The Exchanges

Q How do we as parents instill that mindset in our kids?

A I asked Al Bandura this. Um, I said, you know, do you think that you could learn as much from failure as you could from success, right? Because there are all these, like, Adages and aphorisms about failure, especially in startup land. And he said, oh, this one, I a hundred percent believe mastery experiences, success, success experiences, um, are what really build this, you know, sense of agency. If your kid has like a Teflon life where, you know, everything comes easily in part because you make it that way. And there are a lot of parents who like sort of just Make their kids' lives frictionless, right? Like, oh, you know, you're struggling for 10 minutes. Like, I'll get you a 500 dollars per hour tutor. Like, like, oh, your, your teacher's not so great. I'll get them fired. Like, that's not the kind of success experience that Al Bandura is talking about, because he's talking about, um, success after challenge, success after struggle. So, um, I think Al Bandura's advice is the best advice, which is the, the number one thing, and there's more than one thing, but the number one thing is that people develop confidence When they have, um, struggled to overcome something and they have come out victorious. Um, and the, the engineering problem for a parent is then to figure out the right size of challenge for the kid, like in the next moment in time. And I think that we often get it w…

AI assessment note: “engineering problem for a parent is then to figure out the right size of challenge”

Q What's the most credible sort of research or arguments against your research?

A Well, um, there is a, a number of scholars, including Bettina Love, um, who have asked the question, you know, is teaching grit anti-black, um, and is the whole, like, Idea of shining light on resilience and this whole conversation on agency, like, are, are we, are we doing something dangerous here, um, by ignoring, uh, structural poverty, racism, et cetera, et cetera. My first reaction being a human being was defensiveness. Like what, like, how am I racist? Like that's, I think natural, but hopefully temporary. And for me, I thought like, well, I am the head of character lab. Like it is Not really a good thing to just, like, wallow in defensiveness, and maybe I should actually listen and read more. So I did, and we had some conversations in person, and then I read more, read Bettina's book, I read what other critics had said, and I think that, um, I think that the, the message or the perspective that's being offered has real value, and that is this, that if you are asking questions about, like, you know, underachievement and, you know, closing the achievement gap, etc., And, um, you know, the antidote that's offered is like, well, we should teach kids about growth mindset and grit and agency. Then you might be overlooking, you know, the massive problem that stands in the way much more so, which is, you know, terrible classrooms, like terrible curriculum, no computers, like no,…

AI assessment note: “a number of scholars, including Bettina Love, um, who have asked the question”

Q How do we as parents instill that mindset in our kids?

A I asked Al Bandura this. Um, I said, you know, do you think that you could learn as much from failure as you could from success, right? Because there are all these, like, Adages and aphorisms about failure, especially in startup land. And he said, oh, this one, I a hundred percent believe mastery experiences, success, success experiences, um, are what really build this, you know, sense of agency. If your kid has like a Teflon life where, you know, everything comes easily in part because you make it that way. And there are a lot of parents who like sort of just Make their kids' lives frictionless, right? Like, oh, you know, you're struggling for 10 minutes. Like, I'll get you a 500 dollars per hour tutor. Like, like, oh, your, your teacher's not so great. I'll get them fired. Like, that's not the kind of success experience that Al Bandura is talking about, because he's talking about, um, success after challenge, success after struggle. So, um, I think Al Bandura's advice is the best advice, which is the, the number one thing, and there's more than one thing, but the number one thing is that people develop confidence When they have, um, struggled to overcome something and they have come out victorious. Um, and the, the engineering problem for a parent is then to figure out the right size of challenge for the kid, like in the next moment in time. And I think that we often get it w…

AI assessment note: “the engineering problem for a parent is then to figure out the right size of challenge”

Q Dive into that a little more. Like, how did you speak to yourself in that moment? And then how did you change that conversation?

A Well, I'll tell you the self-talk that went through my head. Um, that was a shit show. I'm humiliated. Like I shouldn't have managed the time that way. I shouldn't have used pull everywhere. Um, I should have rehearsed right now that self-talk is it's actually productive self-talk because like, um, almost everything that I said was like changeable, right? It's like next time I'll rehearse next time. I won't use pull everywhere for the, you know, like now in my twenties, the self-talk that I had when I screwed up was very different than Um, and I have all these journals, so I, I know what the self-talk was. I would say things like, I'm bad. I'm a bad person. Um, and that self-talk's really toxic because, you know, you can't really do anything about being just a fundamentally bad person, you know, like whatever that even means. So I have grown up a little bit in the 30 years since my earlier, you know, young woman failures.

AI assessment note: “Well, I'll tell you the self-talk that went through my head.”

Q It's sort of monitoring and adjusting based on your particular child and the circumstances involved. How do we do it as adults? Do we seek out these opportunities to be challenged? Do we?

A I think that we are benefited, um, In large part by having a, um, surrogate parent. I mean, I, I, what I mean by that is, you know, whether you're 50 or five, right? It's good to have somebody who is a little older and wiser than you, who is like helping you figure out the next challenge. Um, and, and most of the people that I study, like they never get out of being mentored, you know, like they have a, they have a management coach, they have like a personal coach, they have a therapist. The ones I'm most jealous of have a peer For whom they coach each other, right? They have somebody who's like, you know, you should write a book. It's like, oh no, I can't write a book. No, you should really write a book. Like, And, you know, it's that, it's that kind of, um, challenge setting that, of course, you can try to do it on your own, but I, I think that we're always benefited by having, like, another human being, um, whose advantages are multiple, but one of them is that they're just not us, right? So they have a psychological distance, um, from our situation.

AI assessment note: “we are benefited, um, In large part by having a, um, surrogate parent.”

Q Is there anything that you've learned significantly post writing your book on grit that you think should be added to the conversation?

A One thing that, um, I think is a continual surprise to me is that, um, you know, I'm a university professor, so my students are between the ages of 18 and 22, and, um, when you just think of the word grit and you think of, like, what people need to learn, you think they need to learn about resilience and hard work, about how to practice, uh, on your weaknesses and get feedback, et cetera, and those things are all true, but honestly, the Ivy League students that I teach Are pretty good at all those things already. But the other half of my class, I teach this class called grit lab is on passion. And I find that many, many young people are struggling much more with the direction in their life than the determinations. That they need to bring to that, um, pursuit. Even basic questions, like, what am I interested in? Like, how could you not know what you're interested in? I will tell you that I have young people in my office hours who say, like, I literally can't tell you what I'm interested in. Like, I don't know. Help me, help me figure that out.

AI assessment note: “many young people are struggling much more with the direction in their life”

Q Two weeks ago, you gave a presentation that didn't really go as planned. I want to know what happened and how you talk to yourself in the moment. Like, what was that internal monologue?

A So I don't have as many opportunities to, like, dramatically fail as I did earlier in life, but I had this presentation that I was really excited about on, um, like, a new idea in behavior change for me, and I got so excited about it, and I was so confident about how excited everybody else would be about it, that I ended up inviting, it was like having a dinner party, inviting, like, more and more people until, like, suddenly they hardly can fit into the room. Now, in this case, it was Zoom, so, like, everybody fit in the room, But, you know, some of my idols, like Danny Kahneman, like, you know, like very, very important political officials. And like, anyway, so the party grew. I delivered this presentation, like not having ever done it before, and also not really being good at managing the dynamics of like a hundred people on a Zoom call, like some of whom, like, You would obviously want to say what they thought, um, as opposed to just like monologuing. Oh, I mean, it was just really bad. And right afterwards, I had a call. I'll talk about feedback. So right afterwards, I had a call with one of my collaborators who was in the party. And, um, he said, you know, that, Was not your best hour. And then told me exactly how it was that that was such a impoverished, you know, experience, um, for everybody, including him. I mean, I was like up all night, you know, replaying things an…

AI assessment note: “I delivered this presentation, like not having ever done it before”

Q the car was like, why does this stuff always happen to me? And it was just a very revealing sort of mindset, right? And it comes back to sort of that question, which is like, What are the mindsets that are going to enable us to capitalize on life? In part, in bad situations, capitalize on bad, capitalize on good, intelligently prepare to put us on the path to success.

A I think you're on to something very important, and I guess I have a fondness for like, you know, great psychologists in their nineties, um, because I have been calling Al Bandura a lot. Um, he is the psychologist at Stanford. I think he's 96 now, who, um, coined the term self-efficacy to describe the belief that you can do something if you try, right? So self-efficacy about physics would be like, I can learn physics if I tried. And I had this conversation with him, you know, a couple weekends ago, actually, where I asked him, I was like, um, Al, you've spent your whole life studying self-efficacy, but there was this other person, um, whose name is spelled R-O-T-T-E-R, but I think it's like Dutch or German. Anyway, so I'm going to mispronounce it as Rotter, but Rotter studied locus of control. And locus of control was, uh, to me, like, super similar. So I asked Al, like, what's the difference? Because in locus of control theory, you either have an internal locus of control or an external locus of control, right? So life kind of happens to you, or, um, that would be the external, or like, you know, you're in control. And he said, oh, there's a very important difference. I'm more interested in saying that, like, I can control, you know, my behavior, not necessarily that that behavior is going to, like, Magically make everything the way I want. What, what locus and control is about…

AI assessment note: “coined the term self-efficacy to describe the belief that you can do something if you try”

Q circumstances that my zip code, right? Like I had no say in any of that. That's all luck. But then at some point, There's like a chosen nurture that kicks in, which is like, you're an adult, and there's probably no light switch that like flips, right? There's some people that will probably flip at 16, some people that may never flip, but you have this ability to take control.

A You have agency to change your situation. Right. You're like, Hey, these friends are really not good for me. I'm not going to hang out with them anymore. Yeah. So you can see how immediately this gets very complicated. My desire always, when somebody asks me about this is to shove as much information into their heads as possible. Usually that's not that much, right? Usually people are like, well, I just want to know, like, is it nature versus nurture? So I was like, how about this first complication? It's nature and nurture. Right? So step one is, it is not either or. It is definitely both and. You know, you have two kids. I have two kids. Our kids inherited DNA. From their biological parents, right? They, um, are absolutely influenced by that DNA. I mean, there is no, no characteristic at all, psychological or otherwise, you know, your risk of heart disease, your preference for broccoli, um, you know, whether you like to talk a lot at parties, whether you pray or not, there are literally published studies on all of those things, uh, like documenting that if you are a twin, um, You know, um, you are more likely to be like your sibling than if you are not a twin, right? Because, you know, at least identical twins, et cetera, et cetera. So that's the nature part, but for the very same characteristics, which is like all characteristics, right? There, there's also evidence from the…

AI assessment note: “You have agency to change your situation. Right. You're like, Hey, these friends”

Q And is that a conscious conversation or is that a conversation between our unconscious brain and our circumstance or physical environment or?

A Well, now that you got me thinking historically, right? So I'm, I'm, I'm 50. I've been alive a half century. And, you know, in that time, this debate between the person, the situation happened and, you know, kind of was resolved, um, I think. And at the same time, another, I think, important discovery that Or advance was made, um, in the same time period in psychology. Basically the affirmation that Freud was right. I mean, you know, Freud was wrong about a lot of things, but one thing he was very right about is that so much of our, our behavior and even our emotion Um, and our motivation happens below the surface of consciousness. The idea that we do things, um, and not always knowing that we do them is important, but it's not just that, you know, insight because you could say like, oh, really? It took, it took Freud and 50 years of science after Freud to figure that. It's like how much of our behavior and our emotion and motivation could be going on without our conscious awareness. So I do think a lot of the conversation Between, you know, who we are and our circumstances is happening, um, without our, um, being aware. Although you can bring our awareness to our behavior. That's where Freud was wrong, by the way. Freud was like, you'll never know. It's under the floorboards, and you can't pry open the floorboards in the basement of your mind. I think that this dialogue that h…

AI assessment note: “a lot of the conversation Between, you know, who we are and our circumstances is happening, um, without our, um, being aware.”

Q Like, yeah, that wasn't your best effort, but dinner was great. What'd you think?

A Like, I kind of like this idea. Let's talk about it. So feedback, as they say, is a gift. But most of us don't know how to unwrap it. Like I, I will say that it's not a gift that we usually want to receive, like at the moment it's given to us and the way it's given to us. So I, I think it's a skill. And by the way, Shane, I really truly believe that if somebody, uh, is eager for feedback, actively solicits feedback, tries to listen to the feedback, learn something from feedback. Those are the people I never worry about, right? Like, I've had students where they're like, really not super socially intelligent, right? I'm like, whoa, they're not like, how do I know? Because other students come and talk to me about them, right? So it's like, but if that student is asking for feedback about how they can improve their, like, they're going to be fine. And you know, if you're the opposite of that, then I really worry about you. Because then I think like, you're never going to be a fix your own problems. So feedback is magic.

AI assessment note: “Like, I kind of like this idea. Let's talk about it. So feedback”

Q a New York Times bestseller. This conversation dives into whether human behavior is constant or circumstantial, grit and other mindsets that help us succeed, lessons for parents, developing our passion, Reps versus hours, negative self-talk, personal rules for success, and so much more. It's time to listen and learn. I'm curious about human behavior. Can we explore a bit to what extent are behaviors predictable versus what extent it's situational?

A So the person versus situation debate, uh, is the question that you're asking about. And, you know, you could say that this has been the central question and all psychology for as long as we've had psychology. Right. And then if you want to predate it even more, you could say philosophy, you could argue that there are other questions as well, but this is central, you know, am I generous because I'm a generous person? Or am I generous because of the exigencies of the situation and the, and the contrary too, right? So, you know, when you witness a selfish behavior, is that because the person is selfish or because of context factors? And as a psychologist, one of the first things I learned about was this war. I mean, have you ever heard this expression, you know, the person versus situation war in, in psychology?

AI assessment note: “the person versus situation debate, uh, is the question that you're asking about.”

Q seizing and spotting opportunities, and they don't come in the good times, they come in the bad times. And it seems like an art. If you follow that, then there's a staggering advantage to be gained by positioning yourself to capitalize on bad times. And one of the ways that we can do that is our mindset. If you think about the mindsets required for this, what comes to mind?

A I, I will say that, um, I've, I've, um, worked with some great coaches, right? So, you know, professional coaches of professional athletes and, and more than one of them has said something that surprised me, which is when, when we start talking about like, you know, how to develop their players and like, especially their younger players. So usually when you recruit, um, a professional athlete, they're like technically still in adolescence. Um, psychologically anyway, brain still developing, prefrontal cortex, not quite mature. Anyway, it sometimes gets in a lot of trouble. And I thought the whole conversation would be like, tell me what to do when my players are having a bad day. And actually one of the things that surprised me most was that so often it's the players who are having a really good year that actually end up for a variety of reasons. That's its own kind of crisis in a way. When, when things are Like really going well, you know, you get picked one and two in the draft, like, you know, you're going to be MVP, et cetera. You can just see how that could lead to all kinds of problems from the trivial, like, oh, you get like lavished with attention on social media and people like throwing themselves at you and, You know, not telling you what they really think anymore because they want to be a hanger on in your entourage. But also I think it creates a lot of fear for peop…

AI assessment note: “were able to maintain an underdog mindset, or even Tom Brady”