YOUR INTELLIGENCE— FIXED OR MALLEABLE?

Your belief— your reality. Here’s an example. Some years ago researcher, Carol S. Dweck, created a distinction in intelligence which has proven to be a rich and extremely useful concept. As a trainer, it will help you personally and it will enrich your trainings. She distinguished people who believe that their intelligence is fixed by nature (genetics) and those who believe that their intelligence is malleable.

The fixed intelligence believers think that smartness as something that they have or don’t have, something they have and others don’t have, and when they have it, it makes them special and worthy. The consequence of this belief is that they then focus on looking smart. How they look to themselves and others become critically important to them. Ironically, when this happens, they stop challenging themselves, and have less and less interest in stretching and expanding their skills. Instead, what they focus on is “proving” that they are smart.

Does it surprise you that these people do not want to be benchmarked or put to the test? Of course not. For them, intelligence is a fixed trait. You only have a certain finite amount of it and you can’t get more of it.