Grit, Grittier

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Well, Readers, I have been adrift from the blog, and the blog has drifted from my subject, success, over the last several weeks. Perhaps you are thinking, “Weeks? Try months! Months? Try years!” It is true, this blog is sometimes only related to success in the most tangential way. I like to think I exhibit some ingenuity in those linkages, and that keeps you all on at least a loose tether and interested in what on earth Hope is going to say next. 

Some of you like it when I tell stories from my life. (Hi, Dad!) Because then you know what is going on in my life. Some of you like it when I get into some tips for success and living well. So as the old saying goes, you can’t please all the people all the time. 

But you can sure hope they’ll keep reading. 

Because I keep on writing. I persevere. I persist. I exhibit grit. And grit is what I want to talk about. In fact, I have to apologize to you, Readers, because Grit, by Angela Duckworth, happens to be one of the more intriguing and helpful books on success I have read. Along with Mindset by Carol Dweck it has been among the most influential. Yet, in going over my blog, I can’t find any posts on the topic. Perhaps I wrote one and forgot, but perhaps I just overlooked it, as one overlooks something familiar and integral, such as the family dog. Until you trip over him. Or he demands your attention by sticking his nose into your hand. 

What is grit? Is grit muscling through weekend traffic on 495 and 95 to and from visiting your rising 10th grader at her theater camp's performance day? Is it sitting through four musicals and plays in one day, sitting, let me just add, first outside on wooden planks, then inside on theater seats, then outside in the amphitheater on split logs that are trying to pitch you down a hillside, then inside in the theater, and finally on the floor on a sleeping bag that might be infested with fleas?

Sadly, no, that is not grit. Although there was plenty of grit around. But this is a different kind of grit.  Did you ever read that book, True Grit? They made a movie out of it in 1969, starring John Wayne and Kim Darby. And the Coen brothers remade it in 2010 with Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld. Well, True Grit is about pursuing a goal with single minded passion and going through a lot to reach it. It, in the story, is the girl’s father. 

Well, Duckworth came to study grit from an interest in achievement. She was a student of famous psychologist Martin Seligman, the founder of Positive Psychology, and she was trying to figure out how talent, skill, effort, achievement, and success were all linked. She noticed, through her own and others’ research and experience that talent alone was not enough to succeed. A person needs skill, in addition to talent. In fact, she discovered, talent is intertwined with skill. Talent is “how fast we improve in skill.” 

In short, spend a little time with Duckworth, and you’re in the pond with the ducks. By which I mean, she continues the work of Carol Dweck that erodes the myth of the genius born with “natural talent.” Until I read Mindset, which I've written about in several posts, I was one of those people who fetishised the idea of the natural genius. Duckworth’s not saying there aren’t differences in the ability with which we may improve in skill, i.e. differences in talent. However, talent alone doesn’t make for success. In fact, she says, talent, which correlates with, for example, high SAT scores, does not predict success in life when pursuing sustained pursuit of goals. 

So what transforms talent into skill? Duckworth says effort. 

Talent x Effort = Skill

But in seeking to achieve a challenging goal, skill is not enough, either. Achievement requires effort, too. 

Skill x Effort = Achievement. 

Which means, according to Duckworth, that effort factors into success twice. She says, “If I have the math approximately right, then someone twice as talented but half as hardworking as another person might reach the same level of skill but still produce dramatically less over time. This is because as strivers are improving in skill, they are also employing that skill…..[Then] the striver who equals the person who is a natural in skill by working harder will, in the long run, accomplish more.” (p. 51) 

Grit is “passion and perseverance.” Grit is enjoying “the chase” as well as “the capture.” That is, having a growth mindset as opposed to a fixed one. That means you believe in your ability to improve. Another indication of grit is the ability to be “satisfied being unsatisfied.” That is, the ability to return to your work, your project, your book, your painting, your research, day after day, knowing that every day you haven’t yet achieved what you wanted, but that every day you are making it a little closer to your goal. 

What makes us work hard over a long period? Passion. I think you could safely call this intrinsic motivation. A growth mindset helps us persevere. And when we persevere with passion over a long period, we exhibit grit. 

So now I’ll bet you all want to know if you have grit. I do. I have grit. Of that I am one thousand percent positive. Which is nice for a change from my usual state of self-doubt. I know from looking at how I live my life. I am a writer. Still. After decades of effort. But I also know because Angela Duckworth has a little quiz in her book, which I took, and yes, I have grit. You can take the quiz here: https://angeladuckworth.com/grit-scale/  

Let me know how gritty you are! 

Don’t be afraid. I feel like this is all good news. Success is largely in our control. We tend to get grittier as we mature. "Grit is growable," says Duckworth.  More on that in a future post. Plus, if all goes well, I will have an interview about this topic to share with you. 

Home Truths for Successful Living

While scanning our bookshelves for a quick read, I came across a little book belonging to one of the children and untouched in recent years. Despite the lack of documentation, the book purported to contain facts. Not even a bibliography! My US History teacher would have been appalled!

Anyway, I read that if I were swallowed by a black hole, I would become elongated. Eeellonnnnnnggated was how the book put it. Well, I thought, I'm sure I've read that somewhere else. I mentally noted I would check this fact with the college student, who has two semesters of Physics in her head by now. Then I moved on to other thoughts. Such as the thought that if I were e-l-o-n-g-a-t-e-d, I might finally become the leggy ectomorph I am in my imagination. Of course my next thought was that I might end up a human chihuaha. Or corgi.

It was time to shelve that line of thought. I moved on to some home truths.

• My dog smells. He isn’t supposed to, because he is a fancy designer dog, touted to have no doggy smell. Well. I’m here to tell you, he’s lying under the desk right by me, and he smells. It’s not a horrible, gag-inducing dog smell; his smell is milder, but still pungent. There is an odor, though, no matter what the dog people say. It’s equivalent in intensity to the scent of unscented deodorant and lotion. Unscented personal products have an odor.

  

  He has no idea

• A frittata is a great, quick meal. I make a mean frittata.

• “In life, if your focus is being something, then it’s not going to go very well, and it’s not going to be fulfilling. But if your focus is doing something, then that makes a difference.”* I didn’t say that. It’s a quotation from Jason Kander, former Secretary of State in Missouri and founder of Let America Vote, an organization devoted to combating voter suppression and increasing turnout. He’s beautifully describing the fixed versus growth mindsets defined by one of my heroes, Carol Dweck, as crucial to sustained success. 

• To accomplish many challenges, especially athletic ones, it’s important to develop what W. Timothy Gallwey in The Inner Game of Tennis calls relaxed concentration. How to develop this? By visualizing your desired outcome, focusing on exactly what is happening in the moment, and allowing your unconscious mind to direct your actions.

• Following through on your intentions is what separates the finishers from the rest. Just last week, I attended the husband’s work event as Supportive Spouse. I entertained myself by dressing in a poufy skirt and some bitchin’ metallic silver beads. One of the medical residents engaged me in conversation. When he learned I love podcasts, he began listing his favorites. After my eyes glazed and my tongue lolled and I glanced longingly at my congealing meal, he offered to email his recommendations to the husband. And he did, with recommendations for specific episodes. Of course, I can do nothing for his career, but I can vouch for his follow-through.

• Sometimes you should just buy the thing, even if it’s not on sale. Sometimes the amount you'll wear the thing or use the thing brings down its cost per use to something reasonable. You should try it on, first, though. I mean, if it's a wearable thing. Deliberate in the dressing room. Maybe snap a mirror shot and send it to your friend for approval (If you're under 16, that is.) Then leave the store. Walk around. Tell yourself you’ll wait twenty-four hours and see if you still want it. Wait at least twenty-four minutes. Then if you still want it, go back and buy it. Then wear it, don’t pickle it, as my Aunt Wisdom says my grandmother used to say. 

*Check out Jason Kander's interview on the new podcast The Great Battlefield, all about how the progressive resistance to reactionary policy is organizing. 

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Mental Contrasting and Ganesh for Success

Just a quick note this week. We have had a French exchange student with us since last Wednesday. Things are going well. She’s a very polite and quiet exchange student. The only thing I really don’t get about her is that she has left home without a book. This is a mystery to me. And it presents a bit of a dilemma for the 9th grader, who needs her down time, and would like to spend some of it companionably with our visitor reading. 

Alors. 

I say exchange student, by the way, but there is no exchange involved, unfortunately. This is because our school district no longer allows our students to stay with host families abroad. Our French teachers argued for it to no avail. 

Oy. 

Anyway, to entertain the visiting students, some of us got together for a day trip to Woodstock. Woodstock is not actually very near where Woodstock occured, but it is a very groovy town full of vintage clothiers, flea markets, incense, Tibetan flags, Indian prints, and all manner of yoga-related symbols, as well as expensive comfortable clothing and shoes - and good food. It was a win-win. I got into the spirit of things in one of these shops and decided I needed something Ganesh-related. In case you were wondering why, Ganesh is the Hindu god of success or of removing obstacles, which is apparently the same thing. 

I agree they are related. And Ganesh abounded in this shop. I chose a cool postcard with an image of Ganesh on it and went to buy it, only to be told by the cashier that the side of the shop where I got it was owned by someone else, and since my postcard had no price tag, she couldn’t ring it up on her register. 

Ganesh was an obstacle in this instance. And that, Readers, is ironic. 

However, for reasons of who knows what - maybe kindness, perhaps amusement - the husband liked this story and also thought I needed a Ganesh, so he ordered one for me from Amazon. It arrived today. 

I’m not entirely sure which obstacle I hope Ganesh removes. I hope that’s not a problem. However, it may be problematic, since I’ve learned that setting specific intentions is a potent way to get things rolling in the right direction. A general wish is kind of wishy-washy, if you will. What if Ganesh removes all obstacles? That could be mayhem. Some obstacles should remain in place. For example, red lights and stop signs and some kinds of inhibition. Let’s assume the idea is Ganesh removes obstacles to success. So, what success am I aiming for ?

I think we all know it. 

But while I like my little Ganesh, the more useful method of removing obstacles to success is mental contrasting. Mental contrasting is a method of visualizing yourself achieving a goal, then considering carefully the obstacles to it that you might encounter. Once you identify an obstacle, visualize yourself overcoming it and how you will do it. Then visualize your goal and another obstacle and so on. Thus you merge a positive mindset with the knowledge that you will have to work to achieve it, as well as that you have the ability and grit to do so. Recipe for removing obstacles. 

So my little Ganesh will sit by my computer as I write and will remind me that I have the power to remove obstacles to success. And also, perhaps, my little Ganesh will work some magic over the things I cannot control. 

A bird house in Woodstock, NY

5 Pieces of Advice on Success, Among Other Stuff.

Hi Readers, 

A few things on my mind this week.

1.  Take a look at my study. It’s a disaster area. Waiting for missing parts to arrive before the husband gets my new shelves up and I can finally organize my stuff. Not that I’m going to be a neatnik. It’s not in my genetics. I like some mess. But I like it organized. Organized mess.  

It's disaster, not organized mess, just mess. Dislike. 

2. I listened to a podcast called "Becoming Your Best” about success, by a father-son team of business consultants on leadership excellence or something. I think they’re Mormon, as are so many famous business coaches. I’m thinking of Stephen Covey and Clayton Christiansen in particular.  

Anyway, “Success is a mindset,” they said. And I agree. Then they trotted out 5 ways of creating a good mindset for success. I shall summarize as follows:

1. What a blessing!  Even if you step in dog poop and track it all over your floor, say to yourself, “What a blessing.” And figure out how to make something good out of it. For example, “Now I get to practice my cleaning skills AND my patience AND my kindness towards my little beastie kick-dog.”
2. Smile and be nice. This is simple and simpleminded. And hard to do. Be pleasant and kind, even when you want to kick someone, or your little beastie kick-dog. Because you never know where help might come from in return.
3. Affirmations. “I’m smart, I’m healthy, and I feel terrific.” Or similar.
4. Positive self-talk. Related to affirmations, but more in depth, talking yourself out of negativity and giving encouragement. Duh. 
5. Delete critical or negative thoughts. Gee, thanks, I never thought of that. Poof! They are gone.

So nothing new here. In fact, most of it you’ll find in Dale Carnegie’s book How to Win Friends and Influence People,. This, I may have mentioned (I have) is one of the original success books, from the 1920s. If you add in Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking, you’ll definitely get all that advice, and that was written before 1960. 

Is this repetitive advice-giving a problem? Well, the lack of attribution bothers the hell - bothers the heck out of - bothers me. On the other hand, maybe this advice counts as general knowledge by now and so attribution is unnecessary. After all, I do agree that success is a mindset and therefore, the next step is to achieve that mindset. And I agree because I have read it about a bazillion times as well as have experienced it myself. And these five things do help create a positive mindset, and a positive mindset helps to create positive results. Furthermore, if you’re in a snit or stressed out, and you have to perform, i.e. interact with people, either on stage, at work, at home, out in public, then you do sometimes need to have a few tricks ready to psych yourself up and put that snit aside. 

However, these five pieces of advice don’t work all the time. And they smack of feelings-stuffing. Feelings-stuffing leads to internal emotional bleeding, depression, divorce, and internal ticking time-bombs. I do not advocate feelings-stuffing as a lifestyle choice. How could I, product of as much psychotherapy as I am? Feelings-stuffing is not the healthy, long-term way of working with your mindset. However, if you’re frustrated because you’re running late for a speaking engagement, get pulled over for speeding, and get stuck with a big fat ticket and you get grumpy, feelings-stuffing is just fine, to get you ready to march out there and give your speech. 

Then you need to go home and no, you may not pop a Valium or drink a tumbler of scotch. You need to debrief and get acquainted with your stuffed feelings. Deal with them more thoroughly. Acknowledge them and scratch them behind their little ears. Then they will sleep peacefully at your feet and you will have cleared some space for your mindset to improve. And you won’t want to kick them.

By the way, I described this podcast to the 12th Grader, and she said, “They sound like the kind of people you would avoid at a party.” Which I thought was accurate. And I hadn’t even mentioned how they both punctuated everything they said with fake laughter. 

3. The husband wants us to get rid of our land line phone. I am attached to the land line phone. Something about having a single number to reach the family. Something about remembering being on Martha’s Vineyard when Agnew resigned and the house where we stayed had a party line. A party line. Readers, do you remember party lines? Where you might pick up your handset and discover that someone else was on the phone, someone in another house, someone you didn’t know? And you could listen in on both sides of the conversation? Rock Hudson and Doris Day fell in love because of one, in “Pillow Talk”. It’s a cute film, and not entirely sexist because Doris Day is a successful business woman who is more than equal to flibbertigibbet Rock. Nevertheless, I don’t miss party lines. But I do miss my copper wire land line. I could always depend on it to work, even during a power outage. Like most everyone now, we get almost no calls except sales calls on our land line, and we pay a fortune for it, along with Internet and TV. In fact, it’s not actually a land line anymore, since its a fiber optic cable line and therefore subject to the same interruptions in service as our Internet. This means that my old feeling of security that we can always count on our land line to work is a false feeling of security. 

In short, I have few if any rational reasons to hang onto the land line. And then yesterday, I left my cellphone somewhere, and I used my house phone to call my cell phone and located it between the seats of my car, thereby providing me with one last reasonable excuse for having the house line. The other excuse, which I’m not sure is reasonable, is that the idea that each person gets his or her separate calls on his or her cell phone makes me feel all sad and splintery. Further disintegration of the nuclear family and so forth. Plus, how can a mom maintain effective nosiness if all phone calls go to personal cell phones? Not that kids actually speak on the phone much. Most of their conversations already go to their individual devices via texts. So this is just another way of holding on to something outmoded. And paying dearly for it. 

4. Finally, I bought a selfie-stick for the iPhone. This has been the cause of much put-upon sighing by my teens, and I don’t really know why. What is so wrong with a selfie-stick, I ask you? After all, I’m of a certain age, the Blanche Dubois age, when I look better in soft light - and at a longer distance than my own arm’s length. This is something about which they know naught. Poor things. 

Another view of my chaotic, transitional office. And hair. 

No Such Thing As Failure

Last night, the husband and I went to listen to a talk by Stephen Sondheim. It was actually not a talk, but a conversation between Stephen Sondheim and some lady named Mary. Sorry, Mary, I have forgotten your last name, as I almost always forget names. It’s to your credit that I remember your first name. You did a fine job. To give myself credit, let me say that I bought the tickets as a birthday present for the husband, who performed in “Sweeney Todd” in college, who was a composer before he was a doctor, and who just may get back to composing one of these years. Except that he’ll never be able to retire, because I, his wife, make too little money; but eventually, we will run out of British crime dramas to watch on Netflix, and he will have time of an evening to create.

It was really some kind of miracle that I found out about this Stephen Sondheim gig. I’m so out of every loop – except my own internal, neurotic ones – that it amazes me that I came across this event, in time to order tickets for it.  It was, of course, sold out last night.

Mr. Sondheim is 83, and still working. Artists never stop. He talked about his shows, mostly. He also gave little glimpses into the wild evening life he used to lead and had a couple stories about Elaine Stritch, who played Jack Donaghy’s mother on “30 Rock”, in case you don’t know her from Broadway. I learned that the phrase “Everything’s coming up roses” is from the lyric to the eponymous song from “Gypsy,” written by Stephen Sondheim. He admitted that coining a phrase that entered the lexicon was satisfying. I should think so.

But really, the most compelling thing he said, he said early on in the conversazione. (Throwing in a little Italian, just for kicks.) Mary Whose Last Name Escapes Me asked him if, when he was starting out, he worried that he would fail. He said, “I don’t think that ever occurred to me.”

Thank you, and good night. That explains a lot. That explains why I was sitting in the audience listening to Stephen Sondheim, and not the other way around. Or, at least, it explains one reason. It never occurred to him he might fail? That’s pretty much all I think about when I consider my writing.

Of course, it might have been a little easier for Stephen Sondheim to forget to consider the possibility of failure than it was for me. He had Oscar Hammerstein as a father figure. I had a father figure, but he wasn’t Oscar Hammerstein. He was my father. (Still is.) A fine man, a lawyer, but in no position to help me become a successful writer. He did help me get the job in a law firm that led me to decide against pursuing law. This was helpful, in its way, although more for defining what I wouldn’t do than what I would do with my career. Kind of like negative space in a drawing is important, but it’s not where the artistry lies. Usually.

So Sondheim’s first job was in the “family business,” too. Although he had some lean years, Sondheim had Oscar. Oscar Hammerstein helped him develop his skills and got him involved writing lyrics with Leonard Bernstein for “West Side Story,” when he was twenty-five. If he wasn’t working for Oscar Hammerstein, he could call Oscar Hammerstein for advice. So, you know, failure seems pretty unlikely to me, too, in that scenario.

I am glad that I didn’t call it a night after that astounding proof of self-confidence. After hearing that, I just listened and marveled at a person who had such self-confidence that he could question aspects of any of his works, without questioning his basic right and ability to work at that art.

In fact, he had a few shows that didn’t do all that well. One of them, “Merrily We Roll Along,” of which I’d never heard, closed after 9 shows on Broadway. It was, you know, a flop. Guess what? He revised it. He fixed it. That's the growth mindset at work, by the way, Readers. He kept on working at it, and eventually it showed in London and then on Broadway – years, indeed decades, later – and garnered great reviews. So he believed in his idea, and he had strength of character enough, or confidence enough, to deconstruct the parts that didn’t work for audiences, and to keep on revising them until they played well. Along the way he did “Company*,” and “Sweeney Todd,” and “Sunday in the Park with George,” and “A Little Night Music,” and a bunch of other musicals that you probably have heard of, even if you don’t care for musicals. 

All of these works were collaborations, by the way, and all developed over months and often years. He’s working on something now that’s been steeping for twenty-five years. What really struck me, was that once Sondheim felt some idea he came across had “something to it,” he didn’t look back and question that judgment. He worked, and continues to work, to get that idea out. All of that work is built on a steady foundation of accepting his judgment of what is worth pursuing. For those of us who work at bringing ideas into the world, that is a great lesson in success. 

*Video clip of my favorite song from "Company," sung by Carol Burnett here. She sings it a little slower than others do, but you can hear the lyrics clearly.

10 Tips for Creating a Can-Do Child

In response to my previous post about the best advice Martha Stewart ever received, a friend emailed me, "So how do we teach our children what Martha Stewart's dad taught her?" 

Now, Readers, I have absorbed a lot of material about success over the last year – year or two (can you believe) – and it’s changed me in ways I can no longer parse into categories. Things have blended together in my head into a big smoothie of success. This analogy is my acknowledgment that I may repeat something someone else, someone much Bigger, someone much more Expert, someone much more Famous (which is not at all hard) than myself may have said, and if so, I apologize. In advance. In advance of any advance I may eventually receive for work not yet published, in fact.

Now that’s out of the way. 

My amalgamated advice is as follows:

• Believe your children are capable of great things – however they may grow up to define them.
• Tell your children you believe this of them.
• Praise and encourage all effort, persistence, and progress your children make.
• Encourage them to make and meet goals.
• Allow them time to be autonomous when possible and to find the creativity in all disciplines.
• Model, model, model for them your own effort, persistence, and progress toward goals you set yourself.
• Model your creative engagement. As one reader commented, show them that it’s worthwhile to devote full attention to whatever you do, and not to hold back in hope of something better coming along.
• Celebrate achievement – but focus on achievement being the result of effort. And persistence and progress.
• Model resilience after setbacks.
• Hope for the best!

Now, this list may skew a little vague and touchy-feely, and it is. Oh, it is. But I think and hope it works. I guess we’ll find out eventually. 

All of this advice begs a deeper question that came up from several emails and comments from my treasured readers: How much control do we actually have over our children's development? You see, Readers, I've noticed a tendency, a propensity, shall we say, among people to change their views on how much influence parents actually have over their children, depending on how old their children are, and how much of a mess their grown up childrens' lives appear to be. In short, Readers, I’ve noticed that the older children get, the less their parents say they have any effect on or control over their choices and personalities. 

Buddhists, Kahlil Gibran (“your children are not your children, they are blah, blah, blah"), and anyone who’s a grandparent will tell you: NONE.

And Madeleine Levine, my current book mama, says that once your kid gets to 11, 12, 13 and so on, it’s pretty much up to their friends to shape them. Krikey. This is somewhat distressing to the parent who spends a good part of the night obsessing over what courses her child should take in high school. 

So what good is my list?

One way of looking at this problem is that our parental understanding develops as our children develop from infancy to adulthood. We move from the SENSATION of having no control, except (and this is big) over their physical selves, due to our relative gigantism compared to them, to FEAR that we have no control over them, to HOPE that we aren’t responsible for them. That is, unless they turned out fabululious, and then we take CREDIT.

Another way of looking at this trajectory of responsibility divestment is that by the time our kids are adults, possibly with children of their own, they’ve defined themselves by making many mistakes and having many triumphs, and we are developing dementia. Because we humans tend to forget things were ever different from how they seem in the present, we feel we have no influence on them anymore and that, therefore, we never did. Neither of which is true, as anyone who has spent any time in psychotherapy will know. We did influence them, and we still do. Their eyes are always on us. But the enormity of responsibility for how a person grows up to interact in the world is much easier, perhaps, to disavow than to accept. Which is fine, Grandparents, if you must. You may wash your hands of our stupid choices. But then you aren’t allowed to take credit for our successes, either. And that extends to the offspring of those children you feel you had no ability to influence. And our eyes are on you.

For some reason, I am recalling that when the 9^th grader was two, she became obsessed with dressing herself. And undressing herself. And re-dressing herself. Her room was a shambles, with everything always spilling out of the dresser and onto the floor. Needless to say, her outfits were not exactly matchy-matchy Garanimals. That didn’t bother me, actually. I’m not into matchy-matchy. But I didn’t want her wearing bathing suits or party dresses to school. Her very wise Toddler Time teacher suggested I designate one or two drawers of her dresser into which I was to place several outfits appropriate to the season, which she was allowed to wear in any combination she chose. I could rotate these outfits as needed. So, freedom to choose, but limited freedom. Parameters. It worked like a charm. Stripes and florals, skirts over pants, whatever. I didn’t care. In fact, I liked it. Eliminated some of the mess and all of the power struggle.

What does this have to do with the reader who responded that he felt it would have been useless to tell his daughter she could do anything she wanted to, because he knew it was untrue, and she would have known he knew it, too? He went on to explain that there were too many random factors at work in determining what a person could be; ultimately, he said, citing Daniel Kahneman’s book, Thinking Fast and Slow, success depends about 30 percent on ability and 70 percent on chance. This is a pretty bleak outlook, in some ways. It’s tempting to say, why bother trying, then? And yet, because I am not yet old, I persist.

I guess the connection is this: that we all operate within constraints, and yet those constraints can be the mold for our creativity and for our sense of autonomy. None of us can control the external world, but we can still learn agency from within that constraint. The point is not to say that the world is going to throw you curveballs, so you’d better spend your life ducking. The point is not to say that you must wear a red shirt with your blue pants, or else. The point is to say that given the need to wear clothes and your parent’s need for some kind of order, your choice is limited by circumstances, but within those limitations you can create your own outfit. Similarly, teaching your child that she can do whatever she wants allows her to stretch. The world may – will – prevent or hinder or complicate circumstances, but the child who believes she can do, will do what she can with what life hands her. Goals may need altering, but the can-do child will accommodate that. That’s better than not trying stuff in anticipation of chance working against her. Besides, hard work and creativity may alter goals and circumstances in positive ways.

Sonnets. Villanelles. Sestinas. Sometimes restrictions are liberating. Look at it this way. By frustrating your young child’s desire to do whatever he wants (wear a bathing suit to school in winter in Albany, NY, say) yet giving him some choices, you teach many lessons. One is that the world will not always bend to his wishes. Would you not say that is a useful lesson? Another is that he still has some control over himself and his person. Is that not also useful? And a final one is that there is satisfaction from working within constraints. Again, useful. It teaches him he can do anything he wants to do. In this case, he wants to pick his own outfit. It also teaches him to modify his goal to accommodate his limits - to revise what he wants to do, if necessity forces him to. And that, I think, is the way of the world. Success is determined by how fully you express yourself within your limits. 

Selected Bibliography

Dweck, Mindset

Faber and Mazlich, How to Talk So Your Kids Will Listen & Listen So They Will Talk

Ginott, Between Parent and Child

Halvorsen, Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals

Levine, Teach Your Children Well: Parenting for Authentic Success

Mogel, The Blessing of a Skinned Knee

Pink, Drive

Once More With Feeling: Growth v. Fixed Mindsets

It's the Olympics, in case you missed the memo. 'Tis the season of goal setting, of winning, of losing, and of TV-packaged success and failure stories with lessons for us all. Here's a lesson I can't resist  ramming down our collective throat, readers: a growth mindset is a better tool for success than a fixed mindset. Call it growth or incremental, call it having "getting better" goals, whatever you want, it's just a better choice.

Compare these photos:

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The exuberant reactions of Wells and Harper to winning silver and bronze medals in the 100 meter hurdle race last night stand in stark contrast to the sour pusses of Mustafina and Komova, who won Silver and Bronze in the all-around gymnastics contest last week.

Last night, listening to Harper and Wells talk to the microphone after their race, it struck me. They were excited, they were happy with their performances, they were pleased with their second and third places and grateful they'd had the opportunity to participate. They each talked about how, aside from the medal, they'd reached their personal goals in their race times. In fact, they almost seemed more happy to have met their personal time goals than to have won medals. So if they'd come in fourth and fifth, but met those personal, incremental goals, they'd have been satisfied. Not thrilled, of course, but not devastated. They were certainly not devastated not to win gold. I turned to the husband, who was eating cookies, and said, "That is the growth mindset at work." He ignored me, so I repeated myself, because I am willing to work and work to achieve my goals, one of them being his attention, from time to time.

Meanwhile, interspersed with the running and the commercials was women's gymnastics on the balance beam. Komova was pacing around looking miserable and anxious before her turn, and the announcer told us that she'd been dissatisfied with her bronze in the all-around competition, and that she'd said she just knew she "had a gold" inside, and nothing was going to satisfy her but that gold. Then she went up on the beam and wobbled and messed up, and came down, looking more miserable than ever. Fixed mindset. Entity mindset. Be good mindset. It's the all-or-nothing attitude, the idea that unless a particular goal is reached, you are worthless and a failure. It's the mindset that makes you look like a sore loser  while holding a bronze medal. At the Olympics.  It's the mindset that, if you perform at less than perfect, will nag you until you choke.

Are we clear on this? Okay, then let's move on.

Find the Motive, Another Facet of Goal Pursuit

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Do you see yourself as trying to be good or as getting better? Heidi Grant Halvorsen, PhD, wants to know.

Is this a trick question? You bet. If you see yourself pursuing goals to prove you're good--or great--at something, then you get the big red buzzer. You may indeed achieve your goals, but your life will be h-e-double toothpicks. As the polite like to say. Since I'm not that polite, I'll just say it. Wrong. Buzz. You have chosen the wrong motive and your life will be full of misery.

Perhaps I exaggerate.

Perhaps I do not.

Try it. Say, "I want to publish a book so everyone will say how talented I am."

Buzz! Wrong answer.

Say, "OMG! I got an A last test, but only a B+ this time--I must not be that smart. I think I'll develop an anxiety disorder, or perhaps an eating disorder."

Buzz! Wrong answer.

Just in case you didn't get the message in my previous posts, here it is. If you've been buzzed by the big red buzzer (and no, it's not that red Staples buzzer, it's more like the buzzer in Family Feud), then you're headed for trouble. Perhaps this sounds familiar. It is. HGH, PhD, is offering another way of looking at the mindset theory. If you're pursuing some goal to prove you're good enough, you're great enough, and people love you, then you're motivated by a fixed or entity mindset. This mindset's downside is that your self image becomes attached to having achieved --whatever--and therefore the risk of losing it threatens your sense of yourself as worthy.  If your motive is that you're going to show those bastards, then you're going to be too busy shoring up your self image to handle bumps and derailments in your path.

Bumps and derailments being the general rule in life, instead of the exception, it's much better to save those be good goals for straightforward things. I'm having a little trouble thinking of something straightforward. Which is the point. But the be good goal, the fixed mindset, works when you can just plug in numbers and check the math. Otherwise, you want to motivate yourself by the desire to improve. That way, the growth mindset way, also known as the incremental way, you can still feel good when a gigantic tree falls across the road, because you figure out how to deal with it. (Climb over it, go around it, chop it up and haul it away.) As HGH, PhD, says, "Whenever possible, try to turn your goals from being good to getting better....When your emphasis is on what there is to learn rather than what there is to prove, you will be a lot happier and will achieve a lot more."

So file away those SAT scores you remember from 30 years ago and roll up your sleeves. Why? Because people motivated by getting better/growth/incremental thinking

• Don't give up when the going gets tough
• Enjoy themselves more
• Deal with depression and anxiety better

Now I think we've polished every facet of that particular theory to perfection. Look! I can see myself!

A Baker's Dozen Rules of Success

Otafuku, Goddess of Mirth

It's summer, or so I've heard, although the current weather in New York State suggests otherwise, and summer is a time to strip down: in clothing--to a single layer; in meals--to light fare; and in blog posts--to an easy-to-read list.

Here are 12 nuggets sifted from the many books I've read in the last few months, plus one extra, in a list.  And, readers, I dreamed it. Isn't that weird? That's only happened to me once before. I dreamed a poem, and then I sort of woke up, so I scribbled it down on a notepad. When I got up for real in the actual morning, it was just a line of gobbledygook, of course. Alas. My life might have taken a totally different course. (Possibly a terrible one--poets are usually obscure and earn very little dinero until they go out in a flame of tragedy, Billy Collins and Maya Angelou excepted. No thank you.)

1. Smile and be strategic. Think what you want to achieve from any transaction. (Dale Carnegie)
2. Build your goals around solid principles. (Stephen Covey)
3. Find people who believe in you to help you believe in yourself. (Noah St. John)
4. Shape your mind to support your goals through positive thinking, affirmations, or intentions. (Norman Vincent Peale and Everyone Else)
5. Focus on the present. (Carnegie and others)
6. Find time to meditate. (Deepak Chopra and others)
7. Make sure you rest. (Carnegie)
8. Develop a growth mindset—believe you have the capacity to change and improve. (Carol Dweck)
9. Choose goals that are difficult but achievable. (Heidi Grant Halvorsen)
10. Find work that is intrinsically rewarding: provides you with autonomy; provokes your desire for mastery; fills you with a sense of purpose because you're doing it to make a difference in the world. (Daniel Pink) 
11. Work that challenges and engages you will help you achieve Flow, which leads to   the feeling of satisfaction, happiness and success. (Czikszentmihaly)
12. Practice, practice practice, but practice wisely. Seek out coaches or mentors who can keep you working your edge. (Matthew Seyd and others)
13. Don’t worry about success, find meaningful work and do some good in the world.  (Real actual people I know who are successful)

Not bad. And the only mention of money was my own, in the second paragraph. Just saying....

Success and the Bruised Ego

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I've been thinking hard about this whole fixed/entity or growth/incremental mindset theory, which I've been talking about in my last few posts. It’s got to be one of the most significant theories of succes I’ve read so far. For me, anyway, it’s been a revelation.

Embracing the growth mindset seems to me the only possible way for me to leap off that asymptote of striving to the axis of arriving. Striving to arriving. What a great (accidental) rhyme. Before I began this investigation of success, I felt as if there was this Thing, maybe a gulf, maybe an invisible and unbreakable plexiglass wall, between me and successful people. I felt like they were They. Other. Maybe they had some kind of birthmark that earmarked them for success. Maybe they were born with some innate knowledge of their special specialness. I scoured my body, but only came up with the same kite-shaped birthmark I’ve always had--currently obscured by sun damage, by the way. I scoured my history, hoping to find somewhere some indication that I was Meant to realize my dreams. Alas.

But no, not alas. For here comes Carol Dweck and her protégé Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D, and they’re telling me that I can succeed, if I’m motivated, if I believe I can changegrowadaptimprovelearn, and if I persevere. Which means those Theys, those Others, those “real” successes, are just regular people who figured it out before me.

This is really good news, this theory. You can get your growth mindset in place (by buying Carol Dweck's book and doing her helpful exercises--cha-ching) and you can roll. Right? I mean, then anyone can do it. Right? And that’s great and good and fair, right? I mean, we want anyone to be able to succeed, right?

We do. Really, we do. Except, embracing this theory does bruise the ego just a little. The mindset theory is another notch in the belt of the success scientists who have started this whole vogue for the  10,000 hours of practice to become an expert, popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers. They claim that the right kind of effort matters more than intelligence. 

Which really does hurt just a little. Ouch. I mean, hello, I’ve already admitted that I spent part of my twenties trying to prove to myself that I was smart. Was that all wasted time?

Uh, yeah. Apparently.

And what about those marvelous extensions of ourselves, our children? What about their successes in school? That score in the top quadrant of the 99th percentile of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test?   Do these things not mean glory for us? Does not our child’s intelligence, demonstrated by report cards and awards, confer glory upon us by default?

Does Carol Dweck wish to deprive us off this stuff? Does Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D, like kicking us when we're down?

Are we only allowed to kvell over our children’s ability to work hard and persevere? Yes, as any good parenting book will tell you. Now Carol Dweck comes along with Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D, to prove it. Are we not allowed to take their grades and awards as proof of our own worth as well as of theirs?  No?

No.

How the hell are we supposed to rank ourselves and others if everything comes down to who can hang in there the longest? Who's the hardest worker is just much less sexy than who is effortlessly brilliant.

Okay, breathe.

Despite the efforts of the success scientists, no one is saying there's no such thing as native intelligence (or talent).  Dweck and Halvorson skirt this issue, but they don’t totally ignore it. They point out that yes, intelligence has a genetic component. However, environment plays a huge role. An enriched environment will produce an enriched child. Regardless of environment, however, a child who’s not encouraged to work hard will eventually fall behind the kid who is praised not only for being smart, but for effort, and who is taught how to analyse mistakes and improve her performance. Does this sound familiar? Tiger mom-ish? Indeed, HGH Ph.D and Carol Dweck posit that it’s mindset that accounts for the so-called superiority of Asian students. That joke in “Glee” about an A-minus equaling an “Asian F?” That’s because the emphasis is on improving improving improving. And the only way to improve is to face your problem areas and hone them.

Yet I find it significant that both Carol Dweck and Heidi Grant Halvorsen “confess” to possessing very fixed (entity) mindsets all the way until they were in graduate school. Coincidence? I do not think so. Consider for a moment that the fixed mindset is the perfect mindset to drive you to achieve good grades. With the fixed mindset, every A, every improvement, every award is yet another proof of your worth. And of course that sort of work, getting As and winning awards is just the thing you need to compete for those spots in top colleges and graduate programs. Sadly, traditional education is not about taking risks, so the downside of that mindset doesn’t become apparent until later on, after getting As gets you into the college and grad school of your choice. Then, out in the real world, you need a more flexible, creative, motivation-based approach to make a real difference in the world. Innovation requires risk, and the fixed mindset is risk-averse.

Let me also mention that in Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham and the Science of Success, Matthew Seyd argues that practice and the right kind of coaching are more important than talent in reaching the top in athletics. Howevs, he glosses over one eensy fact in writing about his own experience becoming a world champion table tennis player. He casually mentions that every year, the coach in his school had everyone who had any interest in table tennis try out, and he picked the ones he wanted to work with.

Do you think he picked them because they were so bad that he thought he could make a real difference in their playing? Neither do I.

So let’s not throw out all those awards just yet. The fact is, there is some sort of inborn talent factor that does set you on a course towards achievement. The fact is, there is a strong correlation between IQ and academic achievement. I can’t remember which scientist guy said so, becuz apparently my IQ isn’t that high, but trust me, he did say so. And there is also a strong correlation between academic achievement and income level. (Okay you professors, don’t laugh ironically and say, yeah, the more degrees you get, the less you get paid. That’s only true in academia.)  So IQ does predict some kinds of success. What it most definitely does not predict, is whether you’ll feel successful or happy or content or peaceful, whether you’ll create a masterpiece of art, whether you’ll have successful personal relationships, or any of the most important things in life. 


Those things require the growth mindset. 

How Much Control Over Your Goals Do You Have?

Warning: Control freaks may find contents of this blog post upsetting. 

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So, now that we've established that setting a good goal requires certain conscious parameters, such as the use of mental contrasting, which is shorthand for saying you need to make sure that goal-setting combines both positive thinking about attaining success AND practical consideration of potential obstacles to attainment and how to overcome those, let me let you in on a little secret.

According to Heidi Grant Halvorsen, much to do with goals is unconscious. That's right, readers-- not in our consciousness. We have unconscious attitudes about what we can achieve. We have unconscious desires. We have unconscious restrictions. We have unconscious routines. We even have unconscious goals.  She gives the example of pulling into the garage after driving home from work and having no recollection of the ride. Sound familiar?  That's right. Our unconscious is running the show most of the time. Basically, we are not aware of a lot of shit.

There are three types of shit we're not aware of, as a rule:

Our mindset about various aspects of ourselves.  Remember Carol Dweck? Remember her idea that people tend to be of either a fixed mindset or a growth mindset? Fixed mindset people believe they have a set amount of intelligence, or a set personality. Growth mindset people believe they can build on what they're born with and improve themselves through effort. The people with the growth mindset tend to be happier and more successful in life. Natch, Heidi Grant Halvorsen, Carol Dweck's former student, has her own terms for the very same thing. She calls them entity (fixed) or incremental (growth) beliefs.  Like Dweck, HGH says that the entity belief (fixed growth mindset) is wrong-olla. Yes, you might be born with a higher level of intelligence than someone else, and yes, if your parents are very intelligent, this will come down to you in the genes; but you can always improve your intelligence. It is not a fixed entity. It's something that changes and grows incrementally through effort. What does this have to do with goal setting? Well, if you're of a fixed mindset, you're going to avoid a lot of challenges because you will feel you don't have what it takes to win; but if you're of a growth mindset, you'll be willing to exert yourself towards your goal.

Goal contagion. This is a shorthand way of saying, for example, that if you have a really fit friend you admire who is always exercising, you'll be likely to form your own intention to get in shape whenever you spend time with her.

Triggers. These are things in your environment that evoke a response. Maybe you want to learn French, so every time you pass McDonalds you think of french fries and, you're suddenly spouting all the French phrases you know, mon dieu.  Or perhaps you have an unconscious goal to ingest as much sugar as possible, so a picture of an ice cream cone, a song about, say, "the Candy Man," or a picture of Sammy Davis, Jr., for that matter, can lead you to the register at CVS with a package of M&Ms in hand that you have no awareness of picking up off the shelf. Pretty much anything can be a trigger, as long as it's related somehow to a goal. And the other thing is, you have your personal triggers, and I have mine. Maybe you hate Sammy Davis, Jr., and maybe I love him, so hearing "Candy Man" will help you avoid unnecessary sugar, while I'll be mainlining it.

Are you worried, control freaks? Does the world seem like something you can't control? Do you soothe yourself about this truth--because it is, sadly, true--with your lists, your matching socks and undies, your germophobia, or your obsessive worrying (yes, anxiety is a way of trying to control the uncontrollable--but that's a blog post in itself, isn't it?) Do you comfort yourself with the thought that if you can't control the world, then you can at least control yourself? Sorry. Apparently, you can't.

Here's some good news, though. Remember that you can change your mindset to an incremental (or growth) one from an entity (or fixed) one and that will help you roll up your sleeves and work for your dreams.

Here's more good news. While you can be unconsciously triggered to do something, you'll never be triggered to do something that you don't want to do. Like murder your upstairs neighbor for skateboarding over the bare floor after 11p.m. Heidi Grant Halvorsen says you won't do it, as much as you might like to. "Nothing can trigger a goal that you feel is wrong to pursue, no matter how desirable it seems" she says. Right on p.48.

Here's a final bit of good news. You can plant your own triggers to motivate you. That means you can hang up that old poster of the kitten on the knotted rope and the slogan, "When you reach the end of your rope, make a knot and hang on," to inspire you to finish that novel. In fact, studies show that consciously planted triggers are just as effective as unconscious ones. See, that feels better already, doesn't it?

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Now, were you noticing the same thing I was, readers? That consciously planting a trigger sounds not unlike planting a seed of intentionality (Buddhists), or saying affirmations (Wisdom Traditionalists.)

It looks like Heidi Grant Halvorsen joins the ranks of success folk who believe in the power of positive thinking or affirmations. She stands alongside the likes of Mr. Dale Carnegie, Napolean Hill, Norman Vincent Peale, Deepak Chopra, Noah St. John, and our old friend Stephen Covey.

So get out your meditation cushion, hang your inspirational posters, listen to motivational speakers, write down your dreams, whisper your affirmations to yourself at bedtime, and do what you can to control the uncontrollable. You just might succeed.