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I agree with this wholeheartedly BTW. I wish they had cited the research for those who do not believe this to be true, because it is compelling. That doesn't mean that people who do not believe would read it, but.....I'm just saying.
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Is this tweet at least subtly racist, or am I missing something? Oh, I forgot, you can trash white folks until the cows come home, my bad. And we're supposed to have a conversation with folks who puke out shit like this? Please, spare me!!
I suppose we don't have to look much further than the example from soccer, Freddy Adu. Once tagged as the U.S. version of Pele, and now just barely hanging on in the sport. Adu was uber-hyped at 14, and now nearly done at 25. Very much a cautionary tale for those that want to push for too much, too soon.
For many elite team coaches, the greater challenge in developing top young athletes is not improving the ones on your team, but rather finding the talente...
For many elite team coaches, the greater challenge in developing top young athletes is not improving the ones on your team, but rather finding the talented kids that got away from the sport.
While over 35 million kids between 4 and 14 play organized sports in the U.S., over 70% will drop out by age 13.
According to new research, that drastically reduced talent pool may be caused by the athlete's own psychological profile and how a coach manages it.
According to a 2004 study by Michigan State's Institute for the Study of Youth Sport, here are the top ten reasons why boys and girls quit organized sports:
Boys
I was no longer interested.
It was no longer fun.
The sport took too much time
The coach played favourites.
The coach was a poor teacher.
I was tired of playing.
There was too much emphasis on winning.
I wanted to participate in other non-sport activity.
I needed more time to study.
There was too much pressure.
Girls
I was no longer interested.
It was no longer fun.
I needed more time to study.
There was too much pressure
The coach was a poor teacher.
I wanted to participate in other non-sport activities.
The sport took too much time.
The coach played favourites.
I was tired of playing.
Games and practices were scheduled when I could not attend.
Comparing the lists, when a young athlete loses interest and does not have fun, (partly because the coach applied too much pressure or they were a poor teacher), it may be due to their internal mindset based on an educational psychology concept known as the Achievement Goal Theory (AGT).
The average teacher explains complexity; the gifted teacher reveals simplicity.
~ Robert Brault
Psychologists Carol Dweck and Thomas Nicholls, while they worked together at the University of Michigan, both studied students who failed to learn and their research resulted in parallel tracks, just with different terminology. For Dweck, she defined two styles of learning motivation as Mastery and Performance. Take for example, a young soccer player that spends hours in the backyard learning to juggle a ball. For a player with a Performance mindset, he is practicing because of a desire to be the best juggler on the team or maybe because he is embarrassed by his lack of skill compared to his teammates.
On the opposite end, a player with a Mastery mindset is motivated to learn simply by the challenge of the skill without any competitive instincts. Nicholls uses the terms Task to compare with Dweck's Mastery and substitutes Ego instead of Performance. Both Dweck and Nicholls agree that the player's perceived ability and competence also affects their motivation to keep trying to learn the new skill. Here's a great video overview of the concepts by Professor Jonathan Hilpert of Georgia Southern University.
In fact, in a study this year of 167 junior club soccer players in England, Andrew Hill, sports scientist at the University of Leeds, found that a quarter of the boys experienced symptoms of burnout.
"What we see among the athletes showing symptoms of burnout is emotional and physical exhaustion, a sense that they are not achieving and a sense of devaluation of the sport. Even though they might originally enjoy their sport and be emotionally invested in it, they eventually become disaffected. Participation can be very stressful," Dr. Hill said.
However, the results showed that those players who admitted being more afraid of making mistakes in front of others (a Performance/Ego mindset) were also much more likely to suffer from burnout versus those players that were driven by their own high standards (a Mastery/Task mindset).
"Perfectionism can be a potent energising force but can also carry significant costs for athletes when things don't go well," Dr. Hill commented. "Perfectionists are stuck in a self-defeating cycle. They are overly dependent on personal accomplishment as a means of establishing a sense of self-esteem but are always dissatisfied with their efforts. Even success can be problematic because they simply become more demanding until they inevitably experience failure."
A coach can have a significant impact on motivating learning by the type of environment they create, one that rewards players for self-improvement alone or one that rewards improvement compared to others. Last year, French researchers surveyed 309 young, elite handball players about four things, their perception of their coach's motivational environment, their own perceived competence, their type of learning motivation and any symptoms of burnout.
They concluded that "young talented athletes perceiving an ego-involving climate had a higher risk of experiencing burnout symptoms at the season's end. In contrast, players perceiving a high task-involving climate had lower burnout scores when the season concluded."
Once again the coach-athlete relationship becomes critical to development of elite potential and performances. The more training data that can be captured and analyzed, the better the subtle hints of burnout can be detected.
This articles (below) have an awful lot of Carol Dweck and Mindset: The New Psychology for Success and Angela Duckworth's True Grit in them. Perseverance and effort as the keys to success in sports as well as many other life endeavors. Football coaches verbalize it better with "It's not how many times you get knocked down, it's how many times you get back up". Of course, in football they spend a lot of time knocking each other down, so that makes sense from a coaching / motivational perspective. But think about baseball. Not a lot of time spent getting physically knocked down in baseball. Unless you're the high school version of Barry Bonds watching your moon shots leave the yard. Then maybe getting some extra dirt in your diet. But think about the mental aspect of the game or your life outside the game. How many times do we mentally or emotionally get knocked down and stay down rather than bounce right back up? Or check out and stop playing hard, so to speak, for innings or games or days or weeks on end? Oh yeah right, I'm the only one this happens to!! OK folks!! There is so much valuable wisdom for athletes, students, teachers, parents and coaches tied up in some of the quotes below that they do bear repeating. Definitely something to work on. Those life lessons from the ball field, you gotta love 'em!! Now, if we could just stop giving everyone in T-Ball a trophy, we might just have a chance to turn things around a bit.
Our youth sports culture is similar to the classroom. Kids who are divided into “A” or “B” teams at an early age are taught that their development path is set; the skills they have now are the same skills they will have in the future. It becomes a self-fulfilling cycle as the “A” teams get better coaching, play in the better leagues against better competition and the talent gap widens.
Often, parents can also, unknowingly, contribute to this cycle. As in school, when a child is told that his or her success is due to his brain not his effort, the perception begins that when they do eventually struggle with a math test or a tougher opponent, there is little they can do to improve.
Jin Li, a psychology professor at Brown University, has also been studying cultural differences in learning and teaching. One of her research projects recorded conversations between parents and children to hear the language used.
There were subtle differences between American and Asian parents when complimenting their kids. While the Americans praised with phrases like, “you’re so smart”, Asian parents focused on the struggle, “you’ve worked so hard on learning that and now you did it.”
“So the focus is on the process of persisting through it despite the challenges, not giving up, and that’s what leads to success,” Li said in the same NPR interview.
Every young athlete will face challenges as they move up the ladder from youth clubs to high school to college. Instilling them with the belief that they can improve through hard work will keep them motivated to get to the other side of the wall. Their support team of parents and coaches can help this process by rewarding the learning process.
“Think about that [kind of behavior] spread over a lifetime,” Stigler concluded. “That’s a big difference.”
Did you know that more top CEOs in United States graduated from a state college than an Ivy League University such as Harvard, Yale, or Princeton?
Shocked?
Research is showing there’s a far more important predictor of a grad’s future success than the prestige of the school or faculty or even the price of tuition. What matters far more is the graduate’s “personal drive quotient.”
Nothing beats stick-to-it-ness and hard work when it comes to boosting success-absolutely nothing. And research continues to confirm that crucial fact.
One of the most fascinating recent studies on student achievement was conducted by Harold Stevenson, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. Stevenson sought to answer a question many Americans ask, “Why do Asian students do better academically than American students?”
Since 1979, Stevenson’s team of researchers conducted five intensive cross-national studies analyzing students’ achievement in the United States, China, Taiwan, and Japan. Hundreds of hours observing students and interviewing their teachers, the researchers reached a conclusion: a critical key lies in what parents emphasize about their children’s learning. Here’s the difference in parenting styles:
Asian parents strongly stress the value of effort with their children. Over and again they tell their children, “Work as hard as you can, and you will be successful.” By expecting their children to work hard, and emphasizing the attitude: “there are no excuses for poor grades, you just didn’t work hard enough,” perseverance is nurtured in Asian children. And the parental expectations had a remarkable effect on their children. The researchers found on the whole, Asian children worker longer and harder than their American counterparts because they had recognized their success was based on how hard they worked.
Instead of prioritizing how much effort our kids put into their learning attempts, research found that most American parents emphasized: “So what grade did you get?” or “How many did you miss?” or “Did you win?”
The researchers also found that the effort a child put into their process is not nearly as important to the American parent as the end product of the grade or score.
Stevenson also found American parents place a greater emphasis on their children’s innate abilities. They tend to lower their academic expectations for their children if they perceive them to have lower academic abilities.
An Asian parents’ philosophy is different: any child can succeed regardless of an IQ score or handicap–success is all a matter of how hard you are willing to work.
Just think a minute of the long term effect of stressing effort could have on our children!
Our kids would learn from an early age that there’s nothing that can stop them from succeeding if they put their heart and soul into their endeavors. They would see mistakes or failures as just temporary setbacks, instead of as excuses to quit. If they just keep on trying, and use their mistakes as learning clues, they’ll ultimately achieve their goals!
A picture is worth a thousand words? I just saved y'all a thousand words. The picture above shows your brain and your brain on football (or any sport with a high risk of repeat trauma to the head. Any questions.
From ESPN: Players still willing to hide head injuries
Ask Jacksonville Jaguars running back Maurice Jones-Drew whether he would try to play through a concussion or yank himself from a game, and he'll provide a straightforward answer.
"Hide it," the NFL's leading rusher said.
"The bottom line is: You have to be able to put food on the table. No one's going to sign or want a guy who can't stay healthy. I know there will be a day when I'm going to have trouble walking. I realize that," Jones-Drew said. "But this is what I signed up for. Injuries are part of the game. If you don't want to get hit, then you shouldn't be playing."
Other players say they would do the same: Hide it.
Results of AP's Concussion Survey
The Associated Press recently interviewed 44 NFL players -- at least one from each of the league's 32 teams -- to gauge whether concussion safety and attitudes about head injuries have changed in the past two years. Results
In a series of interviews about head injuries with The Associated Press over the last two weeks, 23 of 44 NFL players -- slightly more than half -- said they would try to conceal a possible concussion rather than pull themselves out of a game.
Changing the Culture of the Game or the Mind-Set. I'm not sure what it is going to take, but something will have to give.
The NFL likes to say that views about concussions have shifted from simply accepting they're part of the sport to doing what's possible to lessen impacts. Commissioner Roger Goodell talks about "changing the culture," so players don't try to "walk it off" after taking hits to the head.
Yet the AP's conversations with players showed there is room for more adjustments, which did not surprise Dr. Richard Ellenbogen, co-chairman of the NFL's head, neck and spine committee.
"The culture change takes awhile," Ellenbogen said in a telephone interview. "Why would these guys want to go out? They love playing the game. They don't want to leave their team. They want to win. I understand all that. And that's why we have to be on our toes with coming up with exams that are hard to beat, so to speak."
The typical jock advice to suck it up and get back in the game is not only bad, it's potentially life-threatening.
"If in doubt, sit them out" is the strong recommendation of Dr. Robert Cantu, one of the nation's leading experts on sports-related concussions and their consequences. Dr. Cantu, a co-author of the National Athletic Trainers' Association position paper on managing sport-related concussion.
The consequences of a repeat concussion are often long-lasting and sometimes permanent: persistent headaches, fatigue, difficulty paying attention, memory problems, mood swings and personality changes. In some cases, the result can be death.
At least four American high school students died last year from football head injuries. Most suffered from what is called second-impact syndrome, a rare but catastrophic dysregulation of brain activity that can occur when a young player sustains another hit before the brain has recovered from an earlier concussion."
I am just getting through reading the book Mindset: The New Psychology for Success and it is a keeper. I felt the same way after reading The Talent Code. Fantastic book with great application for coaches, parents and players or anyone who is more interested in success than failure. It may even change the way you think about things.
The website The Simple Dollar did an excellent review of the book and I highlighted the areas that struck me the most and are most applicable to what we discuss here routinely. I was particularly struck by her advice on how to more effectively praise success in students and how one way that many of us have likely practiced both routinely and reflexively, may in fact be counter-productive in the end. Much food for thought and a great book.
"In a nutshell, people are usually of one of two mindsets. The “fixed mindset” maintains that people’s ability is innate and static; the “growth mindset” claims that ability is the result of hard work and a learning process. Each of us tends to apply one of these two beliefs, to other people as much as to ourselves, as we go through life; and this has far-reaching consequences for our success and our relationships with those around us.
Of course, empirical evidence from all sorts of fields (from neuroscience to athletic coaching) tells us that the brain has remarkable plasticity, that performance is far more likely to result from sustained effort, and that people are coachable. But they have to be open and willing to grow: no amount of coaching will improve performance if the subject is stuck in a “fixed mindset”. It has been proven experimentally that even toddlers have one of the two mindsets (I can certainly relate this to my own experience as a child, and some of my residual barriers as a grown-up); and that mindset strongly correlates with performance even when it is briefly and temporarily induced."
The book is filled with illustrations from the world of sports, business, and education; for example, it is interesting to contrast the career of a fixed-mindset athlete like John McEnroe with those of growth-mindset ones such as Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and many other less well-known athletes. But beyond this, there are some persuasive insights about how we could bring about societal change. For example, it is the combination of fixed mindsets with gender stereotyping that explain why many girls and young women who decide to pursue maths and science studies end up leaving the field. Only the women with the growth mindset feel a strong and stable sense of belonging and are able to maintain it in the face of challenges.
At first glance, Mindset by Dr. Carol Dweck seemed to be one of those pop psychology books that I usually avoid – another The Secret or The Power of Positive Thinking. Books along those lines just repeat the same ideas that are as old as the hills (or Napoleon Hill, at least) – if you think positively and visualize good outcomes, they’re more likely to happen. Great – but it’s a principle that doesn’t work without action and has been around since the dawn of time.
As I said, I originally lumped Mindset into that group of books, writing it off as more of the same on positive thinking. Then something interesting happened – two different people that I respect quite a bit recommended the book to me within a week of each other. One was a personal friend who said it really changed how he looked at his career and at his relationship with his girlfriend – which surprised me, since he’s not a person I would imagine would typically follow pop psychology talk. Perhaps even more surprising, Jonathan Fields, a blogger and writer I’ve exchanged a lot of emails with over the years, wrote a brilliant article entitled Is Gifted and Talented a Life Sentence? that really shook how I thought about parenting issues with my own kids. Interestingly, Jonathan also pointed strongly towards Mindset as a powerful source of inspiration.
When two people I respect suggest the same book completely independently within a week of each other, it’s likely a book I should make an effort to read. And I’m glad I did.
The basic idea behind Mindset is that people either have a “fixed” mentality – a self-definition that is static and doesn’t or can’t change – or a “growth” mentality, meaning that with work and effort, they can change who they are. Dweck argues strongly that people who are successful in life have the “growth” mentality and offers a ton of ideas on how to get yourself – and those around you – from the “fixed” mindset to the “growth” mindset.
This is something I’ve come to believe in my own life, even before reading this book. The people that always seem to succeed are the people that are willing to really push themselves to the limit. Often, the person with the most natural talent doesn’t win the race – and for a long time, I didn’t understand why. This book (and the surprisingly similar Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell) explains it quite well. Let’s dig in.
1. The Mindsets
How do you feel when you fail?
Some people hate it, as they view it as a clear sign to the world and to themselves that they are, in fact, a failure.
Others love it. They see a failure as an opportunity to grow, to learn about the areas where they need to work, and to become a better, stronger person.
The first attitude points to what Dweck calls the “fixed” mindset. In other words, they believe that the person they are is already defined and the outcomes produced by that person are indicative of the person they are. They can’t change – all they can do is bluff and try to make who they are appear as good as possible.
The second attitude is the “growth” mindset. People who revel in failure recognize that a failure isn’t necessarily a poor reflection on them. Rather, it’s an opportunity to see where exactly they fall short and what exactly they need to work on. It’s a reminder not of where they cannot go, but an insight as to what they need to do to get there.
Here’s another way of looking at it: can you change who you are? People with a “fixed” mindset believe they can’t change. People with a “growth” mindset believe that they can change.
2. Inside the Mindsets
The difference in mindsets is interesting, but how does that really appear in terms of how people behave?
People with the “fixed” mindset often back away from challenges. They want to avoid hard things and prefer to thrive on easy things, things they know they can achieve. They also typically don’t like to read or learn, and they certainly don’t enjoy hard or deliberate practice.
People with the “growth” mindset seek out the challenges. They seek out the hard things in life and prefer to tackle things that push them and make them work hard, even if they fail at them. They usually love to read and learn, and they love practicing and improving at specific skills.
In an email exchange with a friend about this book, he stated it very well: “People with fixed mindsets get bored a lot. People with growth mindsets would give anything for a few more hours in the day.”
3. The Truth about Ability and Accomplishment
Here, the message of Mindset overlaps heavily with Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: the biggest key to success isn’t talent, but focus and practice.
To put it simply, the people that rise to the top of their fields do so because they keep working at it, keep growing, roll through the failures, and practice intensely and often. Kobe Bryant and LeBron James aren’t the two best players in the NBA because of their talent – they rose to the top because of their obsessive work ethics and focus on thriving even through adversity.
Although Dweck doesn’t mention it, I keep coming back to Gladwell’s example of The Beatles. If you listen to their earliest recordings – 1960 and before – they frankly weren’t very good at all (I probably sound better than some of their 1958 “Quarrymen” recordings). By 1963, they were amazing. By 1966, they were arguably the best songwriting and performing collective in the world. What happened? They played almost nonstop for years. They’d play for hours and hours each day in Hamburg nightclubs, then they’d play on their own when they weren’t on stage. They’d mess up songs, laugh it off, and try again – over and over and over and over. Eventually, they went from being the unknown Quarrymen (sounding like a bunch of kids beating on instruments – which they were) to recording albums like Revolver.
To put it simply, effort, not talent, puts people over the top.
Even more dangerous, labels such as talented and smart and skilled give people the opposite message. Hearing things like that tells people they already have the ability and that they don’t need to grow and work for it. The best positive feedback you can give – or receive – is one that complements you on your ethic or work effort, as it nurtures a growth mentality.
4. Sports: The Mindset of a Champion
Yes, we’ve all heard the story: Michael Jordan was cut from his eighth grade basketball team. He then practiced obsessively, made it to North Carolina on scholarship, and the rest is legend.
Michael’s early signals on basketball were that he wasn’t very good at it. If he had a fixed mindset, he would have simply quit after getting cut. Instead, he took getting cut as a giant motivator – he took that lesson and his own work ethic and made hay with them.
It isn’t just an ability to practice obsessively, either. When you reach the top, it takes character to stay there, and character only happens if you subscribe to a growth mindset. You’re not perfect – no one is. What sets the winners apart is that they recognize when they mess up, they accept that they messed up, and they work to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
5. Business: Mindset and Leadership
How do the mindsets work in a modern workplace? It’s pretty simple, actually.
A growth mentality in a workplace focuses on making everyone succeed by having the project succeed. A person with a growth mentality will take on any task that needs to be done to bring on success – often, the hardest tasks are the ones that the growth mentality relishes. A boss with a growth mentality will seek to do everything he or she can to make you better, because the better you are, the better the team is.
A fixed mentality in the workplace features individuals seeking to make themselves look better at the expense of others. Gossip is a great sign of this. Projects where no one steps up to the hard tasks is another sign. A dominating boss who takes credit for everything is yet another sign. A workplace without people pushing themselves and helping others is a workplace that can’t produce amazing things.
6. Relationships: Mindsets in Love (or Not)
Ever been dumped? Some people take it well: they’re hurt, but they recognize that there were problems and that it’s time to move on. Others don’t take it as well: they slip into depression, get angry, and won’t let go of the relationship.
This same dichotomy pops up again and again in interpersonal relationships: some relationships are healthy and mutually beneficial (like a good marriage), while others are not (like bullying or a stalker). What’s the difference? In a healthy relationship, you grow while in the relationship and you grow when the relationship ends – but it takes work to maintain. An unhealthy relationship doesn’t take that effort, but it doesn’t build positive feelings and often results in negative ones.
Every interaction is a chance for growth – or a chance to merely maintain some form of the status quo. Interactions that help people grow result in good relationships over time.
7. Parents, Teachers, and Coaches: Where Do Mindsets Come From?
When you are charged with helping someone else improve or grow, you have the ability to help them have a fixed mindset (likely not successful) or a growth mindset (potential for success).
Teachers, parents, and coaches all have these opportunities.
What can such a person really do, though? Dweck compares the approaches of Bobby Knight (who demanded perfection at all times, yelled a lot, and led his players to a fixed mindset where they had to act as perfect as they could whether or not that’s what was really inside of them) and John Wooden (who never raised his voice, focused almost entirely on fundamentals and character growth, didn’t worry about perfection, and strove to produce great people). Both saw great success in college basketball, but Wooden produced more people that went on to do great things in the world – the true product of a coach.
Praise your children and students for their work ethic and their hard effort. Don’t praise them for their talents or the “greatness” of their end product. If they make mistakes, don’t tell them they’re worthless – instead, guide them into what they can learn from the mistake and encourage them to try again.
8. Changing Mindsets
What if you’re in a fixed mindset, but desire to have a growth mindset instead? The first step is to ask for help from those around you and listen to what they have to say. They’re going to criticize you – and that’s where your real decision happens. Are you going to listen to what they have to say and try to grow from that? Or are you just going to discredit or pooh pooh it?
Another key tactic: realize that the world doesn’t owe you anything. You may be naturally talented. So what? The spoils don’t just fall to the people with natural talent. They fall to the people who can do the job well, on time, and with reliability. You might be the best jazz flautist in the world, but if you don’t practice your pieces and ignore what’s going on around you, no ensemble will want you around.
--- A growth mindset about our talents and abilities: psychologist Carol Dweck
Uploaded by TalentDevelop on Oct 26, 2009
Carol S. Dweck, PhD, a professor of psychology at Stanford, notes society tends to believe that geniuses are born, not made, but she thinks it is clear "from the histories of so many geniuses that motivation is a key component, perhaps the number one component in the realization of genius."
Other experts such as Peter Doskoch of Psychology Today and Geoffrey Colvin ("Talent Is Overrated") say what really counts in helping us realize our talents and abilities is a combination of passion and perseverance, determination and grit.
From my article It takes more than talent to find your true potential
http://talentdevelop.com/328/it-takes-more-than-talent/
Her book: Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345472322/talentdevelopmen
Review: A good book is one whose advice you believe. This is a book that can change your life, as its ideas have changed mine. Robert J. Sternberg, IBM Professor of Education and Psychology at Yale University, director of the PACE Center of Yale University, and author of Successful Intelligence.
Source for video clip: Psychology professor discusses 'growth' versus 'fixed' minds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-wD3M59Uiw
In a conversation with Stanford Report writer Lisa Trei, psychologist Carol Dweck says people's self-theories about intelligence have a profound influence on their motivation to learn. Those who hold a "fixed" theory are mainly concerned with how smart they are—they prefer tasks they can already do well and avoid ones on which they may make mistakes and not look smart. In contrast, she says, people who believe in a "growth" theory of intelligence want to challenge themselves to increase their abilities, even if they fail at first.
Carol Dweck quote "People are, to a large extent, in charge of their own intelligence" from video: 9 Growth Mindset Quotations
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPz_h-hAYWY
Related article (with videos): Interviews with Carol Dweck.
http://talentdevelop.com/articles/IWCD.html
Another article: Students Who Believe Intelligence Can Be Developed Perform Better
ScienceDaily news story on research of Carol Dweck, PhD and others.
http://talentdevelop.com/articles/SWBICBD.html
I remember when I was a bigger fan of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger and read the graduation speech Munger made outlining how students should have a "latticework of mental models" I was so smitten by the brilliance and simplicity of the concept that I kept repeating the words in my head over and over.
You get an PhD. in the game of life if you can learn the concepts and models outlined in this site.
A neat illustrative story at the end demonstrates how these models blend together in how you are talking about playing bridge or playing baseball. Interesting parallels in terms of mind-set.
“The better decision maker has at his/her disposal repertoires of possible actions; checklists of things to think about before he acts; and he has mechanisms in his mind to evoke these, and bring these to his conscious attention when the situations for decision arise.”
(Herbert Simon, Nobel Laureate)
How the exceptional mind works
According to Warren Buffett, his business partner, Charlie Munger has ‘the best 30-second mind in the world. He goes from A to Z in one move. He sees the essence of everything before you even finish the sentence’ (Forbes, January 22, 1996).
How does he do it?
Well, fortunately, Mr. Munger has explained his approach in lectures and books. Essentially, he thinks by using the BIG IDEAS from disciplines as diverse as physics and psychology. He has a list of these ideas (mental models) in his mind and quickly picks the one(s) applicable to the given situation, much as a pilot automatically goes through a checklist prior to take-off.
This website, inspired by the work of Charles Munger, provides over 100 models that can be brought consciously to mind to aid the thinking process.
Each model is described by at least one distinguished user. Examples include Warren Buffett, Richard Feynman, Robert Rubin and Peter Drucker, among others.
A mental model is an explanation of someone's thought process about how something works in the real world. It is a representation of the surrounding world, the relationships between its various parts and a person's intuitive perception about their own acts and their consequences. Our mental models help shape our behaviour and define our approach to solving problems (akin to a personal algorithm) and carrying out tasks.
A mental model is a kind of internal symbol or representation of external reality, hypothesized to play a major role in cognition, reasoning and decision-making. Kenneth Craik suggested in 1943 that the mind constructs "small-scale models" of reality that it uses to anticipate events.
Excerpt from Chapter I of "Investing: The Last Liberal Art" by Robert G. Hagstrom
A Latticework of Mental Models
How does one achieve worldly wisdom? To state the matter concisely, it is an
ongoing process of, first, acquiring the significant concepts--the models--from
many areas of knowledge and then, second, learning to recognize patterns of
similarity among them. The first is a matter of educating yourself; the second
is a matter of learning to think and see differently.
He challenged the students to broaden their vision of the market, of finance, and of economics in general; to see them not as separate disciplines but as part of a larger body of knowledge, one that also incorporates psychology, engineering, mathematics, physics, and the humanities.
In this broader view, he suggested, each discipline entwines with, and in the process strengthens, every other. From each discipline the thoughtful person draws significant mental models, the key ideas that combine to produce a cohesive understanding. Those who cultivate this broad view are well on their way to achieving worldly wisdom, that solid mental foundation without which success in the market--or anywhere else--is merely a short-lived fluke.
To drive his point home, Charlie used a memorable metaphor to describe this interlocking structure of ideas: a latticework of models. "You've got to have models in your head," he explained, "and you've got to array your experience-both vicarious and direct-on this latticework of models." So immediate is this visual image that latticework has become something of a shorthand term in the investment world, a quick and easily recognized reference to Munger's approach.
The quotes, talks, and speeches presented here are rooted in the old-fashioned Midwestern values for which Charlie has become known: lifelong learning, intellectual curiosity, sobriety, avoidance of envy and resentment, reliability, learning from the mistakes of others, perseverance, objectivity, willingness to test one’s own beliefs, and many more. But his advice comes not in the form of stentorian admonishments; instead, Charlie uses humor, inversions (following the directive of the great algebraist, Jacobi, to “Invert, always invert”), and paradox, to provide sage counsel about life’s toughest challenges.
Charlie also employs historical and business case studies to great effect. In these presentations, he makes his points with subtlety and texture, often using a story-like context instead of abstract statements of theory. He regales his audience with humorous anecdotes and poignant tales, rather than with a blizzard of facts and figures. He well knows, and wisely exploits, the traditional role of the storyteller as purveyor of complex and detailed information. As a result, his lessons hang together in a coherent “latticework” of knowledge, available for recall and use when needed.
It is clear throughout these talks and speeches that Charlie places a premium on life decisions over investment decisions. His mental models, drawn from every discipline imaginable, recur repeatedly and, in no way, focus on “business portfolio strategy” or “beta” or “Cap M.” Rather, they center on fundamental truth, human accomplishment, human foibles, and the arduous path to wisdom. Charlie once said, “I wanted to get rich so I could be independent, like Lord John Maynard Keynes.” Independence is the end that wealth serves for Charlie, not the other way around.
HANDLING LOSSES IN AN ENVIRONMENT WHERE WINNING IS IMPORTANT:
"After all is said and done, learning to handle losses will be your greatest triumph." -- Robert Prechter.
More from Prechter:
There are many denials of reality which automatically disqualify millions of people from joining the ranks of successful speculators. For instance, to moan that "pools," "manipulators," "insiders," "they," "the big boys" or "program trading" (known today as "high-frequency trading" -- Ed.) are to blame for one's losses is a common fault.
Anyone who utters such a conviction is doomed before he starts. [My] observation, after eleven years "in the business," is that the biggest obstacle to successful speculation is the failure merely even to recognize and accept the simple fact that losses are part of the game, and that they must be accommodated.
The perfect trading system does not exist. Expecting, or even hoping for, perfection is a guarantee of failure. Speculation is akin to batting in baseball. A player hitting .300 is good. A player hitting .400 is great. But even the great player fails to hit 60% of the time! He even strikes out often. But he still earns six figures a year, because although not perfect, he has approached the best that can be achieved. You don't have to be perfect to win in the markets, either; you "merely" have to be better than almost everybody else, and that's hard enough.
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I read an investment article recently from the Hussman Funds titled "Why Warren Buffet Plays Bridge" and it is especially appropriate to the craft of hitting in baseball in addition to long-term success in investing.
The reason relates to the story Buffet's mentor the legendary investor Benjamin Graham tells about the game of bridge. Focus on the process not the results.
"I recall to those of you who are bridge players the emphasis that bridge experts place on playing a hand right rather than on playing it successfully, Because as you know, if you play it right you are going to make money an d if you play it wrong you lose money - in the long run.
There is a beautiful little story about the man who was the weaker bridge player of the husband-and-wife team. It seems he bid a grand slam, and at the end he said very triumphantly to his wife 'I saw you making faces at me all the time, but you notice I not only bid this grand slam but I made it. What can you say about that?' And his wife replied very dourly, 'If you had played it right you would have lost it."
The author rightly observes that it takes restraint to play the game " the right way", with an established "discipline" or approach and let the law of averages work out in your favor. You don't try to win every hand. He describes having the right "temperament" to execute the "approach" and not deviate from it.
The same temperament and approach leads to success in baseball.
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"Anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we're always "against" things — we're never "for" anything. Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so." - Ronald Reagan
Successful women know only too well that in any male-dominated profession, we often find ourselves at a distinct disadvantage. We are routinely underestimated, underutilized, and even underpaid. Studies show that women need to perform at extraordinarily high levels, just to appear moderately competent compared to our male coworkers.
But in my experience, smart and talented women rarely realize that one of the toughest hurdles they'll have to overcome to be successful lies within. Compared with our male colleagues, we judge our own abilities not only more harshly but fundamentally differently. Understanding why we do it is the first step to righting a terrible wrong. And to do that, we need to take a step back in time.
Chances are good that if you are a successful professional today, you were a pretty bright fifth grade girl. My graduate advisor, psychologist Carol Dweck (author of 'Mindset') conducted a series of studies in the 1980s, looking at how Bright Girls and boys in the fifth grade handled new, difficult and confusing material.
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She found that Bright Girls, when given something to learn that was particularly foreign or complex, were quick to give up; the higher the girls' IQ, the more likely they were to throw in the towel. In fact, the straight-A girls showed the most helpless responses. Bright boys, on the other hand, saw the difficult material as a challenge, and found it energizing. They were more likely to redouble their efforts rather than give up.
Why does this happen? What makes smart girls more vulnerable and less confident when they should be the most confident kids in the room? At the 5th grade level, girls routinely outperform boys in every subject, including math and science. So there were no differences between these boys and girls in ability, nor in past history of success. The only difference was how bright boys and girls interpreted difficulty -- what it meant to them when material seemed hard to learn. Bright Girls were much quicker to doubt their ability, to lose confidence and to become less effective learners as a result.
Researchers have uncovered the reason for this difference in how difficulty is interpreted, and it is simply this: More often than not, Bright Girls believe that their abilities are innate and unchangeable, while bright boys believe that they can develop ability through effort and practice.
How do girls and boys develop these different views? Most likely, it has to do with the kinds of feedback we get from parents and teachers as young children. Girls, who develop self-control earlier and are better able to follow instructions, are often praised for their "goodness." When we do well in school, we are told that we are "so smart," "so clever, " or "such a good student." This kind of praise implies that traits like smartness, cleverness and goodness are qualities you either have or you don't.
Boys, on the other hand, are a handful. Just trying to get boys to sit still and pay attention is a real challenge for any parent or teacher. As a result, boys are given a lot more feedback that emphasizes effort (e.g., "If you would just pay attention you could learn this," "If you would just try a little harder you could get it right.") The net result: When learning something new is truly difficult, girls take it as sign that they aren't "good" and "smart," and boys take it as a sign to pay attention and try harder.
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We continue to carry these beliefs, often unconsciously, around with us throughout our lives. And because Bright Girls are particularly likely to see their abilities as innate and unchangeable, they grow up to be women who are far too hard on themselves -- women who will prematurely conclude that they don't have what it takes to succeed in a particular arena, and give up way too soon.
Even if every external disadvantage to a woman's rising to the top of an organization is removed -- every inequality of opportunity, every chauvinistic stereotype, all the challenges we face balancing work and family -- we would still have to deal with the fact that through our mistaken beliefs about our abilities, we may be our own worst enemy.
How often have you found yourself avoiding challenges and playing it safe, sticking to goals you knew would be easy for you to reach? Are there things you decided long ago that you could never be good at? Skills you believed you would never possess? If the list is a long one, you were probably one of the Bright Girls -- and your belief that you are "stuck" being exactly as you are has done more to determine the course of your life than you probably ever imagined. This would be fine, if your abilities were innate and unchangeable. Only they're not.
No matter the ability -- whether it's intelligence, creativity, self-control, charm or athleticism -- studies show them to be profoundly malleable. When it comes to mastering any skill, your experience, effort and persistence matter a lot. So if you were a Bright Girl, it's time to toss out your (mistaken) belief about how ability works, embrace the fact that you can always improve and reclaim the confidence to tackle any challenge that you lost so long ago.
SAME CAN BE SAID FOR WINNERS!!! LUCK HAS LITTLE IMPACT IN DETERMINING WINNERS LONG-TERM.
I read a couple of articles that highlight some of the difficulties teams have come draft time. The reason that the draft sometimes seems like such a crap shoot, especially if you focus exclusively on the more highly decorated success / failure stories.
Some of the commenters, after the jump of this story, try to spin it into a racial argument but really they miss the entire point of the article IMO. Can anyone really control your effort level? Isn't that what coaches preach, take care of the things you can control? And isn't hustle or effort at or near the top of the list.
ST. PETE TIMES ARTICLE ON THE SUCCESS QUALITIES OF VALEDICTORIANS
In last Sunday's Neighborhood Times feature, "They rose to the occasion," the valedictorians and salutatorians were asked to give their "parting thoughts" by answering five questions.
Two of the questions caught my attention because the answers reveal the major sources of the students' achievement. The students were asked to discuss the "secret" to their success so far, and they were asked to identify the one person who has influenced their lives.
To the first question, the majority said that hard work, motivation and determination were their secrets.
My favorite two four letter words, HARD WORK.
The SPT Article cites:
- Hard Work, motivation and determination cited as qualities that led them to success and the top of the list of valedictorians and salutatorians in their schools. PERSEVERANCE.
- Becoming a valedictorian is similar to a HS player getting drafted in terms of percentile % of kids that participate versus those that rise to this the desired level of success. About 1 in 500-1,000 per class?
- These same qualities--observable but not easily measurable--are unfortuantely what tends to be the difference-maker, what will ultimately separate the high-draft pick that blossoms into a super-star versus the one who turns into a bust.
- It is the same qualities that will give us the free-agent who turns into a quality players at the major league level, in spite of having none of the more easily observable, readily measurable qualities.
It's easy to look at the Peyton Manning / Ryan Leaf draft and say that all this player evaluation / NFL combine stuff is so much wasteful exercise. By the same token, you can look at some of the more successful teams that use the centralized information better than their peers and succeed, and say the process works.
At the team level, we can point to the examples like the University of Michigan continuing to turn to Drew Henson over Tom Brady to show that the intangible qualities that many times you can see and feel but can't quite put a number on will sometimes conspire to throw objective analysis and reliance on measurable standards for a loop.
The player evaluation system works better in the NFL than in the pre-combine days. It is not a perfect system, but is continually evolving and getting better and while the goal is perfection-- a goal that theoretically can never be achieved -- the victory is in continually improving the product and the results. Especially in this day and age of ever-escalating bonuses. Teams simply must be able to justify their investment dollar decisions more objectively than in the past.
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Financial expert Dave Ramsey uses the analogy of having a Gazelle-like Intensity in order to modify behavior and get out of debt when the culture does everything possible to encourage you to be in debt.
- 19 of 20 gazelles under attack eventually evade the cheetah, even though the cheetah is faster than the gazelle.
- The main reason is that while the cheetah is faster in a straight line than the gazelle, if the gazelle manages to zig-zag his way long enough to prolong the pursuit, the cheetah eventually tires and goes on to a weaker prey. The ones that fail are the weaker ones who quit and die.
We do not have the tools to measure this type of quality objectively in humans, so we are left to subjective analysis in our grading. "The kid is a gamer", "A bulldog", "The intensity of a junkyard dog".
HARD WORK, PERSEVERANCE, INTENSITY, FOCUS - DETERMINE SUCCESS OR FAILURE IN SPORTS,
BUT THEY ARE OF LIFE AND DEATH IMPORTANCE TO THE GAZELLE.
They are all factors that allow the "chosen few" to rise to the top and to do so often against peers who appear on the surface to be equally well-endowed as far as the physical gifts that are required for success. Could any of us identify the gazelle that is most likely to give up in its pursuit by the cheetah?
According to Ramsey, gazelle intensity is a role play exercise. The gazelle has to be smarter, not faster, than the cheetah to escape it. In Ramsey’s world, you are the gazelle, and the credit card company is the cheetah. To escape the cheetah, you must be smarter than it. Just as the gazelle has to bob and weave to avoid the cheetah’s single minded straight line attack (apparently, a cheetah is only super-fast when running in a straight line), we must bob and weave and stay on our toes like a gazelle with never-ending intensity to avoid the credit card’s evil single-minded attack via numerous offers and specials and rewards.
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There are 10-15 kids in each graduating class every year that have the inherent academic skills necessary to be the class valedictorian. But only one makes it each year. I suspect it is often the one that has that gazelle-like, almost life-or-death devotion to success.
There are 10-15 baseball players drafted each year that have the requisite ability to succeed at the major league level. Certainly every first-round pick should be capable enough to succeed from the standpoint of physical gifts. But five years after each draft, you can review the selections and wonder what happened to well over more than half of them.
Only 1-2 attack the mission of gettig from draft-day to major league debut with "gazelle-like" intensity needed for success.
THIS STORY ILLUSTRATES THE ISSUE PERFECTLY:
One day a hound dog went hunting by himself in the woods. He spotted a rabbit in the underbrush and chased him out into the open. The rabbit darted this way and that. The dog followed. The rabbit ran, with the dog at his heels, around trees and through an open field.
When the dog began to tire of the chase, the rabbit, with one last burst of energy, dashed into the thicket and escaped to safety.
As the dog turned back for home, a goat herder who had seen the chase jeered at him, saying, "Some hunter you are! You let that rabbit get the best of you!"
"You forget," replied the tired dog, "about the rabbit's strife! I was only running for my supper. He was running for his life!"
In summary, Ramsey is illustrating that in order to get out of debt ( a financial goal ), you have to want it as if your life depends on it!
He uses the following bible verse as an example:
“Give no sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids. Deliver yourself like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter, and like a bird from the hand of the fowler.” - Proverbs 6:5-5
Many times, elite coaches in sports or events that are geared even more towards standardization are surprised by the success of athletes who did not measure up well in the so-called "measurables".
This casts doubt on whether we really know what we are looking for come draft day. What qualities correlate best to future success? Perseverance, confidence in oneself, the patience to tolerate the deliberate practice required to make small gradual improvements at ones craft. These are the qualities one must have to tolerate the 10,000 hours some experts say are required to become an elite master at almost every craft.
Perhaps in the future we will be able to develop a better test to determine who has this "gazelle-like" intensity and perseverance or, better yet, how to develop it in every athlete.
Maybe more of an emphasis on these positive qualities over winning and losing as part of the sports culture.
Oh Slav, there you go dreaming of a better day.....
ADDITIONAL READING:
from the article:
Identifying Talent: What Really Matters by Daniel Coyle author of The Talent Code (highly recommended book)
1. Joey Bart 6-2, 215 C Power arm and a power bat, playing a premium defensive position. Good catch and throw skills.
2. Heliot Ramos 6-2, 185 OF Potential high-ceiling player the Giants have been looking for. Great bat speed, early returns were impressive.
3. Chris Shaw 6-3. 230 1B Lefty power bat, limited defensively to 1B, Matt Adams comp?
4. Tyler Beede 6-4, 215 RHP from Vanderbilt projects as top of the rotation starter when he works out his command/control issues. When he misses, he misses by a bunch.
5. Stephen Duggar 6-1, 170 CF Another toolsy, under-achieving OF in the Gary Brown mold, hoping for better results.
6. Sandro Fabian 6-0, 180 OF Dominican signee from 2014, shows some pop in his bat. Below average arm and lack of speed should push him towards LF.
7. Aramis Garcia 6-2, 220 C from Florida INTL projects as a good bat behind the dish with enough defensive skill to play there long-term
8. Heath Quinn 6-2, 190 OF Strong hitter, makes contact with improving approach at the plate. Returns from hamate bone injury.
9. Garrett Williams 6-1, 205 LHP Former Oklahoma standout, Giants prototype, low-ceiling, high-floor prospect.
10. Shaun Anderson 6-4, 225 RHP Large frame, 3.36 K/BB rate. Can start or relieve
11. Jacob Gonzalez 6-3, 190 3B Good pedigree, impressive bat for HS prospect.
12. Seth Corry 6-2 195 LHP Highly regard HS pick. Was mentioned as possible chip in high profile trades.
13. C.J. Hinojosa 5-10, 175 SS Scrappy IF prospect in the mold of Kelby Tomlinson, just gets it done.
14. Garett Cave 6-4, 200 RHP He misses a lot of bats and at times, the plate. 13 K/9 an 5 B/9. Wild thing.
2019 MLB Draft - Top HS Draft Prospects
1. Bobby Witt, Jr. 6-1,185 SS Colleyville Heritage HS (TX) Oklahoma commit. Outstanding defensive SS who can hit. 6.4 speed in 60 yd. Touched 97 on mound. Son of former major leaguer. Five tool potential.
2. Riley Greene 6-2, 190 OF Haggerty HS (FL) Florida commit.Best HS hitting prospect. LH bat with good eye, plate discipline and developing power.
3. C.J. Abrams 6-2, 180 SS Blessed Trinity HS (GA) High-ceiling athlete. 70 speed with plus arm. Hitting needs to develop as he matures. Alabama commit.
4. Reece Hinds 6-4, 210 SS Niceville HS (FL) Power bat, committed to LSU. Plus arm, solid enough bat to move to 3B down the road. 98MPH arm.
5. Daniel Espino 6-3, 200 RHP Georgia Premier Academy (GA) LSU commit. Touches 98 on FB with wipe out SL.
2019 MLB Draft - Top College Draft Prospects
1. Adley Rutschman C Oregon State Plus defender with great arm. Excellent receiver plus a switch hitter with some pop in the bat.
2. Shea Langliers C Baylor Excelent throw and catch skills with good pop time. Quick bat, uses all fields approach with some pop.
3. Zack Thompson 6-2 LHP Kentucky Missed time with an elbow issue. FB up to 95 with plenty of secondary stuff.
4. Matt Wallner 6-5 OF Southern Miss Run producing bat plus mid to upper 90's FB closer. Power bat from the left side, athletic for size.
5. Nick Lodolo LHP TCU Tall LHP, 95MPH FB and solid breaking stuff.
