Maximize Your Potential

That’s from a chapter by Ben Casnocha, coauthor, with Reid Hoffman, of The Start-Up of You.

Permanent beta.

What a GREAT way to capture the growth mindset that says we’re never quite “finished” and always looking to get a little bit better as we find the little bugs that could use some optimizing day in and day out.

How’s your beta going?

What’s the next best version of you look like today? (And tomorrow? And a decade from now? :)

Remember: It’s always Day 1.

That’s from a mini-chapter by Heidi Grant Halvorson.

Heidi was a student of Carol Dweck’s at Columbia University. As discussed, Dweck is one of the leading scientists studying what is now called the “growth mindset.” Check out our Notes on Dweck’s Mindset + Self-theories for more. (And, check out our Note on Heidi’s Succeed as well.)

The study was super simple.

Split kids into two groups. Both groups take an easy test. Both groups do equally well. The first group is told “You did really well. You must be really smart!” while the second group is told “You did really well. You must have worked really hard!”

That’s the only difference. “You must be smart!” Or, “You must have worked really hard!”

Then the experimenters give the kids a super hard test—so hard that no one can really even answer any questions.

Then the real test began. They gave the kids another easy test—basically the same level of difficulty they faced in the initial test.

What happens?

The kids who were praised as “smart” did 25% (!) worse than they did in the initial test while the kids praised for working really hard did 25% (!) BETTER.

Think about that for a moment longer. If they both started out at the same level, say a baseline score of 1, and the first group did 25% worse, they’d be at .75. The second group would be 25% better than their original score so they’d land at 1.25. That’s nearly TWICE as good as the other group. That’s nuts.

All from a few words of praise after doing a simple task.

Imagine that compounded over hundreds and thousands of little instances over months and years and decades. How would that impact performance over the long run?

Hard to say but the possibilities are, to me at least, MIND-BOGGLING.

Which is why this wisdom is one of the cornerstones of our parenting with Emerson.

Here’s a super mundane little example of how ubiquitous our default orientation is. Emerson and I are at the park a couple days ago on our daily adventure. He’s climbing up the tunnel slide to get back to the top. A kid who’s a little older is sitting there with his mom watching and asks, “How did he do that?”

His mom immediately answers: “He’s talented.”

Now, before studying this stuff, as a proud dad I’m sure I would have simply agreed! (Hah.) “He’s just a good climber!” would feel like an appropriate analysis of his somewhat precocious Spider-Man-like abilities.

Of course, I’m ALL ABOUT this wisdom these days and practice recognizing effort rather than (supposedly) innate ability so I said, “He’s been practicing!” Which is true. He didn’t used to be able to do it but tried a bunch of different techniques and figured it out. (Note: The biggest test was removing his shoes so they wouldn’t make him slip. Laughing.)

So, back to our smart kids.

Why did their performance crumble after facing the challenging task?

In short: Because, when told they did well because they were “smart,” when they faced challenges and did *not* do well, suddenly they became nervous that they were NOT, in fact, smart. That’s a terrifying prospect for any one. And, when faced with that potentiality, what do kids (and adults) do? Easy stuff. We no longer challenge ourselves because, as Heidi tells us, we want to “be good” rather than try to “get better.”

Which, of course, is one of the fastest ways to limit our enormous potential.

So…

How do you talk to yourself and your kids (and friends and colleagues…)?

Are you rewarding EFFORT or praising “smartness.”

Pay attention. It matters WAY more than we could imagine!!

That’s from a section by John Caddell who curates something called The Mistake Bank.

I LOVE that.

Manning was faced with a tough decision. He made it. Then, rather than wonder whether or not he made the “right” decision, he went to WORK TO MAKE SURE it was the right decision.

That’s a really big distinction.

Made any big decisions lately?

How would you show up if your sole priority was working hard to prove you made the right decision rather than leaking energy worrying about whether or not it was the right one?

Remember: The word “decide” comes from the Latin de cire which literally means TO CUT.

Here’s to cutting off other options and hustling to prove ourselves right.

That great story is from Michael Schwalbe’s essay in the section on dealing with fear.

That’s worth another pause for reflection.

Imagine JERRY SEINFELD, arguably the greatest comedian of his generation (and certainly the highest paid), as a 22-year-old frozen in fear on stage, rattling off a few words and then HURRYING OFFSTAGE.

Then, fast-forward a dozen years later to his pilot for Seinfeld and picture the $2.7 BILLION dollars his sitcom made in reruns alone.

Then, most importantly, let’s imagine the years of deliberate practice and willingness to experience the pain of failure over and over again in the process of mastering his craft.

As a guy who used to get ridiculously nervous before doing *anything,* I find that incredibly inspiring. :)

The theme of this chapter? We need to embrace our fears and remember that “Studies consistently show that when we look back on our lives the most common regrets are not the risks we took, but the ones we didn’t. Of the many regrets people describe, regrets of inaction outnumber those of action by nearly two to one.”

Are you being unduly inhibited by fear in your life?

Is now the time to take the next courageous step forward?

(Followed, of course, by the next and the next and…)

That’s from Tony Schwartz’s chapter on developing mastery through deliberate practice.

Tony wrote The Power of Full Engagement. If you haven’t read the Note on that yet, check it out.

We need to expand the amplitude of the waves we make. When we work, we should WORK DEEPLY! When we recover, we should RECOVER DEEPLY! Rhythmic waves. ON and OFF.

We need to deliberately practice making those waves.

Tony shares a story of how he used to grind away all day long to write a book. Then, after studying Ericsson’s research on the top violinists as part of the study Malcolm Gladwell popularized as the 10,000 hour study, he realized he was approaching it sub-optimally.

Now, when working deeply with his ideal set up, he follows the ultradian rhythms we covered in Manage Your Day-to-Day and works for 90 minutes (he has fun making it 90—not 95 and not 85… 90!) then he takes a break and hits it again then takes another break then puts in another 90 minutes.

A total of 4.5 hours of deep work in any given day (which is what Ericsson’s violinists put in)—considerably less than he used to put in but considerably more effective, allowing him to finish a book in a fraction of the time.

How are YOUR waves? Are you deliberating creating rhythms in your life?

What’s one way you can optimize that a bit more today?

That’s from a mini-chapter by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer (authors of The Progress Principle) and Ela Ben-Ur (from IDEO).

Teresa is the Harvard Business School Professor we discussed in Smartcuts + Little Bets who discovered that, in short, people were most happy at work when they were making progress on something meaningful to them.

Which is why you’ll see “progress” mentioned so many times in the list above regarding things to journal about!

How are you making progress in something that matters to you?

How will you make more progress (however small!) today?

#repeat

The Better You. That’s from the final essay by writer, designer, and entrepreneur Jack Cheng.

We talk a lot about the fact that our highest purpose and ultimate challenge is to more and more consistently express the highest version of ourselves moment to moment to moment. It’s the essence of Areté. And, I think it’s perfectly captured by this vision of The Better You.

Note: The Better You embodies the BELIEVABLE POSSIBLE *not* the Unbelievably Impossible. <— Super important distinction.

In THIS MOMENT there’s a version of you that’s just a little better than the you that you’re currently expressing. Express that. (I just sat up a little more and took a nice, long, deep breath as I typed that, feeling a tiny (but meaningful) surge in presence and poise and confidence.)

What would the slightly better version of you do in this moment?

That question is incredibly dynamic. Compound the marginal gains of consistently stepping into that believable possible over an extended (!) period of time and your life will become unbelievably impossibly awesome. (Let’s do that! :)