How I Grew a Growth Mindset Based on Negativity Anger

[Music]

now

when i entered my first fighting game

tournament i believed myself to be

at the very least competent enough to

make it four rounds in you know

i’ll just do my best and leave satisfied

being the naturally talented brainlead i

am i won

not about four minutes after the

tournament had started i had lost my

first round without even winning a

single point

and proceeded to lose my next one in the

loser’s bracket

disqualifying me as i sat back and took

a couple of ragged breaths

i began to realize that the mountain

that i’ve been climbing in my quest

to become good had just been in fact

a hill in that beyond it lay a countless

amount of mountains

left to explore and survive

as i sat on that hilltop it was quiet

with the only thing permeating through

the air being the realization that i

was bad like

really bad and so i found myself at a

familiar crossroad

dig my heels in and continue or go

home my entire life have been filled

with people who stayed within the

boundaries of their natural talents

and parents who told me that i was going

to become a computer scientist

and so for the first time i’d be

actively venturing out

into the unknown as i started my first

steps up that mountain

experimenting and failing countless

times

i began to realize that failure and

anger

is the key to living a purposeful life

so today i want to talk about how i

train to become comfortable with

discomfort

initially using three rules one

check your ego two remove your options

and

three never stop try harding

as i sat on that hilltop looking out

into this

mountainous range of stuff i couldn’t

even begin to comprehend and execute

i began to realize that i needed to

change the way in which i thought

i began telling myself actually

you do suck what did you expect you

would play for three months and

become one of the big boys you are

nothing compared to some of the people

here

and no one gives a damn but you

i forced myself to watch replays of my

previous matches

and began to see how selective my memory

had been

i remembered the wins the lost streaks

against i remember the win streaks

against the newcomers of the game and

forgot the lost streaks against the

veterans

as much as i didn’t want to admit it i

was afraid of being told that i was bad

above anything else and to say that i’m

alone in this fear would be incorrect as

well

fearof.net lists the fear of public

speaking and the failure as among

the top 10 highest phobias but

as it turns out being an immature

brainlet actually

helped me i let shame and rage naturally

wash out

my fear and i beat myself up

i hated myself and let that fuel my

growth

i began forcing myself to challenge

everyone i met

and when i lost i chose to be angry

i let every mistake i made get beaten

into my fingers

and every wind became a confirmation of

their power

i put my rage above my personal

vulnerability and in that

i was unconsciously growing a negative

growth mindset this negative growth

mindset gave me the fuel to continue

climbing

of course as time went on and my anger

wore off

i grew confident in my ability again

this time accepting

that i would never be perfect i

am nothing therefore

i can be anything as i slowly began to

encapsulate this mindset

i realized that winners pursued loss and

losers idolized wins like fighting game

pro

daigo umahara i had come to realize that

wins

and losses are merely markers in our own

stories of personal development so while

i recommend you start with

anger and shame anger fueling success

is never sustainable and will always end

up with you

on top unsatisfied and alone

to find joy and meaning in our exploits

is to carefully balance

our ego and our desire to grow

so rule number one check your ego

around the same time that i’d gone into

my fighting game i’d also gone into

running as well and

i’d hit a block i needed more reason to

start running consistently

unlike fighting games running was mostly

a solo climb with you

only climbing against the mountain

itself

this is where rule number two comes in

remove your options

there is a 1974 stanford experiment in

which scientists left children alone in

a room

with a marshmallow telling them that if

they didn’t eat it for 15 minutes

they would get another one the children

who succeeded were shown to be much more

successful

in terms of happiness and achievement

later in life but they weren’t just

using their willpower

or in my case anger for that delayed

gratification

out of all the children who succeeded a

vast majority decided to

sing songs dance talk to themselves or

even hide their eyes

they chose to remove eating the

marshmallow as an option

altogether a light bulb went off in my

head

was willpower a finite source yes

did i have a lot of it no

and so i joined a running club of some

friends

i ran for charity i had my friends take

away my computer and i downloaded

a self-control app on my phone i used

social pressures to remove my

opportunities to flake out

it all and had all the things i used to

relax locked away

saving my anger for running that extra

kilometer

more importantly i had found a way to

remove my opportunities to be sad

by filling in the in-betweens of my life

with work and practice

i was able to circumvent my ability to

be sad

i had no time to worry about how people

viewed me because

oh crap i need to start running four

kilometers in the next two minutes

use your sadness to propel your anger

god damn it why did i say that to him

ah this

is probably one of the hardest things to

get past at least for me

when it comes to climbing new mountains

in a world where social media and

distractions permeate through the very

air we breathe

and our identities are reduced down to

our physical and innate natures

i believe that simplifying our lives

into opportunities

clears the path for growth it allows us

to focus

on that one idea i want to do this

and so i will that is rule number two

remove your options finally

rule number three never stop tryharding

now for those of you who don’t play

video games a tryhard has a simple

definition

someone who tries hard at something they

don’t relax

they don’t calm down and they don’t even

look like they’re having fun and so on

the outside people tend to characterize

them

as no lives and to me originally being

the smooth brained couch potato i was

related to that sentiment but on closer

inspection of the common trihard

and my eventual assimilation into the

role i’ve come to realize that

it is actually they who extract the most

satisfaction

enjoy through their respective passions

through a simple idea known as flow

the state of flow or being in the zone

is a state of complete absorption in

one’s task as a result of perceived

skill

peaking at perceived difficulty it’s

when your pupils dilate your brain is

completely stimulated

your movements are instinctual yet also

calculated and your sense of time

melts away by constantly trying hard and

pushing themselves

the tryhard is in constant pursuit

of flow no excuses

no breaks never satisfied

it is in the state of flow in which we

grow most efficiently

they have no clue as to the concept of

the relativity of hills versus mountains

because they get angry anyways

now you may ask why the tryhard being as

hated as they are by society continue to

try hard it is because of one thing

and one thing only they care

their faces grow red they scream

obscenities

and they break their controllers and yes

it is childish but it shows

that they care and caring is the most

fundamental part of flow you can’t enter

flow if you’re doing something you don’t

care about

or peer pressure to do you can’t enter

flow

if at the slightest bit of pushback you

quit

it’s all about satiating your intrinsic

desires

whether that be video games video

editing sports

or whatever i play i began to play

angrily

and i expressed it when i felt it hours

spent doing mundane tasks were now

filled with

furious visualization as i relived

embarrassments and tried to find

solutions

unconsciously training my brain to react

a little faster

a little more accurately

in a world where peer pressure in

ostracism have grown exponentially as a

result of the internet

i have come to deeply respect those who

are brave enough to get angry

and keep at it regardless of if they

succeed

or fail it is with these ideas in mind

that i’ve come

to attempt to inherit the best traits of

the tryhard

their unbridled passion in the pursuit

of flow

and the death of those authoring their

future while leaving behind their angry

outbursts

and potential burnout saving that spark

for the beginning

of learning it doesn’t matter if you’re

great

it doesn’t matter if you suck what

matters

is that you care that is rule number

three

never stop tryharding

using these three rules i found success

in driving the things that i wanted to

accomplish

i started running every other day and

the next fighting game tournament i

joined i placed second

i recently started getting into

competitive dance games and i went from

this

looking basically like a penguin on on

thin ice

to this in about a month

but more importantly i had inadvertently

opened my horizons to so many different

outlets in which i could live

in my pursuit of competency and

greatness i had unlocked an openness

that i never had before

can be wrong and i can always be better

my entire life i lived in fear of my

parents

the very people who i believe never

validated me

and just last week i initiated a

conversation with them

about the nature of our relationship

i accepted my mistakes and took their

concern

in anger it slowly morphed into a more

sustainable mindset

with me climbing those mountains not

because of the voices coming from its

base

but from the joy in climbing a little

higher

not negative not positive

just down the middle being bad was just

life

and so i stopped being so afraid

so i fell off some mountains i didn’t

care about

i engaged in public speaking to stand up

to ideas i disagreed with

and began to realize that people worth

engaging don’t

don’t don’t make fun of you for for

being new but respect you for trying

on a larger scale i believe that this

idea is something that is extremely

prevalent today

with our realization that in our comfort

we have been complicit

in racism inequality in violence

but i’ll put my two cents in on the

matter as a form of exercise

and if you disagree with me you can come

to me after the talk

and change my mind this new era of

internet activism seems cheap

and the fact that i’ve seen people say

things like if you know a homophobe

direct message me and i’ll beat the crap

out of them it’s so alarmingly

hypocritical

in its intention and effect that it

scares me

of course acts of sexism have been so

overwhelming in their large and small

scale effects

that anger is completely understandable

but if there’s anything i’ve learned

from my self-experimentation

it’s that not everybody absorbs anger in

the same way

if i’m angry i direct it at myself and

turn it into something productive

if i’m angry at someone else and i just

shove that onto them

who knows how they’ll handle that anger

by saying things like that you’re adding

fuel to the fire

and leaving all productivity in this

case

understanding and changing one’s mind to

ash

direct your anger and fight the system

not its people there must be a better

way

as said by obama on the topic of cancer

culture

that’s not activism that’s not bringing

about change

if all you’re doing is casting stones

then you’re probably not going to get

that far

because that’s easy to do

cancel culture feeds off our fragility

in fear of the unknown

and i believe that we need to start

accepting start listening

and start using the trauma and hate that

surrounds us on a daily basis

to fight back productively

the joy of activism is not necessarily

being right

but the journey of becoming better more

critical

and more vulnerable looking back i

realize

now that anger is just the shield we use

to hide

our fear and shame and that if we keep

using it

to develop as people it’ll eventually

break

so it’s okay to cry it’s okay

to be awkward or to ask for help

we just need to find our footing grit

our teeth and push beyond our tears

anger

is a start but never the end

it’ll get us into space but it won’t

necessarily put us

on the moon using the discipline that i

had gained from this process i began

appreciating

my opportunities to fail rather than get

angry at them

i didn’t need that spark anymore

as a part of the new generation i feel

as if we are always too extremes

too closed and afraid when we are left

alone and violently outspoken when we

are in groups

we stick to toxicity if it keeps us

climbing together and accept

insecurity if it keeps us from climbing

alone and if we ever want to see a

future in which humanity can thrive

truly

and fully i believe that we need to

start by asking ourselves

and the people around us difficult

questions

whether that be about our skills our

loneliness

our social expectations or our excuses

and to say that i fully come to terms

with being comfortable with discomfort

would be an understatement but i would

never give away the months of pain

and suffering i put myself through to

reach the me now

this is who i am now and who

i was later and this

this is what i got i refuse to believe

that our reality

is static this speech

in itself is the first step for me to

become someone that i can look up to

and i can guarantee for a fact that

looking back on it

relative to me before in me after it

that i’ll be proud

i realize now that it is in the pursuit

of perfection do we become

the greatest versions of ourselves it’s

in putting in that extra time to perfect

a combo

it’s in running that extra kilometer

it’s in standing up and fighting for

what you believe to be true

it’s about getting bored with the things

you love and sticking with it

and you want to know a secret

being the best you can be is in its own

way

perfection and it all starts

with those mountains it all starts

with i want this

it all starts with keeping that flicker

of desire alive thank you for coming to

my ted talk