There Are No Smart People.
Posted by Ellie Mirman on Fri, Jun 10, 2011 @ 07:00 AM
Only people who work harder to achieve their goals. I'm lucky in that my parents drilled this into me as I was growing up. Maybe not in these words, but they refused to believe that I couldn't do something. And it's not just because I was their darling little girl.
My parents tell me the story of how, in 4th grade, I came home from school and told my parents I was bad at math. This might sound pretty normal or familiar to you, but my parents would have none of that. It's true that my family is, in general, pretty... mathy (hey we're better at math than English - so I'll use that as an excuse to make up words). I don't really remember what spurred me saying I was no good at math, but I do certainly remember my parents then sending me to Russian math school for a year (oh yes, it exists). It was a pretty awful experience, but from that moment on, math suddenly came easy to me. It was probably partially because of the math principles I learned that year, but also partially because I learned that it wasn't a matter of my "smarts" but rather how committed I was to achieving something.
It turns out that it's the same learning that helps people succeed in work - especially when it comes to entrepreneurs and their startups. I was reminded of this when reading this great article on the #1 defining characteristic of entrepreneurs: the ability to bounce back. What it comes down to is not being afraid of failure.
Being afraid of failure, Jason writes, has two implications:
- You start choosing challenges that are guaranteed wins. Which actually means they're not challenges after all. You end up losing out on amazing experiences that could push you forward.
- You start to actually believe your skills are limited. You give up before even trying. And, of course, this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you don't believe you can achieve something, you won't even try, and then, what do you know, you haven't achieved it.
What's amazing is - if you don't subscribe to this way of thinking, you likely end up thinking you're not "smart" when it comes to topic X or topic Y. And you end up spending a lot of time and energy stressing over getting your ideas or your answers just right - because that idea or that answer will be a sign of how "smart" you are. If you stop stressing about your "smarts" then you're able to let go of (1) that stress and (2) the belief that you need to perfect an idea before sharing it. That latter point is deadly for startups, because they need to test out ideas as much as possible and iterate along the way. In a recent meeting, I actually made this pitch to my team: your "smarts" are not determined by how great your idea is, but rather, it is measure of your ability to learn from your experiences. It's a tough thing to accept, but once you do, you can achieve anything - because you believe you can and you will work to make it happen.
Flickr photo by jimmiehomeschoolmom