Latest / Art of the Question / The Insane Advantage of Growth Mindset - Prof. Paul O'Keefe - #41

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The Insane Advantage of Growth Mindset - Prof. Paul O'Keefe - #41 · Art of the Question

• Julius Moorman: Paul, thanks again for ⁓ meeting ⁓ with me today. I ⁓ yeah, I'm I'm really interested in this topic because it hits pretty close to home. I used to be a tax lawyer before I became a journalist and I was extremely unhappy doing what I did and I decided to turn my life around. But before I did, I spoke to business coaches, I was reading books, I did a lot of exercises, mental exercises, all to find an answer to the question like what is my passion? I wanna find my passion. But I believe it's it's not as easy as just finding your passion and I can believe I mean I According to some of the things I read from your work, is that it can also be dangerous to try and find your passion and and and try to turn your passion into your profession. ⁓ what do you think that is? Well, I I think it's what is being communicated. Because this is this is the kind of thing that we're told by a lot of people, right? And and people we look up to, people whose advice we really trust. and it's it's very well meaning advice, right? ⁓ at least in the United States, you go to almost any commencement and this the speaker says, go out there and find your passion. ⁓ so ⁓ there's certainly nothing wrong with on that level. It's all very positive and it's an it's it's well meaning. But ⁓ the I guess the the issue is in the details. It's it's what is subtly communicated i in that. And it's the find part. Find your passion. Finding suggests that something already exists and it just needs to be found. Like your keys already exist, but and you need to find them, right? But passions don't work that way. But ⁓ I think part of our cultures suggest that passions are inherent. And when we send signals and messages like that out, To impressionable people, we are communicating that they have it. They already have a passion somewhere, or maybe a few, but they just need to reveal them somehow. And we find that that's a problem. And I'm sure we'll dig into this. ⁓ But it on a very basic level, this just isn't how interests and passions work. There's an entire literature on interest and how it develops. An interest, which is kind of ⁓ you know, ⁓ an earlier stage you could think of as a passion, it's something that develops through one's interaction with an event, certain ideas, activities, and it involves involvement and ⁓ some level of commitment ⁓ in those things. So it's a developmental process, and we know this. But if we're telling people to find their passion, We may be instead suggesting that it's already there. Right. So the danger is by using the word finding, people perhaps start looking too much into the past, thinking what what's already there? ⁓ how can I find what's hidden inside of my well passions, inside of my hobbies, inside of the the things I like to do. rather than having the idea that a passion can be developed if we, for example, get into a new environment or learn a new type of skill or get out there. So the the finding part, maybe the danger of it is that we look backwards rather than forwards. Is that part of it? Well it it it could be. That could be part of it. ⁓ it could also be someone who says, hey, I want to give This this is shot. I'm gonna, I've never played cricket before, but I'm gonna give it a shot. and it doesn't completely bowl them over. You know, they're they they think, wow, if this really was a passion, I would just be blown away. I would know it immediately. And then, but because I didn't feel that way, ⁓ then, then I'll keep looking. I'll keep trying to find it, right? So it also has to do with expectations about what it is. So actually in our research, we've we've investigated that. And we we find that people with more of a a fixed mindset, they when we ask them about what it's like experientially to ⁓ and what their expectations are for pursuing a a new interest. What they say to us is that it should come with limitless motivation. Right. And and pursuing that new interest or passion should come pretty easily. It should be smooth sailing. And think about it. So if you believe that your interests are fully formed already and they just need to be found, then the moment you find them, they're they're there, right? And they should ⁓ provide all of that motivation. And and and that ease ⁓ of of pursuing it. But people with a growth mindset, they said something quite different. They they said that in essence, this is a developmental process. And just like any developmental process, there are going to be setbacks, there's gonna be difficulties, frustration, maybe even boredom or tedium. But that doesn't signal that this isn't actually an interest or or a budding passion. It just means that this is part of the process. So we these two different ideas lead to very different expectations for for engaging with with new ⁓ material. Yeah, I'm I'm deeply interested in in growth mindset versus people who believe that everything is fixed. I think a very good example that I have from my personal life and personal experience is that I used to ride BMX bikes, right? Freestyle ⁓ BMX bikes. And ⁓ awesome. Well, well, so you you know that both skating and BMX Yeah, that they have such a steep learning curve, right? The beginning is super frustrating because if you wanna learn how to ollie or something, even ollying up a curb. ⁓ or or or just doing a bunny hop on a on a bmx bike, it's it's it's a pretty tedious process and that's not really where most of the fun is. Like you see all these people flowing through the skate park and doing all these jumps and they make it so effortless and that's what you want to become, but you have to grind through being terrible at at the sport. But then Once you start to ride your bike every single day and and escape every single day and you start to develop this this feeling for it and then maybe you you you get a hang for it. And then you for example, I remember when I was starting to learn a bar spin, right? So the trick where I throw the bars around one time and it was the scariest thing ever. And I just couldn't do it. And then once it clicked, it was so easy. And then you don't Think like, okay, now I can do bar spins, that's it. Now you start to think maybe I can do 180 bar spins, and maybe I can do 360 bar spins, and maybe I can even do double bar spins, you know. So that's what I love about sports like that. It's like they ⁓ you you're continuously learning, and I think it taught me so much about trying to become a better person, even though I think the the growth mindset aspect of it. It took a few years in order for it to translate into my professional life at well. It it didn't it those were different timelines. ⁓ but if we if we bring it back to to to having ⁓ a growth mindset, why why is it so important to to have a a growth mindset, you think? Well, first of all, I love your example. Kind of like close to my, you know, ⁓ you know Growing up as well. Actually, even I I I skate even today. So it's close to my heart and that that whole like world of BMX and ⁓ and skating. But ⁓ I also I think it's also really important to first talk about the fact that there isn't just one growth mindset. Right. So what you're talking about is ⁓ a growth mindset with regard to your abilities. And in this case, it's very specific. To BMX biking, right? ⁓ so and this would be different than say interest, ⁓ one's beliefs about the nature of interest, right? So your ⁓ mindset about BMX biking being about abilities is is it that you can actually improve on your abilities. It's that belief that is motivating. And is and is driving you to try and try and try again. And maybe even seek out some guidance about how what you're doing wrong, you know, or be more strategic about how you're doing things, right? But so that's a little bit different, very, very important, but a little different than people's beliefs about interest. Because someone could And and and I'm sure you know as well as I do that there are many people who would never want anything to do with BMX biking, right? They they would their sports are maybe soccer, ⁓ or football, or any number of things, but no, BMX biking, that's that's not for me. So they would just write it off. So maybe someone has a fixed mindset about their interests, even of sports. Right. Right. So They would shut off. So it doesn't even have in at this level, it doesn't even have anything to do with abilities. They won't even try it because they have already said, this isn't in my realm of interests. I maybe I already know what they are, or maybe I've I haven't tried it and I don't need to try it because there's no way I'm going to be interested in that. Right. So you it's interesting to think about how these very domain specific beliefs that we have, These fixed and growth mindsets might also interact ⁓ to a to affect everything. Yeah. So that's yeah, no. ⁓ please continue. But yeah, just to answer your question, ⁓ a growth mindset. So over decades of research, because this really started as research on abilities, just like you're talking about, but more specifically intellectual abilities. That was kind of the first fixed and growth mindset. ⁓ that we that we studied. ⁓ whether someone thinks that they're a certain level of intelligent and there's not much they can do to improve it, or if people believe that it's something that's malleable and with effort and good mentorship and good study strategies, they could become a smarter person. Right? So, and this is really extended into lots of different domains and across all this work, What we see ⁓ very consistently is that a growth mindset is associated with an adaptive way of interpreting the your experiences. Right? So as as I'm sure you know, we don't interpret the world as it actually is. We interpret the world through our one of the things that we use, our our beliefs. So our fundamental beliefs create A meaning system that informs what means what, right? So for example, when you were BMX biking and you didn't and let's say you have a fixed mindset about it. ⁓ I'm this good, but I can't be this good, right? ⁓ you you mi you you ⁓ mess up that trick. ⁓ what that could what that would mean to you from that perspective is that I don't have what it takes. I'm not that good. I can do these other tricks, but I'm not that good. So it's very demotivating because what you what we see from that is people start withdrawing their effort. And then once you start withdrawing and maybe trying to maybe not look incompetent, you you you shift your focus so that maybe your friends are laughing at you and you don't want to look stupid. We see this in classrooms all the time, right? People avoiding, you know, answering questions and so forth. So that that's very ⁓ maladapted, right? Because you're not you're not getting back on the horse and trying again and and doing what you need to do to improve. People with a growth mindset interpret that exact same situation completely differently. They didn't get it this time, but if they keep trying, if they learn the technique, get good guidance, they can learn it. And sure enough, on average, they do learn it. You know, and and it's not just BMX biking, it's math, it's ⁓ quantum physics, it's ⁓ you name it, if it's ⁓ this mindset of of that that you can improve where something is malleable is something very, very motivating. And and at the core a l ⁓ at least for when we talk about abilities, it's really about resilience, right? I'm I interpret this this failure or this setback not as a condemnation of me and my my potential, but that I'm not there yet. I have more work to do, right? That's Wazillion. Yeah, and I think it's also it's it's it's different, but it's also v very related to people people who have grove mindset also are people who are high agency and they have the belief that they are able to change. things in the world, whether it is their own capabilities or whether with their capabilities they can bring the right people together, they can sell ⁓ products, they can have ⁓ X amount of clients. I interview a lot of entrepreneurs for one of the writing gigs I do. It's for ⁓ basically the Dutch equivalent of ⁓ Forbes magazine. And one of the things that all these people have in common Is a sense of of high agency, a strong belief in that they can change things. And they all have growth mindset. And there is not one person on that list or one person that that is successful enough that we interview them that doesn't have a growth mindset. Now that doesn't mean that everyone that has a growth mindset will automatically become successful, right? But I think it will be very, very difficult to become successful, at least in that domain in in entrepreneurship. But I think in many, many domains, if you do not have that belief, would you agree? I do. I I I think it depends what the goals are. I think if we're talking about really easy goals, I don't think it matters that much. And and the research would show that if things are easy, then there are no barriers in your way. There's nothing to overcome, there's nothing to fail at. But an entrepreneur, we're we're talking about somebody who's starting perhaps from nothing and building something substantial, right? Or someone who's building ⁓ a brick and mortar business. They're starting from nothing. Or someone who starts without, you know, university ambitions, but somehow finds a path there. That's a long, difficult, arduous goal where It's not linear. You you have to figure things out. There's going to be setbacks, right? So what we find from the research is that the agency comes from the belief. Right. The belief, remember I was saying that it's this, it's this b meaning system. It helps you understand your world or interpret your world in such a way that it says, I can do this. I can ⁓ ⁓ I can overcome this. And because I believe things are malleable and improvable, that means that I can have some effect on that. In other words, I'm a gentic. Yeah. So b b the belief comes first. The belief is internal, and the agency is the external manifestation of that belief. Yeah, or or you can think of it another way to think about it is that a fixed mindset is ⁓ a barrier to the Expressing the agency that you have, right? It's this belief that you can't be agentic. You we are, we can be agentic. ⁓ but sometimes our own mindsets get in the way of us being able to do that. So a growth mindset might be just enabling us to just do what we would want to do, be the agentic people we were supposed to be. Yeah. So is is do you think That every this is kind of a a growth mindset question to ask. It's kind of a meta question, but do you think everyone can develop a growth mindset? ⁓ I I don't see why not. ⁓ this this is I mean, i i it's a belief. ⁓ Right? ⁓ i if if if there are cult if I was if I was raised in a completely different culture that had different belief systems. I would believe those things, right? So I would have absorbed those beliefs and perspectives and way of seeing the world and interpreting the world. And that's just the way it is. Same with mindsets. Right? We we we we learn them from our personal experiences, our interpretation from our experiences, but also we get these messages from from our environment. important people from our environment. Like we started this conversation talking about commencement speakers telling us to go find our passion. ⁓ they they implant some of these ideas. Yeah. And ⁓ if we go back to the to the passion part, because it sounds something like everyone wants to find their passion. It sounds like passion. But if we we've established that using the word finding there isn't helpful per se. But if we focus more on the passion part, is it I wo I would assume, at least it feels like it would be interesting, even let's not say finding the passion. Let's assume we can develop passions, right? We can grow to love something. But how how important is it to to to have a growth mindset when well I don't want to use the word finding, but when when trying to ⁓ executing on your passions, like developing a passion for something. Yeah. So sorry, what's the what's the question? Yeah, so ⁓ I mean I was ⁓ interested in in how important it is to to have a growth mindset in order to Do something that you are passionate about. And I was also curious to know how your own research ties into this. Yeah. So I mean, clearly the ability part ⁓ feeds into this. So having a growth mindset of your abilities in that particular growth domain, whatever it happens to be, that's critically important. In this research, ⁓ line of research that that we're talking about today, about people's beliefs about the nature of interest. we have some work. I I was mentioning earlier that that these beliefs lead to very different expectations. So people with a fixed mindset tend to think that things will be ⁓ limitlessly motivating and smooth sailing, ⁓ whereas people with a growth mindset acknowledge that that there will be difficulties. So after conducting that study, we we set out to really do more of a rigorous, you know, test of of this ⁓ hypothesis that ⁓ so what we did is that we got what we sparked an interest in our participants, and then we ⁓ investigated what would happen when we made that same thing very quite difficult to pursue. So in this study, we started by showing participants. Well, first of all, we temporarily ⁓ had participants ⁓ get in the frame of mind of either a fixed or a growth mindset. We have our ⁓ methods in in the laboratory for for kind of inculcating these ideas in in the short term. So after doing that, we we showed them a video. And the video was ⁓ on ⁓ black holes, the origins of the universe, ⁓ covering some of Stephen Hawking's ⁓ theories, but it did it in a super engaging way. It was created by it was a little ⁓ animated cartoon ⁓ produced by The Guardian. And it just made like these very complex ideas very accessible, made them exciting, and made them fun. ⁓ and ⁓ almost all of our participants said, this is fascinating. We love it. Okay, so we sparked an interest. So they move on to the second part. And we give them an article from the scientific journal called Science on the exact same topic. And we asked them to read the first page of this. ⁓ now things are a little bit different. ⁓ it's now the the the topic ⁓ although being the same, the material it's more substantive, it's more dense, it's a little more complicated. there's some equations on that first page. So i and what we ask them to do is to rate their interest after reading this this f first page. Mm-hmm. And what we found is that among those who found it difficult to get through that it was a difficult read, those with a fixed mindset, they they drastically went down in their interest. So this is something that ⁓ seven minutes earlier they said was fascinating. Now they're saying on average, they don't even like it. They are now uninterested in this topic. I mean, so so think about what happened here. They expected a new interest or maybe a passion to be smooth sailing, right? After sparking that interest. It wasn't. So presumably the interpretation there is: well, I guess this must not be a real interest. Otherwise, it would have been easy, right? So we got a very different result with people who had a growth mindset of interests. What they they actually, even though they It it is a difficult article to to read. So their interest in that article went down a little bit compared to the video that they watched. But on average, they still were interested. They still expressed interest in this topic. They didn't lose interest. Right? And presumably because this is consonant with what they expected, that this isn't always gonna be perfect. It's not gonna always be easy. It's There's going to be difficulties and struggles. So there was no violation of their expectations. So they maintained their interest. So I think this is really important to to think about. Like you could even apply that to, you know, your BMX example. And you could say, this is difficult. I must not be interested in this, you know, after all. This should have been easy if it really was a true passion of mine. And then you'd move on to the next thing. And just think about how much you would have missed out on. at the in that part of your life. I don't know if you if you BMX anymore, but think about how much you would have missed out on if you interpreted that way and just walked away from it. Right? It's but that's what people do all the time. It's it's so interesting. And I'm I'm glad you you brought up that that study because it was definitely one of the the things I ⁓ I wanted to to touch on ⁓ today. Unfortunately I I currently don't ride anymore. I tore my ACL writing BMX bike. So I'm currently ⁓ recovering from the from the ACL ⁓ surgery. ⁓ but I think what is what is also interesting is ⁓ when we bring it back to for example skateboarding or or BMX writing which is that this growth mindset can arise from seeing people doing certain tricks that you deemed impossible. And this can either be on the internet, but it's even stronger when you are surrounded by people, especially people your age. I remember when I went to the skate park and I thought like, okay, I was maybe fourteen or something, and then I saw people that were ten years older doing crazy tricks. Like, okay, it makes sense that I'm not able to do that yet. But then ⁓ when there were kids my age doing certain tricks that I wanted to do, it was this like physical embodiment of the the proof was there. Like it's I can see it with my own eyes that kids from my age are able to land the tail whip. Therefore I should also be able to land a tail whip. So I think environment can also be very important when deciding or when it w to instill a growth mindset or or not. Is that also being reflected in the lit literature? Absolutely. I I really like your example. ⁓ what I would add to that though is my my guess is you weren't just watching people land tricks. You were also watching them fail a bunch of times before they landed. Yes. So what you were witnessing was that it was a process. It was a learning process. They didn't just Hop on a board and land a trick the first time that they tried it, right? And this is something that ⁓ I do find very fascinating about the cultures here, ⁓ for example, of sports. In skateboarding, one of the things that we all love as kids is when when you watch those old skateboarding videos, you're watching people fail over and over and over again. That is what the skate video is. You watch people fall, hurt themselves. get banged up and then you finally see them land it. And that's really different than a lot of other sports or a lot of or or name almost any ability. We don't see that, the process, right? We we just see the result, which makes it appear that someone has something just innately within them that makes it all easy for themselves. But but When you're exposed and you can't deny the fact that it takes work to get to that level, then that can be really, really important. So the absolutely the environment, the norms that are around you can really, really matter. ⁓ what people are signaling, your parents, your teachers, all these things really, really matter. So yes, this does and this does come out in the research in some very important ways. So it ⁓ go ahead. No, no, no, no. Go go ahead. ⁓ please ⁓ please continue. So in in the context of people's mindsets about the nature of interest, we haven't looked at kind of where they come from, right? We know we can teach it, but ⁓ where they've come from culturally is just not something that we've examined yet. But it has been examined in people's ⁓ mindsets about intellectual ability. And abilities more generally. And we know that these things are subtly ⁓ transmitted from parents to to kids in in the the things that they say and the things that they do. We know that it's transmitted from teachers to students in those same things. For example, there's a very ⁓ there's a classic study by ⁓ my colleague Carol Dweck and and ⁓ her her colleague from from years ago that looked at the effect of Different types of praise on students, young students. When students were praised for their ability, what that was communicating to them. Like say they did they did really well on a a series of puzzles. And the the teacher or the in this case the experimenter says, wow, you did such ⁓ a great job. You must be really smart. What that signals is that the reason you did well is because you have you have it. Whatever that is, you got it, right? ⁓ but the alternative to that was to ⁓ praise for ⁓ effort. So instead of praising how smart they were, they said, Wow, you did really, really well. You must have worked hard at this. And it signals instead that they got the right answer. Because they they worked hard. And these are indirectly signaling a fixed and a growth mindset. So imagine getting these types of messages, you know, every day from your teachers, maybe your parents, maybe you're at work and it's from your boss. ⁓ it might sink in and and you might adopt these ideas as your own. Yeah, it's so interesting that you that's that's an incredibly interesting ⁓ study by the way. And it's something that I've experienced myself. At least I've experienced a kind of mild annoyance if someone c complimented me, which I mean is is meant to be nice, but when they said, ⁓ you're you're so talented when I worked super hard to achieve some of these ⁓ things like Absolutely. Yeah, you're ⁓ your your your writing is so good. You're you're so talented. I was like, yeah, but I wasn't really when I started though. I like I I I I did a lot of reading, I did a lot of ⁓ analysis, ⁓ a lot of practice, ⁓ a lot of critique, and then somehow it yeah, it it it improved over time, but it it wasn't always like this. So it feels really frustrating when someone ⁓ tries to pin it down to ⁓ even though it's they they mean it nice, right? They mean it well, ⁓ but it's it still doesn't feel as satisfying ⁓ to ⁓ yeah, the the fixed part seems boring to me. And and again in in that example, this person who's complimenting you for your talent, in other words, something that is more innate, they they weren't there when you were working hard. And late into the night and stressing out and, you know, you know, having your hardships here and there along the way. They didn't see any of that. Right? They only saw the outcome of all that hard work. So the inference is you must have some natural Right. Yeah, it's it's it's ⁓ you see it in sports all all the time. Like ⁓ for example, we're we have the World Cup going on right now. ⁓ people always say that for example Cristiano Ronaldo, who is playing for Portugal, ⁓ is always the endless debate whether Messi ⁓ Lionel Messi from Argentina is better or or Cristiano Ronaldo from from Portugal. And what we know from Cristiano is that he is an absolute machine. That dude was training. Twenty four seven, all his teammates on every team, they say like he's the first on the pitch and the last to leave. He never has any we never saw him eat anything else than strictly part of his diet. He goes to bed on time and and he's just like so hyper dedicated into improving himself and just doing after training, everyone goes home. Cristiano is still on the field doing another thousand free kicks. And and then you have Lionel Messi who's supposed to be he's still trained but ⁓ trains less hard and he's just more of a natural. So those are like two people who are often mentioned in in the debate between the the difference between hard work and and talent. And of course it's bo a bit of both, but ⁓ there's no denying that ⁓ you know there is variability among people. But when people Assume that someone is just good because they were born that way. They are they're missing the point. No matter like Einstein would not have been a smart person had he been raised in a closet. He he had opportunities to learn. He had he had lots of things that helped him develop into the great mind that he became, right? So we have to pay attention to that. And I and I like your example because I I I often come back to the Olympics and I remember watching the Olympics as a kid and thinking, man, all of these Olympians, they all have it. They were born with something different than the rest of us. And it's and and I'm not saying that there aren't physical differences among people, but what was totally lost is that is all the preparation, the absolute dedication and preparation that went in to that 30 seconds that I watched them. Do that sprint and win, you know, the their ⁓ you know the race. all that other stuff. The most important part of it all, arguably, is the stuff that we never saw because it wasn't on TV. Right. And what what what is what is very interesting in in in this discussion for me, if I if I make it personal, I told you ⁓ before we started recording and and maybe also in the beginning of our discussion, actually, but I used to be ⁓ a tax lawyer prior to becoming a journalist. And I was good at my job. I my my reviews were good. I kind of enjoyed it in some times, but I was just generally a bit sad about the whole thing. Like I wanted to do something more creative and I felt like the whole corporate environment was just killing my creativity because everything was already thought out and there was no room for original ideas and everything had to be done this way and and and that was it. And that was like slowly eating away at me until I became like like really, really unhappy there for for a while. And that's when I discovered ⁓ writing and it kind of brought me back on this path of doing creative work. I've Been yeah, I quit my job without having an alternative, ⁓ and then was without a job for like six months. But finally I managed to turn it around and and got accepted into got a good great job actually. So ⁓ that was fun. But I think what's what's dangerous about when people hear such a story is they think that okay, now you're doing what you love, so therefore everything must be perfect. But I know I would have been extremely unhappy if I stayed working at the the the text law company. It was Deloitte. but I also was living in the ill under the illusion like as soon as I have my job as a journalist, then all my trouble will go away and and then I'll be happy and ⁓ which is crazy of course, but it's like I'm happy that I made the switch. Even though I was good at it, I didn't enjoy it. ⁓ now I'm doing something that is more fulfilling to me, but I think every job has its downsides. is that also like part of the the reason why it might be dangerous that following your passion can be a mistake? Is that people have this false idea that just do what you love and then you'll you'll never have to work a day in your life again? Is ⁓ does that exist? Well, I would come back to the expectations that people have for that, right? If it if if you're doing what you love and you think there's everything should be great, or like by and large, like it should almost always be great. It should be easy, relatively, you know, ⁓ not involving setbacks and failure and stuff, then you're gonna be sorely mistaken. I love my job. I love what I do deeply. ⁓ there's nothing else I would rather do. But there are parts of my job that are that are not fun, you know? And and but that's fine. It it's part of the job. It's those things that might be tedious sometimes or frustrating or maybe stressful, it's all part of this career that I love. So I don't have this expectation that everything should be amazing. And it's not that I think people are that I don't know, ⁓ misguided, you know, when they're deep in their career. But a lot of times when we're thinking about this work, we're thinking about people kind of embarking on these things. I I think about, say, university students or people graduating from high school thinking about what paths they're gonna go on. Because everyone is wants to have that job that they love and that they're passionate about. But and They don't have enough information, especially them at that point in their lives, to know what to expect. And just like you said, I I think any job is is going to have any any challenging work really you know job like that, you know, I I think being a a journalist, I being a professor, being a an athlete, these are all things that it can't always be good. And you can't always expect it to be good. And if And if you accept that as part of the process of pursuing your passion, then it then it shouldn't scare you off. But it might if you think that it's an indication that you're on the wrong path. Yeah, I agree. And I think part of ⁓ expectations are so important, right? And I think part of the reason why so many people have a misunderstanding and and are so desperately Trying to find their passion, I believe it has to do something with social media as well, right? Because ⁓ whatever we show on Instagram and TikTok, ⁓ we only show the good part. So for example, if you are a professional DJ, you may play in front of thousands of people, and then one day you're in Mexico, and the next day you're You're in in s in in Europe again and then you're in in in Beijing and you're traveling around the world and everyone is crazy about you and you drive the fancy cars and you're drinking champagne and you're surrounded by gorgeous women all the time. Okay, that's what we see, but what does that mean? It probably means you are in an airplane twenty four seven. It probably means you are jet lagged. It probably means you have a lot of obligations towards your agency booking all these things, it means you probably can just take a few months off because that wouldn't go down smoothly with with the record company you you you signed. So don't get me wrong, like overall the life seems very enticing, very appealing, but even s ⁓ something like that, ⁓ what most people would consider a dream life or a dream job still has pretty I think ⁓ negative aspects as well. And I think sh social media, this is the DJ example, but there's tons of examples. ⁓ social media plays into this ⁓ as well. Do you do you do you agree that social media has like a a giving is giving the wrong hopes for people? Yeah, in in part for the reason we talked about before that ⁓ People are only seeing the the the outcome ⁓ of all this. You know, it's no one would watch, you know, their videos of them sitting on a plane f you know, for ten hours and the boredom that they might be, you know, dealing with or the stress of, you know, one gig, you know, getting shut down and trying scrambling and trying to figure out how to like salvage that that trip or that night and or all the money they lost because it it didn't come through. That's not on video. Right. We only see these the the great parts. And I think the other part about social media is that is exactly the point. Only show the good parts, right? And maybe even fake the good parts. It's not always like what we see, right? We everyone I see, I feel like these influencers are in the most like a resort or this massive, gorgeous home. They I mean, that doesn't mean that they they ⁓ paid the money to stay at those places or to buy those homes. They might have ⁓ just shot their video there and acted like they that that is part of it. So all of that is communicating that, you know, maybe success ⁓ comes easily, that everything is pretty ⁓ you know, smooth sailing ⁓ for them. ⁓ and How come it's not for you? You know? It could be also very it could be inspiring for s for some viewers. It could also be really demotivating. It's like things are hard for me. I work hard and I don't have that life. What's what's wrong? I I I am very concerned that the the the life that we're s watching on some of these things ⁓ is completely fake. It's it's just completely cultivated. Yeah, and I and I think it's ruining expectations. people have of what it what it means to live an a normal life. And not everyone should strive to live a normal life. And please try and live an exceptional, meaningful life, the best life you can have, but even the best life has friction and has yeah is is not always great. And and there wouldn't be any greatness without ⁓ terrible episodes as well. One question I have s builds character. Yeah, no, it is. Yeah, I've I've never seen a movie where you go and sit down and then the character is happy throughout the entire movie and nothing happens, right? It will be a pretty boring movie. Well, the point I'm making is that ⁓ you know, people who have things really easy. I mean, some people have things easier than than others, right? People who are born into certain privileged families, they have things earlier easier. But People who really have to work for what they have. That builds character that our who we are as a person. You know, it it it helps give us perspective and appreciation. ⁓ it it helps build agency ⁓ for ourselves and and so that we can help ourselves and help others. So I think that is really, really important too. The struggle builds who we become. I agree. Anything that Took a lot of effort is immediately more meaningful than anything that was gifted ⁓ to you. I I think about the following, what when we you mentioned ⁓ not everyone ⁓ was ⁓ given equal opportunities, but I I've done a lot of traveling. I've I've recently came back from Indonesia. It's a place I love to to go to. every time I'm there, I'm just so impressed. impressed by how happy everyone is. Everyone is just smiling all the time. They're they're so radiant and and everyone doesn't matter whether you're at the airport, when you're in a taxi, when you're in the beach club, whether they're construction workers, whether they're working in the rice fields at 40 degrees, like everyone has a smile on their face when you have a have a talk with them. So it it raises the question to me like should work even be fun? Should you even strive to to have all the fun w with your job? Because it seems to me, I can't imagine that some of these people who are being paid like two to three dollars an hour and and and are are very have it very difficult to to even get by are super passionate about standing in the rice field all day or are super passionate about ⁓ working cleaning hotel rooms or whatever. But yet here they are ⁓ seem they seem to be much happier than than many people at least in in in Europe that I encounter in Amsterdam that I encounter. And of course these are brief interactions, right? So it's easy to put up a smile. You don't know what's going on behind the scenes. So I don't want to like oversimplify it. But I think in general there is something there that there seems to be this Western almost a western and and and more recent development. Like 50 years ago, was anyone talking about finding their passion? I I'm not so sure. So I feel like might be something western. Yeah. It's a newer phenomenon. It's true. Yeah. And but but but should we should we ⁓ then like ⁓ How should we value value that? Like is it should we still try and and to do something that we are passionate about, or is that not even necessary to to live a a be a meaningful life? Well, I I don't know about passion. I don't I don't know if passion is the thing that we need to do, but s something fulfilling. ⁓ a lot of times when we're talking about something ⁓ a passion, we're talking about something that's fulfilling to us in some way or another. So it's interesting you bring up ⁓ you know your experiences in Indonesia, because I mean there really are differences in the way ⁓ people think about passion across cultures. ⁓ well first thing you we have to think about is how is meaning derived for for people? In in a lot of ⁓ Western cultures in the cities, it it's derived. We're we're conditioned to to feel that it comes from work. Right. ⁓ you know, our recognition from work, our rank at work, maybe how big our house is and and stuff like that. but for many, many people, they don't have to care about their work. What matters is their community, their family, maybe their hobbies, think what they do outside of work. So thinking about where how we derive meaning is is quite Different. And I suspect it's quite different across cultures. And then on another note, something that's ⁓ important to discuss is this cultural difference. So we've my team's conducted research on how people think about passion. ⁓ this isn't had this doesn't have to do with fixed or growth mindsets, but how people think about passion in more collectivistic societies. And in more individualistic societies. So we studied people in Singapore, which are largely of Chinese ⁓ descent population, of Chinese heritage, and then in the United States, obviously more white European ⁓ on average. And we find that ⁓ people i in the West, they say that a passion, you have to pursue a passion as your career. It is it's it's you have to do it. It's it's part of what ⁓ results in a meaningful, fulfilling life, right? If you're gonna work your whole life that you have to do something, your passion or the in Singapore, the response was much more measured. It's not that they didn't care about passion. It's not that they didn't think that passion was a nice thing, but they were saying things like, pump the brakes. Maybe you know, I also have to, I have obligations to my family. I have obligations to others and people in my community and my circle. ⁓ I don't want this passion to give me this tunnel vision that makes it so I forget about everything else that I'm connected to. reflecting this these culturalistic, ⁓ collectivistic sorry values. So we find some very genuine differences just on people's basic lay beliefs about how important passion is and how much emphasis we should put on passion in our lives. That's so interesting. And I wonder what people how people in Singapore, for example, introduce themselves on ⁓ a a birthday party, for example. But I know in the West one of the first question is, what's your name? What do you do? Yeah. That's pretty much that's ⁓ the second question we ask someone when we don't know them. It's like what is your profession? How what do you do for a living? Yeah. ⁓ it's so interesting to me because it logically, if if that's apparently so important to people, it's the second thing we ask someone, then yeah, you you you might as well do something cool, right? ⁓ so it's it's not even for yourself almost, it's also ⁓ for the social scenarios that you are yeah, then that it's possible to to to have a cool story and and and a cool profession there as well. Is there is there anything I I wonder why. I don't know if there if if that came up in the in the study, but ⁓ I wonder how ⁓ people in in from from China, for example, introduce ⁓ themselves in in those scenarios. So I I I don't know we ha we did not investigate this. ⁓ and we did investigate people from China. It was it was ⁓ Yeah, Singapore, Singapore. I mean the the ch ⁓ based on the Chinese culture, I stand corrected, but I mean ⁓ in Singapore and and Asian culture, ⁓ if we make it a bit broader. So I I co careers, I lived there for nine years. I was a professor there for for nine years. Yeah. ⁓ so ⁓ their careers are very important to them as well. ⁓ I don't I I I I'm not sure of any research that would connect it to their sense of identity that they connect to their careers. But I think it would just be different. ⁓ it would the careers that people tend to ⁓ strive for most in Singapore, or what's emphasized the most, are the ones that make a good amount of money and are secure jobs. Like maybe like your job is ⁓ what ⁓ in in tax ⁓ tax law. That's a it's very respectable, probably were paid pretty well. and that's what matters. Right. So that was sending a that would send a social signal. If they said I'm an engineer or a doctor or a lawyer, that's sending a s a social signal that ⁓ I'm doing something really good and valued in this country and in this culture. ⁓ in other parts it it might just in other parts of the world it might be different. ⁓ telling somebody that you're an artist in certain circles in in the West would would be very valued in in a different way. ⁓ You might not make a lot of money. You you may not ⁓ be famous or anything, but ⁓ people in that particular context people might have value for that. So you might lead with that. Yeah. And it's also I think if we're talking about meaning, I I also immediately think about for example countries like like India or or Bangladesh, for example, where my my brother he lives in Dubai and he ⁓ has spoken to many of these construction workers, right? Because ⁓ in the West, we have a view of all the construction that's going on in Dubai. We label it as modern slavery ⁓ because they have to work insane hours and they they get ⁓ paid a relatively low wage. And my brother says that the most interesting thing is that when I started talking to these people, they were all extremely proud and happy that it allowed them to send money to to India and Bangladesh. And the fact that they could ⁓ very easily support ⁓ the families from doing this construction job gave them a sense of extreme pride and and they ⁓ they were they were singing together. I mean obviously there are going to be differences between construction sites and I'm sure horrible things have gone down and and are going down as we record this. ⁓ but it was just an interesting, different perspective that he had after talking to some of these people that all of their meaning, ⁓ yeah, are they passionate about construction? Probably not, but they were very yeah, th they derived a lot of meaning from being able to support their families, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. No, so that's that's an interesting thing as well. I I th we started this ⁓ conversation by saying that following your passion can be ⁓ dangerous. ⁓ how how I may pass. F finding finding your passion. I I apologies. Yeah, the word the word finding there. Is it also can it also be dangerous because I w when when I do something, let's go back to the BMX example. We've established it. Why not? I like to ride BMX bikes because it's it clears my mind. It is what I do after I'm done working. I know nothing, nobody is expecting something from me. It's just me on the bicycle. Everything I do, I live in the moment and and and I it it allows me to completely zone out. However, let's say I am such a good BMX rider that I am a professional BMX rider, for example, and that my ⁓ whether I can pay my mortgage and and go to the grocery store and and provide for my family is now dependent on my abilities on the bicycle. So if I don't perform there, I will suck. So on paper, it sounds like a dream, right? You're gett you're you're getting paid. to to ride your bike. You're but you're getting paid for for your passion. But now you might like your passion because you associate it with relaxing and time off work. But now that you've turned it into your work, you've associated with stress as well. Because if you don't perform, you might not be able to pay the bills. Is is that something that makes sense? Absolutely. ⁓ I I'm not sure how That is, but I I'm certain that that is going to be the case. If you put all your eggs into one basket and things go wrong, I that could be the case also when you're not passionate about something. You just put all your eggs in in one career basket or whatever, and ⁓ AI takes that job, that it it's that it's it's really intense. That's a that's a problem. Another issue that we see. Is that You have to think about the jobs people are passionate about, the things that people are passionate about. When people talk about ⁓ their dream jobs and their ⁓ what they what they're passionate about, it's usually not tax law, right? No. Wasn't for me. It's it's stuff like be I want to be a BMX, you know, ⁓ writer. I want to Be a professional basketball player. I want to ⁓ be a painter. I want to, so these are all things that are very unlikely to happen. Like even some of the most phenomenal athletes, only a few can make it professionally. Like there just isn't room for everything, right? So it's extraordinarily unlikely that these things pan out. And and the other thing is, is when they do, any anyone can be a painter, right? But not everyone's going to get paid well to for their paintings, right? That isn't that is a really rough, rough job, right? ⁓ it's very uncertain. So a lot of the times the problem is that these passion careers, ⁓ that people tend to be passionate about, ⁓ they're ones that don't provide ⁓ really a solid future. Right. So that that that's a legitimate danger. And so people, I I ⁓ despite studying passion for for many, many years, ⁓ I also take a very measured ⁓ approach to that. I think people need to be very careful about what what they're doing or or very ⁓ strategic and very thoughtful about it. All you need to do is watch, ⁓ I haven't seen American Idol in many, many years, but when I watched a lot the beginning of every terrible audition was I was born to do this. I love this, I'm passionate about it, and then ugh, just terrible. So it's really important that people ⁓ are are are are being thoughtful about what they're doing and also thinking create creatively about ⁓ how they can bring their passions into their careers. ⁓ just as an example, I I was telling you about that study about astrophysics and sparking an interest and making it difficult. That was very me bringing in my absolute fascination of the universe and the cosmos and all that stuff. This was my little way to bring it in so I could make it part of what I studied. Right. So ⁓ people can do that ⁓ and ⁓ to to varying extents i in their own work or if not their work i in their lives somehow. That's that's a very good that's a that's a very good advice. Is there is there anything else if we make it yeah, maybe a bit more more practical? It is like ⁓ f ⁓ f trying to find your passion. can be a dangerous ⁓ mistake. how should people go about passionate and work and and is it ⁓ we we spoke about growth mindset and we spoke about that in principle everyone should be able to to change their beliefs into getting a growth mindset. ⁓ but how would someone do that? It means it just like it seems easy just Change the way you think, but that's that's easier said than done, right? Is there some practical takeaways based on the literature, based on your experience, what people can do to ⁓ nudge them in the right direction? Well, first of all, my colleagues and I are big advocates for changing that phrase. We want people to be saying, develop your passion. Don't find your passion. Don't even say follow your passion. Develop your passion. It it it's it's acknowledging so this is this would signal a shift in culture, whether it be organizational culture, a countrywide culture or or whatever. ⁓ it's suggesting like I said from the very beginning, the these words have very subtle meanings that can have that can have a big ⁓ impression on on people. And when you tell people that it that they should develop their interests. That immediate that that'll sink in and they will start to think, ⁓ it's it's it's not just gonna happen. I have to do something here. Right. So that I think that just at that level, I think it's important that we start rephrasing this. ⁓ but ⁓ I I think part of this is understanding the nature of interest, right? That it is, we know, we lots of studies have been done on this, that we know. interest and at a more extreme level passion. It's something that's developed. It's we develop ⁓ interest in something because ⁓ we're interacting with it. And and not just that, but there's something relevant to us. And and I'll give you a quick story. I hated inferential statistics, like most psychology majors. It's a Course you just had to get through. and and and when I took that class as an undergrad, it was totally irrelevant. I was being taught a bunch of things that I would not be using, right? It was stuff that people in the field used, but I would not be required to use almost any of it, right? Then I became a grad student and ⁓ I took the graduate level. ⁓ statistics and inferential statistics classes. And all of a sudden, this stuff that meant nothing to me before now meant something. Because now I was at a point in my education where I was designing my studies. And if I'm going to design studies, I also know have to know how to analyze them. So now this really irrelevant thing became super relevant to me. ⁓ we call this utility value in in psychology. So I had this, it had this utility value that learning statistics was going to help me achieve my goals as a psychologist and run my studies. And through that process, I became really interested in in this and and quite good at it. ⁓ so When people people can apply this kind of idea, and and I should say that this has been tested ⁓ quite a bit by Judy Harakevich and her colleagues for for many years, the promoting ⁓ utility value to increase interest in topics that maybe students might otherwise find uninteresting. ⁓ so look for the utility value in in what you're doing. ⁓ if you don't feel like there is, search for it. And develop opportunities that will allow you to see connections. ⁓ and if you really are in a job that is not going to give you those opportunities, if you have the the the luxury, then maybe it could be time to to look elsewhere. Right? ⁓ yeah. Yeah. And I I really l like I I really like your example. And it also illustrates a very important ⁓ point, which I think is finding also implies that there's an end to it. But we are constantly evolving, right? Yeah. So if if you f ⁓ we finally found it. Okay, there it is. That means okay, search is over and now we can sit back, relax, and and and enjoy whatever it is that we found. But that's not how we work. I mean Ten years ago or or maybe longer, I was into Pokemon cards, whatever. I gr I grew out of it. ⁓ then I developed different interests. And maybe in ten years from now I I I develop yet again ⁓ other interests as well. I I used to not be interested in interior design all that much, but now I I recently bought my own place and now all of a sudden I'm browsing through magazines to improve upon my house, you know? So We are constantly changing, our environment is constantly changing, we're getting older, ⁓ the people around us change. So everything is constantly developing. So I think it would also be helpful there to treat it not as something that has an end, but is is yeah, is continuous and and should be ⁓ worked on. A absolutely and I think even Ronaldo, ⁓ as you were talking about, ⁓ he's he's always Focused on improving. You know, it'd be very easy for someone to say, well, he hit the pigment pinnacle. You can't, maybe you can't be better than that. But that's not the way he sees it clearly. ⁓ right? He's he's always searching for b other ways to be better. And in s in other ways, when we're talking about interest, there are always things connected to what you're interested in that could enrich. what you do. Like I said, I was I brought in my own interests of astrophysics because I don't do that professionally, but I was able to bring it into what I I do. And I'm able to make these connections that that enrich my interests. ⁓ and it's really cool. Like in some of the interventions we do, we we do these interventions where we teach people ⁓ about a growth mindset and we follow them up. you know, a year later and we see that it it's had a real beneficial effect for them. And I totally forgot what point I was gonna make. Yeah. I was gonna say that we look at part of it is some reflective writing in those studies. And we look at what some of these students say in in their essays. And we ask them to because we were asking them to reflect on a time that they developed an interest that they never thought that they would have. And some of them are just so thoughtful and and and amazing because the they might start by saying, I I never liked history. I always thought it was boring. And then I took this other class, ⁓ this the ⁓ in a topic I really love. And then we started talking about the history of that. And then I started to see how it connected, like the history of it really, really mattered. And maybe the narrative of that history mattered. And who the people were who created the narrative of that history mattered about how we interpret, you know. ⁓ the past. ⁓ so you get responses like this where they start to make these connections and then they end by saying, now I think history's fascinating. So kind of going back to what you were saying before, the connections are there. They are out there. ⁓ and there for you to go out and develop and discover ⁓ and to interact with the world and it's endless. There is no end. It is an endless process if you understand it to be that way. Yeah, I I love that. And and finally I would ⁓ like to add also is that people I think it's mostly people who are going into their first job after college or or whatever their first job is, they have such high expectations of what it should be and and and it feels like okay once I go down this path it is going to be permanent. ⁓ but yeah, I I I don't know. I finally I just would like to emphasize it's it's not really permanent. You can always stare, you can always be inspired on your way there. ⁓ in my case, the text law, like I I didn't enjoy working in in law all that much, being in such a corporate environment, but I did enjoy the writing part of it. I did enjoy the research part of it. And that's basically what I What I'm doing right now. It's a lot of writing, it's a lot of research, it's a lot of talking to people. It's it's trying to turn complex ideas into understandable ones for a broader audience. So it's it has a lot of similarities, but ⁓ first I had to do something that I didn't really enjoy so much, and then slowly but surely I learned which aspects of it I did, and then s yeah, I'm I'm I'm going in a more in a direction that suits me better. So ⁓ yeah, I just ⁓ wanted to to add that there. Absolutely. But if if you believed that your Abilities were fixed, or your interests were fixed. ⁓ at some points in your journey, you may have just called it a day and just said, I'm sticking with this. and ⁓ you know, for some people that that's really gonna take meaning out out of their life because they're they're gonna spend a long time doing something that's that is not fulfilling to them. No. Hm, we've discussed so many ⁓ interesting things, Paul. I've I've learned a lot. This and this is ⁓ it's incredible ⁓ talking to you. Is there something we haven't touched on that you think would be super relevant to ⁓ discuss while we're ⁓ on the topic? ⁓ yeah, I mean I one I w I'd like to reemphasize ⁓ that you know we we have these mindsets, these fixed and growth mindsets, but they There really isn't just one mindset. It's you really could have a fixed mindset, say, for mathematics, but a growth mindset for your writing abilities. So we have to think about mindsets as domain specific. Today in our conversation, we've been talking about, you know, beliefs about the nature of abilities, right? Fixed and growth mindsets about ability, but also fixed and growth mindsets about interest and passion. It both have very distinct effects and and outcomes associated with them. ⁓ but it at this point, we've studied so many of these. And and by we, I mean my my ⁓ colleagues in in my field, we've studied so many of these. ⁓ for example, an another area that I study that's really relevant to what we talked about earlier about entrepreneurs. Are people's beliefs about the nature of opportunity in in their life? And in some of our work, we find that some people think that their opportunities are kind of set. They're to determined, and there's not much that they can do to change that. And then you have other people who are more like the entrepreneurs who believe that opportunities are c you can cultivate them. So where there are no opportunities, there is no path forward. They're thinking, I can I can figure this out. I can figure out the opportunities that are gonna lead to my goal, that are gonna open the door on this path that I can start making progress toward my goal. So you you did the research on on the unemployed people, right? Yeah, yeah. That's what Yeah, c can we briefly talk about that as well? Because that was really interesting about the the ⁓ importance of also having a growth mindset in when it comes to opportunities. Yeah, yeah. So in in one study, we wanted to examine how this mindset, fixed or growth mindsets of opportunity specifically affect some real world very consequential outcomes. I mean employment. People in our you know world need to work ⁓ in order to to you know have their their needs their basic needs and so forth and to provide maybe for their families it's it's extremely it's an extremely important life goal to to commit to ⁓ but a lot of people ⁓ struggle ⁓ obviously and and i i i should mention be very clear that there are very real ⁓ unjust barriers that people ⁓ face in this world. And and through no fault of their own, they they might end up unemployed. ⁓ but what we focused on is to, regardless of one starting point, ⁓ what part of this is driven by their mindset? ⁓ And so what we did is we recruited a lot of ⁓ people who are currently unemployed, and we assessed a lot of things, their their mindset, And a lot of other motivational and demographic ⁓ type of ⁓ variables so that we could see what predicts what. And then we followed up with them five months later. And we found that people with a stronger growth mindset were more likely to be employed five months later. And and it wasn't just that. It's because the question here is were they were they Doing things during that time to work toward that goal? Were they cultivating the opportunities they needed? And sure enough, well, we found that they had been engaging in more activities that directly related to that. So they were submitting more applications, they were interviewing more, they were revising their resume more, they were networking, they were attending career fairs at a greater ⁓ rate. Than people with more of a fixed mindset. And they were also more proactive from the very beginning. They were more likely, or sorry, they more quickly started their job search after they lost their last job. So this mindset, once you start to think of going back to the very beginning when we were talking about agency, once you start to think about opportunities as things that you can be that That you can cultivate rather than things that you're just you just have what you have, and that's that. You start to you start to think more strategically. What can I do to achieve my goals? Right? What opportunities can I create for myself that will lead, in this case, to employment? And that's exactly what we found. So these growth mindsets in these different domains, they they matter very much and they matter for different reasons. That's so interesting and I can see why that's the case. I mean it makes sense. Why why don't you you said like one can have a growth mindset in sports, for example, but they can have they can't have it when it comes to their profession or perhaps the other way around or only when playing the piano or whatever. Wha why is it that it doesn't always translate to different domains? Because I I notice even in myself that now I feel like I've developed more of a growth mindset than I did five years ago. But when it came to running my BMX bike, I already had it from from the get go. But it didn't immediately translate to these other domains as well. Well, I think it can be very helpful to always try to have a ⁓ a growth mindset in in most aspects of of your life. So it's interesting to me that it isn't automatically the case and that it has to be re-emphasized and rediscovered. Yeah. So ⁓ like you were saying with biking, ⁓ you were in an environment where you were watching people develop their abilities. They d didn't just They weren't just amazing. You saw the progress and that you And then you saw that that progress had to happen. We're not always going to see that. Like when I was in school, I never saw that. I, I, you know, when I was younger, I struggled because I thought this is hard for me, you know, say writing an essay or this math homework, it's hard for me. Therefore, I am not good at it. This is not something that I'm smart at, right? And what I never saw. were my classmates who were getting good grades. I didn't I didn't know what they were doing when they went home, you know? I imagined that they sat down and just like, ⁓ yeah, that that's done. I'm it's easy for me. It comes easily to me. So that's it. I never imagined for a second that they were working so hard for so long. So I was limited in that way to my own experience, not not the benefit of of observing other people struggle. And the conclusion that I come to from that, without that situational information, is that the problem is with me. Right. And I'm limited. Right. But in other circumstances like like yours, you you have you are privy to that situational information and what it takes to to do it. So there there are many reasons why we ⁓ might Have a growth mindset in one domain, a fixed mindset in another domain. ⁓ and certainly our surroundings, our environments, our the feedback that we get, the subtle messages that that well intentioned people in our life give, all of that can can feed into that. Yeah, I think I think it's it's starting to to to to snowball now as soon as I like when I quit my job and then I was even It it took a while and and it was kind of scary and it I struggled for a bit eventually being successful in making the career switch. That was kind of an eye opener. And then I started working for myself and I was okay, that worked as well. And then you start to see this pattern that, like, hey, maybe if I just ask enough people and and sh shoot enough shots on goal. eventually y it usually works out, even though it doesn't immediately ⁓ work out most of the time. So now I I feel like I'm I'm trying to be more more open to it, but it's still interesting. There's probably so many more aspects ⁓ in my life that I'm currently ⁓ not open to ⁓ improvement ⁓ about. So it's at least at the very least it's a very yeah interesting to be made aware of of of the power of of growth mindset again and I should probably ⁓ no ⁓ maybe ⁓ think twice when I ⁓ wanna give up on something for example. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Well Paul I've ⁓ yeah I've I've heard so many so many incredibly ⁓ interesting things. I thought this was ⁓ was great. Is there ⁓ a place people can go if they wanna keep up with ⁓ the work that you're doing, the research ⁓ you're doing and and ⁓ following ⁓ all of ⁓ it is that you do? Yeah, I mean they could go to Paulokee.com, P-A-U-L-O-K-E-E-F-E. ⁓ all my papers are there. ⁓ welcome to to look at that. Lots of you know media coverage ⁓ that might be more digestible than some of the scientific pa papers. ⁓ and you can learn more about what we do in in the lab. ⁓ and also a a great book, ⁓ you know, ⁓ is Carol Dweck's book, Mindset. It's it's fantastic. I mean, it's it's really ⁓ changed a lot the way a lot of people think about their struggles ⁓ and for the better. So that that is a really great ⁓ she's the pioneer of of this whole area of research. ⁓ and it's just fantastic. So highly recommend that. No, it's it's hopeful. It it it it feels good. It's isn't it nice to to have the impression that we can change things and that we can improve ourselves? Yeah. ⁓ absolutely. ⁓ the the additional thing that I I always want to add, because sometimes I I think that the growth mindset in ⁓ because it's been popularized by that book. ⁓ and it's just a it's a buzz term that we hear all the time now. W and it sometimes it loses its meaning. The reality though is that with that belief that we can change and improve, the other side is that of that is that it it takes work. It takes a lot of work, effort, thoughtful s strategies. It takes maybe some good mentorship. ⁓ so that part of it can't be lost. It If if you're pursuing something that is hard, then it should be hard. But maintain a growth mindset and you're more likely to get where you want. That's beautiful caveat and I think a beautiful ⁓ way to end it. Thank you so much, ⁓ Paul. I ⁓ I really appreciate you and ⁓ yeah, hopefully ⁓ we'll we'll talk again ⁓ someday. This was great. I agree. ⁓ hopefully we'll we'll chat soon.