TED Talk Tuesday #209 – The power of believing you can improve

“The grade of not yet”

At school we are taught to and aim to do our best to achieve the best possible grade (marks and results) that we are able to. What would happen if we received a grade of “not yet” rather than a “fail” would we learn differently and embrace the lessons from the process?

Do we dealing with challenges or do we run from errors? Something that is incredibly relevant to consider as continue to address COVID 19 and roll-out vaccines around the globe.

I came across an impressive stat while on LinkedIn over the weekend. It had been shared by Martin Harbech… “In the 7 years since Satya Nadella took over as Microsoft CEO, their market cap has grown from $300 billion to $1.9 trillion.”  It led me to fix this TED Talk as practicing a growth mindset is one of the core ingredients that Satya has used to turn Microsoft into the business it is today.

A growth mindset encourages us to embrace “yet”, allowing us to reward the process rather than the outcome. There is much that we don’t know in 2021 and the horizon can at times appear uncertain, but if we embrace the learnings from having a growth mindset we can allow ourselves to say that don’t have the answers “yet”.

Carol Dweck researches “growth mindset” — the idea that we can grow our brain’s capacity to learn and to solve problems. In this talk, she describes two ways to think about a problem that’s slightly too hard for you to solve. Are you not smart enough to solve it … or have you just not solved it yet? A great introduction to this influential field.

TED continues to spread ideas and help us all be better critical thinkers. Watching, listening and talking about TED Talks is a popular pastime for many in the CN&CO community.

We visit TED.com regularly to clear our heads, have a laugh, learn or get inspired. TED Talks open our minds, spark new ways of thinking and can lead to some very interesting conversations and business opportunities.

Each week we pick a favourite and publish it on a Tuesday, because we like how “TED Talk Tuesday” sounds. It’s also a way that the CN&CO team play their part in spreading ideas and helping to make the world a better place.