The Mindset of a Champion
Welcome back incredible Bookduck fans! Do you have a champion mindset? On the Ted Talk stage, Carson will teach us how to develop a champion mindset. Let's start listening.
Carson begins his speech with these words of Michael Jordan, "I've missed more than 9,000 shots, lost almost 300 games, and 26 times, I've been trusted to make the game-winning shot and missed. I fail over and over and over again. And that is why I succeed."
Michael Jordan is one of the most famous basketball players in the world though he wasn't always a star. He didn't make his high school basketball team because he was too short and wasn't good enough.
He could've quit, but, instead, he had the mindset to continue and get better. He was out practicing each day before most people were even out of bed. And because of this, he not only made the team the following year, but he went on to become the greatest player of all time and a true champion.
The question that comes to our minds is: can we all learn to have the mindset of a champion? A "mindset" is a word describing how we think. There are two types of mindsets: one, a growth mindset, and two, a fixed mindset. A growth mindset is when somebody believes they can learn to be good and they can learn to be better. Champions are not afraid of challenges. They continue when things get hard. They know that they have put effort in to learn, and they learn from criticism. They are also inspired by people who do well.
Michael Jordan has this trait though another person with a growth mindset is the Rock, Dwayne Johnson.
He was cut from the Canadian Football League early on in his career.
He could've quit, but instead, he worked very hard, faced many challenges, and is now a super famous movie star.
Did you know that coaches and professional scouts look for athletes who don't just have skills?
They want someone who wants to learn, who's coachable, and who will give 100% effort in practices.
They want someone with a growth mindset. What they don't want is someone who thinks they are already good enough, they don't need to learn and are not coachable.
These people have a fixed mindset. A fixed mindset is the opposite of growth. These people either think they're born good or born not so good.
They can’t learn. They're afraid of challenges.
They give up and get defensive easily. They feel criticized when given feedback, and they're threatened by people who do well.
Which mindset do you think Carson has?
Well, let’s listen to a story.
Reading has always been hard for Carson, and even now he still finds it challenging.
From kindergarten to fourth grade, he was always a bit below grade level in reading.
So each night, he read aloud to his parents to try to get better.
This was always the worst part of Carson’s day.
Whenever he was reading, he would, of course, make mistakes:
misread words, say words that were not there,
miss words that were there, and miss punctuation -normal.
But whenever Carson’s mom or dad tried to correct him, he'd get upset.
He told them that they were wrong and sometimes even had a meltdown.
This happened to his friends and teachers and with other subjects and activities too.
Carson thought that he should know how to do everything already, and if he didn't, he would get upset.
Carson thought that what his teachers were teaching should come to him easily.
Well, guess what?
Some of the things he was learning or reading were not easy, and he would get upset.
Negative thoughts came into Carson’s mind, "You suck. You can't do anything. This should be soooo easy."
Suddenly, Carson felt tears coming down his face in front of his friends and teachers too.
In his head, he was saying, "No, no, no, no, no, please no.”, and he could no longer control his emotions.
This is where the real problem begins.
Carson loses control of my emotions, he stops listening and thinking.
He becomes difficult for people around him. This is not healthy, and it's not the person Carson wants to be.
He wants to know why he was feeling this way and why his emotions were so strong.
The fifth grade was the first year Carson was able to answer these questions. He learned what growth and fixed mindset are.
And learned how to change his fixed mindset into a growth mindset
and have a mindset of a champion.
He believes we can have both of these mindsets: a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. He believes this because he has both.
Carson has a growth mindset with things like soccer, basketball, change, and learning new languages. He also believes we can change our fixed mindset into a growth mindset and have a mindset of a champion.
Ok, maybe not a champion like Michael Jordan, but a champion in our way. We may just need a little help to do this.
Carson’s dad and he read a book called "Mindsets," written by Carol Dweck.
Carol Dweck is a professor and professional psychologist who researched and came up with the idea of growth and a fixed mindset.
Her book told that Carson wasn’t the only one who has a fixed mindset from time to time.
However, the best advice he ever got was from his teacher and school counselor.
Their advice was one little three-letter word.
This word was "yet." They told him to always put the word "yet" at the end of his sentence. "I can't do it ... yet.", "I don't understand ... yet."
The word "yet" makes him feel he just needs to put a little more effort in
before he understands it.
He still struggles with the fixed mindset from time to time. However, he now knows why he gets frustrated and upset.
For any of you out there who may have a fixed mindset from time to time, please know that you can beat it.
Writing this talk, Carson struggled the whole time. But every day, he's gotten a little better than the day before.
In conclusion, we all need to understand that champions are not born. And only through hard work, willpower, training, and the ability to never give up and always go forward, we develop the mindset of a champion.
