you breathing too hard?

[00:15:06] Are you not breathing enough, hard enough?

[00:15:09] Or are you breathing just at the optimal level?

[00:15:11] Those are the areas where there's ambiguity.

[00:15:13] And so mindsets come in and play deterministic factor.

[00:15:17] Now, as I mentioned, so mindsets are largely driven by external sources.

[00:15:23] So how you do.

[00:15:24] But they're also driven by the kind of social cues and the social values that we're immersed in.

[00:15:31] Right?

[00:15:31] So for example, to kind of really take a big step back, imagine when you were a child or if you have a child and first time that your child walks, what do you do as a parent?

[00:15:40] You get really excited and you clap.

[00:15:43] You say, yay, you're walking.

[00:15:44] Yay.

[00:15:44] Now, luckily, here's a really great example, actually.

[00:15:48] Even if you didn't successfully get up and walk that first time, let's say you stumbled, you fell, and it didn't go well.

[00:15:56] At no point that your parents look at each other and say, you know what?

[00:15:59] This one's just not going to walk.

[00:16:03] That's actually, it seems like a simplistic example.

[00:16:05] But in their minds, because they've seen that almost everybody in the world can walk, they have a deeply rooted mindset that you, as their child, will also walk.

[00:16:16] And so if you fall, they don't just give up on you.

[00:16:20] They keep encouraging you because internal to themselves, they hold this unshakable belief that you will walk.

[00:16:27] And so there's an example of where someone's mindset kind of impacts your behavior and your outcome.

[00:16:33] Because if you had fallen and your parents didn't believe that you could walk, you might actually not be as motivated.

[00:16:38] You wouldn't get as much encouragement that signals to you that there is a strong belief that you can do this.

[00:16:45] So there's an example of where mindsets are externally driven.

[00:16:49] Wow.

[00:16:50] Yeah, that's powerful.

[00:16:50] And these things go on because then we go into school.

[00:16:54] Like our school then tells us that how you do based on grades is what matters.

[00:16:59] Then you get into a job and what you do is based on salary.

[00:17:03] That's the outcome that you're striving towards.

[00:17:05] Or promotions, that's the outcome.

[00:17:07] And so where it sort of unfortunately is that disadvantages us is where we start to no longer hold that true belief that everybody has the potential to achieve great things like walking.

[00:17:19] It begins as soon as essentially we start walking where we go into school and where we go into work where there's a relative comparative context that pits us against one another.

[00:17:30] And the underlying assumption is that some are better than others and that those that are good are going to be rewarded by good grades.

[00:17:37] They're going to be rewarded by promotions.

[00:17:38] They're going to be rewarded by big salaries.

[00:17:40] And implicitly what that's telling us is if we're not getting the good grades, if we're not getting the high salary and the promotions, then that gives us an implicit understanding of kind of where we think we stand relative to others in society.

[00:17:53] And so that's another example of where mindsets are informed based on the cues and the signals from the environment.

[00:17:58] Actually, Mary Murphy has a great book that touches on the contextual factors that impacts our mindsets.

[00:18:05] It's called Cultures of Growth.

[00:18:07] And she actually lays out from an external perspective, there are four main categories or four main triggers of mindsets that when you encounter, you have to make the determination of what does this mean?

[00:18:21] And you can interpret that in various ways.

[00:18:24] But before we get that, I feel like it might also be useful just to do a quick reminder of the basic mindset work from Carol Dweck.

[00:18:31] Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[00:18:32] Well, I had the great fortune of working closely at Stanford with some of the mindset researchers and pioneers, including Carol Dweck.

[00:18:40] It's amazing.

[00:18:41] Yeah, it really was.

[00:18:42] I mean, it was such a privilege.

[00:18:44] And what was really fascinating is to see up close the genesis of a lot of the work that motivated and stimulated their body of research.

[00:18:53] And with Carol, when we speak with her, she tells us that when she first was interested in this topic, she began by just observing some relatively young children, I think, you know, ages eight, nine, an observation where the initial experiment was actually on learned helplessness.

[00:19:10] And so the study was designed to create a context or a situation where students were given such an impossibly difficult task that it was intended to discourage them.

[00:19:20] It was intended to make them feel like, OK, I just can't do this.

[00:19:23] So what does that mean in terms of like the sense of hopelessness and helplessness that I might have to navigate?

[00:19:29] And what she found was actually something quite surprising is that when she had these young kids come into the lab, she gave them this really, really hard set of questions to do.

[00:19:38] And there is a subgroup of these kids who, as predicted, when they got these really difficult questions to complete, they got discouraged.

[00:19:47] They're like, this is not possible.

[00:19:49] Why bother?

[00:19:50] I mean, she's not going to do this.

[00:19:51] But there was a smaller subgroup that surprisingly, when they got hard questions, instead of getting deflated, instead of getting discouraged, instead of getting upset and frustrated, they actually got excited.

[00:20:02] They actually got enthused.

[00:20:04] They were like, oh, my goodness, this is so hard and challenging.

[00:20:08] We were really hoping that we would learn something new today.

[00:20:11] We were really hoping that we could stretch ourselves today by doing something that we hadn't done.

[00:20:15] And this was the observation that really caught Carol's attention, which was that in the face of the same challenges, depending on what your underlying belief is about the meaning of your ability to meet the demands of the expectations,

[00:20:30] you will either shrink and get discouraged or you'll rise up to the situation and get encouraged by the difficulty.

[00:20:38] Now, fast forward some 30, 40 years of research, and she found what says something at the heart of that difference between when individuals get discouraged and disengaged versus get encouraged and engaged is the underlying belief of what it is that the nature of intelligence or ability is all about.

[00:20:59] And ultimately, the two groups that she was able to identify are those who have what's known as a fixed mindset.

[00:21:07] And so when you ask them, you know, what is ability or intelligence, they'll say that ability and intelligence are these qualities that some people or traits that some people have more or less of.

[00:21:17] And you can't really change it.

[00:21:19] But you're kind of like you're born with this level of intelligence or born with this level of ability.

[00:21:24] And over time, it'll sort of grow with your genetic potential.

[00:21:28] But there will be a difference between individuals in terms of how much they can expect to be smart or to have these innate abilities.

[00:21:35] The other group that she asks, especially those who responded more enthusiastically about the nature of intelligence and ability, actually said that we believe that intelligence and ability are not these fixed tricks.

[00:21:47] What they are is they're these malleable qualities that you can practice and strengthen over time.

[00:21:54] And when you encounter difficulties, that actually is a great example of when you are able to strengthen those abilities even more.

[00:22:02] There's a whole bunch of research and that group is called the growth mindset group.

[00:22:06] There's a whole bunch of research consistently showing that when things get hard, those with a fixed mindset interpret that difficulty as a signal that maybe they can't do this.

[00:22:16] Because for them, what they're motivated by is to come across as seeming like they're smart or come across as seeming like they're talented.

[00:22:25] And so when something is challenging, something is hard, then they start to wonder, like, if I'm smart and if I'm really good, then why is this hard?

[00:22:33] And the only conclusion that they have is, well, maybe it's because I can't do this.

[00:22:37] Maybe it's because I'm not smart.

[00:22:38] Maybe it's because I'm not talented.

[00:22:39] And so the conclusion is actually quite rational.

[00:22:42] Like, if you believe that intelligence and ability are these innate fixed traits and you encounter something difficult, then the conclusion that you can't do this is not irrational.

[00:22:53] But if you believe that you can grow and you can strengthen, then when you encounter something difficult, that actually is a very different conclusion, which is to say that this is something I haven't done yet.

[00:23:04] And so how do I exert more effort to strengthen myself in these domains?

[00:23:08] So those are the general categories of the growth and fixed mindset that Dr. Carol Dweck has pioneered.

[00:23:14] And I think those become the basis for, again, a lot of the conversations that you have and we have these days.

[00:23:19] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:23:20] I mean, I think this is incredible.

[00:23:21] There's so much to unpack here.

[00:23:23] One of the things that you said just at the very beginning there was you were talking about little kids learning to walk.

[00:23:29] And I have a toddler now, so I had the pleasure of watching her learn how to walk.

[00:23:33] And it was funny to me watching her walk because or learn how to walk because I would watch her.

[00:23:37] Yeah, she would stumble.

[00:23:38] It took a while.

[00:23:39] She finally got it.

[00:23:40] And as she was going through this process, I would kind of laugh to myself because as an adult, there are so many things that, you know, I would try to learn how to do.

[00:23:49] And as I would stumble or not quite get it right, I would get so down on myself and be like, oh, you idiot.

[00:23:54] You know, why can't you just do this?

[00:23:55] And then I would watch my daughter learning to walk and I would think it would be so ludicrous for her to think to herself, oh, I'm such an idiot.

[00:24:02] Like, I bet the baby across the street is already walking by now.

[00:24:05] So I was thinking about that, like, from an internal perspective, like her internal mindset versus my internal mindset.

[00:24:11] I didn't think about the fact that her internal mindset might be cuing off from my belief that she can walk, which is really powerful.

[00:24:22] And that just was very eye-opening for me.

[00:24:25] And then the other piece of this is just talking about the growth versus fixed mindset.

[00:24:30] This is absolutely something that I've experienced myself.

[00:24:34] I feel like I've experienced both growth mindset and fixed mindset, and it's been kind of a dynamic thing.

[00:24:39] Given these two mindsets, and before I say this next thing, I want to say you had mentioned before that mindset, when applied in an uncertain environment of high stakes,

[00:24:51] is deterministic of behavior.

[00:24:53] And when you describe growth and fixed mindset, that really makes sense.

[00:24:57] Because if I believe I can't do this problem because I'm not smart enough, that mindset discourages me from trying harder.

[00:25:03] And that I see exactly how that determines a behavior change versus looking at it like, oh, maybe I need to try harder.

[00:25:12] And then that determines a behavioral outcome, which can then determine the outcome, which is super interesting.

[00:25:17] So what can we do?

[00:25:19] Because I think I don't know many people who would say like, oh, I definitely want the fixed mindset.

[00:25:24] So then I'll give up on stuff.

[00:25:26] How much control do we have of this?

[00:25:28] How do we foster this?

[00:25:29] Or can we?

[00:25:30] Yeah, we can.

[00:25:31] Can I just like touch on something that you just mentioned that is actually critical?

[00:25:35] Please, yes.

[00:25:36] Which is that mindset typically don't just impact a single occurrence of an event.

[00:25:43] What matters is not how your mindset predicts whether you persist a little bit longer on one test.

[00:25:52] What matters is that it's the repeated application of mindset across time and many situations.

[00:25:59] Because you're right, mindsets are actually not fixed.

[00:26:03] And as we go back to the original definition of like mindsets being our brain trying to make sense of the world, then there's also this recursive process.

[00:26:12] And what that means is that if you start off like a child who has no reason to doubt that they can walk, they will persist and persist and persist.

[00:26:21] In part because of the cues that they're getting from their environment, their parents.

[00:26:24] Also, truly believing that they can walk, there is no basis to doubt themselves at all.

[00:26:30] And so they will consistently and repeatedly try and try and try until they're able to walk.

[00:26:35] Now fast forward into early safe primary school where that mindset is not as absolute.

[00:26:42] Where people start to wonder if that's always the case.

[00:26:46] If you get a bad grade, for instance, for whatever reason, let's say you focused, you studied really well, but you focused on the wrong parts.

[00:26:53] Or in the moment you interpreted that question in a different way.

[00:26:56] Now for the first time you get a bad grade.

[00:26:58] Now you've got to determine what does this mean.

[00:27:00] Now let's say you have a growth mindset and you're able to understand that you don't always get perfect grades.

[00:27:06] And actually when you're falling short, it's an opportunity to try to invest more time and learn better and actually do better next time.

[00:27:14] And so when you have that belief, you're more likely to talk to your teachers, to talk to your parents, to try to sit back down and wrestle with the problem so you can understand what you did wrong so you can do it better next time.

[00:27:27] In turn, what's going to happen is if you have that mindset, then you're going to invest the time and the strategies.

[00:27:32] And your chances of doing better the next time are better compared to someone with a fixed mindset who, upon getting a bad grade, concludes that this is evidence that I'm not smart enough.

[00:27:42] I shouldn't bother.

[00:27:44] And so they're going to study a little bit less, which means that they're less likely to do well on that subsequent test.

[00:27:49] Now so what you see is even though both people started off at a relatively similar place from a mindset perspective,

[00:27:55] that one initial setback, depending on how you interpret it, starts to create these divergent paths.

[00:28:01] Whereas if you believe that you stay engaged and you're not discouraged by that sort of proximal outcome, then you invest more and that next outcome becomes more positive,

[00:28:11] which then reinforces your initial belief that this isn't a sign that I can't do this.

[00:28:17] On contrast, someone who does believe that this is a sign that I can't do this disengages, studies less, does more poorly,

[00:28:24] and now they have more concrete evidence in their hands because they've done more poorly,

[00:28:29] which reconfirms their initial belief that I can't do this.

[00:28:32] And then it becomes very, very difficult to untangle and unpack because at that point,

[00:28:38] you have more and more evidence to support your initial beliefs.

[00:28:41] Now you sort of compound this over years and years and years and years,

[00:28:46] and that's where you see this very solid entrenched belief systems that create these differences between individuals.

[00:28:53] And it also creates a chronically different pattern of engagement or disengagement.

[00:28:59] So if you have many years of experience as a result of that initial interpretation, outcome, and confirmation cycle,

[00:29:06] that you can't do this, you're not going to bother.

[00:29:08] In fact, you hear people say this all the time.

[00:29:11] One of the really most exciting or interesting examples,

[00:29:15] and by the way, we all hold different mindsets in different domains.

[00:29:19] So for example, even though I'm a mindset researcher,

[00:29:23] I still cannot convince myself that I can sink.

[00:29:26] Unfortunately, my wife and my kids confirm this on a daily basis.

[00:29:30] But I do believe that I can be a better presenter.

[00:29:34] I do believe that I can be a better researcher.

[00:29:36] I believe I can be a better runner.

[00:29:38] And so because I have those core beliefs, I actually continue to invest time and energy into those things.

[00:29:43] But one of the most vivid examples that I came across is when I worked with some student athletes,

[00:29:47] specifically around the improvement of the performance on the court.

[00:29:51] And this was basketball.

[00:29:53] I remember this one athlete who came to me and he's like, you know,

[00:29:56] I want you to sort of watch as I play and then we can talk about some strategies for me to improve.

[00:30:01] And we did very well.

[00:30:03] And so he actually, under pressure, was able to execute some complex plays,

[00:30:08] under time pressure, that required some actually relatively complex mathematical competitions.

[00:30:13] Like he had to make quick judgments under pressure and quick calculations to be able to execute in this team performance.

[00:30:21] So he came back and we're talking about his performance and he was very, very proud of how he was doing

[00:30:27] and we were able to focus on areas of improvement.

[00:30:29] But then just from like conversation, I'm like, so how are things going otherwise?

[00:30:32] Like how's school?

[00:30:33] And he's like, oh, you know, I'm doing really good in this class, but I'm really struggling at math.

[00:30:38] I'm like, oh, I wonder why.

[00:30:39] He's like, well, I'm just not a math person.

[00:30:41] But with that single blanket statement, he had closed off his mind that there's a possibility that he could do well in mathematics,

[00:30:50] even though the evidence on the core demonstrates that he has all of the executive functions

[00:30:55] to be able to compute complex algorithms in a very, very time constrained way.

[00:31:01] But along the way, I imagine that he has some negative experience in mathematics.

[00:31:05] He had this certain, unfortunately, more fixed mindset attribution about what that means.

[00:31:10] And that's confirmed for him that I'm just not a math person.

[00:31:14] In fact, a couple of key words, a couple of key signals or cues when people have a fixed mindset is when they use terms like just.

[00:31:23] So I just can't do this.

[00:31:25] I just can't get this.

[00:31:26] It's just too hard.

[00:31:28] For whatever reason, that word popped in head whenever people have a fixed mindset or when they describe themselves as a kind of person.

[00:31:37] And that shows up either in positive perceptions or a negative perception.

[00:31:40] I'm a really great math person.

[00:31:44] I'm a really great history person.

[00:31:45] I'm a great cook.

[00:31:46] These kinds of identity descriptions tend to be signals of these fixed mindset.

[00:31:50] So just wanted to sort of touch on that point because it's critical to understand that the impact of mindset isn't just a single acute experience, but it accumulates over time across many instances.

[00:32:02] And it gets you to a place where it's very difficult to undo.

[00:32:07] That's the job.

[00:32:08] So to your question, how do you sort of foster more of a mindset?

[00:32:13] How do you sort of break down these negative mindsets?

[00:32:16] It's really hard.

[00:32:17] I think it depends on like if we're talking about from the individual perspective.

[00:32:21] So like if I wanted to instill a growth mindset in myself versus trying to instill it in somebody else, those are two different games.

[00:32:28] But I do think that, you know, let's start off with let's use an example of a parent.

[00:32:32] Because as I mentioned, these sort of mindsets are born as a response to our experiences from both external cues, but also internal cues.

[00:32:41] I remember one time I actually was giving a presentation on mindsets to a group, a large group of faculty.

[00:32:47] And at the front of this room was this one faculty member who more than anybody else, like I'd like to think that I'm an engaging speaker, but this man was into my presentation.

[00:32:58] Like from the beginning, his eyes were locked on me.

[00:33:01] He's being completely captivated by what I was trying to say.

[00:33:06] But at a level that felt so deep that it actually became uncomfortable.

[00:33:10] He was just like staring at me in this like deep reflective way that I'm like, something is going on here.

[00:33:18] I'm not sure that I can take full credit for what's happening.

[00:33:22] But sure enough, you know, at the end of the presentation, I was able to get through it.

[00:33:25] He comes up to me and he says, I really wanted to thank you for that presentation.

[00:33:30] You know, as you were speaking, it made me realize something.

[00:33:33] I'm like, what was it?

[00:33:34] He's like, I have a son.

[00:33:35] He's about nine years old and he just started playing chess.

[00:33:38] I'm like, oh, that's interesting.

[00:33:38] How's it going?

[00:33:39] He's like, well, I thought it wasn't going well.

[00:33:41] I'm like, well, what do you mean?

[00:33:42] He's like, well, it's just this past weekend.

[00:33:44] He has his first chess competition and he had a lineup of matches throughout the whole day.

[00:33:50] And it was his first time competing.

[00:33:52] And I had to sit in the stands.

[00:33:55] I couldn't go and sort of like cheer him on or encourage him.

[00:33:57] So he had these four games back to back that I could only watch from the sidelines.

[00:34:02] And what ended up happening is that I proceeded to watch him lose game after game after game

[00:34:08] in the most horrific, not even balanced way that you could imagine.

[00:34:14] And I sat there feeling crushed for my son, who must be feeling so discouraged by this experience

[00:34:20] that when he was in his fourth game, I was able to kind of come down from the stands and

[00:34:25] walk towards him.

[00:34:26] And I was ready to embrace him and hold him and tell him that it's okay.

[00:34:30] But to my surprise, he came up to me and he had the most exuberant sense of joy and excitement.

[00:34:38] And he said, Dad, did you see those games?

[00:34:41] I got my butt kicked by these amazing players.

[00:34:45] And it was the most wonderful thing.

[00:34:47] And in that moment, what was really powerful for him is that he, as the father, actually

[00:34:53] held a fixed mindset.

[00:34:55] That he believed that the only value of effort was to win, was the outcome.

[00:35:02] And he failed to appreciate the value of the process and the experience that is acquired

[00:35:08] when we put ourselves out there, when we exert ourselves, when we push ourselves to limits

[00:35:14] that we haven't done before.

[00:35:15] And so for him, the sort of aha moment was like, I hold a negative mindset about the meaning

[00:35:21] of challenge and competition.

[00:35:24] Specifically that I think the only thing that matters is whether you win or not.

[00:35:28] And I realized in that moment that I might have contributed to this mindset contagion that

[00:35:34] I might influence my son's beliefs because of the way that I see things.

[00:35:39] And in that moment, he just broke down.

[00:35:41] Oh, that's beautiful.

[00:35:42] Yeah.

[00:35:43] I still get choked up because it's like, you can only imagine yourself being in that

[00:35:48] situation and realize, wow, the power that we have to influence other people.

[00:35:52] And so I think when you think about our roles as coaches, our roles as parents, just also

[00:35:57] realizing that a lot of that, as we've touched on, comes from the beliefs that we hold about

[00:36:03] the relative value of the outcomes that society has told us are the things that matter.

[00:36:07] That, you know, winning is what matters or being the top timed individual is what matters.

[00:36:13] Like these things may matter, but they're not the entirety of what we should be focusing

[00:36:17] on.

[00:36:17] I think, you know, that's one kind of like paradigm for teachers, for coaches and for

[00:36:23] parents is to kind of reflect internally on like, what are the beliefs that I hold in

[00:36:27] terms of the meaning and the value of this endeavor?

[00:36:30] Recognizing that our kids, our students and our athletes are picking up on the things

[00:36:35] that we think matter.

[00:36:36] So that's, that's maybe starting off like a general set of recommendations for parents

[00:36:41] and teachers and coaches.

[00:36:43] That's huge.

[00:36:44] And I'm really, I want to dig into this a little bit because I think this is really, really

[00:36:47] important.

[00:36:49] So with the student who was playing chess, for example, he was so moved by what he was able

[00:36:56] to learn getting his butt kicked in this tournament, which is incredible.

[00:37:00] Yeah.

[00:37:01] And I'm imagining people who are listening to this, there might be some folks, and I say

[00:37:06] this only because I've seen this kind of theme crop up a lot, especially in sport, but in

[00:37:12] pretty much any competitive or performance oriented arena is this idea that if you focus just on

[00:37:18] the process, right?

[00:37:19] Like if we just give everybody a participant medal, then, you know, who is going to feel

[00:37:24] motivated to improve?

[00:37:26] So where is the balance between appreciating the process and maybe as a parent saying, okay,

[00:37:33] well, I want my kid to appreciate the process of learning.

[00:37:36] And I want to encourage my kid to get the best grades that they can.

[00:37:40] Maybe they don't have to get straight A's, you know, but how do I encourage them to do

[00:37:44] their best while still encouraging the process?

[00:37:47] If you're not focusing on outcomes.

[00:37:50] Yeah.

[00:37:51] I mean, that's a great question.

[00:37:53] And I think there's a way of doing it.

[00:37:55] And it's actually quite succinctly described by not focusing on process, not focusing on

[00:38:02] outcome, but focusing on progress, right?

[00:38:06] Because process without progress is also useless.

[00:38:09] Yes.

[00:38:10] And, you know, it's the same way that outcome without progress is not really useful, right?

[00:38:14] Like if you're, let's say the fastest eighth grader in a second grader race, then, you

[00:38:21] know, why are you there?

[00:38:24] Yeah, it feels great, but you're not in the right space.

[00:38:28] It's pretty meaningless.

[00:38:29] Yeah.

[00:38:29] Yeah.

[00:38:29] It's not useful.

[00:38:30] And so you kind of want that optimal set of conditions where you can have competition

[00:38:35] and you can strive for outcomes, but only if there is a signal of progress, right?

[00:38:41] I mean, again, unless like your livelihood depends on your particular sport, the vast

[00:38:46] majority of our conversations don't need to focus on outcomes alone.

[00:38:50] Because ultimately, as we think about our kids, our athletes, our students, we want them

[00:38:56] to learn.

[00:38:56] We want them to grow.

[00:38:57] And so I think just like this reframing around, is there progress happening now?

[00:39:02] And how do I measure that?

[00:39:04] And so I think that's kind of like the very sort of like broad blanket recommendation.

[00:39:08] So for example, let's say someone is starting to run for the first time.

[00:39:13] Running is physiologically an uncomfortable state, right?

[00:39:15] It's an uncomfortable experience.

[00:39:17] And as you're running, especially as you're starting out, like your body is out of breath

[00:39:21] and you look around and everybody else seems like they're not out of breath.

[00:39:24] So one way of interpreting that is like, I just can't run, right?

[00:39:27] And so if the first thing that you do as a coach is to try to do a benchmark time trial,

[00:39:34] for instance, like let's say you get them to run to 500 meters and you're trying to time

[00:39:37] that, then the thing that you're saying quite strongly and powerfully is that what I care

[00:39:41] about right now, even as you're starting, is that you perform relatively well from a

[00:39:46] time perspective.

[00:39:47] And so if the kid who tries this relative to everybody else who presumably is at the same

[00:39:54] or better level doesn't do as well, now has some bit of evidence that says what matters

[00:40:00] in this context is that I do well from a time perspective and I didn't do well.

[00:40:05] Now, I might do that same situation where a coach says, hey, I know that these kids are

[00:40:09] starting to run.

[00:40:10] And instead of even starting to think about timing or even mentioning that, they say,

[00:40:14] what I care about is that you bank a thousand runs around this lap over the next four months.

[00:40:20] And once you do that, once you've done a thousand laps around this truck, then we'll start looking

[00:40:28] at how it is that we can start to improve your performance.

[00:40:31] But by then they'll have run so many times and the benchmark of success is not whether

[00:40:36] they did it fast, but whether they completed it a certain number of times.

[00:40:39] So now the focus is on the progress.

[00:40:41] It's on the continuous improvement and the continuous investments towards something that

[00:40:47] accumulates over time.

[00:40:48] That's what progress is.

[00:40:50] And so I think that's kind of like one of the powerful ways that we can sort of recalibrate,

[00:40:54] especially when our students or kids are starting out.

[00:40:57] It's to recalibrate not around sort of these like objective but relative benchmarks that

[00:41:02] we compare ourselves to others, but around the effort that we put into things and the

[00:41:07] repetition and the process that leads to more clearly progress happening.

[00:41:12] Another example I think that often comes to mind is you can also, if you want to measure

[00:41:17] sort of progress and outcome, is instead of just focusing each single time on how it is

[00:41:24] that the kids do relative to each other, if you kept a log of how it is that they did across

[00:41:30] time, now you also have a different way of focusing on what progress means.

[00:41:34] It's not that you're needing to always be the best because what actually happens is,

[00:41:39] as we all know, is in training, especially if you're training hard, even though you're

[00:41:43] progressively getting stronger, your body always feels weak.

[00:41:46] Like you always ask someone, how are you feeling at the end of a training program versus at the

[00:41:51] beginning?

[00:41:52] They would actually say, I feel like I can do the best than when I started.

[00:41:56] But that's because you put a lot of accumulations of stress and mileage and work into your body

[00:42:01] intended to fatigue it.

[00:42:03] That's exactly how you got stronger.

[00:42:05] But if you had a clear catalog of your performance across time, then you're able to see objectively

[00:42:12] that I am improving on these key benchmarks relative to me, right?

[00:42:18] Not relative to others, relative to me.

[00:42:20] And you can actually graph that pretty easily.

[00:42:22] It's guaranteed.

[00:42:22] Like it's just like you can't cheat a well-designed and executed training program.

[00:42:28] If you do it faithfully across time, it's guaranteed to give you results.

[00:42:32] But people don't see that.

[00:42:33] So as a coach, our job is to show that quite clearly to the individuals to see that they

[00:42:39] are making progress.

[00:42:40] Because really at the heart of what a fixed mindset is, is this core belief that I just

[00:42:44] can't do this.

[00:42:45] And this will never change.

[00:42:46] But if you start to accumulate evidence and contrary to that, then you show that people

[00:42:51] are getting better.

[00:42:52] They are getting faster.

[00:42:53] Then they can also extrapolate into subsequent years and say, if I continue this, then this

[00:42:58] is where I'll be in about a year or two years to be a scrap.

[00:43:00] Yeah, I love this.

[00:43:02] That was actually exactly what my coach used to do for me because I would get really discouraged

[00:43:06] and think, you know, yeah, I've been putting on this training.

[00:43:08] And then he would pull out the charts.

[00:43:11] He would show me, you know, this is how your power output has been improving.

[00:43:15] This is, you know, and that was really powerful.

[00:43:18] I mean, and certainly like I personally, me as an individual, like I love being evidence

[00:43:24] based and I love the data and I can get a little too wrapped up in it.

[00:43:28] But that was my coach was really great about balancing that.

[00:43:31] We'll hear more from Dr. Omid Fotoui after this quick break.

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[00:43:56] That's ko-fi.com slash beagoodwheel.

[00:44:01] And now back to our conversation with psychology PhD and researcher, Dr. Omid Fotoui.

[00:44:07] I think this is a really important point to dig into here.

[00:44:12] When you're looking at this evidence, what is interesting to me is how we connect it with this

[00:44:16] idea of potential.

[00:44:17] So bear with me for a moment.

[00:44:19] Imagine we have a little timeline and there's me five years ago.

[00:44:23] There's me three years ago and me today.

[00:44:26] Let's say yesterday I had the race of my life and I performed at a level that I never believed

[00:44:36] that I possibly could, right?

[00:44:37] I surpassed all expectation until the day that I actually execute that performance in real

[00:44:44] life.

[00:44:44] I have no evidence for the fact that I'm capable of that, that that is my potential.

[00:44:52] So five years prior to that performance, for example, I would have no evidence to indicate

[00:44:58] that that was part of my potential.

[00:44:59] And I think sometimes when we focus on this idea of potential, it's really hard to imagine

[00:45:07] what we might be capable of because we'd have no evidence for it until it happens.

[00:45:13] And then once that happens, right?

[00:45:16] I know that's not the ceiling on my potential.

[00:45:19] So maybe I'm now capable of something even better, but I now can't imagine what that thing

[00:45:23] is because I don't have the evidence for it.

[00:45:26] And focusing on progress, I think is interesting.

[00:45:29] How do we connect that with this idea of reaching my future potential?

[00:45:34] Yeah, that's a really great question.

[00:45:36] And I think embedded in that question are several questions as well.

[00:45:41] So there are some sports that are sort of endurance sports that essentially you have to be out

[00:45:47] there for miles and miles and miles and hours and hours and hours doing the same thing over

[00:45:51] and over again.

[00:45:52] That gives you a lot of time to think.

[00:45:57] For better or worse?

[00:45:58] Better or for worse.

[00:45:59] Usually it's worse.

[00:46:01] But that's essentially like what you're describing is that you have this companion with you who

[00:46:06] is this internal voice trying to guide you on whether or not you should persist longer

[00:46:12] and for shorter, especially when you're doing many hours of training.

[00:46:17] The question is, is the utility value of the incrementally added time and effort worth it?

[00:46:24] So again, we're rational creatures.

[00:46:26] We have to make these decisions because when we invest in one thing, we're divesting from

[00:46:31] something else.

[00:46:31] It could be family time.

[00:46:32] It could be leisure time.

[00:46:33] It could be business.

[00:46:34] It could be whatever.

[00:46:35] And so our brains have to make these decisions because with limited resources, we have to decide

[00:46:39] what's the best bang for our buck.

[00:46:42] And that's where mindsets come in.

[00:46:43] It's like, you know, they try to answer the question of like, what's the point?

[00:46:47] Right?

[00:46:48] Like, yes.

[00:46:49] Will I achieve what I think is out there?

[00:46:53] What I think is beyond what I have any evidence for?

[00:46:56] Or just this potential concept that you're talking about.

[00:46:59] And just how far can I achieve?

[00:47:00] Like, especially if you're thinking about going, you know, semi-pro, pro, like now you're

[00:47:06] getting at the levels where you really do have to make a very significant investment.

[00:47:11] And the only reason why you would do that is you have to have a glimmer of hope that

[00:47:14] you could be competitive at those higher levels.

[00:47:17] And so I think there's a couple of things.

[00:47:18] One is like, you're going to have this sort of companion with you that is always making

[00:47:22] these calculations.

[00:47:24] And that's where I think we get to some of the aspects of your earlier questions around

[00:47:29] how is it that we can foster a more resilient and adaptive mindset for ourselves?

[00:47:34] And I think going back, so there's many strategies, but one of which is just remembering that from

[00:47:41] a data-driven perspective, that unless you have some kind of physical situation, that

[00:47:47] might be a viable reason why there are limitations to what you could achieve, which for the vast

[00:47:51] majority of people is not the case.

[00:47:53] And even when you think you have one, oftentimes you don't actually, it's not as bad as you

[00:47:57] think.

[00:47:57] I'm not making any sort of medical statements here.

[00:48:00] I'm saying it's like, even let's say for me, who's like, I have short legs, for instance,

[00:48:06] right?

[00:48:06] It's like the notion that I can't run as fast as someone with longer legs is actually not

[00:48:11] found it.

[00:48:11] Because when you look at the elite runners, they come in all sizes and shapes.

[00:48:15] But we use these sort of excuses and we use these conditions as convenient ways to disengage

[00:48:21] and distance ourselves.

[00:48:22] So there is a component of sort of the mindset training where you just have to start off with

[00:48:27] an awareness of what is the chatter in my mind?

[00:48:32] Because I think oftentimes it's there so often that we take it for granted that it has a certain

[00:48:38] tone, it has a certain personality, it has a certain consistency of showing up, especially

[00:48:43] when things are hard or other things are good.

[00:48:45] So just like getting to know this voice and recognizing that that voice is not you, it

[00:48:51] is part of this sort of mechanism to try to understand the world in which we navigate.

[00:48:58] And so it's the personality, it's a component of our meaning making machine, but it's not

[00:49:03] you in its entirety.

[00:49:04] And so the first step is just like get an awareness, like when it happens, when it pops

[00:49:08] in, just try to listen to it and then understand how it's speaking to you.

[00:49:12] Once you've had enough exposure to what the tone and the content of this voice is, then

[00:49:18] maybe you can start to challenge it, right?

[00:49:20] Maybe you can start to say, you know, like I know that when I'm at the top of a climb on

[00:49:24] a hill that you're telling me that my legs are too tired to keep pushing.

[00:49:29] Is that really true?

[00:49:30] And I wonder if I can challenge that.

[00:49:32] I wonder if next time I feel that or experience that, maybe I can now override that voice and

[00:49:38] push myself hard, a little bit harder than I thought, and then recalibrate based on the

[00:49:43] data.

[00:49:44] If the voice was right and I couldn't, well, that's useful to know.

[00:49:47] But if I could, then maybe now you're starting to put little sort of kinks in the armor of

[00:49:52] this fixed mindset.

[00:49:54] And so I think that's a big, you know, sort of domain of strategies that you can start to

[00:49:59] employ by first understanding what is this voice?

[00:50:01] And how do I challenge it based on data and evidence?

[00:50:03] And, you know, going back to where I started, which is to say that unless there's a viable

[00:50:08] physical limitation, there is so much potential for growth in a physiological sense that when

[00:50:16] we look at even the top performers, I would wager that any one of us could get within the

[00:50:22] 90th percentile of their performances in any given sport if we put in the adequate time

[00:50:27] on training.

[00:50:28] But obviously time and training is not to be taken for granted because those who do reach

[00:50:32] the top echelons of their sport have invested a whole lifetime.

[00:50:35] But if you are in the middle of that sort of training regimen and program and lifestyle

[00:50:39] and you're trying to figure out, can I get to that 90th percentile?

[00:50:44] I would wager that you can if you follow the same kinds of historical training programs

[00:50:49] that those athletes have.

[00:50:51] So I think A is like be aware.

[00:50:54] B is try to like find ways to challenge it.

[00:50:57] And then C is like also recognizing that with mindset, it often pops up when things are hard,

[00:51:05] but you also have to try to create counter evidence when things are good.

[00:51:08] So when you do achieve a good outcome, like let's say you're able to achieve that milestone

[00:51:13] performance that you were talking about for the first time.

[00:51:16] Sometimes what people do is they discount that.

[00:51:18] They say, okay, this was just a fluke.

[00:51:20] It was an easy course.

[00:51:22] No, you know, nobody else.

[00:51:23] I'm competitive enough there.

[00:51:24] But that's one of the ways that our brains actually fail us in a pretty consistent way.

[00:51:28] And one of the analogies that I love, and I'm, you know, the sport that I spend most

[00:51:32] time doing is running.

[00:51:33] But the fascinating observation from running is like, especially if you're in a race,

[00:51:37] while you're running, especially a longer race, after about 10, 15 minutes, you're kind

[00:51:42] of going to settle into a pace.

[00:51:44] And at that pace, there's going to be a group of runners around you who are typically at a

[00:51:48] similar pace.

[00:51:49] And so you're typically around these people that you're hanging on to, trying to like match

[00:51:54] their pace.

[00:51:55] But from time to time, what happens?

[00:51:56] There's a person that comes from behind you and they pass you.

[00:52:00] And then another person comes from behind you and they pass you again.

[00:52:03] And then you're like, okay, I'm hanging on with some of these people, but then there's

[00:52:08] people passing me.

[00:52:09] And then even as you keep going, some of these people you were hanging on to just take off

[00:52:12] as well.

[00:52:13] And so you only have eyes for the people who are in front of you or passing you.

[00:52:18] And so our brains, because of that, especially when we strive to achieve greater things

[00:52:23] than we have in the past, we're always looking and comparing ourselves to those who are better

[00:52:27] than ourselves.

[00:52:28] We only have eyes for what's in front of us.

[00:52:30] Oftentimes it's the people passing us.

[00:52:32] What we don't recognize is when we pass somebody, because all of a sudden they're out of our

[00:52:37] field of vision.

[00:52:38] They're no longer part of the evidence that tells us that we're doing well.

[00:52:41] We also don't see the vast, huge groups of people who are behind us because we never

[00:52:47] started there or we pass them very early.

[00:52:49] So recognizing that our brains do have a bias for negativity and when we're in competitive

[00:52:54] domains, we tend to strive to meet up or achieve at a higher level compared to those who are

[00:53:02] at that higher level.

[00:53:03] So comparatively, actually, we're set up to feel pretty all the time.

[00:53:07] So I'm not sure.

[00:53:10] Yeah.

[00:53:10] And yeah, but being able to recognize that again and sort of give it the empirical basis

[00:53:16] to realize that this is not really a true and comprehensive reflection of how I'm doing

[00:53:22] helps to recalibrate the sort of mindset calculation that happens in our minds unconscious or our

[00:53:28] knowledge.

[00:53:28] That's so interesting.

[00:53:29] This really tracks.

[00:53:31] I mean, I imagine we have that old saying, right?

[00:53:33] Neurons that fire together wire together.

[00:53:35] And that these mindsets that we accumulate over time, either through our own self-reinforcing

[00:53:42] experience or from mindsets that we've encountered out in the world or an environment, that some

[00:53:48] of them become somewhat habitual.

[00:53:50] Like you said, if you are listening for this chatter, that there's a tone that you recognize

[00:53:54] because it has become white noise almost because it is so habitual.

[00:54:00] And what you're describing sounds like once you notice that and you can challenge it, you're

[00:54:06] interrupting a recursive thought loop that's been self-reinforcing and strengthening over

[00:54:12] time.

[00:54:12] And just by interrupting that, you can start to weaken that pathway and then potentially

[00:54:19] build a different one.

[00:54:20] Is that accurate?

[00:54:22] Yeah, I think that's exactly right.

[00:54:23] Unless you're able to sort of like disrupt those chatter patterns, then you're not going to

[00:54:29] recognize that they're really just a subjective interpretation of what's happening.

[00:54:33] And they're motivated.

[00:54:34] They're motivated by the pain that you're going through.

[00:54:36] They're motivated by the calculation of like, should I continue to invest all this time and

[00:54:39] effort?

[00:54:39] Like they're actually part of a mechanism that's designed to protect you.

[00:54:44] So it's not that they're bad.

[00:54:45] You shouldn't villainize those voices like, oh, you're invading and treating my mind.

[00:54:49] They're there because they, in some way, kind of care.

[00:54:52] But at the same time, it's not the objective truth.

[00:54:55] And so if you have aspirations of pushing yourself, then recognizing that that is not the whole

[00:55:00] truth and injecting additional evidence that counters that helps to have a more balanced

[00:55:06] perspective.

[00:55:07] One sort of like phrase that sort of the mindset researchers have had the privilege of working

[00:55:12] with have summarized, especially as you're thinking about like, if I can reprogram my

[00:55:17] mind, what is the value towards which I want to try to base that reprogramming?

[00:55:22] And the phrase that I come to over and over again is to move from prove to improve.

[00:55:29] So if you're thinking about how it is that you want to like index on the things that matter

[00:55:34] in any moment, as you're trying to calibrate, what is this?

[00:55:37] Why am I doing this?

[00:55:39] And the answer is either to prove to others that I can perform at a certain level versus

[00:55:44] that I'm here to improve and grow.

[00:55:46] So then that also helps to shift the meaning of or the reason for why you're doing things.

[00:55:52] So like if you're really pushing hard and you're not doing as well as you think you

[00:55:56] should be doing relative to others, then again, the rational choice is like, don't do this.

[00:56:01] But if you're pushing really hard and you understand that the reason why you're doing that is not

[00:56:05] necessarily to do well in this one particular training session, but continue to improve so

[00:56:10] that you can see what your potential is, then that becomes a very different story as well.

[00:56:13] So move from prove to improve is a phrase that I come back to as well.

[00:56:17] Awesome.

[00:56:18] That's such a powerful takeaway.

[00:56:19] And I'm 100% going to use that for myself.

[00:56:23] I've never heard that before, but I love that.

[00:56:26] Absolutely.

[00:56:27] Yeah.

[00:56:28] I want to touch back on this idea of the chatter not being, you know, the chatter actually cares.

[00:56:35] I like that idea because one of the things I do when I work with athletes is I have them

[00:56:41] name the chatter as if it were a character.

[00:56:44] And I typically try to have them name it something that makes them laugh.

[00:56:48] So the one that I named mine is Regina, the character from Mean Girls, which she's a mean

[00:56:53] girl, but it also has this like funny humorous connotation.

[00:56:56] And what that does is it separates the chatter, right?

[00:57:00] So it's not just me.

[00:57:02] There is this character.

[00:57:03] Yeah.

[00:57:03] And the character, you know, especially if they have a funny name, you can take them a

[00:57:08] little bit less seriously.

[00:57:09] But also that the character, like you said, serves this really important purpose that's

[00:57:14] connected to our survival because that character is saying, okay, our heart rate's elevated.

[00:57:19] You're breathing really hard.

[00:57:20] This is very similar to when we had a panic attack or when this other truly distressful,

[00:57:27] threatening situation happened.

[00:57:30] And that, you know, Regina is going to come online.

[00:57:33] It's going to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[00:57:36] Sound the alarms.

[00:57:37] This may not be a safe situation.

[00:57:38] Or I've detected some kind of a threat.

[00:57:42] And Regina's interpretation of the situation may not be accurate, like you said, because

[00:57:47] Regina is detecting threat in the environment.

[00:57:50] And one of the analogies I like to use is like, if you walk around the corner and you see

[00:57:53] a hose, you might think it's a snake.

[00:57:55] Regina might think it's a snake.

[00:57:56] And she's going to make me jump before I have a chance to rationally assess the situation

[00:58:02] and determine that it's just a hose.

[00:58:04] And that's a good thing because if it were a snake and I stopped to think about it and

[00:58:11] rationally assess the situation, I could be dead.

[00:58:13] So Regina is doing her job really well, but it takes my rational brain a second to come online

[00:58:19] and to challenge or, you know, confirm or refute what it is that she said.

[00:58:24] And one of the powerful things I think about looking at the chatter or that character as

[00:58:30] serving an important purpose is we don't have to fight it.

[00:58:35] So instead of thinking like, oh, you know, this chatter is bad.

[00:58:39] I have to overcome it.

[00:58:41] Now I'm not only applying effort to being aware of it and challenging it.

[00:58:46] And I think challenging it, like you said, is really important, but it's not a battle of

[00:58:50] wills.

[00:58:51] It's a cooperative effort, right?

[00:58:53] It's like, oh, hey, Regina, I see you.

[00:58:56] I can tell you're concerned about my breathing right now.

[00:58:59] I appreciate that you've got my back and you're checking out for threats.

[00:59:04] But right now, this is a hose and not a snake.

[00:59:08] But it removes this layer of, I want to say judgment and shame, like, oh, I shouldn't have

[00:59:14] this negative chatter.

[00:59:15] I shouldn't have this thing.

[00:59:16] No, it's actually a good thing.

[00:59:18] And you can work with it versus feeling bad about it and adding this other layer that you

[00:59:23] then have to deal with as well.

[00:59:26] Yeah.

[00:59:26] When do you find that Regina comes out most often?

[00:59:29] That's another really interesting thing.

[00:59:31] Typically, when something that's happening is it's an uncertain environment, it's high stakes.

[00:59:39] And the threat is maybe I'm not good enough.

[00:59:43] That's usually when she comes out.

[00:59:44] That's the threat is that threat to my core identity.

[00:59:48] Yeah.

[00:59:48] I mean, I think the things that you're touching on here are really sort of transcending.

[00:59:52] And I believe that if you're trying to grow as a human being, then there's a lot of disciplines

[00:59:59] that are useful to be aware of.

[01:00:01] I've certainly been a huge beneficiary of the field of psychology, not just for professional

[01:00:08] purposes, but for my personal purposes as well.

[01:00:11] And some of the things that you're talking about is moving towards a place of greater

[01:00:16] self-compassion, of greater self-awareness.

[01:00:18] These are the fundamentals of truly strong soul.

[01:00:23] And I think once you are able to cultivate the conditions and the qualities of a strong

[01:00:29] soul, then you can actually endure a lot more.

[01:00:31] But understanding the things that are making you brittle, making you vulnerable are a significant

[01:00:37] part of that.

[01:00:38] And one of the things that I...

[01:00:39] So first, I'll share a quick quote that I love, and then I'll take a step back and

[01:00:45] get to the core of why this, like, why we have these questions.

[01:00:48] But the quote that I love is, and one of the things I try to remind myself of, is that I'd

[01:00:53] rather be a warrior in a garden than a gardener at war.

[01:00:57] Which is to say that, you know, even in this current day of comfort and leisure, that our

[01:01:03] brains are no longer designed to push ourselves to limits that are beyond what our conditions

[01:01:10] require, right?

[01:01:11] And so we live in this sort of modern garden, if you will.

[01:01:14] So there's no real reason to push ourselves beyond what's necessary.

[01:01:19] But what if it were necessary?

[01:01:21] And what if there were some value in having the skills and the experiences of someone who

[01:01:26] consistently is pushing ourselves?

[01:01:27] So I think there's a component of, like, who is the person that I aspire to be that you

[01:01:31] can sort of anchor your decisions around?

[01:01:34] And I think that's where goals are really important.

[01:01:37] Goals and aspirations are really important.

[01:01:38] And they're there to serve a functional purpose of giving you something to strive towards,

[01:01:43] even absence the immediate contextual motivations to do so.

[01:01:47] So like I said, imagine that you live in a modern day garden.

[01:01:50] There's no reason to go and practice your sword skills, your running skills.

[01:01:54] But if that's who you aspire to be, having goals of qualifying for Boston, of meeting a

[01:01:59] certain competition time threshold, or being a stronger person, version of yourself, those

[01:02:05] are aspirational components that can give you the motivation to keep striving.

[01:02:08] But in terms of, like, just broader and more meaningful internal growth that is also at

[01:02:14] our disposal, it's, you know, what I've come to realize, and I apologize if this is a bit

[01:02:19] of a tangent to your podcast.

[01:02:20] No, I love it.

[01:02:20] We're all about tangents here.

[01:02:22] Go for it.

[01:02:24] But like, a lot of the big questions are like, that we implicitly are navigating around two

[01:02:30] things.

[01:02:30] One of which, you know, is actually born of the fact that we are the single species, as far

[01:02:35] as we can tell, that have consciousness, right?

[01:02:38] So what consciousness is the way that I define it is that at some point, our brains became

[01:02:42] so complex for many adaptive reasons that it became aware that we are alive.

[01:02:47] And in that moment, I imagine two things happened.

[01:02:50] One was this incredible jubilation in the awareness that we are alive.

[01:02:58] Like, just being aware that you are alive must be such an incredibly powerful, positive

[01:03:03] experience.

[01:03:03] But at the same time, if our brain is as sophisticated as it is, immediately after that realization,

[01:03:09] you'll realize that if we're alive, we're going to die soon.

[01:03:12] That becomes an incredibly terrifying experience.

[01:03:15] And so, you know, a very, very sort of like simplistic summary of the fundamental motivations

[01:03:22] of what drives us as human beings is understanding how to reconcile how it is that we can spend

[01:03:27] the time that we have been privileged with in a way that answers the following question.

[01:03:32] Did I matter?

[01:03:34] You know, I think so much of what we do comes to how it is that we answer this question.

[01:03:39] Did I matter?

[01:03:39] And oftentimes, we anchor the answer to that question based on the signals and the feedback

[01:03:45] that we get from others.

[01:03:46] Like, how did I do in math class?

[01:03:49] How did I do in my work?

[01:03:50] How did I do as a father based on the feedback my kids gave me?

[01:03:53] But as you evolve as a human, I think at some point you realize that the way that you

[01:03:57] answer that question is actually more anchored around your own internal calibration and values.

[01:04:03] Like, how you determine whether you matter and whether your life is worth living are going

[01:04:08] to move from those external cues to a more internal place.

[01:04:12] And being able to navigate that journey and transition of understanding why we live, why

[01:04:19] we exert effort, why we push ourselves anchored around the things, the values that really

[01:04:24] matter to us, then that becomes a pretty fundamentally sustainable pathway that allows us to endure

[01:04:32] the hardships of the external world, endure the doubts that come from the external world.

[01:04:38] And then invest in time and invest in efforts that are aligned with the things that we care

[01:04:42] about deeply and fundamentally.

[01:04:44] Once you're able to do that deep work, which is not easy, when you start to realize that,

[01:04:51] yeah, you really are like a good whole person and the various components of you,

[01:04:57] but things, weaknesses, whatever you want to call them, are there for an adaptive reason.

[01:05:01] They're there to help you in some shape or form.

[01:05:04] Even the limiting components of ourselves, like Regina or the fear to try something new,

[01:05:11] those are all also there because they're components of what makes you so special and so unique.

[01:05:16] So as you said, and I love it, is making sure that as you navigate these forces, internal

[01:05:21] like external, they come from a compassionate place.

[01:05:24] And that ultimately, you are moving towards a level of self-awareness that is so resolute and

[01:05:30] so self-aware that you can endure almost anything, regardless of what the external do.

[01:05:35] That's beautiful.

[01:05:36] I got kind of emotional as you were talking just then.

[01:05:40] That fundamental question of did I matter?

[01:05:42] Do I matter?

[01:05:43] Is so powerful.

[01:05:45] And I think, I mean, just the moment those words came out of your mouth, I felt it in my chest.

[01:05:49] And I think that that really gets to the core of so much for all of us.

[01:05:55] And what you said about having that move from finding the answer to that question and moving

[01:06:02] from searching for that answer from these external cues to these internal cues,

[01:06:07] that really hit hard right now.

[01:06:09] And I think it's hit hard for me in a couple of phases of life where you move from school

[01:06:16] where the outcomes are so clear.

[01:06:18] They're so quantitative.

[01:06:19] You got an A, you got a B, you got a C, you got a 90%, a 60%.

[01:06:23] It's so clear and cut.

[01:06:24] And there are clear expectations.

[01:06:26] It's quantitative.

[01:06:28] And it's all kind of set up in this pre-made system.

[01:06:31] You move out of that into college and it becomes more subjective.

[01:06:34] You move out of college into a job and it becomes more subjective.

[01:06:37] And I kind of feel like for myself at least, and I know I've, you know,

[01:06:40] this is probably the case for others as well.

[01:06:42] You move through these periods of evolution where what you thought was going to bring you

[01:06:49] that fulfillment and meaning, that outcome that you thought, if I achieve this outcome,

[01:06:54] I will finally feel like I matter.

[01:06:57] I will finally feel like I'm enough.

[01:06:59] And, you know, maybe you achieve the outcome and you don't feel it.

[01:07:02] And then it's like, oh, okay, like that belief system, that mental model is crumbling and now

[01:07:08] I need to find a new one.

[01:07:10] And I kind of feel like it's this constant shedding of old models and adopting new ones

[01:07:15] in search of exactly what you're describing, that fundamental internal resilience.

[01:07:21] I want to connect this back because in doing the research on and reading some of your material,

[01:07:26] you go into depth on what adaptive resilience really is.

[01:07:31] And one of the terms that you came up with, or one of the terms you mentioned was grit mania.

[01:07:37] And I feel like that is such a great comparison with what you just brought up.

[01:07:41] Can you tell us what grit mania is?

[01:07:44] Yeah.

[01:07:45] And it's not exclusive to grit.

[01:07:47] I think, you know, there's historically a pretty clear pattern of where there's a concept

[01:07:53] that seems effective that we oversimplify it.

[01:07:55] And so you can imagine, you know, back, I think it was in the 60s where there was this

[01:08:00] sort of simple observation that the individuals who had higher self-esteem also had better

[01:08:06] life outcomes.

[01:08:07] And so from that simple correlation, the field and the education domain all said, what we

[01:08:14] need to do is tell our kids that they're great.

[01:08:16] They're just wonderful human beings.

[01:08:17] If they believe, you know, that they are the simple greatest gift of God, then they will

[01:08:22] do well because the correlation shows that higher self-confidence is a better outcome.

[01:08:27] Turns out that did not work out.

[01:08:30] Because if you create these sort of unfounded perceptions of great strength or great abilities

[01:08:35] that's not supported by the actual abilities, it can set people up for pretty disastrous outcomes.

[01:08:41] I can imagine, yeah.

[01:08:42] And so what falls from there was the growth mindset with it.

[01:08:45] In fact, you know, Carol Dweck's incredible work on identifying these conditions and these

[01:08:52] qualities of individuals who see challenge and difficulty either in a positive light or

[01:08:57] in a negative light also was predictive of pretty powerful outcomes, right?

[01:09:00] So they showed that great growth mindset is predictive of better resilience, better engagement, better

[01:09:06] performance compared to fixed mindset.

[01:09:08] And so what happens is our educational systems, again, to a forum, decided to try to escape

[01:09:15] the insights from growth mindset to every student.

[01:09:19] Now, the way that it's shared today, unfortunately, is this overly simplistic way where a teacher

[01:09:25] will, from the literature, say, hey, I know that having a growth mindset is good, so you

[01:09:29] should have one.

[01:09:31] Guess what?

[01:09:32] Not the best way.

[01:09:35] It's having a growth mindset.

[01:09:36] Because what you're saying is now the onus is on you not only to perform, but also to

[01:09:40] demonstrate to me that you have a growth mindset.

[01:09:42] Yeah.

[01:09:42] Right?

[01:09:42] Like 15 years ago, the teacher who was neglectful of the kids that they didn't think were smart

[01:09:48] enough has now done engaging in the same neglect, but instead of based on what they think is

[01:09:53] skill, they'll neglect the students based on mindset.

[01:09:56] If you don't have the right mindset, I don't want to work with you.

[01:09:59] And so the same thing has happened with grit.

[01:10:02] Grit was this beautiful observation that those who have this persistence and commitment to

[01:10:07] long-term goals tend to have better outcomes.

[01:10:10] But it just caught a wave of popularity that was so, so fast and so rapid that we have again

[01:10:18] defaulted to an overly simplistic view.

[01:10:21] And unfortunately, we've painted this image of grittiness as being the foundation of being

[01:10:29] able to have better outcomes, which I want to challenge because if you unpack this simplistic

[01:10:36] notion of grit, you actually find a few components.

[01:10:39] So I think when people talk about grit, they say, you know, pull yourself by the bootstraps

[01:10:44] or when you have nothing left to give, just dig a little bit deeper.

[01:10:48] And that's what grit is.

[01:10:50] But, you know, from a physics perspective, that's not possible.

[01:10:53] When you have nothing left in the tank, you can't just make it appear out of nowhere.

[01:10:58] And so the unfortunate consequence of this sort of grit mania phenomenon that I term is

[01:11:05] that when things get hard, individuals believe that they just need to be a little bit more

[01:11:09] gritty, which interpret as I just need to find a little bit more of my internal reserve to

[01:11:15] push through this challenge by myself.

[01:11:18] And I think those components, implicit components of what we think about when we think of grit are

[01:11:24] exactly the things that are actually the most dangerous.

[01:11:26] Because when you look at people who are resilient out in the wild, the people who can really

[01:11:31] endure and navigate challenge in the most adaptive way, they are the ones who are actually the

[01:11:37] least gritty based on that definition.

[01:11:39] Specifically, they're the ones that when things get hard from an early stage, they reach out

[01:11:45] to their network.

[01:11:46] They pull in resources to help them preemptively address the challenges that come their way.

[01:11:53] So as opposed to those who are gritty, who think, okay, I'm falling behind.

[01:11:58] I just need to sort of hide myself in my dorm room.

[01:12:00] I need to like go to the track and put in a few more miles by myself before I can come back to the

[01:12:05] team or come back to the class and be able to tackle this as a group.

[01:12:08] But what ends up happening is when you do that, you either exhaust yourself or you engage in

[01:12:13] strategies that are not well supported.

[01:12:15] And so you're doing more work that leads to less optimal results, which in turn actually harms you.

[01:12:23] So that notion of grit can actually mislead people towards more negative outcomes because

[01:12:27] it confuses grit with resilience.

[01:12:30] And the way that I try to remind people of what resilience is and how you can foster resilience

[01:12:36] is not to foster the internal quality of resilience, but to foster resilient networks.

[01:12:41] Because ultimately, that's where the strength comes from.

[01:12:44] When you have nothing left to give, as we go back to that metaphor, then the only way you can

[01:12:48] find a little bit more is to borrow some from the people around you.

[01:12:53] And so when you invest in that and when you invest in resilient networks,

[01:12:57] then you too become part of that network of resilience.

[01:12:59] Because sometimes people are going to rely on you when they have nothing left to give.

[01:13:03] And that's really the only way that I think we see resilience be adaptive in today's work.

[01:13:09] What I also want to sort of like say is like, because these terms are often conflated with

[01:13:14] a lot of different meanings, I'm not trying to suggest that you should just like take life easy,

[01:13:19] right?

[01:13:20] Because the long-term pursuits that we have are challenging.

[01:13:23] They require that you persist in the face of difficulty, in the face of not getting immediate

[01:13:28] gratification.

[01:13:28] But those are distinct things.

[01:13:30] And I think to confuse them by saying the only way to get through things is to grind your teeth

[01:13:35] and push through by yourself is actually not adaptive.

[01:13:38] So I think if you're talking about, well, how do I then also cultivate time management?

[01:13:43] How do I also utilize goals to help me stay motivated for long-term outcomes?

[01:13:47] Those are important conversations and useful tools, but they're not grit.

[01:13:50] And that's why I think it's important to unpack it and think about them more specifically.

[01:13:54] Yeah, I see this all of the time in sport.

[01:13:57] And this is such a great way of differentiating this because grit is a word that gets tossed around

[01:14:03] all of the time in performance environments.

[01:14:05] And I think people ascribe to it many different meanings, but this meaning of just overriding,

[01:14:11] you know, discomfort and tolerating more and more by yourself.

[01:14:15] And that certainly is what's implied, I think, is that you should just be able to handle it.

[01:14:20] And, you know, a few things happen with that.

[01:14:23] Not only do athletes and people, like you said, isolate themselves at the moment that they probably

[01:14:28] most need support from others, but I think that override itself is really dangerous too,

[01:14:36] because you're ignoring genuine signals that your body and your psyche are sending to you

[01:14:43] that need attention, that need tending to.

[01:14:45] And maybe you can't tend to them by yourself at this point because you don't have anything left to give.

[01:14:49] I love this idea of the resilient network because I think that is so powerful.

[01:14:55] And I think it's hard. It's hard to admit when you need help.

[01:14:58] It's hard to ask for help because I don't know the best way of saying this.

[01:15:03] This isn't quite the right word that I mean, but like,

[01:15:05] it feels like you're burdening somebody else with my problem.

[01:15:07] Like, I'm just going to burden someone with my problems if I'm asking them for help.

[01:15:11] How would you address those two things?

[01:15:13] The, you know, the shame in feeling like I need to ask for help in the first place

[01:15:17] and the fear that I might be burdening somebody with that, that ask.

[01:15:22] Yeah, I think it kind of hit it on the head.

[01:15:23] But whenever that emotion of shame creeps us out, in fact, you know,

[01:15:28] that's probably the single most powerful distinction between

[01:15:30] when people decide to grind it up by themselves versus find a network.

[01:15:36] It's the feeling of shame.

[01:15:38] Like maybe me struggling is a sign that I'm not valuable to the team or I'm not doing as well.

[01:15:44] So going back to our self-awareness conversation,

[01:15:47] this single greatest, if I were to try to identify an experience that is not there to help you

[01:15:54] in this modern day and age, it's this notion of shame that we experience.

[01:15:58] You know, and, you know, if you kind of go back to where the origins of shame come from,

[01:16:02] they come from like a conformity perspective,

[01:16:04] which is when someone deviates from the norms of the group,

[01:16:07] we use shame as a useful tool to bring them back in mind.

[01:16:09] Now, a lot of the conditioning that we've been exposed to become internalized qualities such

[01:16:15] that, again, this sort of extrapolates why we feel shame from a performance perspective.

[01:16:20] It's because we grew up in an educational system that told us that you need to perform well.

[01:16:25] Otherwise, you're not good enough.

[01:16:26] We grew up in a society where we view athletic performance in a competitive lens,

[01:16:32] that you are only as good as you are relative to others.

[01:16:35] And so if you're struggling, we associate that with this notion of shame that we're not good enough.

[01:16:40] Right?

[01:16:40] So I think really being aware that that's where shame comes from,

[01:16:44] then that helps us also just again to be aware and decide when we can

[01:16:49] to kind of challenge that experience of shame and kind of override it.

[01:16:53] I think there are moments when you can't override your internal programming.

[01:16:57] You know, just this notion of shame that I have to say,

[01:16:59] it's like one of the questions that a few colleagues of mine were talking about recently over drinks,

[01:17:04] which was just around parenting.

[01:17:06] And I tend to be more of a listener.

[01:17:08] I know you wouldn't believe this during the podcast.

[01:17:12] In social situations, I tend to just be the one who's absorbing and listening and learning,

[01:17:16] asking a lot of questions.

[01:17:17] So we were at this dinner table with a lot of my esteemed colleagues,

[01:17:20] and I was just going around and just trying to pick the brains about parenting,

[01:17:24] because that's the thing that was on my mind.

[01:17:26] And the conversation of social media came up.

[01:17:28] And as we know, I think the basic research shows that social media is not great,

[01:17:33] especially for young girls.

[01:17:34] And the reason is that it's not great is because of the constant presence of social media.

[01:17:41] There's what's known as this invisible audience that these young individuals feel,

[01:17:46] is that there's always, I mean, always someone who is watching them.

[01:17:50] And so they feel like they always need to be performing based on the standards that they see on social media.

[01:17:55] For example, back in my day, when I didn't get invited to a party on a Friday evening,

[01:18:00] I didn't know about it until Monday morning.

[01:18:03] It means that I could spend my weekend actually having a good time.

[01:18:07] But today, if you don't get invited to a party, you know about it right away.

[01:18:12] You know about it right away.

[01:18:13] And so you have to live with this feeling of like,

[01:18:15] why am I not invited?

[01:18:16] Am I good enough?

[01:18:17] There's a lot of shame in today's society,

[01:18:20] probably more so than I would say when I grew up.

[01:18:21] And so the question came to me where after picking out my colleagues' brains,

[01:18:27] they asked me like, what advice would you give your children?

[01:18:30] And I said, you know what?

[01:18:31] I think if there's one bit of advice is just what we touched on,

[01:18:35] is to have enough awareness to be able to recognize when shame creeps its ugly head

[01:18:43] and then tries to make you feel like you're less than.

[01:18:46] Because that's what the function of shame is.

[01:18:48] And so once you become aware, and it's not an easy thing to do because it's everywhere

[01:18:52] and it's conditioned, it's internalized through many years of conditioning and social programming.

[01:18:57] But once you start to sort of see the moments where shame does appear,

[01:19:01] then you can start to engage in effortful and intentional challenging of those perceptions

[01:19:06] and with the hopes of replacing it.

[01:19:08] Just like having a fixed mindset.

[01:19:09] What you do is you recognize one of those fixed mindsets when Regina shows up

[01:19:13] and you're like, hey Regina, thanks for being here.

[01:19:15] But what you're basing your assumptions on are not all of the data.

[01:19:20] It's not all of the evidence that we want to be considering.

[01:19:22] And shame is one of those feelings that I think is critical.

[01:19:24] And it goes back to this distinction between resilience.

[01:19:28] I think it's fine to push yourself.

[01:19:30] I think it's good to challenge yourself to a level that you haven't been to in the palace.

[01:19:35] But if there's a notion of shame within that,

[01:19:39] then chances are you're going to resort to gritty behavior,

[01:19:42] which is a spicy over-efforting, as opposed to this adaptive resilience

[01:19:46] that I think is actually more adaptive for these people.

[01:19:49] Yeah, yeah, that really makes so much sense.

[01:19:52] And I think it also connects with self-compassion in a way,

[01:19:55] because one of the things that I observe is there's another belief, right,

[01:20:01] that reinforces the chatter of the Reginas out there,

[01:20:04] which is that I shouldn't be satisfied with who I am or how I am right now.

[01:20:11] Because if I'm satisfied with who I am or how I am,

[01:20:15] I won't be motivated or driven or ambitious enough

[01:20:18] to achieve the outcomes I want to achieve or to achieve my goals.

[01:20:21] And I think sometimes self-compassion, as important as it is,

[01:20:27] gets discounted because there's a fear that self-compassion equals complacency.

[01:20:32] And that if I show myself compassion, then I'll become complacent.

[01:20:37] I'll lose my drive. If I don't have the Regina there, you know,

[01:20:42] chiding me every minute of the day,

[01:20:44] I won't be driven enough to achieve the things that I want to achieve.

[01:20:48] And I think that sometimes we focus on grit.

[01:20:51] We maybe over-rely on these models to drive us to continue to persist

[01:20:58] when that might not be the most effective way forward.

[01:21:00] Yeah. And, you know, I think the main message here is just recognizing

[01:21:06] that a lot of these emotional and psychological experiences

[01:21:10] that people talk about are not as monolithic as they might sing.

[01:21:14] So realizing that there is sort of a mixed set of emotions and beliefs.

[01:21:20] I'm not going to stand here and just like say everyone should do this, right?

[01:21:23] Like some people do very well in their designated sport because of shame.

[01:21:28] Because along the way, they were told that's the only way that you matter.

[01:21:32] That's the only way that you, you know, be deserving of our affection.

[01:21:35] And that's not a great place, but I'm also not going to judge how people live their lives.

[01:21:39] I think at the end of the day, my hope is that people can make the choices

[01:21:43] based on as much self-awareness as possible.

[01:21:45] So that even if you do have shame and it's adaptive for you from like a super performance perspective

[01:21:50] and you choose if that's what you want to use as a force of motivation,

[01:21:53] I'm not going to tell you now, but just be mindful that oftentimes shame is not as sustainable

[01:21:59] as a more enduring, more self-compassionate stance on why you do things.

[01:22:04] How can self-compassion actually promote persistence?

[01:22:07] Well, I mean, it's absolutely very useful.

[01:22:11] Because what happens when you stumble?

[01:22:13] Know the self-compassion.

[01:22:15] Yeah.

[01:22:15] Right?

[01:22:16] There'll be geniuses that connect them out and say,

[01:22:18] Hey, you don't deserve to do this.

[01:22:20] You're not good enough.

[01:22:21] Who are you kidding?

[01:22:23] Who are you kidding?

[01:22:24] That's a phrase that we all hear in our minds.

[01:22:26] Oh my gosh.

[01:22:28] Who are you kidding?

[01:22:30] Well, you've got to figure out how to navigate that question.

[01:22:32] And if you have the intentional choice that I'm going to be self-compassionate,

[01:22:36] like I'm not trying to kid anyone.

[01:22:38] I just want to do this because I want to grow.

[01:22:40] There are those moments when you do have to come in and have a conversation with the voices inside your head.

[01:22:46] And if you choose, you know, this is actually one of the aspects of psychology that isn't as well researched, which is the power of choice.

[01:22:54] Right?

[01:22:55] Like if you choose to do something, then there is that overriding possibility that can happen.

[01:23:01] Like if you choose to commit to a goal, then what you're essentially doing is you're overriding your protective, preserving instincts of sitting on the couch and eating fatty foods and, you know, spending time in more pleasurable ways.

[01:23:14] But you've chosen to do something hard.

[01:23:16] And, you know, there's actually a couple of muscles that I think about.

[01:23:19] One is this muscle of choice.

[01:23:22] So the more you make choices and then follow through, the stronger that muscle gets.

[01:23:28] The other is this muscle of staying power.

[01:23:31] And I think, you know, especially for endurance sports like cycling and running, there's the very specific strengthening of that staying power muscle that can only come by pushing yourself to do a longer run, a longer distance than you've ever done.

[01:23:47] And those will be the places where your body is telling you, you're tired, dude.

[01:23:52] You need to go home.

[01:23:52] Like, what are you doing?

[01:23:54] Like, you know, you shouldn't be out here.

[01:23:57] And you have to say, like, what I'm doing right now is I'm stressing a part of my body that isn't physiological.

[01:24:03] It's this mental staying power muscle that I need to be able to do an ultramarathon, that I need to be able to do whatever distance that you're trying to do.

[01:24:12] So I do think those are two additional muscles that if you add to your repertoire of muscles to strengthen in a particular domain, those are great.

[01:24:20] But again, be mindful of not letting shame or, you know, these other stigmatizing experiences be the primary source of why you're doing that.

[01:24:29] So self-compassion is absolutely crucial because I might decide to go for a really long run and I might decide that I want to exercise this staying muscle when on that particular day, my Achilles is hurting or I'm undernutritioned or underslept and I just can't do it.

[01:24:44] So I come home and then I have to make a decision about what does this mean?

[01:24:48] Does this mean that I just generally can't do this and I should be ashamed of myself because I didn't do what I said I would do?

[01:24:54] Like, should I have pushed myself harder?

[01:24:56] At some point, you know, your preservation muscles actually do need to come in and protect you because we can be crazy on the other extreme too, right?

[01:25:04] So yeah, I think self-compassion, I can't think of anything that would be an alternative to self-compassion that I would promote more.

[01:25:11] Yeah. As you were saying that, I had this thought, which is when we tell ourselves stories, right?

[01:25:16] So I've just gone out to do this long run.

[01:25:19] I want to push myself to run longer than I ever have before or, you know, this is a progressive part of my training plan.

[01:25:24] And it doesn't go well.

[01:25:26] Maybe I come home.

[01:25:27] I am choosing in a way at some, on some level, I'm choosing what meaning to assign to that event.

[01:25:37] In my head, I also think that there's a part of me that would think if I choose a meaning that's self-compassionate, am I lying to myself?

[01:25:45] Is there an objective meaning that like, you know, or are we making up all of the meanings?

[01:25:50] Because I think if we realize that we are really just making this up, all of it, there isn't an objective meaning, that it's then okay that you can choose the one that's going to be more beneficial to you.

[01:26:03] I think one of the things I struggle with is wondering if I choose the meaning that's self-compassionate, am I letting myself off the hook?

[01:26:13] Is there another meaning that's true?

[01:26:16] And I'm just lying to myself about this.

[01:26:19] Yeah.

[01:26:19] I love how deep you're going with all this stuff.

[01:26:25] Yeah, I mean, that's kind of what the art of self-awareness is.

[01:26:30] You know, again, like the particular recipe that I have might be different from what you do.

[01:26:34] But I think over time, as you sort of invest in this exercise of listening and conversing, I believe, I do believe that the self-compassion acceptance has to be the foundation.

[01:26:44] Because otherwise, you're starting to sort of like create perceptions that are just false or fabricated.

[01:26:50] But I think at the end of the day, we all kind of know.

[01:26:54] We all kind of know what we're doing and why we're doing it.

[01:26:57] I do think we tend to be hard on ourselves, especially for people who aspire to do great things.

[01:27:04] Where that line is between that functional sort of challenging oneself versus finding the space to be self-compassionate.

[01:27:11] I don't really know exactly where that is for everybody.

[01:27:13] But I think being mindful of where that is for you as an individual is an exercise that over time, you'll get better at appreciating and recognizing.

[01:27:21] Yeah, that really resonates.

[01:27:23] Because I think that there are moments where I know I could probably push a little harder and I'm not.

[01:27:28] Like there is a level where you know if you're letting yourself off the hook.

[01:27:32] And then there are moments where I fear that I might be letting myself off the hook.

[01:27:35] But in my core, I probably know that's not true.

[01:27:38] On that topic, I mean, we live in a day and age where that's why we have training programs.

[01:27:43] Yeah.

[01:27:44] Right?

[01:27:44] Yeah.

[01:27:45] Like if we relied on our brains and our bodies to tell us what to do for each individual run, we would either completely exhaust ourselves and break down our body to the point where we can't fully exercise for a program.

[01:27:58] Or we just wouldn't get out the door often enough, right?

[01:28:01] Having a well-designed training program with a thoughtful coach or there's lots of services online is actually really important.

[01:28:09] And baked into any good training program is a recognition that you're going to miss a few training sessions.

[01:28:16] You're going to be sick.

[01:28:16] You're going to have injury.

[01:28:17] And so they're not so brittle that they don't account for that bit of variance.

[01:28:20] And so I think a lot of this internal work can be outsourced to the training program where you don't have to make those decisions.

[01:28:28] But if you are part of a training program and you're having a day where you just need to give yourself some slack, then self-compassion can go a long way because recognizing that a good training program has that affordance of some variability.

[01:28:44] Yeah.

[01:28:44] And that connects back to having the resilient network too, because I imagine not just the training program, but the coach too, right?

[01:28:50] The coach can serve as a sounding board to help you kind of make sense of and make meaning of what happened in your training session that day.

[01:28:58] And having somebody who has your best interests in mind can help, I don't know, reinforce it, I guess.

[01:29:04] Yeah, absolutely.

[01:29:05] There's one other thing I'll say is most of sports is a long-term game, right?

[01:29:10] Like if you're going to progress, you need to be in it for a long time, many, many, many years, right?

[01:29:17] And so I think, you know, for the people who are just getting started, the first couple months, it's not going to be easy.

[01:29:25] You're going to navigate a lot more of these demons.

[01:29:28] You're going to navigate a lot more of these doubts because you've never done it.

[01:29:33] And your body is just starting to get acquainted to this level of stress that you're putting on it.

[01:29:37] For those who are middle of the road, you know, you've got a bit of years into it, but you're also now trying to navigate, like, what is that equilibrium of how much more I want to put into it?

[01:29:46] Is it worth it?

[01:29:47] How far can I go?

[01:29:48] These are really difficult things to navigate.

[01:29:50] And then if you've been it for many, many years, you have to find an additional part that keeps you excited, that keeps you motivated, that keeps you pushing at that threshold of your ability.

[01:30:00] And so there's different challenges at different phases, but throughout all of this, without compassion, it's a long time to be living with a very negative aspect of your self-chatter, right?

[01:30:11] And so I don't know that I would want to do that.

[01:30:14] I agree.

[01:30:16] Yeah.

[01:30:17] I want to talk a little bit about the research in this area because all of this is really fascinating.

[01:30:22] And so much of this is, we had a guest on who described these kind of softer, more nebulous topics as squishy.

[01:30:30] These are squishy concepts, right?

[01:30:32] Like, they don't easily lend themselves to quantitative metrics or analysis.

[01:30:39] And yet, that's exactly what you do in the research.

[01:30:43] I'm curious, what are some of the challenges in doing this kind of research to tease out, you know, maybe statistically or clinically significant differences or outcomes that you see in the research?

[01:30:53] And more specifically, what are things that folks can look out for if they are reading research and they are interested in pulling ideas from the research to apply in their own lives?

[01:31:03] Yeah.

[01:31:04] Yeah.

[01:31:04] I mean, one blanket statement I'll say about research and researchers is that, ironically, their job is to prove that whatever hypothesis they have is false.

[01:31:15] Yes.

[01:31:15] So, a significant assessing, you know, special this is like, they have 95% chance of proving that this is false.

[01:31:23] And so, they're actually in the business of falsifying hypotheses.

[01:31:29] What that means is that it's actually kind of hard to find a hypothesis that stands the threshold of the rigor of science.

[01:31:37] And so, what that also means is it's actually kind of hard to measure a lot of things, right?

[01:31:42] So, to your point, science around some of these implicit invisible forces is challenging.

[01:31:47] And the other reason why there's a challenge is that if and when there is a robust and consistent line of research that does surface, it lends itself to the other problem that we talked about.

[01:31:59] This sort of like mass scaling and overgeneralization of those concepts that then mute their potential.

[01:32:07] So, now if you talk to a child about a growth mindset, like, oh yeah, I've heard about it 100,000 times.

[01:32:13] I know all about it.

[01:32:15] You don't need to tell me about a growth mindset.

[01:32:18] I actually am the best of having a growth mindset.

[01:32:22] I happen to be the most skilled individual that has ever lived at having a growth mindset.

[01:32:31] So, it becomes challenging in that regard as well.

[01:32:33] But, that being said, I do think in the field of psychology, I would even argue that despite the progress that we've made, that we're still at a very early stage in the field.

[01:32:44] That there's so much that we haven't yet understood.

[01:32:47] That we still have the potential of learning that is very powerful.

[01:32:51] I'll share with you actually a single point in my life that changed the course of my life.

[01:32:56] Which was, when I was a kid, you know, my family was a refugee family from Iran after the revolution.

[01:33:03] We had to flee the country to give up all of our worldly possessions to come to North America with the hopes of yet being able to attain a better educational experience and, you know, a better life in general.

[01:33:15] But that meant that we had to give up a lot of security.

[01:33:18] So, I grew up in a very poor home.

[01:33:20] My parents were divorced from a young age.

[01:33:23] My mom was supporting me and my two brothers.

[01:33:26] I actually have four brothers, but two of them are relatively the same age as me.

[01:33:29] So, my mom had to support all three of us with very little means in a country where she didn't speak the language, where she didn't have any experience to be able to transfer into a career, which meant that she worked all the time.

[01:33:40] What that meant is that, you know, oftentimes, because we didn't have the money to buy toys and I didn't have my mom around to entertain me, I would have to find ways to entertain myself.

[01:33:50] And from an early age, I was always curious.

[01:33:53] So, one day I found the screwdriver, which was a very powerful moment because then I set about taking things apart so that I could understand how they worked.

[01:34:03] And it became, it started off pretty innocently, like, you know, door handles, tables, chairs.

[01:34:09] And then over time, it actually became a bit more sophisticated.

[01:34:12] Things like radios and, like, other kinds of, like, complex things.

[01:34:16] Like, I remember there was, like, a stationary bike that took apart.

[01:34:19] I noticed I'm just talking about taking things apart.

[01:34:22] I hadn't yet learned how to put them back together.

[01:34:25] But eventually, it got to a point where I had taken apart this old washing machine.

[01:34:30] Oh, my gosh.

[01:34:30] And in my mind, as I take things apart, I kind of try to figure out, like, how are these things working?

[01:34:36] And with the washing machine, I figured there has to be something that's driving the, what's a fair bit of force, this turning of the drum.

[01:34:44] And so, once I opened it, I realized that this massive drum was attached to this little motor through a belt and that this motor would be the thing that's actually doing the work.

[01:34:52] So, I took the motor and I actually opened up the motor.

[01:34:54] And I proceeded to, like, try to push the motor to see if it would start working.

[01:34:58] But despite how many times I pushed the motor, nothing would happen.

[01:35:02] It would just sort of, like, push, but then it would move, and then it would stop.

[01:35:05] It was only when I realized that this motor was attached to these wires that once you plugged it in, that that's when things happened.

[01:35:12] And it was literally a shocking moment because I got shocked.

[01:35:16] And now I use all the 120 volts of AC power.

[01:35:20] It can be a very life-changing experience.

[01:35:23] But that's when I realized that there's all this invisible force all around us.

[01:35:29] And really, the thing that's the most powerful, it's not the physical components, it's the invisible forces that drive motivation, that drive power, and that drive us towards fulfilling our full potential.

[01:35:40] Things like love, things like aspiration, curiosity, aspiration.

[01:35:44] These are the things that I think are the realm of psychology that are the really powerful moving components of why we do the things that we do.

[01:35:53] Unfortunately, I think, you know, psychology has a bias towards publishing things that are differences between people as opposed to commonalities.

[01:36:00] Those are hard to detect because of the significance testing requirements.

[01:36:05] And so there's a lot of fundamentals that we haven't yet fully been able to grasp, like the power of love, the power of aspiration, the power of dreams,

[01:36:12] that I think are immensely powerful motivators that we're still learning more and more about.

[01:36:18] But certainly there are aspects like growth mindset, like grit, like stress attribution that are well documented, that are also pretty resolute in determining how we do and what we do in our lives.

[01:36:32] If you're interested, there's actually a really interesting body of work by Alexander Rothman on different phases of motivation.

[01:36:39] He talks about when you're starting out a new particular pattern of behavior, that the things that excite you and drive you to do that behavior are very distinct from the things that keep you in that behavior.

[01:36:51] So I think even as you understand these basic principles, so just like really, really quickly, that research says that like we tend to be driven towards new behaviors by the possibility of new rewards.

[01:37:02] So like if you've never worked out, what excites you about working out is the vision of becoming this like really strong, muscular person.

[01:37:09] But once you've been working out for a while, you're no longer as excited by that vision because you're there.

[01:37:13] But instead, what you're excited about, what keeps you motivated is the fear of losing what you've gained.

[01:37:19] And so it's like a maintenance motivational mechanism that's distinct from the initiation motivation.

[01:37:24] So I know I probably talked for another hour or so about just these different bodies of research that are really pertinent to performance, but I know where else.

[01:37:33] No, no, no, that's okay.

[01:37:34] I love that you just brought that up because that is one of the things that I've talked to a lot of athletes about is how the risk versus reward kind of ratio changes over the course of a career.

[01:37:46] Because in the beginning, you're new, you're a rookie.

[01:37:48] No one expects anything from you.

[01:37:50] So if you fall short, there's a very small risk.

[01:37:53] Yeah.

[01:37:53] But the prospect of reward of getting a great result is very high.

[01:37:58] Then you have a lot of success.

[01:37:59] Suddenly now people expect you to win.

[01:38:03] And now the reward for winning is less because it's an expectation.

[01:38:08] And the risk for losing is so much greater because now you stand to disappoint people, whereas before there were no expectations.

[01:38:15] And it creates a really interesting, I say interesting, will also add challenging component, psychological component to sustaining motivation over the long term.

[01:38:27] Yeah.

[01:38:28] Yeah.

[01:38:28] And there's a whole bunch of things that are just rich and ripe with investigation that if you're interested in learning more about for your own performance, I mean, the research is out there.

[01:38:37] It's not always as accessible as it could be.

[01:38:39] So I'd welcome anyone to reach out to Amber.

[01:38:43] It's well over.

[01:38:44] So I'm also happy to be connected anytime.

[01:38:46] This has been really interesting.

[01:38:47] Fantastic.

[01:38:48] Thank you so much, Omid.

[01:38:49] I want to end on one quick thought, which is going back very early in our conversation to this idea that our internal mindsets are informed by people around us.

[01:39:00] Right.

[01:39:01] So environment and circumstances notwithstanding, our own internal mindsets are influenced by people around us.

[01:39:07] One of the things we talk about on the show are, you know, mindset at the individual level.

[01:39:11] But we also talk about things that happen at the interpersonal level in terms of team dynamics and then at the community level.

[01:39:16] And I think it's a really powerful point to kind of conclude on to say, as much as we are influenced by the mindsets of the people around us, it's important to remember then that the reverse is true.

[01:39:27] Right.

[01:39:27] The mindsets that we cultivate will influence our relationships, the people that we care about, our kids, our colleagues at work.

[01:39:36] And then that then expands out to the dynamics within a team, whether that's in sport or at work.

[01:39:43] And then that then expands out to the community as a whole.

[01:39:47] And so as challenging as this internal work is, it's, I think, important to remember that when you do the work for yourself, it's not just benefiting you.

[01:39:58] Yeah, absolutely.

[01:39:59] And I think that's a beautiful, powerful message.

[01:40:03] And, you know, one of the things that resonates with my core value in this world of, you know, how I think about how I answer the question of why I matter.

[01:40:13] My personal philosophy is to be part of a community that's committed to growth.

[01:40:18] And so what you've created here, Amber, with this podcast and your messages feels very in line with that.

[01:40:23] And I just want to thank you for the opportunity.

[01:40:25] Thank you.

[01:40:25] Thank you so much for taking the time today.

[01:40:27] This has been an absolute pleasure.

[01:40:29] Yeah, absolutely.

[01:40:30] Likewise.

[01:40:31] Dr. Fatuhi's last comment, that being part of a community that's committed to growth, is part of how he answers the question of whether he matters.

[01:40:39] Just, wow.

[01:40:40] I'm still blown away that our beliefs, even our unspoken beliefs, influence the beliefs and mindsets of those around us.

[01:40:48] And yet, I see this in myself, my peers, and my own kid.

[01:40:52] As a parent and a recovering perfectionist, I'm tempted to worry about making sure I have all of the right mindsets to avoid messing things up.

[01:41:00] But as Dr. Fatuhi said, it's about committing to growth together.

[01:41:06] It's not about getting it right or perfect or going it alone.

[01:41:10] We talk a lot about systems-level change on this show.

[01:41:13] And to me, this is another example of a system we experience daily, but rarely name.

[01:41:19] We live within a system of interacting, dynamic mindsets.

[01:41:22] Ours and those of the people around us.

[01:41:25] We are literally and profoundly in it together.

[01:41:28] I personally want to give more thought to how I'm showing up in my life with a commitment to growth.

[01:41:34] How can we all be more aware of and intentional about our role in the system?

[01:41:38] What are some things we can do to seek out, build, or cultivate communities committed to growth?

[01:41:44] Something to ponder.

[01:41:47] Thank you for joining us for today's episode.

[01:41:50] This is an abridged version of the full interview.

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[01:42:12] The Be A Good Wheel podcast is produced by our wizard behind the curtain, Maxine Filovan.

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