MM#117--Whats Your Mindset?

Welcome to the theory to action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time to help you take action immediately, and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life. Now, here's your host, David Kaiser.


Hello, I'm David and welcome back to another Mojo minute. To Tate. Today's title offers us a profound question. What's your mindset? The answer to that question determines how we live our lives. Even more importantly, it also vividly shapes how we view and understand our world. And so to answer that profound question, I thought we would turn to a world renowned Stanford psychologist by the name of Carol Dweck, who in 2006, wrote a book that I have read a couple of times now. The title of the book is mindset, the new psychology of success. In this book, Dweck goes deeper into the concepts of abilities and talents that usually bring us success. And ask the even more important question, is there something more fundamental than exceptional skills and or great talents? 

Wow. Isn't that a great question? Is there something more fundamental than just exceptional skills and or great talents? Now to add some context to this Mojo minute we explored in Mojo minutes. Number 33 talent versus hard work, where we concluded we would rather have the virtue of hard work, because Hard work beats talent almost every time. And then a mojo minute number 72. 

We checked out how many hours it would take to develop great talent if we wanted to do so. And you might remember that that is the one where we talked about 10,000 hours of quote, deliberate practice required to get that great talent. And then finally, recently Imodium at number 86. We hung out with Olympian or Olympic gold medal it gold medalist Lenny Bassam, to learn more about mindset and why process is primary. And we learned that mindset is also super important because winners are convinced that they will finish first and the others hope to finish first. And that the thinking about the process of winning is where winning actually happens. We have to think about the fundies it's all about the fundamentals, not about winning, not about celebrate celebrating. 

So we have spoken about in previous Mojo minutes, many times about mindset. So with all that recapping and all that refreshing done of our past Mojo minutes, let us turn back to the original two questions we asked in the beginning. What's our mindset? And is there something more fundamental than exceptional skills, or great talent? 

And to answer those questions, like I said, let's pull our mojo book of the day off our virtual shelf Mindset by Carol Dweck and turn to this quote, believe believing that your qualities are carved in stone, the fixed mindset creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. If you only have a certain amount of intelligence, a certain personality and a certain moral character, well, then you better prove that you have a healthy dose of them. It simply wouldn't do to look or feel deficient. And these most basic characteristics unquote. Well, that's interesting, but it's certainly not hopeful to have a fixed mindset and a certain amount of intelligence and a certain personality and a certain moral character. 

That's kind of limiting. So let's go back to the book, quote. There's another mindset in which these traits are simply not a hand you're dealt with and have to live with always trying to convince yourself and others that you have a royal flush when you secretly worried You're secretly worried it's a pair of 10s. And this mindset, the hand you're dealt with, is just the starting point for development. The growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts, your strategies in from help from others. Although people may differ in which way, in every which way rather, in their initial talents and aptitudes, interest and temperaments. Everyone can change and grow through application and experience. Unquote. 

Ah, the fixed mindset versus the growth mindset, incredible differences for both a one mindset as a deep fundamental belief and hope. And the other mindset has no hope in it at all. A static belief about life and this is life at hand and this is the hand we are dealt with. So which mindset Are you? A fixed mindset or a growth mindset? 

And today's Mojo minute let us meditate and ponder deeply which mindset we have, and why we think the way we do.

Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoyed this theory to action podcast. Be sure to check out our show page at T Mojo academy.com where we have everything we discussed in this podcast as well as other great resources. Until next time, keep getting your mojo on