Rob Dial explains Carol Dweck's fixed versus growth mindset framework and uses a towboat versus lighthouse metaphor to show why modeling change works better than forcing it on others.
Chapters
In the book Mindset by Carol Dweck, she says most people either have a fixed mindset or they have a growth mindset. A growth mindset is someone who knows, I can improve, I can get better. There's no limit to what I could become. A fixed mindset. As someone who looks at it and they say, this is me. This is the way I'm going to be forever. And so with your question of just, can we change people, there's someone that everybody has, someone that they know and that they love and they want them to be better. They want them to go on this path of becoming better. But it's like the phrase, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. Lots of people like to do stuff through force of, I know what you need. I want to help you improve. You love this person so much that you want them to become better because you know that they would be happier. You know they would be whatever it is, they would find more joy in their day if they made these changes. But, and most people do that, they try to force them to do this. They're like, hey, come on, let me help you. Let me take you to this, let me take you to this. Let me. We can read together, we can do all these things. And that's the way of being like a towboat, right? So they say you could be, if you're trying to help somebody improve, you could be a lighthouse or you could be a towboat. A tow boat will go out to a boat and it will pull it into the harbor. A lighthouse is how most people should be. And that's like the phrase, be the change you want to see in the world. A lighthouse is in the exact same spot. A lighthouse never moves from the spot that they are. A lighthouse knows its job itself. And that's job is to shine its light. And it does the exact same thing as a towboat, right? It gives light so that the boats outside of the harbor can get into safety of the harbor, but it doesn't go out and pull them and force them.
