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are ideas of genetic ability misguided; they are dangerous. And yet many of our school systems are built on a model of fixed-ability thinking—limiting potential and preventing students from incredible achievement.
The six keys of learning I will share in this book create opportunities for people to excel in the learning of different subjects, but they also empower them to approach life in a different way. They allow people to access parts of themselves that were previously unavailable. Before the journey I will set out in this book, I had believed that learning about brain science and the limitless approach would change how educators approached the teaching and learning of school subjects. Through the interviews I have conducted for this book—with sixty-two people from six different countries, people of different ages, jobs, and life circumstances—I discovered the limitless approach means much more than that.
A woman who has done an enormous amount to change people’s ideas about what they can do is a colleague of mine at Stanford, Carol Dweck. Dweck’s research reveals that how we think about our talents and abilities has a profound impact on our potential.9 Some people have what she has termed a “growth mindset.” They believe, as they should, that they can learn anything. Others have a damaging “fixed mindset.” They believe that their intelligence is more or less fixed, and although they can learn new things, they cannot change their basic intelligence. These beliefs, she has shown through decades of research, change the scope of what we can learn—and how we live our lives.
One of the important studies Dweck and her colleagues conducted took place in mathematics classes at Columbia University.10 The researchers found stereotyping to be alive and well: young women were being given the message that they did not belong in the discipline. They also found that the message hit home only with those who had a fixed mindset. When students with a fixed mindset heard the message that math was not for women, they dropped out. Those with a growth mindset, however, protected by the belief that anyone can learn anything, were able to reject the stereotypical messages and keep going.
Throughout this book, you will learn about the importance of positive self-beliefs and ways to develop them. You will also learn about the importance of communicating positive beliefs to yourself and others, whether you are a teacher, parent, friend, or manager.
One study conducted by a group of social psychologists dramatically showed the impact of positive communication by teachers.11 The study focused on students in high-school English classes, all of whom had written an essay. All of the students received critical, diagnostic feedback (the good kind) from their teachers, but half of the students received an extra sentence at the end of the feedback. Remarkably, the students who received the extra sentence—especially students of color—achieved at significantly higher levels in school a year later, with higher GPAs (grade point averages). So what was the sentence that those students read at the end of the feedback that caused such a dramatic result? It simply said: “I am giving you this feedback because I believe in you.”
When I tell teachers about this research, I do so to show the importance of teachers’ words and messages—not to suggest that they put this message at the end of every student evaluation! One teacher in a workshop raised her hand and said, “Does that mean I don’t put it on a stamp?” Everyone laughed.
Studies in brain science present a very clear case for the importance of self-beliefs and the role of teachers and parents in influencing them. Yet we are living in a society where the widespread message we receive through the media on a daily basis is one of fixed intelligence and giftedness.
One of the ways children—even those as young as three—develop a damaging fixed mindset is from a small, seemingly innocuous word that is used ubiquitously. The word is “smart.” Parents regularly praise their children by telling them how smart they are in order to build up their self-confidence. We now know that when we praise children for being smart, they at first think, “Oh good, I am smart,” but then later when they struggle, fail, or mess up in some way, as everyone does, they think, “Oh, I am not so smart”; they end up constantly evaluating themselves against this fixed idea. It is fine to praise children, but always praise what they did and not them as people. Here are some alternatives for use in situations where you may feel the need to use the word “smart.”
| Fixed Praise | Growth Praise |
| You can divide fractions? Wow, you are smart! | You can divide fractions? That is great that you have learned how to do that. |
| You solved that tricky problem like that? That is so smart! | I loved your solution to the problem; it is so creative. |
| You have a degree in science? You are a genius! | You have a degree in science? You must have worked really hard. |
I teach an undergraduate class at Stanford called “How to Learn Math” to some of the most highly achieving students in the country. They too are vulnerable to damaging beliefs. Most have been told, over many years, that they are smart, but even that “positive” message—“you are smart”—damages students. The reason it makes them vulnerable is that if they believe they are “smart” but then struggle with some difficult work, that feeling of struggle is devastating. It causes them to feel they are not smart after all and give up or drop out.
Regardless of your experience with the fixed-brain myth, the information in these pages will change your understanding of ways to raise your and other people’s potential. Taking a limitless perspective is about more than a change in our thinking. It is about our being, our essence, who we are. If you live a day with this new perspective, you will know it, especially if it is a day when something bad happens, you fail at something, or you make a serious mistake. When you are limitless, you feel and appreciate such moments, but you can also move past them and even learn new and important things because of them.
George Adair lived in Atlanta after the Civil War. Originally a newspaper publisher and cotton speculator, he went on to become a highly successful real-estate developer. His success was probably spurred by an important insight that has since been widely shared: “Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” Let’s think together now about ways to become limitless and move to the other side of negative beliefs and fear.
HOW NEUROPLASTICITY CHANGES … EVERYTHING
THE SIX KEYS all have the potential to unlock different aspects of people. The first key, however, is perhaps the most critical and the most overlooked. It originates from the neuroscience of brain plasticity. Although aspects of the evidence may be familiar to certain readers, many practices in schools, colleges, and businesses are based upon ideas that are the opposite of those I will share. The result of fixed-brain thinking is that we have a nation (and world) filled with underachieving people who have been limited by ideas that could and should be changed.
LEARNING KEY #1
Every time we learn, our brains form, strengthen, or connect neural pathways. We need to replace the idea that learning ability is fixed, with the recognition that we are all on a growth journey.
Nestled in a part of California that has been described as “a piece of Tuscany transplanted into North America” is the villa that is the home of one of the world’s leading neuroscientists—Michael Merzenich. It was Merzenich who stumbled upon one of the greatest scientific discoveries of our time—by accident.1 In the 1970s, he and his team had been using the newest technologies to map out the brains of monkeys. They were making what he called “mind maps,” maps of the working brain. It was exciting, cutting-edge work. The scientists hoped that the results of their studies would