Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

for his benefit. But it was endless, it was not reciprocal, and on top of that he punished me for it: “Don’t think you could ever do work this good. You can help me polish my work, but you could never be this creative.” He needed to reduce me so he wouldn’t feel one down. My dream told me it was time to draw the line.

I’m afraid that in the fixed mindset, I was also a culprit. I don’t think I put people down, but when you need validation, you use people for it. One time, when I was a graduate student, I was taking the train to New York and sat next to a very nice businessman. In my opinion, we chatted back and forth pleasantly through the hour-and-a- half journey, but at the end he said to me, “Thank you for telling me about yourself.” It really hit me. He was the dream validator—handsome, intelligent, successful. And that’s what I had used him for. I had shown no interest in him as a person, only in him as a mirror of my excellence. Luckily for me, what he mirrored back was a far more valuable lesson.

Conventional wisdom says that you know who your friends are in your times of need. And of course this view has merit. Who will stand by you day after day when you’re in trouble? However, sometimes an even tougher question is: Who can you turn to when good things happen? When you find a wonderful partner. When you get a great job offer or promotion. When your child does well. Who would be glad to hear it?

Your failures and misfortunes don’t threaten other people’s self-esteem. Ego-wise, it’s easy to be sympathetic to someone in need. It’s your assets and your successes that are problems for people who derive their self-esteem from being superior.

SHYNESS

In some ways, shyness is the flip side of what we’ve been talking about. We’ve been examining people who use others to buoy themselves up. Shy people worry that others will bring them down. They often worry about being judged or embarrassed in social situations.

People’s shyness can hold them back from making friends and developing relationships. When they’re with new people, shy people report that they feel anxious, their hearts race, they blush, they avoid eye contact, and they may try to end the interaction as soon as possible. Underneath it all, shy people may be wonderful and interesting, but they often can’t show it with someone new. And they know it.

What can mindsets teach us about shyness? Jennifer Beer studied hundreds of people to find out. She measured people’s mindsets, she assessed their shyness, and then she brought them together two at a time to get acquainted. The whole thing was filmed, and, later on, trained raters watched the film and evaluated the interactions.

Beer found, first, that people with the fixed mindset were more likely to be shy. This makes sense. The fixed mindset makes you concerned about judgment, and this can make you more self-conscious and anxious. But there were plenty of shy people with both mindsets, and when she looked at them more closely, she found something even more interesting.

Shyness harmed the social interactions of people with the fixed mindset but did not harm the social relations of people with the growth mindset. The observers’ ratings showed that, although both fixed- and growth-minded shy people looked very nervous for the first five minutes of the interaction, after that the shy growth-minded people showed greater social skills, were more likable, and created a more enjoyable interaction. In fact, they began to look just like non-shy people.

This happened for good reasons. For one thing, the shy growth-minded people looked on social situations as challenges. Even though they felt anxious, they actively welcomed the chance to meet someone new. The shy fixed people, instead, wanted to avoid meeting someone who might be more socially skilled than they were. They said they were more worried about making mistakes. So the fixed- and growth-mindset people confronted the situation with different attitudes. One embraced the challenge and the other feared the risk.

Armed with these different attitudes, the shy growth-mindset people felt less shy and nervous as the interaction wore on, but the shy fixed-mindset people continued to be nervous and continued to do more socially awkward things, like avoiding eye contact or trying to avoid talking.

You can see how these different patterns would affect making friends. The shy growth-mindset people take control of their shyness. They go out and meet new people, and, after their nerves settle down, their relationships proceed normally. The shyness doesn’t tyrannize them.

But for fixed-mindset people, the shyness takes control. It keeps them out of social situations with new people, and when they’re in them, they can’t let down their guard and let go of their fears.

Scott Wetzler, a therapist and professor of psychiatry, paints a portrait of his client George, a picture of the shy fixed-mindset person. George was incredibly shy, especially with women. He was so eager to look cool, witty, and confident—and so worried that he’d look overeager and inept—that he froze and acted cold. When his attractive co-worker Jean started flirting with him, he became so flustered that he began avoiding her. Then one day she approached him in a nearby coffee shop and cutely suggested he ask her to join him. When he couldn’t think of a clever response to impress her, he replied, “It doesn’t matter to me if you sit down or not.”

George, what were you doing? He was trying to protect himself from rejection—by trying not to seem too interested. And he was trying to end this awkward situation. In a strange way, he succeeded. He certainly didn’t seem too interested, and the interaction soon ended, as Jean got out of there real fast. He was just like the people in Jennifer Beer’s study, controlled by his fear of social judgment and prevented from making contact.

Wetzler slowly helped George get over his exclusive focus on being judged. Jean, he came to see, was not out to judge and humiliate him, but was trying to get to know him. With the focus switched from being judged to developing a relationship, George was eventually able to reciprocate. Despite his anxiety, he approached Jean, apologized for his rude behavior, and asked her to lunch. She accepted. What’s more, she was not nearly as critical as he feared.

BULLIES AND VICTIMS: REVENGE REVISITED

We’re back to rejection, because it’s not just in love relationships that people experience terrible rejections. It happens every day in schools. Starting in grade school, some kids are victimized. They are ridiculed, tormented, and beaten up, not for anything they’ve done wrong. It could be for their more timid personality, how they look, what their background is, or how smart they are (sometimes they’re not smart enough; sometimes they’re too smart). It can be a daily occurrence that makes life a nightmare and ushers in years of depression and rage.

To make matters worse, schools often do nothing about it. This is because it’s often done out of sight of teachers or because it’s done by the school’s favorite students, such as the jocks. In this case, it may be the victims, not the bullies, who are considered to be the problem kids or the misfits.

As a society, we’ve paid little attention until recently. Then came the school shootings. At Columbine, the most notorious one, both boys had been mercilessly bullied for years. A fellow bullying victim describes what they endured in their high school.

In the hallways, the jocks would push kids into lockers and callm demeaning names while everyone laughed at the show. At lunch the jocks would knock their victims’ food trays onto the floor, trip them, or pelt them with food. While the victims were eating, they would be pushed down onto the table from behind. Then in the locker rooms before gym class, the bullies would beat the kids up because the teachers weren’t around.

Who Are the Bullies?

Bullying is about judging. It’s about establishing who is more worthy or important. The more powerful kids judge the less powerful kids. They judge them to be less valuable human beings, and they rub their faces in it on a daily basis. And it’s clear what the bullies get out of it. Like the boys in Sheri Levy’s study, they get a boost in self- esteem. It’s not that bullies are low in self-esteem, but judging and demeaning others can give them a self-esteem rush. Bullies also gain social status from their actions. Others may look up to them and judge them to be cool, powerful, or funny. Or may fear them. Either way, they’ve upped their standing.

There’s a big dose of fixed-mindset thinking in the bullies: Some people are superior and some are inferior. And the bullies are the judges. Eric Harris, one of the Columbine shooters, was their perfect target. He had a chest deformity, he was short, he was a computer geek, and he was an outsider, not from Colorado. They judged him mercilessly.