S08|23 - Growth Mindset, Fixed Mindset, and Toxic Achievement Culture

Sometimes the best prize of all isn’t a trophy. In a culture where outcome production and tangible results are celebrated, how do we teach our kids to accept all parts of themselves- mistakes, bumps in the road, big emotions, and all? Join this conversation with Chasta Hamilton and me, as we discuss this topic and her new children’s book “The Trophy Trap”. 

Orphaned as a child, Chasta found comfort in the creativity, play, and catharsis of the performing arts. This led to a life as an arts entrepreneur, where she believes that everyone has the power to reach their fullest potential and disrupt the status quo in an empowering and inspiring way. She’s a founder and CEO as well as a bestselling author (Trash the Trophies and Handle the Horrible) and speaker (TEDx: “You Weren’t Built to Break”). 

Today you’ll hear: 

• How we often teach growth mindset (and other socioemotional skills) in performative and ineffective ways, and how we can change things.
• Less talk about the “outcome” and more about the process (ie. Allowing failure and discussing it, without the shame). 
• How to create a culture of leaders and changemakers through allowing more vulnerability, authenticity, and celebrating of our children’s inner voice. 
• Growing self-awareness in our kids (and letting the next generation of youth change the world for the better). 

Connect with Chasta:
Website: https://www.chastahamilton.com/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/chastahamilton
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chastahamilton/

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Parent School: Discover your own unique path, with confidence… raising emotionally intelligent children that leave your home knowing that you truly, deeply care for them… that you aways have, and you always will. Isn’t that we all want deep down? That is my goal for me, and for you… and for the future generation for children we are raising. To be seen. To be heard. To be valued. To feel loved. To feel supported. To feel known. To welcome them to be themselves- fully and completely. That is The Work. I am here for it. Welcome. 

Join me for the LAST LIVE round of Parent School:

• shame resiliency: how to feel shame and move through it, what triggers us and why, and how to move through heaviness and use it for growth. 
• emotional regulation: what co-regulation is and how to support our children from our energy- not our words (not scripts and mantras, this work is much deeper than that), how to support ourselves and our kids through big emotions.
• the power of our thoughts and beliefs: how to separate who we are from what we think, how to create the exact relationship we want through the power of our mind 
• connection-based parenting: why it’s the way of the future, how to parent in a relationship-first manner, developing deep and lasting connections that last a lifetime.

Find all the information HERE.
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Crystal The Parenting Coach: Hi, I'm Crystal The Parenting Coach. Parenting is the thing that some of us just expected to know how to do. It's not like other areas of your life where you go to school and get taught, get on the job training, or have mentors to help you, but now you can get that help here.

I believe that your relationship with your children is one of the most important aspects of your life, and the best way that you can make a positive impact on the world and on the future. I've made parental relationships my life study; and I use life coaching tools, emotional wellness tools, and connection-based parenting to build amazing relationships between parents and their children.

If you want an even better relationship with your child, this podcast will help you. Take my Parenting Quiz, the link is in the show notes. Once we know what your parenting style is, we will send some tips tailored to you and a roadmap to help you get the most out of my podcast.

Growth Mindset, Fixed Mindset, and Toxic Achievement Culture 

 

Sometimes the best prize of all isn't a trophy. In a culture where outcome production and tangible results are celebrated, how do we teach our kids to accept all parts of themselves – mistakes, bumps in the road, big emotions, failures and all? 

Join this conversation with Chasta Hamilton and I as we discuss this topic and her new children's book, The Trophy Trap. Chasta was orphaned as a child and found comfort in the creativity play and catharsis of the Performing Arts. This led her to become an arts entrepreneur where she built a whole dance production studio and a nonprofit organization called Girls Geared for Greatness. 

We're going to talk all about her book and about growth mindset, fixed mindset, how we teach this in non performative ways and actually tangible ways, talking less about the outcome and more about the process…creating a culture of leaders and change makers through allowing more vulnerability, authenticity, and celebrating our children's inner voice – and helping grow self-awareness of our kids, and letting the next generation of youth change the world for the better. 

Hello everyone, and welcome to the podcast. If you have been here for a while, you know that the gist of this podcast really is connection in parenting, parenting in a very different way than our parents often parented us – getting rid of shame in parenting, focusing on connection, focusing on intuition, and us becoming our own parenting experts so that we can raise those calm, confident kids that we love to be around. So, that's our jam here. 

And one of the things I talk about a lot is how we teach that; and the how of how we teach that is through us modeling that behavior, having that connection and attachment, and having our children see that behavior from us and learning it naturally.

But a lot of times I say like, modeling's, like 80%, and there's also this 20% where we want to be focusing on actually teaching those skills – whether that's through conversation or play or reading or whatever. And so, I love when those opportunities come that I think are really great. 

Recently I had just finished playing this board game called Hey Feelings that they sent me; you can go check that out…they just finished their Kickstarter campaign for that, where you can play with your kids and learn about feelings. And so, when my friend Chasta reached out to me and said, "Hey, I have this book that is coming out." 

I was like, 'Yes, yes, yes.' 

Because I think that younger kids learn really well, specifically from stories and play; and I think that these concepts that we're trying to teach and that we're trying to model can also be taught so well to young children through reading and play. And that's what we're going to talk about on the podcast today. 

 

What Chasta Hamilton does and how she got started

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, that was a very long introduction, but welcome to the podcast, Chasta, and let us know a little bit about you and what you do.

 

Chasta Hamilton: Thank you, Crystal. My name is Chasta Hamilton, and I'm so happy to be a part of this community today because I really admire the philosophy and practice that Crystal is supporting and encouraging and teaching us all. And I've learned a lot about that over the years. 

I am based in Raleigh, North Carolina in the United States; and I run dance and Performing Arts institutions for children ages 2 to 18, which I've done for 15 years. And in that space, I've become not only an educator – but a thought leader, an author, a speaker. 

And a lot of these concepts are so relevant, like far beyond dance – far beyond the Performing Arts. And what I like to do is I really like to cultivate a conversation of how can we not only teach skills, but how can we create leaders…change makers, children that feel very confident and empowered in their intrinsically designed abilities and dreams versus feeling like they have to serve a system or a model or an institution that's already been established.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: 100%. And I love a few things that you said. One is teaching them intrinsically. And I think the old modalities of parenting and of teaching and of just like what we did in the world, taught things in a very extrinsic way. It was very much like…do this so you get this outcome so that you get a sticker on your sticker chart, so you get the reward or you avoid the punishment or whatever. 

And because we've been teaching it in an extrinsic way, people have not been internalizing it. And now we're kind of adults and we're like figuring this out, and we're kind of doing our own healing and figuring it out our own path, and realizing like, okay, we didn't actually learn these things as intrinsically as we like to think that we did. 

And I would love to create a new society, a new generation of thought leaders, of change makers – like you're saying, of leaders – that are naturally that way because of how they were raised. And that happens not just in our homes; that also happens in our communities and our churches and our schools and all the places that our children are.

So, tell me first of all, before we get into the book, tell me kind of what you saw-- And also, I should preface that this is like a cute little kid's book with really cute illustrations, and we'll talk about that in a bit. But what, kind of, was your motivating factor behind like, I want to write this book? Like, how did that come to be?

 

Chasta Hamilton: Yeah, and it was-- It was a multi-year process, and it all kind of started five or six years into our dance studios. I was looking around and I was like, I think the model that everyone is subscribing to is toxic. Like, it was very counterintuitive to my vision. 

And I had a very unique childhood, I lost both of my parents when I was young. My dad passed away when I was two, and my mom when I was nine; luckily a lot of people poured a lot of good into me, and I really wanted to keep, you know, giving that back. 

But I was just looking around and I was like, this winning…this need for trophies, recognition is completely counteractive to the teamwork – like the inner voice, the authenticity, the vulnerability, all of those pieces of ingredients that are the recipe to true long-term success versus an instant dopamine kick that's going to go away pretty fast. And you lose all of the really good spirit of humanity. 

So, I said, "I want to reconceptualize what this can look like." 

So, we extracted our studios from dance competitions and said, "Let's redesign what heightened dance training can look like and let's see how we can teach our students to just be intrinsically competitive – competitive at kindness, competitive at giving back, competitive about being a part of the community – but not necessarily like competitive for the ego, but competitive for far beyond that." 

And you know, it took a few years to kind of get that rebrand going, but we realized like, this was speaking to this new model of parenting that is emerging. And I wrote a book about that first called Trash the Trophies: How to Win Without Losing Your Soul, and that came out in 2020. And that was during the pandemic, which was a great opportunity to be reminded of adaptability, perseverance, resilience, all of these character traits that are so necessary.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: What really matters, really. 

 

Chasta Hamilton: What really matters. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Let's tell people what really matters, especially in a time where you couldn't even get together and do dance, COVID time.

 

Chasta Hamilton: Yeah. So, we said, let's pour into, really lean into that community connection and see what happens on the other side. And it was kind of like a fireball for us because we really knew our values. We knew who we were, we were culturally aligned with our community. 

And another-- a second book came out at that time that I wrote called Handle the Horrible: Change. Triage. Joy., which was kind of a more universal concept of why do we do what we do and how do we really prioritize the things that are most important? 

I was a new mom at the time, I have a 3-year-old. So, I was kind of thinking about all these deep thoughts, as parents often do – am I doing this right or what could be done differently? How has what I've learned in the dance studios applied to my parenting, and how can I take my parenting lessons and apply them back to my business? 

And you know, as we continue to stabilize things were going well. And then this past year, I started seeing just-- I really thought there would be kind of this big correction post-pandemic. And what I was seeing is people just kind of like revving up this toxic achievement culture even more. 

And we were losing sight of mattering and belonging – not necessarily in our institutions, but like out in society. And it was just really weighing on my heart. And I lost both of my grandmas this past year. They loved children, they loved education more than anything. 

And I just felt like the voices of produce, produce, produce, were getting louder and louder, and I'm seeing the toll it's taking on the children. And I just said, "What if we could put this in a really cute short children's book, this message of you are worthy and you can have dreams and you can turn them into plans?" 

And we all experience disappointment and that's okay, but bigger than the disappointment is, how are you going to choose to live every single day that you have placed in front of you? And it just felt like a very timely message, and I'm just so grateful to have it out to the world.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. And I think that message, like that toxic achievement culture, you said, relating it back to parenting and from the society that we were raised in, it was very much like, you are good, you can feel good about yourself and be a good person…if you do good. 

So, it was all about productivity. It was all about, what are my grades and how good of a job do I get and promotion, and is my GPA 4.0…and what kind of degree did I get, at what college? Like, it was so much about the outcome. 

And like you said, when it's so much about the outcome, we lose things like inner voice and vulnerability and authenticity; and we aren't okay with failures, we aren't okay with mistakes. 

So, one of the things I love about your book is that it's focusing on the process. And for me that really means allowing ourselves to be authentic, to be vulnerable, to fail, to talk about the failures, to talk about the difficulties, and not just talk about when things go right.

 

The Trophy Trap by Chasta Hamilton

Crystal The Parenting Coach: So, I would love for you to talk a little bit about that. Like, the message you feel like your book is giving to families, to society, to the world.

 

Chasta Hamilton: Absolutely. And you know, I think with the message it's saying, "Yeah, let's be competitive. And sometimes we're going to feel nervous and we're going to look around and we're going to be conflicted because we're going to be there with our friends and we're going to want them to win. Versus focusing on outcomes that we may or may not have control over, let's focus on bringing our best to every single thing that we do. And when maybe that goes wrong, let's have a moment and let's talk about it."

And you know, I love this moment where the dog that loses is feeling very sad. And you know, he goes to his parents and they say how proud they are of him, right? And as of parents just being able to say, "I'm really proud of you. I'm proud of the process, I'm proud of the growth. This is what we saw today, this is what we learned today." 

And you know, yesterday I did one of my first school assemblies. And to have the children stand up and say the takeaways that they were taking away from the story was just a really special and meaningful moment. There was one student and he shared, he was at a swim championship and he wanted first place more than anything, and he got it. 

And another participant came up and wanted a high-five; and he thought he was better than the other child and didn't give him a high five, and was disqualified and lost the win. But he was like, if I'm not being-- You know, it was like this really like light bulb moment for this child. He said, "If I'm not being nice to people, what does the win mean anyway?" 

And it's true, right? And so, to hear a child stand in front of 200 other children and say, "Hey, I get this…hey, this makes sense." 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Hear that story. Yeah.

 

Chasta Hamilton: Hey, no one had this. Yeah. And to say like, "No one's had this conversation with me," because we're not like debriefing the process enough or those disappointing moments. 

It's just like, oh, you'll do better next time. 

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And I think like--

 

Chasta Hamilton: But what about like, let's talk about the feelings of this time.

 

How to teach Growth Mindset and Fixed Mindset in a non-performative way

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. And I think that what I noticed, this change-- I think a lot of people talk about this when they talk about growth and fixed mindset. So, like, you know, that growth mindset being like, it's more about the process and it's not so much about me…and what am I learning and I can get back and try again. 

Whereas fixed mindset is like, I'll only put my mind to things that I know I'm going to do well at, and it's all about the outcome. 

And so, I saw schools start discussing this topic, maybe a decade ago or so when I started getting into reading and learning a lot about this as well. But it always seemed so performative. It was just like, here's a poster, here's these words we live by, here's these phrases we say.

It didn't seem like it was really getting to the root of change within the culture of the school and within teachers. 

And I love what you are sharing. Like that story, obviously, hit them in that way; and they obviously felt open enough to share that thing that they had done that they could have felt pretty bad about, to be like, 'Yeah, this is what I noticed about myself and it didn't feel so good…and this is kind of what happened, and this is-- I want to talk more about it.' 

I think that that is how we take it from being a performative, cutesy little poster with the cat to, how can we actually be changing hearts and souls around the world? How can we actually make a difference? Because that child, that difference was made for him as you talked about it more.

So, I would also offer for people that are reading this book, and others like it to their children, to be having these debriefing discussions where you can ask them questions about it. 

Yeah. So, tell me more about that. What else happened-- What else came up in the assembly that kind of stood out to you?

 

Creating a culture of leaders and change makers through allowing more vulnerability, authenticity

Chasta Hamilton: Yeah, so another moment-- And I love what you're saying about the performative piece because I'm in complete agreement. I think a lot of times we're checking boxes because that's getting to the result versus like doing the work that's deeper than the box. And that, I see this book is something much deeper than just a book, but it's like a tangible tool to activate questions and conversations. 

And as I was leaving the school, a teacher stopped me in the hall and she said, "I have to thank you so much." She sat through both of the assemblies; and it was about 500 students total, which is a pretty large, a large-scale sharing. 

And she said, "We talk about this stuff a lot, but I was so shocked at the stories the students were sharing…how open, how vulnerable they were being." They're craving the conversation. They're craving the listening ear. And I just feel like as a society, like we're so caught in the cycle of talking at people instead of speaking with them. And children are so smart. Like I feel like the social and emotional intelligence is there. It's just our duty as educators, leaders, parents, change makers to open the conversation with them. 

Because what I find every time I'm having a conversation with children, it's so much more mature and profound than you ever expect because they listen, they learn, they see, they absorb; and they are craving that dialogue. So, I always, I tell people like, "Please don't undervalue the concepts that you can share with children."

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. I think that we often do undervalue it. I think that we speak down to them or look down on them or like, oh, we know more because we have wisdom, we have experience, we have whatever. And again, I think that came from society before also. Just like if somebody's older than you, smarter than you, has more knowledge than you…then like you're supposed to listen to them and take answers from them. But I think there's so much beauty in doing it the other way around. 

And I just shared on Instagram recently, "Believe your children believe in them, trust them, listen to them, know that they actually have so much knowing in their body." Right? Like maybe they know when they're full. 

Maybe they know what foods they like and they don't like for a reason. Maybe they know when they're tired. Like maybe they actually have so much more wisdom than we give them credit for. 

And like you have said, when I've taken those opportunities just to sit and listen to my kids and be like, 'Hey, I know that your body needs sleep and I know that you don't feel like you want to go to sleep because you're having so much fun drawing right now…but also like I know that your body needs sleep. So, like, why don't you take a moment and just kind of listen to yourself, and then let me know what happens.' 

And this is my son who just turned 11, and he was came back and was like, 'It's saying it would like 10 more minutes of art, but it also needs sleep. So, after that, it's going to go-- it's going to be ready.' 

And so, we just set a little timer and they, you know, finished drawing their picture, then they went to bed and it was like the smoothest bedtime compared to the very not smooth bedtimes that we've had in the past. And I just thought that came from me believing him and listening to him and believing that he knew his body, and that I can just listen to him. 

And I love what you said, like that social and emotional intelligence is there; and that if we believe that it's already there, we're not like teaching at them or not teaching to them…we're just helping them see something that's already within them, and that is a huge shift.

 

Celebrating our children's inner voice and helping grow self-awareness of our kids

Chasta Hamilton: Exactly. The seeds are planted, and we just have to cultivate and grow. And I love what you're sharing about the bedtime because that's also teaching this incredibly important lesson in self-awareness. Right? Like being able to know and understand yourself, which as an ecosystem where we have a lot of employees and young leaders, I'm constantly saying self-awareness is a superpower. Like knowing yourself is so important. 

And takes me back to a conversation I was recently having where we are trying to embrace this shift of authoritative language to more autonomy-supported language, and that's a huge system change. 

And I think the more that we can embrace it in classrooms, in extracurricular activities and programs, even in our own parenting, the more well-rounded, kind of hyper-aware socio-emotional, intelligent children we are going to cultivate.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah, totally. And I think that sometimes when we talk about it, and we're like, what is growth mindset? What is social and emotional intelligence? What is all of this? 

Like, what we're talking about is just like all the things you want for your kids. Like when you think about…well, how do I want to raise my kids? Like if they're little adults walking around the world, what do I want for them?

You probably want them to be empathetic to others. You probably want them to be responsible. You probably want them to be kind. You probably want them to be confident. You probably want them to know themselves and to speak up when they disagree with something or to share their opinions. 

You probably want them to be self-regulated. Like I've gone to so many schools, parent councils, teacher nights, church nights; and I always ask people like, what do you want for your kids?

Newsflash, it's not new. Everybody says the same answer. Like, so much so that I already have it on the board. 

I'm like, by the way, I already knew what your answers are going to be before you give them. 

We all want the same things for our kids. And the goal is kind of…well, then how do we get there? Why is that important? Right? 

And so, I think that things like, like reading them books – and more than just reading the book, not just stopping at that, but also having these discussions with our kids. 

And I love books that help us to do that more, that help us to just open that conversation of like, what do you think they were feeling or what was happening for them? 

Or, have you had an experience like that, and how was it for you? Like you said, that just those beautiful experiences that happened in that assembly with 500 people, right? For them to be so--

 

Chasta Hamilton: Right, so brave.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Willing to be open.

 

Chasta Hamilton: Yeah.

 

Letting the next generation of youth change the world for the better

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Like, that is-- That is a new generation of people. That is a new generation of people. And doesn't it just give you so much hope for the world?

 

Chasta Hamilton: So much hope. And to see them not shrinking because of their disappointments, but actually hearing the story and their takeaway being, I can stand in the truth and the power of this disappointment and think about how it's going to pave a better path to a better tomorrow for me as a human and all of the people around me, it was really incredible. 

And even I was just-- You know, you never know what to expect because every audience, every room is very different, but they were engaged. I mean, and that was-- I could have spent literally all day having these conversations with these children because it was just story after story after story. 

And you know, as I was thinking like, what are the traps that parents experience that sometimes make leading into this mindset more difficult? I do think we just have to be hyper aware of groupthink because there's so many people telling us like, this is the way it should be, or this is the way it's always been done.

And if we are open to doing things a little bit differently, we have to be very confident in that approach because people that think that they're right. And I know even when we shifted our studios kind of into this different mindset, and even to this day, there's a lot of shaming of, 'Oh, well, you're just-- you're just a sore loser. Like you can only have this conversation because you've just lost.' 

And it's just like…well, that is a bullying approach, first off. And second off, it's not wins versus losses…it's more about just character development and growth and humanity. 

But people do tend to lean into these labels, and that's where it can become a little toxic. And if you have 10 of those people thinking one way and you are the one person thinking another way, I just encourage people to be confident in their gut and what they know is right – even if that's not necessarily what the entire room is doing.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Even if it's that little kid who stood up in front of 200 people--  

 

Chasta Hamilton: Yes.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: And was like, 'Guess what I just did wrong? This is what happened for me.' Like, we can learn from them. And I love when you said self-awareness is a superpower and knowing yourself is huge. I think that is-- It's those little conversations, it's those times; that's the opposite of groupthink, right? 

I'm sitting in a room, and I actually think something different; and I'm going to not only own my truth and own that what I know is different, but I'm going to say it even when it's uncomfortable. And sometimes your truth is going to be like, 'No, this isn't the place,' or like, 'These aren't the people.' Like you don't need to go here, but sometimes--

 

Chasta Hamilton: Sure, you can read the room.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Right? 

 

Chasta Hamilton: Yes.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: But sometimes your knowing will also tell you, "This is the moment to speak up, and we know you're scared." I just did this the other day; and I just recently got an Apple Watch and it like tells you your heart rate…and oh my goodness, it was so high. Like my heart rate doubled as I was waiting for my turn to share something that I felt was kind of the opposite of what everybody else was saying, but I just knew within me that it needed to be said. 

And so, it is; it's uncomfortable. Physiologically, it's uncomfortable for us to do that. But the more that we do that, the more, again, we're going to model that to our kids, but also that is how the changes happen. 

Like, do we want to live in the world that we've always lived in or do we want something better? Like, who doesn't want something better? I think everybody would be like, yeah, we want better for our kids. We want better for humanity. We want better for the world. 

And that's how we do it. We do it in those tiny little moments in our community, in our friend group when opportunities arise for us to open up and say things a little bit differently that come from that space of knowing for us.

 

Chasta Hamilton: And every single day we do it, we normalize it.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Yeah. Yeah. And our heart rate, it's interesting, what I noticed most about that was that I was like, I do this a lot. Like I'm pretty well-versed in the, like I say what my inner knowing has to say. And I thought it was so interesting that my body just hasn't caught up with that, and it's still like…this is the part where we still freak out every time, no matter how many times we've done this.

So, hopefully this story, this episode was not just informational, but really helped you to maybe see things in different ways and also helped you listen to you in knowing like, what are the ways where I can stand up and see things that are maybe a little bit different, and kind of give an alternate view of that group think and work on my own self-awareness? 

And also, just give you some hope for the future that we're raising these like lovely little people that are going to be thinking and doing things a very different way. And I just-- It gives me hope.

So, thank you. Thank you for coming on, and sharing this with us.

 

Chasta Hamilton: Yeah. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

 

How to connect with Chasta Hamilton

Crystal The Parenting Coach: How can people connect with you, find your books? I didn't even know you had so many books, so I'm excited to share those with people.

 

Chasta Hamilton: Yeah. So, Amazon, all of the books are available on Amazon. The first two books, Trash the Trophies and Handle the Horrible are also on Audible if you prefer to listen instead of read, and then Barnes & Noble's as well – most places that bookstores are sold. But online is certainly the easiest way. And then to connect with me on Instagram @ChastaHamilton, and then also LinkedIn.

 

Crystal The Parenting Coach: Okay. We will have those links for you in the show notes so that you can go, just click right on it and go find them. Thank you so much for being here, Chasta; and we will see you next week, everyone.

Thanks for listening. If you'd like to help spread this work to the world, share this episode on social media and tag me, send it to a friend, or leave a quick rating and review below so more people can find me. If you'd like more guidance on your own parenting journey, reach out.