This story comes straight from Carol Dweck’s amazing book Mindset.
Phil ,14 years old, was working on a project with his dad when he dropped a bucket of nails all over the place.
“Sorry, I’m so clumsy,” said Phil
Dad, “That’s not what we say when the nails spill.”
Phil, “What do we say?”
Dad, “We say the nails spilled. I’ll clean them up.”
So easy and so good. I absolutely love this one. You aren’t a failure because you spilled the nails. You just spilled the nails — no big deal.
You did bad on a test?
You’ve done bad on a whole bunch of tests. You aren’t a bad test taker forever. You can change. You can get better. You aren’t a goose. You don’t have to keep flying south for the winter.
An excellent place to start with The Final Step. It will help you build confidence in your question-answering skills. Give it a look.
Brian Wallace
