Still learning
When I was the new kid in tenth grade at a small school in Virginia I was lucky to land in Mrs. Sherley Keith's English class. To this day, I'm in touch with Mrs. Keith and I can recite from memory the Shakespearean sonnet we had to learn. The lesson that sticks with me most, however, from that year with Mrs. Keith, is her motto: "We love to learn." Besides daily reminders that learning is joyful, we once had a cake with "We love to learn" emblazoned on it in icing. Mrs. Keith modeled fearless curiousity.
I think we all sometimes hold fixed opinions or occasionally display an unwillingness to explore new options. I know I do. It's easy to pick a side, an opinion, a belief, especially in our polarized society. Similarly, we may limit ourselves in closing off options based on beliefs about our own limitations. Some limits make sense: I'm never going to be a WNBA star. But, others, not so much. Maybe you, too, sometimes engage in self-defeating "I can't" or "I'm not" statements.
We're headed to the start of the school year again, so I'm thinking about that growth mindset and how we nurture it. This summer I gave myself the assignment to start to learn about Artificial Intelligence (AI), and I completed a free course on Coursera. AI clearly presents challenges. While we're wise to tread cautiously, I believe it's important to learn about AI and not engage in fear without reason. AI has probably already changed the way you are looking for a job, and it's definitely changed the way companies hire. Many businesses will find their work altered radically by AI. The time to learn is now.
It's also time to turn your growth mindset to yourself. If you're saying "I'm not good at networking" or "I'm not a manager," add the word "yet" to those statements and see how they change. Carol Dweck, a renowned psychologist, talks about the "power of yet." Even my favorite TV hero, Ted Lasso , talks about this in an episode with the grumpy but endearing Roy Kent. Roy muses that he left Chelsea because he didn't want to be seen as an athlete in decline, who was “taking up space.” He's thinking maybe he would have been better off staying and enjoying himself. Why didn't he? Because “...that is not who I am,” Roy says. Ted's response: “Not yet.”
