Join for our next episode of Fill My Cup to learn the differences between a growth and fixed mindset, and the value of having a growth mindset.
Fill My Cup: Episode 3
Moving from a fixed to a growth mindset takes time and discipline.
A fixed mindset is like a pond which is a specific size. It has boundaries. Whereas, a growth mindset is like the ocean. The opportunities are absolutely endless.
The benefits of a team with a growth mindset include:
a higher level of trust among your team members,
a better motivated team,
improved performance,
team members who are inspired to work smarter and better,
creativity and innovation
Moving from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset requires:
be aware when you get into the fixed mindset situation
focus on the positive and opportunities in a bad situation
surround yourself with others who have a growth mindset
change those negative voices in your head to positive thoughts
Fill My Cup Transcript
Kim Nash(00:05)
Welcome to our third episode of Fill My Cup. Today we are at Mill 72 in Lebanon. In our last episode, we talked about self-care and self-care is not selfish. In fact, I shared seven different areas with you that you can evaluate your self-care. We talked about taking time off from work or other responsibilities. We talked about trying to find better ways to eat, healthier ways to eat. We talked about exercising more. We talked about meditation, engaging in fun activities. What are some things that you like to do that give you joy, connecting with others and just sitting down and having a good conversation? We talked about sleep habits, I'm hopeful that after the last session that you took some time to evaluate a couple of those things and tried some new things in your routine. But today what I want to focus on is more your mind and about our mindset, and whether you have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.
(01:05)
What does that mean and how do we move from a fixed to a growth mindset? Let me start with a story that's actually a true story. It's an example of someone who demonstrated a mindset. The year was 1965 and he was a 21 year old student at Yale University who wrote a term paper for his economics class, outlying a transportation idea for small packages. He only received a C on the paper. Now, this young student after he graduated, went on, served in the military for four years, but didn't give up on that idea, and continued to develop it, continued to think about how to make a central hub, an airport, a central hub, and then fly the packages to destinations called spokes. Well, FedEx was founded in 1971 in Little Rock, Arkansas. On April 17th, 1973, FedEx actually delivered more than 186 packages to 25 cities.
(02:10)
50 years later, the annual revenue for FedEx in fiscal 21 was $84 billion with more than 600 million packages moved every day. Fred Smith didn't let that poor grade in his economics class stop him. He continued to think about, in fact, what it did was gave him the energy, the motivation to think about, what can I do better? How can I learn from this? How can I do better? And that's what he did. When you have an idea and something negative happens or it doesn't work out, what do you do? Do you stop and say, well, that's it, I'm done. Or does that give you the energy to move forward and actually make it happen? Let's talk about a growth mindset. Individuals who have a growth mindset tend to think about intellect. They tend to think about abilities and talents as being able to learn them, but also being able to do those and improve with effort.
(03:15)
It's not a matter of I tried it once, it didn't work and I'm not going to try again. Do you really think people when they post things on Pinterest did that one time and that's what it looked like? I highly doubt it. The same is true for us. When we look at that thing on Pinterest and we say, oh, I'm going to do that, and ours is an epic fail. That's not where we should stop. We should keep working. Thinking about how we can make things better the next time. Whereas, individuals who have a fixed mindset, they believe that everything is fixed and it can't be changed, and this is the way I was born. This is who I am, and I'm never going to change.
(03:54)
Maybe I can't change the way I am or this is the way I was born, but I can at least try. I'm never too old to learn. For those of you who are visual, think about a pond. A pond is a specific size. It has boundaries. That is a fixed mindset, whereas a growth mindset would be more like the ocean. The opportunities are absolutely endless. Think about situations in your own life when something doesn't go as planned or you hear someone say, well, that will never work. How do you respond? Is it the end for you or like Fred Smith does it encourage you to keep working harder to make it better? I'm going to be full transparent here. When there's a problem or a situation or someone tells me it won't work, my first thought is watch me. My growth mindset tends to kick in.
(04:48)
Let me say there are times where I'll people find myself in that fixed mindset, but I'm aware of it and I have a little pity party for a minute. Then I move forward and find a solution. I look at every possible solution. It's better to have someone else who has a growth mindset and sit down and to talk with that person; here's where I'm stuck. I just did this a few weeks ago. I was stuck and I called someone and said, Hey, can we sit down and brainstorm? And it was a great session. Walked away with more opportunities than I could have ever imagined. During the COVID pandemic, it was very interesting to watch individuals and organizations and how they responded to COVID. It was a hopeless time.
(05:34)
There is no doubt. We just all felt stuck and not sure what to do. But I saw manufacturing companies shift their production from, there were distilleries producing alcohol to hand sanitizer, restaurants found ways to continue to serve their customers. Even though they couldn't sit in dining, they did takeout options. Gyms were actually moving their equipment outside in the parking lot so people could continue to walk on the treadmills and lift the weights and take cycling classes. They were doing online training programs so people could keep moving. Schools were doing online learning, and then retailers did curbside pickup. Curbside pickup started a little bit before COVID, but it really expanded . In your organization, what are some benefits of having a growth mindset? First of all, when you have a growth mindset in your organization, people are willing to take risks and they're willing to express new ideas and thoughts.
(06:34)
You will have a higher level of trust among your team members, which means you're going to have more motivation, better performance, and your team members are going to be inspired to work harder and better. You will have to take risks. Learning is an opportunity. It's not a punishment. And in too many organizations, people feel like they're being punished if they make a mistake. When people take risks and they think about other possibilities and their ideas are endless, we actually see innovation and creativity. Your employees will have lower stress and anxiety because they're not afraid to fail, and we have resilience. We're being resilient. This doesn't apply just at work, but think about your volunteer opportunities. What about in your home? How can we practice a growth mindset? Everybody's growth journey is different. We are all unique individuals. Please, the one thing that we don't want to do is compare ourselves to others.
(07:34)
Our journey is different. We are not called to do the same thing, thank goodness. We want to learn to look at a challenge not as the end, but as an opportunity to overcome that obstacle. If we avoided obstacles, we would never grow. Overcoming the obstacle is going to look different for every person. If we sat here and did a math problem, three plus six equals nine, eight plus one equals nine, every solution is different. The other thing, and I think that many of us struggle with this, I know I do too, is when you see people who are successful and they're always posting their success on social media, people don't post their failures. They post their successes. We see this person continually posting their successes, and we get jealous. We feel defeated.
(08:30)
What would it look like if instead of being jealous, being envious, or thinking negatively about yourself because someone else is successful, if you responded with a congratulations message, that is awesome. I'm so proud of you. Way to go. Think about that. Start congratulating people on social media. Focus on your positive actions rather than your traits. I know that I am not someone that could step into the ER and help people that are bleeding profusely, but what can I do? I could be there to support their family members. I could help them fill out the paperwork. Instead of looking at where I'm not strong, what can I do and change your thinking. The key is progress over perfection. When Kelly and I started these vlogs, we weren't perfect. We're still not perfect, and every time we do a vlog, we find something better to do.
(09:29)
We find something different to do, and that's great. I encourage you not to wait until you have everything perfected because you'll never get there. It will never happen. The other thing is recognize failure. This didn't work and then move on. It's a learning opportunity, and we're never going to do everything perfectly. Thomas Edison failed thousands of times before he got the light bulb perfected. Milton Hershey failed several times. He had several failed businesses before he became successful. Imagine if these people would have stopped after their first failure. We should be looking at them as inspiration. Remember, growth is a process. It's not a destination. We will always continue to grow. No matter if you're 96 years old, you're going to continue to grow. Here's some examples of a growth versus a fixed mindset. Where do you reside? Do you see possibilities and opportunities? Or are you looking at limitations and limited resources? Do you tend to be proactive or wait until something happens and then react? Generally? Are you optimistic or do you have first thing goes negative and you feel like a victim? Do you see challenges as opportunities and you embrace them or do you avoid challenges so that you can avoid failure?
(11:02)
People that have a growth mindset, they are open about their flaws. I know I'm not perfect here. They're open about it and they will share it. Whereas people in a fixed mindset, they don't want anybody to think that they have flaws because they might be judged.
(11:19)
What do I do if I look at this and I say to myself, I probably spend a lot of time in the fixed mindset, or people are telling you, you tend to be negative, or you're in a fixed mindset. What can I do? I'm going to give you a couple tips to help you there. Number one, be aware that it's happening. Just like I said, there's times where, as much as I want to say I have a growth mindset, there are times where things happen where I just fall into that fixed mindset and feel that hopelessness. I need to be aware that it's happening and say, okay, nope, not doing that. The second thing that I like to do is recognize the bad situation. That was bad, but what was the positive that happened? What is something that's good in every situation you can find good?
(12:08)
If you look, if you're totally focused on the negative, you'll miss the positive. Look for the positive. What did I learn from that? What can I be grateful for? The third thing, and I mentioned this earlier when I was stuck, to surround yourself with people that have a growth mindset. When you come up with new ideas, do the people around you tell you all the reasons they're not going to work? Or do they encourage you? It's good to know the obstacles, but know that there are solutions to those, and we can overcome that. People that have a growth mindset will inspire each other and will not always say, that's not going to work. They will say things that are encouraging, have you thought about this? Or maybe this is a great idea. Let's look at this. The fourth thing, and we all have this, is we have those negative voices in our head.
(12:56)
Writing was and is not a passion for me. Therefore, when I was writing my book, I had to change the thoughts in my head from, you can't do this, you're not a writer to, I'm a writer and I'm going to do this. Or maybe you have a task that's really difficult and instead of giving up and saying, I can't do it, that's hard. But instead say, I will get through it and I will learn how to do it again. Remember, it's progress over perfection. The first time we do something, it's not going to be perfect, and that's okay. But over time, we can learn to do better. As I wrap up today, my challenge for you is to pay attention to your mindset. Be aware of how you respond to things, and try focusing from that fixed mindset to the growth mindset. I encourage you to take a step back and look at how you're handling situations.
(13:55)
Maybe you need to ask somebody, how am I handling this? Do you demonstrate more of a growth mindset when you look at situations as opportunities for growth? Or do you see it as unchangeable? This is hopeless. I'm done. It's over again. We're all going to fall into that fixed mindset, and when we do, it's important to recognize it and call it out. No, I'm not going to do this today. No, I'm not going to be a victim and look at the situation differently. What am I grateful for? What can I learn from this? If you're struggling to see a different perspective, ask someone to show you a difference perspective. These are steps that I have found to be helpful for me when I find myself drifting back into that fixed mindset.
Our intent is to fill our cup at different locations each episode, and if you have a favorite spot that you would like a shout out for, let me know. If you like our Vlog, I encourage you to like it and share it and subscribe. Thank you for joining us, and I hope you'll join us for our next episode, which will include a guest. Until next time, please take care and continue filling your cup.
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