Steve Jones sent me a link to this post about Intelligence vs Effort months ago, since then I’ve looked at it a few times. I think it does a really good job of getting you to think about how you see the world. Go read it – it’s a quick read.

The funny thing is that the people the author identifies as having a growth mindset already get it, though they may not have labeled it so clearly. I don’t know if the fixed mindset people do or not. Clearly I identify with the first group.

I don’t know why we become one way or the other. I know that at my core I’m a problem solver that loves to win, and winning usually requires letting go of my pride to learn, to fail, and to compromise. Most of us can do the work, it’s the pride piece, or perhaps the scars from being punished for failing, that holds us back from doing the best work we can.

Some of it is hard wired. My Mom tells stories about me wanting toys as a very young child of three or four and as soon I got them taking them apart because I wanted to see how they worked. Another bit of family lore is my grandmother finding me at the stove at age five making scrambled eggs – apparently I had watched enough to think it was something I could do. Maybe there was some long forgotten incidental lesson that drove those behaviors, maybe its just in my DNA.

I don’t think we’re stuck with a mindset though, maybe just predisposed a bit. Most of can change given a role model and the right environment. Finding those two is mostly luck, because it’s not something we know we need.

More questions than answers,but good questions I think. I know that I’m uneven about mindset,stronger and more confident about pushing the limits in some areas than others and that seems like an opportunity for growth.