This is the advice I needed. I was called a prodigy at a young age, testing multiple grades ahead in standardized tests. I'd walk into a class feeling confident that I already knew everything about a subject and was correcting teachers during class. I was the smart kid that was going to cure cancer some day and didn't have to worry because the world was laid before me. I struggled mightily though college due to poor work ethic and the professional world has been far worse. I'm recently divorced, unproductive at work and close to losing my job, seeing people I don't respect or trust advancing rapidly in their careers. I'm incredibly lonely and unsuccessful with dating. My identity is so wrapped up in being perceived as intelligent that my failures at work and relationships feel like an afront to my identity. The growth mindset you talked through is something I need to dig much deeper on. Thank you!
What worked for me is pushing myself to do something on the direction I choose to, but is challenging and gives me fear. So I do it anyway. The second thing that works for me in a larger scale is constantly searching for improvement and becoming the person I always dreamed of, mostly in the inside. But the most important thing I learned is it’s different to “know” what you must feel and do, and actually feeling it and acting. I used to have expectations real high and suffer from failure. Maybe it’s the years of acting despite the failures or everything I lived and learned, but two months ago I finally felt the shift and now I act because I love the path, improving and trying to get results, but being happy because of the way and knowing it’s the right path. In any case, you helped a lot in this Damien
The Dunning-Kruger Effect applies in someway to everyone. RU-vid is full of videos beating up on people who think they are competent in ways they are not. Sure. Have a laugh. But the other side of this are two types of people: the Cowards and the Persistent. Cowards are those zero sum gamers. We all know them, we do one amazing thing after another and then we make a mistake -- and they can't shut up about that one mistake. They themselves are afraid to try anything new because they're afraid of making a mistake. When I stepped on a boat I mentioned to the owner, "I will be the dumbest guy on your boat, but I learn fast." At first I was just labeled 'the dumbest guy on the boat.' After three months, only one guy was still holding on to that. I had a lot more fun. I learned how to get over my smart kid label two ways. First I was always annoying so instead of praise, I got endless criticism. I learned to mistrust the judgement of adults and others. Second, in middle school 7th grade these girls I'd grown up with were doing better than me in class. Of course they were nicer and the teachers liked them more.... but I was savvy enough to see there was a lot more going on. They were doing their homework, extra credit. So I dug in. I soon learned that the more you learn the better you get at learning and then the faster you learn. You become unstoppable. Whatever it is I will figure it out. Carol Dweck. As a teacher a colleague mentioned that this book and the Mindset idea were going to be the coming thing in education. Soon as I could I got it and read it. Trying to summarize what really is a simple idea, I found that I struggled. Of course I knew all about this... but didn't have a simple statement. So I read the book again. Then for almost two years I'd attend professional development courses where the instructor would spend significant amounts of time on Dweck's work but presenting it incorrectly. They (we) find it hard not to fall back on something like, 'hard working students are smart.' I read Dweck three times. I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything. If you read a book you will have a better understanding than the person who hears about it, reads a news article or watches a video. And if you read it again, take notes, write about it.... at some point you near the level of thinking of the author. Walking with the giants. I chose writing as my '10,000 hours' project because almost everything you need to know about the great writers is on the page. A lot of those 'smart' kids do figure it out and get to work, this is why the 'smart people succeed,' idea persists. A lot of other people by various means figure this out as well. You can be with very high achieving people and realize that some of them really weren't that 'smart,' they just worked hard and were persistent. I've personally known more than a few notable artists and other highly successful people. who were utterly incompetent in some of the simplest life skills. This is why there's not much correlation between grade school grades and future success in life. The real secret is, it doesn't matter where you start, or when you start, it only matters that you start, that you never stop, that as you learn information and skills, you also work to learn and develop the skills for learning more efficiently. It's an acceleration. You can start at 20 or 30 or even later. You won't become a professional athlete or concert musician, but you could write a great book, be financially successful. What I've learned from Attachment Theory psychology. If you change and begin to excel, the first response you're likely to get from people close to you is resistance. Your changing challenge the group dynamic. Know this, be nice about it, but don't let it stop you. I chose to burn those bridges. It wasn't necessary. Hope this was interesting.
Interesting reading mate - Thank you so much for the thoughtful comments - It's interesting that at University I felt like I met a lot of people doing difficult degrees that were less intelligent than people I knew outside of university, but they were amazing workers.
I am aware I am a fixed mindset and just working on the basic of just asking with helping at a charity shop. Starting to have herb tea as well as coffee and tea which is going pretty well. I had to still push myself at college even if I didn't go to universe. Mostly the debt and not knowing what I would pick. Albert Elnstein was Dyslexic. Congetes on the partner.
It's really tricky what the brain does as you stated. "If doing or understanding certain things came so easy to me it must be that I am on the wrong path now". Really dangerous thinking and the thing is that in some cases it's absolutely true, just to add to the confusion.
I was thinking when this video started it sounded like Carol Dwek's stuff and then you got to the part where it was. her book Mindset is definitely worth reading. “After seven experiments with hundreds of children, we had some of the clearest findings I’ve ever seen: Praising children’s intelligence harms their motivation and it harms their performance. How can that be? Don’t children love to be praised? Yes, children love praise. And they especially love to be praised for their intelligence and talent. It really does give them a boost, a special glow-but only for the moment. The minute they hit a snag, their confidence goes out the window and their motivation hits rock bottom. If success means they’re smart, then failure means they’re dumb. That’s the fixed mindset.” ― Carol Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
Damn... blew my mind too. I was always regarded as smart. By my parents, siblings, even class mates as a kid. Everyone. I also was regarded as artistic because of my drawings or anything related to creativity, i was pretty good at. So what skills should I be pursuing? Math? Lol i dont necessarily hate math but it did not stick as easy as other subjects. I now do music production and still draw as a 27 year old. Not as much as i used to but I still enjoy it. I voluntarily sit down and make music however i can without much knowledge, i just like doing it.
This is not true. If you are really talented at something it should be easy. What you described is people overestimating their intelligence so it's more a problem of delusion. It's one thing to be the best at kindergarten or school vs university. Best out of 100 is not the same as best out of 100,000. Do you really think Mozart ever struggled with a grade 8 piece, Federer or Nadal winning regional tournaments, Goedel with his masters degree? They had challenges and difficulties in their career but not at the stage where regular people or even really gifted ones struggled.
But talent != intelligence... That was more less the whole cornerstone of this video... If Mozart was born to a different family he likely just would have become an accountant or something - but his parents go thim onto piano at the age of 2 or 3 and had him practicing an insane number of hours every day... so... yeah he became prodigious in skill. Many men are intelligent - but my whole point is intelligence alone doesn't get us there - it doesnt' get anyone there, it HAS to be paired with effort and failure. But intelligent people tend to avoid failure - I mean there is pretty solid literature on people with iintelligence fixed minsets being failure adverse - ESPECIALLY public failure. Much more so than their growth mindset counterparts.
@@SchoolOfAttraction This is just another misconception. People like Mozart didn't have to practice insane hours. He would have been just as good practicing 1-2 hours. Federer played tennis as a kid only 2-3 times a week for 1-2 hours. Regarding intelligence it doesn't really measure anything in the real world and it's an academic exercise. A doctor and a lawyer need completely different skills that an IQ test doesn't measure. You have a chance of succeeding where you have talent. A high IQ doesn't indicate success in any specific field because it measures very basic and general skills. People just like to think that because they have an above average IQ they are special. They are not. To have significant success at something you really need to be 1 out of 10,000 which is rare.
