In my last post I wrote myself out onto a limb and almost cut it off behind me.  In part I was led out onto the limb by the author of the the book I was relying on for insight, Carol Dwerk in Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.

Here’s the insight:  There are two basic mindsets, a “Fixed Mindset” which desires to look smart and a “Growth Mindset” which desires to learn.

So here’s the path I followed out onto the limb:  Learning is a good thing.  The the desire to look smart shuts down learning whereas the desire to learn reinforces learning and continually opens up new avenues for learning.  Therefore it is preferable to develop the growth mindset and value learning more than looking smart.  So far, so good.  But then comes the tricky part, with the move from analysis and evaluation to advice.  Dr. Dwerk asks her readers to make a subtle move from “a growth mindset is more useful for learning than a fixed mindset”, to “people who adopt the Growth Mindset have made a smarter choice than people who haven’t.”  Giving advice often comes close to saying, “You should start thinking like me because I’m smart.”

Unfortunately and unwittingly, I followed Dr. Dwerk down this path to the point of giving out advice.  At least one reader noticed it and told me about it.

Ironically, for Dr. Dwerk and for me, once a person begins to hand out advice, he exposes a desire to look smart.  Here is how this process works out within the two mindset paradigm:  A person comes to see the practical reasons for wanting to learn more than wanting to look smart.  So he adopts a Growth Mindset and it works; he begins to learn much more than when he was stuck in a Fixed Mindset.  Now that he is learning more he actually appears to be smarter than he had before, and that feels good.  The pragmatic choice to desire learning more than looking smart has satisfied his deep desire to look smart.  He never really let go of that desire.  This is because it is much easier to understand the Growth Mindset and to think differently than it is to understand one’s deep desires and to let go of the desire to look smart.

Our desires have a momentum which is independent of the mindsets we may adopt.  Actually wanting something is very different from wanting to want something.  So how do I move from wanting my desire to learn to take precedence over my desire to look smart, to actually wanting to learn?

One of the ways I have worked on this for a long time is by examining my desire to be right.  I keep telling myself—I keep having to tell myself:

  • I would rather be good than be right
  • I would rather be kind than be right
  • I would rather write than be right (thus my email address)

And when I write I have to keep reminding myself that I would rather write to learn than write to unload my opinions or argue my case.  This is easier when I am writing poetry than prose.  I write to try to understand, to see more clearly and to hear more distinctly; and to try to think more broadly and more deeply, to see things which were hidden and to hear things lost in the din.  A practice of writing to learn instead of arguing to be right is one way to cultivate my desire to learn and lessen my desire to look smart.

Here are a few other ways:

  • Value curiosity along with knowledge
  • Value playing with ideas along with formulating them
  • Value improv wisdom (Patricia Ray Madson, Improv Wisdom) together with planned learning
  • Value circular and pictorial/metaphorical thinking along with linear and literal thinking
  • Value questions more than answers
  • Read and write poetry as well as prose
  • Practice my beliefs (value living consistency along with internal and textual consistency)
  • Listen more than I speak
  • Pay attention
  • Be present
  • Slow down
  • Make time to quiet my internal conversation
beyond the breakers
I trust my breath
to swell and trough

I want to desire to learn more than I desire to look smart.  I have begun that work and am glad about it.  This post is one attempt to stay on that path.