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