From Fixed to Flexible: How a Growth Mindset Will Make All the Difference

Foreign. Welcome to Finding Noble, a podcast where we climb into the world of young people's mental health and where we provide support for the adults who support them. I'm your host, Carly Red. Today I'm back again with Dr. Skinner, and we are discussing a buzz topic that of a growth mindset. And really, we're here to talk about why it's a good idea to develop a growth mindset, how it heals and builds mental health, and how we can begin to cultivate a growth mindset in our homes and other places of learning. Now, if you're a bit unfamiliar with the concept, it was coined by Carol Dweck, a professor of psychology at Stanford University. And a growth mindset is basically believing in the idea that there is potential for change, that humans are malleable, that humans get better over time when they put in some work, that we have the ability to change, to develop, and to improve through effort and persistence. Now, the antithesis or enemy of a growth mindset is a fixed mindset. In a fixed mindset, people see their own qualities and abilities, the qualities and abilities of other people and the situations in which they might find themselves as fixed or as unchangeable. Now, I think you'll agree with me, Dr. Skinner, that most of us want to believe that we, of course, adhere to a growth mindset. Of course we believe in change, that we as humans, our lives are still in processing, that we are still in progress. But it seems like when we get into it a bit deeper, most of us actually default to a more fixed mindset. Like, for instance, if there's struggle, if there is pain, if there's a barrier, there's quote, unquote failure, then I think most of us feel like something has gone wrong or amiss or awry. And so we avoid going further inside the struggle. We avoid anything that might make us look bad or we feel like we must be in the wrong place or doing something wrong. And this isn't just with ourselves, but also in our relationships, in our parenting, our jobs, careers, interests, hobbies, et cetera. So, Dr. Skinner, I'm so curious. Can you tell us why we so commonly end up defaulting to this fixed model of thinking when conceptually we most likely don't agree with it? What is happening to us when we bump up against complication and struggle, missteps, defeat, loss, basically all that's uncomfortable and ugly?

It's a great question. We live in a culture today where we've been given everything and it's in rapid pace. So we want our information Right now, we want to succeed right now. And that's not congruent with any skill, with any talent, with anything that we ever develop. It requires work and effort. And so when we bump into something that is hard, it's easy for us to think, oh, man, why can't I do this? Am I not smart enough? Am I not intelligent enough? What's wrong with me? And so, because we are in a society where it's fast paced and it's quick, if you want information, it's right there, you get it.

Right.

The problem with that is most of the things that we experience in life require work, persistence and effort. The reality is learning a skill, learning a talent, doing well in math, learning how to memorize for a play. You have to work hard.

Yeah. And it takes time. And that makes so much sense to me because our world is getting even faster, technology's getting faster, intellectual abilities of technology are getting faster. And so, you know. Yeah. It seems like maybe because of that there's a gap and maybe it feels like we're getting more dumb and we're less proficient in things, when really it just takes time.

Yeah. And if I was to add to that, if I said, okay, Carly, what's the hardest thing you've ever done? Let's say physically.

What's the hardest thing I've ever done physically?

Yeah, you.

Really. The hardest thing that I've ever done physically is probably being pregnant. I had really hard pregnancies, especially with my third and fourth kids.

Okay. So perfect example. You didn't just have a baby. It was nine, ten months of labor physically. So you could actually deliver a miracle. And that's a very good example of the reality of anything that is going to be worthwhile is going to require effort. And that's where a fixed mindset comes into play. It's like, I want it now. Well, there are certain things you can't have right now because you don't have time, you haven't prepared. And because of that, we've come to this point where it's just too easy.

Yeah. We don't like friction because there's a lot of things that don't require friction or something uncomfortable. A lot of things come really smoothly and really easily in our modern world.

Well, and I think about my. I. This last weekend, I attended my uncle's funeral. He was a hundred years old. Wow. And just to put it in context, when he was born in 1923 in southeastern Idaho, they did not have electricity. They pumped water to their home.

Wow.

So this is 1923. So just over a hundred years ago today, if I want a drink of water, I go to the faucet and I get a drink of water. So because of our advancement, everything's easier. And yet we're coming to this mindset where if I can't get it now, then my fixed mindset is, something's wrong.

I really like this. Yeah, really just mind opening for you to explain it in that way.

I had one more.

Yes, please.

I want to add my hardest thing.

Oh, I would love to.

All right. So physically, and I remember I said physically, I didn't say intellectually, because if you asked me intellectually, it would be learning Chinese and being able to speak the Chinese language. If you asked me physically, I would say. A few years ago, a group of friends and I did the Red Rock relay and it was 186 miles and I had to run not three legs, but four, and it was almost 23.4 miles.

Wow.

Over about a 24 hour period of time. And I didn't sleep during the night because we were traveling and everything. And by the time I was done with that, my body was screaming at me. I was in so much pain. When we do hard things, we actually prove to ourselves that we can do hard things. And so if I was to ask our listeners today, what's the hardest thing you've ever done physically? What's the hardest thing you've ever done emotionally? What's the hardest skill you've ever adapted? Now you begin to have a really important conversation about what are we doing that's hard?

So interesting, because I think developing a growth mindset requires so much of grit. Right. We talk about resilience and grit so often in our culture now and how it's kind of fading from our culture, but that is developed in, as a process over time by doing hard things. Now I have a question for you, just out of curiosity. In all your years and years and years of experience in helping humans change their lives for the better, as a therapist, in what ways have you seen a fixed mindset interfere or delay or even defeat someone who is trying to heal or recover or make changes in their lives?

It's interesting to me that question, because as a therapist, more often than not, when I see individuals with a fixed mindset, it is language, the language they use. I can't do that. It's too hard. Right. And so it's almost that limiting belief. I can't do it. I'm not enough. I'm not smart enough. Others won't like me. And when you have that kind of a belief, it literally becomes how you see your world. So when you have that difficulty or you run into something that's challenging, you already have a preset mindset that does not allow you to do the difficult. So part of the change process is, could you consider that the more effort you put in, the better the outcome will be.

Do you have any examples of that off the top of your head?

Well, I'll give you a couple of them. I run into individuals when they have that fixed belief. I can't. I'm not enough. I often have them reflect back to a time when they were enough, when they did something right, when they were challenging themselves. And then we begin to see the effort that they're putting in back then. And we get them to this point of, like, what would happen if you put in that kind of effort now? And all of a sudden they're like, well, maybe I can try that.

I really like that you were talking about language. I feel like the vocabulary is so important. I recently listened to Neil Degrasse Tyson. I think people often refer to him as America's most favorite physicist. But I thought this was really interesting and also really related to our topic today on growth mindset. He says, in the universe, when we are trying to understand stars, galaxies, the temperatures, pressures, everything happens on a continuum. So we need vocabulary and a mindset to recognize that whereas humans have this urge to put you in a box, anybody has looked at the actual world will recognize that all of those features will come on a spectrum. They're on a spectrum. And if they're on a spectrum and you're forcing everybody into categories, then it doesn't work. But if instead you see everybody on a spectrum, you can't tribalize that. You can't put an easy divider. You have to recognize a continuum connects me to that person. Cosmically, we don't simply put things into small categories. And I. I even love the idea that. I think it was not that long ago, maybe back in the 1920s, when I think it was Hubble showed us the expanding universe theory, that the universe is constantly expanding. So all of this idea of this cosmic perspective, that in the universe, literally things are expanding, that they're in progress, that there's a continuum that they exist within for whatever reason. It gives me hope that we can shift our perspectives, our vocabulary, in this expansive view of ourselves, and also expands our patience with others, because I think so often we view others within this fixed frame. And so much of, I think the divide and the Pain and the antagonism that we find in our current culture comes from this fixed mindset that we put people into categories and believe. That's where people sit or believe or belong to instead of actually seeing as all of us in process.

I love that idea because as humans, and I've seen this over and over again, I've seen people who've been categorized a certain way and when you really get to know them, you're like, I'm not sure people really know you. They may perceive you that way, but they don't know that heart. They don't know you. And to me, that's essential. We need to see people from a growth mindset who they can become. If we put people into a fixed mindset, one of the biggest challenges is that we have and they have is we define ourselves down.

I agree. Talking about the actual language that we're using and giving feedback to others, especially to possibly our loved ones, our children, we often describe or identify them with adjectives like you're so smart or you're so talented, athletic or happy. But when we are creating a culture of a growth mindset in our home, it's actually advised to praise effort, to praise our choices, and that actually improves performance. That effort based feedback rather than using adjectives can often be identified by verb. So you're praising the efforts, the choices, and saying things like, instead of you're such a good athlete, you could say, I've been watching you practice every day and it's really paying off. You are praising their choice to put in the time. You're praising their choice to study a subject and then become more proficient in that subject rather than kind of conforming to the belief system that there's geniuses and not genius geniuses. Kind of like there's intrinsic abilities and intrinsic inabilities, which we may have a general propensity or proclivity to excel at one thing or another. But I would argue that when we limit the process that it takes to get to a point, I mean, it was kind of Malcolm Gladwell, right. He's the one who did the 10,000 hour rule. And it was kind of blew the lid off, like, hey, actually this whole genius thing that you're talking about isn't really what you think it is, that there is a lot of work involved. And a 10,000 hour practice of something can actually make you proficient or more expert in something than just having an intrinsic ability.

Yeah. So two or three thoughts to that. The 10,000 hour concept is really interesting because every time we look at any Skill. I don't care if it's basketball, I don't care if it's playing a musical instrument. Anything that requires us to put in a hard effort. Even. I watch my daughter who runs for a college cross country team and track team. They're running 50 to 60 miles a week. Their training is mostly year, year round. I look at that kind of effort and people say, I wish I could run that way. Well, the idea of putting in that kind of time or that kind of effort, you don't just become that type of musician. You don't just become that skilled person in math or any skill. It is something that is going to require effort. The power of that is that you, me, anybody, can develop into a skilled person in our chosen area of expertise. That is a very hopeful message. It's not like we're fixed. It's not like we can't improve. It doesn't. Whether you're intelligent. I mean, I can tell you I'm the dumbest doctor I know. I just put in the effort because I have.

That is not true.

Right, but you say it's not true. But if you really knew me, I had to work so hard to be educated. I had to work so hard. I'll give you one more example. I have a stepbrother who's five days younger than me. We had the same biology class in ninth grade. In ninth grade, he would open the book, spend about 10 minutes in it. I would spend an hour and a half to two hours in the same chapter. We would go take exactly the same test and he would ace it and I would get a B.

How dare you? A B, Right, Right.

But my point is, he had a different kind of intelligence. He could read something and assimilate it. And that's the message I try to get to my clients. If you put in the effort, over time, you will get the success that you desire.

Yes. I love this quote from Andrew Huberman. He said, rewarding yourself for effort is the best way to improve performance. Rewarding yourself based on identity labels like so smart, so talented, you're a great athlete, et cetera. All that stare in the mirror and do self affirmation stuff can actually undermine performance. And in fact, it does undermine performance. It may not do it right away, but eventually it does. I thought that was fascinating because I think that's what we default when we're playing catch with a child. We often would say, you're so good at this, you're so good at baseball. I love that you're doing this instead of I loved being here with you, playing baseball with you right now. And I love that you chose to go get a ball and asked me to come play with you. You're rewarding not just the effort, but you're showing them their worth isn't derived from performance, if that makes any sense. So I think it has not just performance enhancement capacity to reward effort, but also it changes the way we intrinsically view ourselves and our worth, especially our children's worth when we reward effort. Kind of like in Harry Potter, Dumbledore. That said, it is our choices that show who we really are far more than our abilities.

And the message here that we need to be able to. There's two parts here. One, as parents, we need to step back and we need to analyze do I believe in a growth mindset? And the reason that matters is because the way I communicate with my child may depend on how they see themselves growing up, right? Diligence, persistence. The message we send there is when we work hard. Look, I know that test grade wasn't what you wanted. The outcome. Let's work a little bit harder. I'll be there. I'll support you. I'll encourage you. The harder we work, the better outcomes we get. And that message over and over again is teaching our children that if they put in the effort, they will get a positive outcome. And even if they don't get an A, or even if they aren't on the varsity team, if they are a part of a team because their efforts have paid off, then what they've come to recognize is, I did this. I developed this skill. We need our culture today to learn how to do hard things right? And I would even venture to say that if we're going to change our society, we, every one of us, needs to be doing something that's hard. I don't care how old we are, we need to be doing something that pushes us out of our comfort zone, that makes us want to be a better person.

Right? And I think that's difficult because I think none of us like to look stupid. None of us want to look like we're not good at something. But the reality is when we are a beginner at anything we do, we aren't an expert yet. And we have to put in the time to get there. And sure, we may have innate abilities, but it doesn't mean that we don't have to learn techniques and practice and practice and practice to get the results that we are looking for.

So two parts here. Let's just say part one. I can't do that. I don't know how. Contrast that language with I don't know how to do that yet.

So good.

But we'll figure it out.

Yes. Yeah. Yet. That's so important. My daughter has a children's book, I think it's called the Great and Magical yet, or something like that. And it's all about the power of the word yet.

And really, the message there is, I don't know how to do this yet, but we're going to put some time and effort in to make that happen so I can learn how to do this. That idea suggests to my brain that there is a possibility. If I say I can't, you have already decided you can't.

Yeah.

That fixed mindset, academically, it's very disabling. It literally triggers people out of math, out of the sciences, out of learning, out of. Because they conclude I'm just not smart enough. The message that when our child comes home and says, and I'll give you another example of this, Cardi. When I was in seventh grade, I got a D plus in English, and I had no idea the transition from sixth grade to seventh grade. My stepdad, he pulled me aside, and he had gone to college, put himself through college. He pulled me aside, he said, a D plus is not good enough, so let me teach you how to study. And he didn't only just teach me how. He pushed me. He's. What I mean by that is like, we're going to practice and what's coming up and what assignment is here, and can you memorize this? And he would work with me to help me memorize. I remember it was vocabulary terms from Treasure Isle in the book.

I love that.

And there were 37 of them. I still remember it because it was the first time in my life where somebody taught me how to do something that was academically based. And I dare say without him teaching me how to do that, I would not be here today right now, because he sat me down and taught me how to do something that I did not know how to do.

That's a really beautiful story and so much truth involved in it. Like, when we have this incessant focus on the end product, our children stop seeing the stepping stones that get us to that end product. Like, you said that instead of just, oh, I got this D plus, that is my fixed intellect right there, you know, on a paper. Instead, you had a wonderful mentor who could sit you down and say, let me show you the building blocks to get you to where you need to go. This idea of Focusing on the process and even learning how to be comfortable in the process, dare I say, enjoy the process. Teaching our children how to enjoy the process and ourselves. I really liked this from Shefali Sabari. I know a lot of listeners probably have listened to her stuff or read her stuff. I think it's the Awakened Family and the Conscious Parent are some of her most popular books. This is from the Conscious Parent. It says when we focus on the achievement of a goal instead of the learning process, our children miss many opportunities to develop their self esteem. Rather than telling them good job, here is your gift. It's important to highlight their character development. Sharing with them how proud we are that they showed patience, determination and bravery. In this way our children discover joy in learning. Quite apart from reaching a destination, which is fascinating to think that if our children learn how to learn, if they find joy in learning, then you see the trajectory of that and it's so much further reaching than if they do well in this class, on this assignment, in this place, and then that's good enough. I think that it almost can stunt our girls when we focus on just a grade or a GPA or whatever emphasizes the intellect or measures the intellect of our children rather than the goal of this is lifelong learning. And your impact to your family, to your relationships, to the people around you will benefit so much more if you are comfortable with the process.

Yeah. One thing that I experienced as a dad that I will forever be grateful for and that are the moments on the softball field where my daughters and I would go out and I would practice fast pitch softball with them and I didn't know how to teach them, but I did know a little bit. And we went out to the softball fields and we practiced and practiced and practiced to the point where in games they could do quite well. I loved the transition where it was dad, can we go practice? That transition is inspiring the mind to achievement and that as a parent there's nothing more rewarding than being able to see your child achieve because of their efforts.

Right?

And then as a parent you almost get out of the way because now they're self driven and there are times when they're going to struggle. And this is really an interesting thing. When we struggle with adversity, it's actually how we respond to that adversity that determines the fixed or growth mindset. There can be a point where I say guess that's just as good as I'm going to get because there is a learning curve in every aspect where we shift from good to great and we can be good enough, but we can also transition through even more diligence into a great space. And I observed that in a couple of my daughters, twins who took their piano playing to that level where they were playing extremely difficult pieces, but they were pushing each other like they would get up at six in the morning just so they could play an hour. And at times we're like, could you guys do it at a different time? I mean, we're trying to, right? But that transition where then it's a part of us. That's what I'm trying to say is if every one of us are striving for some skill development or new knowledge, that fixed mindset is going to get blown apart. Because we will believe that our effort creates the outcomes we desire.

Well, and I think once we experience kind of that friction of a challenge, something that is difficult, and we, like you said, overcome something that's difficult in our lives, we have the confidence to continue doing hard things. And almost an enthusiasm toward the inevitable challenges that come up. Like, hey, I can do this, I'm tough. I can handle this, and I can learn through this, and I can get to the other side of it. And not only that, I can be okay even in the middle of it, which I think is sometimes the scariest thought if something difficult in our lives comes up. And I. I don't think this is just physical difficulty or learning a skill or whatever. I think this is in relationships as well. So often we're so fearful of a relationship that doesn't go our way, or our kids don't do exactly what we want them to do, and we're so fearful of what that might mean, what that might say about us, but more importantly, more significantly, how that would make us feel. How am I going to be okay? And I think that is really hard for. Especially for people who are trying. I think the harder we try and the more pushback, the more human deficiency or limit that we butt up against, it can become really discouraging to try and to butt up against that limit that every human has, human fallibility. So what are your thoughts on this? And how can someone overcome kind of this barrier of, I tried and it didn't go the way I wanted. How do you keep going? How do you find the motivation to keep going? And how do we do that with our own kids?

I love the question here because every one of us bump into that in life. We all have our limitations. I mean, nobody's exempt from that. And so it's not. If we're going to falter or make a mistake or not be enough or not make the team or it's not if, but when that happens. And so the ability for us to say, at some point you're not going to be the best basketball player, at some point you're not going to get the best grades. The question will be, are you doing your best to develop that skill? And there's going to be a time where it's like, that is my best, that is enough. And that is a place where we have to come to and we have to conclude. I put in my best effort and even my best effort. If you look at championship teams, there's always a second place team. And they were phenomenal.

Right?

And they were phenomenal. And that's the message that our society doesn't teach. You were excellent. And yeah, there was a team that beat us tonight and they were excellent too, just a little bit more than us tonight. And that message is, well, second. Are you saying second place is okay? Yeah, I'm saying did you achieve what you thought you could achieve? Did you work your hardest? Did you produce your best? And that's the point where we have to say, that was my best. Can we settle for that? Or as a society, do we always have to be at the top? Do we have to be the king of the hill? Because the reality is most of us, if we're just constantly saying I've got to be the best, we're almost always going to be disappointed. I gave my best effort, I worked my hardest. And guess what? There are things that I still don't know how to do. And that's okay too.

Yeah. I think one of the ways that we can overcome that is having more of a purpose driven mindset instead of an achievement driven mindset. It kind of helps you stay committed and working to the get to the places you hope to be and more importantly, the impact you want to have. I love, I have this quote of Einstein in my office and it says, strive not to be a success, but rather strive to be a value. And I think it helps when I feel like I'm not to where I want to be or I feel like in the world's view of me, maybe it doesn't look as successful as I want, but am I contributing? Am I of value? And I think that reframes our own personal value. I also love this. This is from Randy Pausch. I think people are familiar with his last lecture. It's been circulated quite a bit. But he says experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. And experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer. I really appreciated that when I read that, that the experience we gain from not getting exactly what we wanted when we were, especially when we were reaching for something or even in a relationship or wherever, we feel discouraged that experience is often the thing that allows us to offer to the world in ways that the world needs. If that makes any sense.

It absolutely does. In fact, what we're saying, there is maybe there's times where we have to lear how to fail and get up.

Yeah.

Some of my favorite stories are things where it didn't seem it was possible. And yet those individuals who were told that they couldn't or didn't know that they couldn't did. Our whole world is developed on people whose ideas, in many cases they were told that's not possible.

Right.

And when we put limits on ourselves, that's exactly what we do. We create a fixed mindset. The greatest inventions of the world have come from growth mindset. People always, because they always will say, you can't tell me that. I can't do that. One of my favorite stories, it's actually George Dantzig and this is from the book Mindset. Carol Dweck. She shares this story. I did a little bit more reading on this guy, so I don't know if you know this story, but it's fascinating.

Well, I don't.

So George Danzwig is in a PhD program. He's working day and night to do the statistics that he's being asked to do. He slept in. He got to class. This is like 1939ish. He goes and the class was gone. But there was two equations or formulas on the board. And so he thought, oh, that's just the assignment for today. So he went home and he worked on it and worked on it and worked on it. And he's like, this is brutal. So hard, so hard. Then what happens is absolutely fascinating. He goes to the professor and says, hey, I know it's going to be a little bit late, but I think I finally have these answered. Didn't say anything of it. The professor three months later comes to his dorm and said, unbelievable. You solved two unsolvable perception wise statistical issues that nobody could solve. That's just crazy. Right?

Right.

He literally created a linear programming that has altered our. Literally, it's altered how we do statistics. Now the concept there is he. If he had gone in there and his direct quote, I got to read this quote. This is fascinating. If I here's what he said. If I had known the problems were not homework, but were in fact two famous unsolved problems in statistics, I probably would not have thought positively, would have become discouraged, and would never have solved them. Wow. Nominal.

Because he already put a cap on it.

Yeah, the cap was set right. Instead, he went in there, he thought they needed to be solved. Unknown to him, already intelligent. I mean, he was already in a PhD program, he had already prepared himself, and then he took it to the next level because nobody told him he couldn't.

Wow, that's powerful. That's really good. This reminds me of something I heard David Yeager say, who also actually worked with Carol Dweck or maybe continues to. I don't know. I think he works at UT Austin now. But he said something to the effect that when we have a fixed belief about our inner intelligence, kind of this fixed cap that you're just referring to, we don't ask the clarifying questions. And in a cycle of concealing our misunderstandings, we cyclically underperform relative to what we are capable of doing. And I feel like that ties in so well that when we do, don't push ourselves. Like you said, your daughters who push themselves, or you pushed yourself. Learning a new language when it was really uncomfortable, and when others around you, you felt like, we're excelling at a pace faster than you were. Which I think is another really important characteristic of a growth mindset is not focusing on pace, but focusing on progress. Right. But we also aren't afraid to ask questions and aren't afraid to get maybe critical feedback, even when it's uncomfortable. And it might expose that we aren't intrinsically or innately intelligent in a certain area. But in the long run, it causes us to perform better. Right. We don't underperform. We actually get to where we want to be because we learn what we need to learn to get there when.

We make that transformation and when we actually help our children understand. When you say, I don't know, I'm more proud of you. When you raise your hand in class and you say, I don't understand that. I know all of your peers probably are asking the same question, but they didn't dare raise their hand. And even if they did understand it, the fact that you had the courage to do that, that is exactly what I want you to understand. It's absolutely awesome. So the capacity to say, I don't know, raise your hand, ask the question, get. Clarifying information will not only help you, but it shows the kind of mindset that will help you succeed through your entire life. The greatest people who lead our world are the people who ask the questions because they say, I don't know.

Ironically, I think we are more trusting of people who admit they don't know something, People who act like they know everything. We automatically assume that their intentions might be thwarted in some way or another or are dishonorable. But people who say, I don't know, I think we honestly trust more. And so I think that's really significant to teach our children that curiosity is such a strength.

Let me take this one more direction because I think it's important for our relationships. There are many times in my professional career where I ask the question, where did you learn how to have a healthy relationship? Relationship? Did your parents teach you? Many times people didn't have that kind of a model. And because they didn't have the model, it's really hard to say. I don't know what to say in situations like this, of conflict. I don't know how to respond in this. If we could make that simple transition to say, I don't have the answers now, but I'm trying. I want to learn how to do that. We would be so much better in our relationships. When we have issues with our children as adults, can we say, I don't know how to do this to our child, but I want to learn. That is a growth mindset in action. The moment we think we have to have the answers, we've put ourself into the fixed mindset which harms our relationships, and it doesn't help.

Oh, yeah, I could feel that. That feels so true and so right. And I think when we can say, I may not know how to respond to this or I may not how to communicate this well, but I do know that I love you. I do know that I care about you more than anything. I do know that I want this relationship to be the priority and the thing that you feel the most safe within. Then let's move from there. We have this beautiful foundation, and then let's learn together how to get through this next step that we are both struggling within.

And in that mindset, that growth mindset, then I can say, I'm sorry, I was wrong. I didn't do that. Right. Because we can acknowledge our fault. That's the difference. With a fixed mindset, it's really hard for us to admit fault because we thought we should do it or they thought we should know how to do it. And when we say, I'm still learning, I don't know how to do this. And this is especially true for newlyweds. Right. Learning how to be married, parents doing it for the first time. I can't tell you how many times I've talked with my younger children and my older children. I didn't know how to do it back then. I'm learning how to do it now. That's the reality for most of us.

Well, and I hope today listeners will feel hope that wherever they're at now, it is not too late. So if you have adult children, if you have, you're a new parent, if you're not a parent yet, if you're in relationships or wherever you're at, that starting where you are is the most perfect start to begin with. And that we definitely would be under a fixed mindset if we thought something was too late. And at any age, I heard that recently, at any age, it's never too late. That just gives me a lot of hope. And so I hope that our listeners will feel that enthusiasm and optimism and hope. And I know you wanted to say a couple words on enthusiasm. Do you want to insert that right here?

Yeah, real quick. It's this enthusiasm comes from this place of I want to learn, I can, I can control my destiny. Enthusiasm comes when we recognize that effort equals outcome. And it's not the outcome of I, I'm the best. It's the outcome that I know that I did my best. And when I'm enthusiastic about that, it's contagious. And it doesn't just go into one area of your life. I want to be better in this area and I want to be better in that area. And we begin to grow. But the fixed mindset and growth mindset are not uniquely independent in us. In other words, I might have a growth mindset in, say, business, but I might have a fixed mindset in another area of my life. So what's important here is we all have growth mindsets in some areas and we may have fixed mindset in others. So every aspect of our life, we can continue to be better. If you struggle in relationships, you can develop a growth mindset. If you struggle in math or sciences, you can develop that skill. There is always room for growth in all of us. The question is, are we putting in the effort and are we focusing on what we can do, not what we can't do?

I think, especially because we've been trained to think a certain way, we have a certain psychology in our brain already, that it may take a growth mindset to develop a growth mindset. And to not villainize our fixed mindset thoughts, but maybe recognize them, see them coming from maybe a legitimate place, but then naming them and replacing them with these growth mindset ideas that we've been talking about. The characteristics of a growth mindset. One other thing that we kind of didn't go over, but this one especially, I love celebrating it, the growth in others. I think when we have a fixed mindset, it's kind of the zero sum mentality where we view achievement as limited to only a few people. But especially when we have a growth mindset, there's room for everyone to have impact, like you were talking about earlier, Everyone has a place to contribute and to develop our own self, but to celebrate the development of others, that's a much more positive, beautiful world to live in. And so kind of creating that expansive view, right, going back to the universe that we're all growing and that is the goal is for everyone to be expanding. Not just some, but all, and doing it together.

I love that. I absolutely love it. It's. There's enough room for all of us. And as we support each other, as I'm not threatened by you because I know how good you are and I support you and I encourage that. That is absolutely beautiful and it's beautiful for all of us.

Yeah. This was so good today. Thank you. Dr. Skinner, is there anything else you want to add before we close up?

My hope for all of us, because our society needs us to step up. We need to do hard things and we need to have the enthusiasm that encourages other people to do the same.

Yes. I definitely feel like even being aware just of how fixed my mindset really is so much of the time has really created a shift inside me. And so I really appreciate all of the knowledge that you brought to the episode today.

Thank you, Dr. Skinner, and thank you, Carly. It's been really fun conversation.

You've been listening to Finding Noble. I'm Carly Redd. Follow Finding Noble on all available podcast directories and find out more more on our website, findingnoble.com that's finding Noble. N o b l e.com and if you or anyone close to you are looking for further resources on young adult and adolescent mental health, Dr. Skinner and a host of other leading professionals working in the mental health world share courses and even answer your questions, all on parentguidance.org that is parentguidance.org brought to you by the Cook center for Human Connection.