Mindset : The New Psychology of Success pdfdrive com

The Journey: Step 3
Now give your fixed-mindset persona a name.
You heard me correctly.
I watched as Susan Mackie worked with financial executives who had given
their fixed-mindset personas names. They were talking about what triggers their
personas, and the top guy said, “When we’re in a crunch, Duane shows up. He
makes me supercritical of everyone, and I get bossy and demanding rather than
supportive.”  A  female  team  member  quickly  responded:  “Yes,  and  when  your
Duane  shows  up,  my  Ianni  comes  roaring  out.  Ianni  is  the  macho  guy  who
makes  me  feel  incompetent.  So  your  Duane  brings  out  my  Ianni  and  I  become
cowering  and  anxious,  which  infuriates  Duane.”  And  on  went  this  amazing
conversation.  These  sophisticated  professionals  talked  about  when  their  named
persona  showed  up,  how  it  made  them  feel  and  act,  and  how  it  affected  others
around  them.  By  the  way,  once  they  were  able  to  understand  each  other’s
triggers and personas, they could move their interactions to another level and the
morale in this unit went up by leaps and bounds.
Every fall I teach a freshman seminar—sixteen brand-new Stanford students,
very eager and very nervous. Each week I give them a different assignment for a
short paper: Find something important about yourself that you’d like to change
and  take  the  first  step….Do  something  outrageously  growth  mindset  in  the
service  of  what  you’d  like  to  change….Project  yourself  twenty-five  years  into
the  future  and  write  me  a  letter  about  where  you  are  in  your  life  and  all  the
struggles, disappointments, hardships, and failures you’ve encountered along the
way.
This  year  I  tried  a  new  one.  In  the  past,  I  had  assigned  a  paper  that  asked
students  to  reflect  on  their  mindsets,  and  I’d  always  had  a  few  of  them  laying
claim to a long-standing and total growth mindset. But this year I asked them to
identify  their  fixed-mindset  triggers  and  to  give  their  fixed-mindset  persona  a
name. It was fascinating. Not one student claimed to have no triggers or persona.
All  of  them  were  able  to  write  eloquently  (and  painfully)  about  their  fixed-
mindset persona, its triggers, and its impact.
“Meet  Gertrude,  my  cagey,  histrionic,  self-aggrandizing  fixed-
mindset persona. She sneaks into my subconscious and undermines
me.  The  name  Gertrude  means  ‘strong  spear,’  which  reflects  her
insistence  on  unwavering,  natural  strength.  She  detests  hard  work,

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second  place,  and  imperfections.  Any  whiff  of  failure  or
imperfection can trigger Gertrude’s entrance. Three seconds slower
in a swim race? No shot at the varsity team. Didn’t draw as good a
self-portrait  as  another  girl  in  my  class?  Art  isn’t  your  thing.
Couldn’t use as many big words as my older sister? You’ll never be
as  smart  as  her.  Gertrude  convinces  me  that  failure  is  definitive.
One mistake can take away my future success.”
“Almost like marriage, I know Sugardaddy will be with me through
thick  and  thin,  sickness  and  health,  and  life  and  death.  He  comes
forth  when  I  step  out  of  my  comfort  zone,  get  criticized,  or
experience  a  failure,  causing  me  to  become  defensive,  lash  out  at
others,  or  stagnate.  Sugardaddy  finds  peace  in  never  leaving  his
comfort  zone,  but  his  views  conflict  more  and  more  with  mine  as
his rigid guidelines try to keep me boxed in his stand-still world.”
“Failure, especially public failure, is my main fixed-mindset trigger.
That’s  when  Henrietta  comes  out.  She  is  my  critical  grandmother,
and in the fixed mindset I remind myself more of her than I’d care
to admit. My Henrietta persona is quick to blame others to preserve
her ego. She rejects failure instead of embracing it, and makes me
worry that if anyone ever sees me fail they will deem me a failure.”
“My fixed-mindset persona is Z, the mirror image of my first initial,
S. Z shows up when I least require her, like after a failed attempt, a
rejection, or a missed opportunity. I’ve always been an avid writer
—the editor of my high school newsletter and the author of a now-
published  novel.  So  when  the  chance  to  be  a  part  of  The  Stanford
Daily  [the  school  newspaper]  arrived,  I  was  thrilled  to  apply.  I
worked  very  hard  on  the  essays  for  the  application  and  felt  they
were well written. Thus, when I awoke to the thundering knocks at
7
A.M
. on a Friday morning and I heard the screaming of ‘Stanford
Daily,’ my heart skipped a happy beat. As my roommate opened the
door,  the  reps  from  the  newspaper  yelled  out,  ‘Welcome  to  The
Stanford  Daily.’  To  her.  As  this  happened,  Z  was  screaming  too,
but  it  was  ‘Stupid,  stupid,  stupid.  How  could  you  think  you’re

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capable of getting into the Daily?’ Z was especially ferocious since
my  roommate  spent  exactly  half  an  hour  on  her  essays  and  even
asked  me  for  ideas  for  them.”  (P.S.  For  a  later  assignment—to  do
something  “outrageously  growth  mindset”—S  actually  contacted
The Stanford Daily to see if they needed any new writers. They did
and she got the job! I am still thrilled by her courage in the face of
the painful rejection.)
“Anything that triggers self-doubt triggers my fixed mindset, which
triggers more self-doubt. I’ve decided to name my doubt guy Dale
Denton, Seth Rogen’s character in Pineapple Express. Picturing my
fixed mindset as a lazy, bumbling slob of a guy sitting in the corner
of my brain helps me battle against him. Dale produces a constant
stream  of  doubt-provoking  statements.  Whispers  of  ‘What  if  you
can  never  repeat  that  success?’  trail  behind  every  successful
outcome. And when an endeavor veers in the wrong direction, Dale
is always present to help the doubt blossom.”
Take  a  moment  to  think  carefully  about  your  own  fixed-mindset  persona.  Will
you  name  it  after  someone  in  your  life?  A  character  from  a  book  or  a  movie?
Will  you  give  it  your  middle  name—it’s  part  of  you  but  not  the  main  part  of
you?  Or  perhaps  you  might  give  it  a  name  you  don’t  like,  to  remind  you  that
that’s not the person you want to be.