In January I introduced my plan to develop my mindset thesis for the year (and if you have no idea what I’m talking about, you can catch up here). I first learned about mindset in 2016 when I read Carol Dweck’s Mindset: The New Psychology of Success which the elementary school principal I was working for at the time recommended to me.
In the book, Dweck lays out two types of mindsets. A “fixed mindset” assumes that we are static, and that things like our character, our intelligence, and our abilities can’t change in any meaningful way. A fixed mindset seeks out what we are naturally good at and doggedly pursues only those skills in order to maintain a sense of being successful. Failure is the biggest fear of a fixed mindset. A “growth mindset” conversely sees failure as an opportunity for growth and learning, and enjoys the challenges of being an amateur, of trying something new, of leveling up or at least attempting to level up even if they aren’t successful the first time.
I highly recommend Dweck’s book as the starting point in your own mindset journey, or if you’ve read it and need a refresher you can check out this article by Maria Popova on her lovely Brain Pickings website.
When I discovered these two mindsets, I remember thinking I was so obviously in the growth category. Looking back now, I can see that I was more of a mix, depending on the situation. Sometimes we forget that our mindset impacts everything that we do. So while I was willing to risk looking like a failure in order to learn and get better in certain areas of my life, like my career, I was completely rigid in other areas, like my relationships. This book got me started on my personal development binge, where I started reading all of the new science (and, admittedly, some made-up junk), filling my podcast feed with self help, and transitioning from a fixed/growth mindset blend into more of a growth/fixed mindset blend. Because I’m still not quite where I want to be, even five years later.
Billionaire businessman Ray Dalio writes in the introduction of his book Principles that “to be principled means to consistently operate with principles that can be clearly explained.”
Mindset, values, principles, morals, rules…these are all terms we use to varying levels of specificity to describe the codes by which we live. The problem, I believe, is that many of us never think about the underlying code of our own lives. We’ve either adopted a code in full from somewhere else, as in religion, or someone else, as in from all of these books and podcasts I’ve been spending my time consuming. What we need to do, Dalio argues (and I agree with) is think for ourselves in an open-minded way to find what is best for the life we truly want to live. And that’s what I’m attempting to do here.
I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to do this, but y’all know me, I started with books. What I found was that I wasn’t as drawn to the theoretical books about mindset; I mean, once you’ve read Dweck, you’re pretty much good, and also there was recently a fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal about the lack of evidence behind much of these social psychology findings. I tried Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, and Grit by Angela Duckworth. I read Malcolm Gladwell and Adam Grant and James Clear and Dale Carnegie. I went through all 365 days of Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic, and it just didn’t stick with me.
Here’s what did: stories. It’s not revolutionary, but I first got the idea a few years ago when I listened to Tim Ferris’s interview with Brandon Stanton, the creator of Humans of New York. It’s still one of the most influential podcasts I’ve ever listened to, and one of the pieces of wisdom Stanton shared that really stuck with me was that in his darkest moments, when he felt unsure about where to go or what to do, he read about the lives of other people. We all know that reading creates empathy, and people love to stress the importance of learning about history so that we don’t “repeat the past” – but what if we do want to repeat the past? The past is full of people who lived incredible lives and changed the world, and we can harness that energy in a 300-page biography for free from the library.
So I looked for those lives I wanted to emulate. I started with Stanton’s recommendation, Walter Isaacson’s biography of Benjamin Franklin. Isaacson is potentially the best biographer ever, and is a great author to start with. He’s written a plethora of books, and was also recently interviewed on Tim Ferris’s podcast. I moved forward from there, but here are the three stories that resonated most with me:
Chasing Excellence by Ben Bergeron
This book walks through Coach Bergeron’s journey with three elite athletes as they go into their biggest competition of the year, the Crossfit Games. It’s summed up so well in the overview from Google Books: “CrossFit trainer Ben Bergeron has helped build the world’s fittest athletes, but he’s not like other coaches. He believes that greatness is not for the elite few; that winning is a result, not a goal; and that character, not talent, is what makes a true champion.”
I read this book when it was first published in 2017, have read it a few times since, and listen to Coach Bergeron’s podcast (also titled Chasing Excellence) every week. There is a lot of Bergeron’s methodology that I find overly prescriptive and robotic, probably because I don’t want to be a champion. I want to be excellent at everything I do, not sacrifice it all for one goal or purpose. But I’m sure that my mindset thesis will be rooted in Bergeron’s philosophy, that being a good person, meaning a person with strong character, is a key part of having a successful life.
Becoming by Michelle Obama
I got this book as a Christmas gift and finished it before the new year. I was so taken by Michelle’s story, I couldn’t put it down. She is truly a force to be reckoned with, but without exhibiting any of the nasty characteristics of other (typically, male) dominant figures. She was smart and strong without being a show off or rude. She gives off a sense of humility and genuine caring. But what I most appreciated about Michelle’s story is that it took her a while to figure out what she cared about, and what she wanted to do. She definitely had early success and was always a hard worker, but she never stopped searching for the things she really wanted to do, and was never discouraged when she tried something and found it wasn’t quite what she was looking for.
Bad Blood by John Carreyrou
If you’ve heard of or read this book, you might be wondering what it’s doing on this particular list. But this book truly stuck with me, not as an example of who I want to be, but an example of who I could easily become if I’m not careful. Elizabeth Holmes was a uniquely driven and talented individual who wanted to change the world, but also wanted to be famous and powerful. She was willing to lie and manipulate people to get there, as we see in the book, but I don’t think she always set out to be that way. I think anyone is capable of doing awful things, and if you don’t think that, you might be the most susceptible. This book if anything reinforced my belief that I need to find my mindset thesis, because if you don’t know your values it’s easy to go against them in the moment.
I didn’t limit myself to just books. I looked for stories in podcasts, in documentaries, and even found one in a TV series, Madame Secretary. I watched every episode over the course of a month or two, and was obsessed. The protagonist, Elizabeth McCord, is powerful, articulate, intelligent and sophisticated. She handles everything with such a calm collectedness, nothing phases her. But she’s also incredibly warm and caring, deeply dedicated to her family, and ultimately a down to earth person who loves to ride horses and read books. I get it, she’s fictional, but what I was most impressed by was the strength of her convictions. In every situation, she seemed so capable of figuring out the morally right thing to do and sticking to it, even if it made things more difficult for her political career. She had a great network of confidantes to rely on, but ultimately she had her internal compass tightly dialed in, and always knew where she was going.
With these stories as my guide, I found that certain aspects of a strong mindset come to me naturally: valuing hard work, the desire to leave a legacy, being willing to do things other people aren’t willing to do, and constantly learning and improving. There’s also plenty that I struggle with: being a work in progress, having patience with the process and grace with myself, trusting that I’m moving in the right direction even if I can’t see what the finish line looks like. These are the things I’ll continue to tease out, and transform into my own set of principles, which I’ll share in the next update post. Then, I can spend time testing them and honing the final product, the mindset thesis.