Raising Kids Who Lead With Effort

What if a single phrase could change how a child learns, how a teacher leads, and how a team grows? We’re digging into the real mechanics of mindset with leadership coach Andre Kennebrew, showing how language, feedback, and belief can flip a fixed story into a growth trajectory. No buzzwords—just practical scripts, classroom tactics, and lived examples that help kids and adults build resilience and lead with purpose.

We start by drawing a clear line between fixed and growth mindsets and spotlight the behaviors you can see: avoiding challenges versus embracing them, ignoring feedback versus seeking it, comparing selves to others versus learning from others’ wins. Then we go deeper on expectation and belief. Raising standards without showing trust creates friction; pairing high expectations with visible belief builds confidence. 

By the end, you’ll have a toolkit to make feedback coachable, praise specific, and failure productive—at home and in classrooms. If you’re ready to build students who persist, teams that learn, and a home that breathes belief, hit play and share this with a parent, teacher, or leader who needs a lift.

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Tuesday Talks is hosted by Dr. Tiffany. She has been a Speech/Language Pathologist for 20 years. She's also a speaker and educational consultant. Dr. Tiffany hosts webinars and in-person workshops for teachers and parents.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to Tuesday Talks, your educational podcast helping parents become strong advocates for their kids and teachers to make big impacts in the classroom. Here we go. Hey, hey, everybody. Welcome back for another amazing Tuesday Talks. I'm sure you're joining me every week because we are talking about all things education, all things kids, all things parenting. So be sure that you set any notifications, subscribe, like, share all the social media stuff. I have another great episode for you today. And this is one you don't want to miss. We are talking all about mindset and leadership. How the way we think can change the way we lead. So just conceptualize that for a minute. We're talking about mindset and leadership. Two very important things, whether you're a kid or an adult, and how the way we think can shape the way we lead and help us unpack that we have this incredible gift inside of us to be able to choose, right? And I have a really special guest today, Andre Kennebrew is joining me. He is a seasoned leader with a heart for developing people and developing leaders. He is currently the director of relationships at Life Shape, where he's helping connect leaders and organizations around the world with purpose-driven impact. Before joining LifeShape, Andre spent 15 years at Chick fil A, where he specialized in recruiting, coaching, developing all the top talent, building the kind of culture that has become a model for leadership excellence. And beyond Chick-fil-A and Life Shape, Andre used his gift for growth to support small businesses, nonprofits, and universities through leadership development, interview coaching, and organizational training. So developing leaders isn't just what Andre does, it is who he is. And that's why he is the perfect guest to help us explore what it really means to lead with vision, purpose, and the right mindset. So I'm going to bring him to the stage.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Hello. Dr. Williams. So good to be with you today.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

Yeah, thanks for joining me for today's episode. I really appreciate it. And I know you have such an extensive background that really highlights this focus. And here on Tuesday Talks, we we talk about developing kids and how parents and teachers can really contribute to that. And so for those who are kind of new to the concept, what is the difference really between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset? Because I know that can really shape how kids engage with different activities, friends, how they show up in the world.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Absolutely. Well I'm going to give you now, Dr. Williams, is the basics of fixed mindset and growth mindset. And it's very important to the parents to really take this basic because right now they are helping their children be shaped one way or another. And their ultimate success long-term as adults is going to depend on how well they help their children develop a growth mindset. So let me start with a fixed mindset first. The fixed mindset is a belief that intelligence and uh abilities are static traits. In other words, you get all of your ability to learn and your intelligence at once. You either have it or you don't.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

And the way you see this in people, and you can actually you can actually see this and observe it if you watch people is is this way. Those people with fixed mindset will avoid challenges to prevent failure. They don't try because they already fear failure. Also, they give up easily when faced with obstacles. They see effort as fruitless. They don't think that you can get better. They think that you are what you are. They ignore useful feedback. Even when told about their performances and things that they are either learning or not learning, they'll avoid it. And then they feel threatened at the success of others. When others around them are being successful, they tend to be feel threatened and get insecure.

SPEAKER_02 4:39

I was gonna say that's so interesting because I know that any parent or teacher watching, when as you were giving that definition of fixed mindset, you could think of kids, either your own or your students, who fit that description.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

You can think of kids, you can think of cheap teachers. You can actually think of leaders. You can think of people that you go and go like, wow, right. That person has a fixed mindset. No wonder they aren't growing, and no wonder the people they're leading aren't growing.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

So fixed mindset uh leaders not only limit themselves, but they also limit the people that they're leading.

SPEAKER_02 5:19

I think that's such a huge idea because if you're the teacher in the classroom and you have that fixed mindset, that is directly impacting then how you're interacting with your students, how you're viewing them, and ultimately the success of your students, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:37

No question, no question about it. Um, our children uh have been victims of being taught by uh teachers with fixed mindset because the words and things that they speak to them limit uh their ability to grow as learners. So let me talk a little bit about the growth mindset, which is kind of the opposite of that. It's the belief that intelligence and abilities can be developed through this is important, dedication, effort, and learning. When you see someone with a growth mindset, and again, I like what you said, Dr. Williams, you can literally think through students as I'm naming these traits. Um children that you see embrace challenges, they embrace them. Uh in a classroom, for example, if there's a problem and and and there's a uh that needs to be solved, you see some kids going like I give up, and then others go like I am gonna continue until I fix the problem or I get the answer to my question. I'm not gonna quit. Um, they persist in the face of setbacks. They see uh effort as a path to mastery. Now, this is really important because they're trying to master things. Yeah and so think about the best people, particularly in sports and other things, they become masters of their craft. Uh they learn from criticism, they welcome feedback. Tell me how I can do this better. They're very coachable, and they find inspiration in others' success. When others succeed, they go like, if they did it, I can do it too.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

And the mindset fosters a love for learning. And so, as parents and as teachers, we have to help young people have a have a love of learning and resilience. Uh, all of these are important for great accomplishments.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

If you think about every great accomplishment, it was fostered by people learning and staying with it.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

Yes. And I I think that again, like you just said, you if you're listening as a parent or teacher, you can think of some kids right now that fit that definition as well. You see that dedication, that effort, that the ongoing learning, the love for learning. And I think that that can be seen not only in the classrooms, but also at home. It can show up in sports, the way your kids interact in group projects, all of that can really speak to whether they have that fixed or growth mindset. Because, like you just mentioned, and I hope everybody's taking notes because Andre is dropping some deep knowledge here. He said, effort is a path to mastery, that you don't have to get it right the first time, but that effort that you consistently give over time is that path towards mastering that thing. And it makes me think about a conversation I have with my son who's playing flag football. And I've said those same words that you just use like, you need to be coachable, you need to go out there and give effort every time. You know, you need to make sure that you're hearing the feedback that the coach is giving you and then executing that feedback in the next play. It can be on the field, it could be in the classroom, it could be at home, but that can be such a barrier if your kids or your students don't have that growth mindset. It could be a barrier to a lot of experiences.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Absolutely. And I do have to give this note because this is very, very important, is a lot of this information that I'm sharing is from a book called Mindset by Carol Dweck. And she's kind of known as the expert in this. She is a professor at Stanford who wrote about this a long time ago. And uh about 10 or 15 years ago, um, the book was given to me. And when that book was given to me, it was a life changer for me, even, because what happens, uh, Dr. Williams, is you can have a growth mindset in one area and a fixed mindset in another area. And so, what that means is is that if there's a subject, so I'll give you an example. Uh, I have a fixed mindset around technology, okay. And so I'm like, I can't learn anymore about technology. So when I when I got my iPhone, uh, and the first thing I did was I gave it to my children and said, Can you show me how to work it? I'm like, how easy is it to work an iPhone? But the fixed mindset limited me from using this great tool I had. Now, when I broke out of the fixed mindset, I was able to maximize the use of it. So I'll just use that as an example. So nobody has a full growth mindset in every subject, so it's always important for you to be identifying what is my thinking on this particular topic? What is my thinking on this particular situation? Because if I'm not careful, the fixed mindset can uh can uh slip in, and that will limit I'll stop giving effort. Just think about it. When you hear somebody say that they can't change things, they immediately the effort immediately stops.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

Yes, it just decreases right away.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

I like that example that you gave about the iPhone too. Like, I think that's really practical for people to kind of connect to some everyday concept. You already in your mind were like, I can't do this. And so then you gave that responsibility to somebody else who has a growth mindset and is able to explore it, mess up, fix it, go through that, you know, those that cycle. And but you first had to identify that you had that mindset and recognize that in yourself as well. So I think that ownership of where you have that fixed mindset is really important. And I think it's important also to know that, like you said, you can have fixed and growth mindsets in different areas too. I know for me, math, I have a definite fixed mindset there. I I don't mind saying I'm horrible at it, I don't want to do it. I use a calculator for almost everything, and I'm okay with that. And so you're right, I don't grow in that area because I've already determined there's nothing more for me to learn here.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Yeah, and we should see it in so many places. And so, so how does mindset, I'm gonna anticipate your next question, but how does mindset influence students? Yeah, it's important. Um uh when they have a fixed mindset, they are defining their success and they're interpreting failure and their value differently. So think about that. So if I get an A, then I did it because I'm intelligent. If I get a B, that's all the intelligence I have. So all of my levels of grades are determined where I am. And so if I made straight A's all the way through high school and got to college and made a C, I'm thinking C is as good as it can get if I have a fixed mindset. Okay, and so students you have to be careful with telling them you're smart. You think that's a great thing to tell a person is you're smart? Because if they start thinking they're smart, then when they're when something when they don't answer something, they automatically think they're no longer smart anymore.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

Oh, that's a good point. Because I think a lot of teachers and parents, we all want to encourage, I'm guilty of it, encourage my kids, you're smart, you can do this. And so then if you think about it, if I'm saying to my son, you're smart, you can do this, but he finds this, whatever that thing is, very challenging and he's not successful at it, then the implication there is that you're not smart because you're not smart.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

That's exactly right. That's right. So as a as a parent and teacher, you want to focus your praise on effort rather than intelligence. And so you when someone works hard, and so if somebody has a D and works to get and gets it to a B, you know, and they work hard at it, you praise that. If somebody gets an A and you again, you say you're smart, uh, you may be telling them that you have learned all you can learn, and when something comes up you don't know, it means you don't have the ability to learn it.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

I like that. Focus praise on effort.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Don't focus all the praise on effort. That's really key to doing that. And so we can we can affect children by what we say. Because if we focus on you're smart, you're telling me I'm something, and that's permanent or not permanent, or it can change. But if I say effort can always change. Um, if you think about successful people who have arrived at the top of their game, there is not that much difference in talent. So people will say this, and it's probably true, Michael Jordan is one of the most talented basketball players to ever play. But the difference in talent between Michael Jordan and some of the other players, the top 100 to 200 or 300 players in the world, is significantly very insignificant. But nobody worked harder than Michael Jordan, and nobody gave more effort than Michael Jordan. There's a story here of uh when Magic Johnson and uh Larry Bird had their rivalry that those guys would go in the gym and they would shoot a thousand jump shots, and then they would get ready to leave the gym and they would say, Wait a minute, I wonder if Larry Bird is still practicing. If he is, I need to go shoot another 500 because he is not going to outwork me. And so that's the mentality that you saw in the best. And so, whether it's being a doctor, a lawyer, um, no matter what it is, there's always this idea of uh I can or I can become better. Yeah, I can become better. I'm never as good as I can be, so I have to keep working um to get better.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

I like that. And I think what I try to do with my son that may be helpful for other parents or teachers, you know, like you said, we all have areas where we're fixed or growth mindset. And so when I see him in that fixed mindset kind of space, I remind him of areas that I see him having that growth mindset. I might not always use those terms, but I'm like, look at what you did with this, I don't know, Lego set that he's like putting together. It was hard, you messed up, you stuck with it, you went back to the booklet, you read the instructions, like you did all of that. You have that in you to do it. And I give him that as like a reminder of what is in him that he can apply to these situations where things maybe are not as enjoyable or easy or as as simple as he might have thought they were before he got involved with it. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 17:21

I know exactly, and and Tiffany, the the what you're doing, Dr. Williams, basically, is you're rehearsing for him what he's capable of doing. You're helping him remember uh the successes and things like that. And so what you're doing there is exactly what you need to do as a parent is reinforce uh effort. Reinforce effort, continue to reinforce effort.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

And I love that.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

That's very, very important.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

And I think teachers can do that too in the classroom because I know there are a lot of you know, teachers listen to this podcast, you have a lot of unmotivated students in class, they are not interested in whatever the subject is or the topic that you're discussing, and so you find it challenging to motivate them in the classroom. It's a very fixed amount of time. We know teachers are on a very fast pace to get information into kids' minds and have them tested on it to demonstrate their knowledge of it. So, like in the classroom, you can definitely use that praising effort as a motivational tool as well, and giving them that reflection of how they showed up in other areas throughout the school day or throughout the school year to help them overcome maybe a hurdle for a more challenging topic or something that they're just not interested in. Because we talk about that a lot on here too. Sometimes school's just boring.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

Yes, it is. It is. You have to challenge them. I can remember um the we just this um example of something that a teacher or professor did for me, and I think it was maybe a professor in college. Then I look back on it, it was one of the wisest things they did was I took a test and I got a grade, and let's just say the grade wasn't as good as it could be. And they gave me an opportunity, they gave me the test back and said, I'll give you one hour to um to look at the your answers you got wrong and see if you can do better on them. And if you do better on them, they will give you half credit for those things and then it'll take your grade up. What that professor was doing was it's telling me, keep trying, keep learning, uh, and then let me stop toward that because it could have been easy for me to go, like, whatever that score was, that's as good as I am. Right. But have a chance to go back and look at those answers again and put them in, let me know right away that I could learn the material. And so that was a habit one of my teachers had that I really enjoyed was always after a test, giving them back and going, like, okay, you got this amount of time to, you know, try to correct these.

SPEAKER_02 19:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

That instills effort as well.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

Yeah, I like that.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

And undoubtedly, Dr. Williams, there was always somebody who didn't want to do it.

SPEAKER_02 20:08

Oh, I was just about to say there are some teachers who are just thinking right now, I could give a test back to a kid and they'll be like, whatever, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Okay, I'll do it. And so you automatically know if they don't want to do it, you got a fixed mindset, child.

SPEAKER_02 20:22

But I think sometimes teachers and and maybe parents too might label that as lazy, not thinking it's fixed mindset. Oh, they're just lazy. But if you think about what you say after that, you're lazy, you don't want to put in the effort. That leads me right back to a fixed mindset.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

I'm lazy. And if I'm lazy, it doesn't make I don't need to try. That's right. So we have to be careful what we we have to be careful. The words are very, very important because children's minds are being mapped, and these these things that they're going through are become things that they begin to tell themselves over and over, and it just and it carries over into their teen, uh age, and all the way over into their adult life, if we're not in careful.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

So if there are some parents who are listening or watching right now, and they're realizing, like, okay, I might have unintentionally reinforced a fixed mindset in my kid, or if there's a teacher who's like, maybe my fixed mindset that I'm now open to saying that I have has impacted my students, like, how can they course correct? What you know, all is not lost, right? Like you just said, children's minds are being mapped all the time, so we can course correct. So, what are some ways that either parents or teachers can do that without shaming themselves or the kid?

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Yeah. So one of the things all of us have to do if we're trying to change our what I call our mind map is we have to take notice of what we're doing. And so the best thing and the best way to do it is begin to make ourselves aware of what we're saying and we're doing and catch ourselves in the middle of what we're doing, uh, so that at the time it actually happens, we can begin to remap. And so if I say something, so one of the ways I could do it is go like I could look at all the phrases and things I'm using and I use frequently, and I can write them down, and I can say, I am going to replace this with this statement. So if I say, if I tell children, for example, you're very smart, you know, what do I change that to? Um my phrase now might be is because of the great effort you made, you made great effort, you know, you got good grades. So I'm literally taking the things I'm saying and I'm rewording them, and then I'm trying to capture those things and say them differently. Like if I get ready to say it now, I got I know that there's a there's a rephrase that I have now that I'm gonna replace that phrase with.

SPEAKER_02 23:01

I like that. So instead of like, you know, you're so smart, all that, I like the way you gave so much effort to that test, to that project, to that game, whatever. But using that word effort, I think if you can rephrase what you're saying and include that word effort, that'll lead you to that path of growth mindset and kind of course correcting some of the ways that you have been given praise in the past.

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Your hard work is paying off, you know, those kind of things are things that and so you want to change those phrases, and so you gotta do the self-evaluation. Go, like, what is coming out of my mouth that a child is hearing? That I just want to I want to rephrase that. And I really, really want to catch myself and not say those things.

SPEAKER_02 23:46

And even like when you just said that, your hard work really paid off. Think about how that resonates more with you as an adult. Just think about yourself as an adult. Somebody came to you and said, Your hard work, I see it, and it's really paying off. I feel like that hits deeper than you did a good job. You know, it seems very superficial. You did a good job. Your hard work, I noticed it. It like it almost speaks to your character versus your action.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Yeah, yeah. And that's exactly right. It speaks to your character, it speaks to what's inside of you. And we know this, that um, and and particularly teachers know this, they know how hard they worked. There are a lot of uh uh of teachers who've gone from having their their to master's degrees to getting their doctoral degree, they know how hard they worked. They know that somebody didn't didn't just put a stamp on it, go, you're a doctor. I mean, it was it was hard work. Right. And so if we could just recognize that, um, that wow, I got to where I am by my hard work, you know, and so that that would be helpful as well, is to recognize your own recognize your own hard work, recognize what you did and how your chin teaching changed, how your thinking changed about things to help you get where you were.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

Right. And then on the flip side of that, if we've been telling kids, oh, you're so smart, you're so smart. On the flip side of that, if somebody was has been saying, you know, you you you're lazy, you don't get it done, you you know, just in a very negative way, what are some rephrasings there that parents and teachers can do to kind of back from the negative approach to identifying students' actions?

SPEAKER_00 25:36

Yeah, there's a couple of words that I that I like and and when I talk about that. Um is uh capabilities, you know, talking about you are capable. The other thing, and and a friend of mine, Rodney Bullard, he said this, and he's he got this quote from someone else, but I think it's it's very important is don't be the victim of low expectations. And so a lot of times our low expectations we we meet them, they're easy to meet. Right, and so you talk about expectations, and so when I'm having a conversation with anybody, I'm going like you're capable of more and let's raise your expectations, you know, and and so those are those are the kind of phrases, expectations, capabilities, where you're literally trying to get them to think about like to I to ID for themselves that they've either set their capabilities or their expectations low and they need to raise those up. So you're not lazy, lazy, you're capable of more. Let's raise our expectation, let's expect more from ourselves. Uh, those kind of things. But don't want to say you're lazy, right? Let's raise your expectations. Um, there's so much more you can accomplish.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Right. I like that, and not saying it in that negative tone, like you're better than this. You, you know, like it the tone that you use and the intention that you have behind it, I think matters just as much as well as the words that you're saying, too. Because I think it's important to, you know, kind of take ownership where you messed up, whether you're the teacher or the parent. Like, you know what, I've been saying you're lazy. And I'm I was wrong. I shouldn't, I shouldn't have called you lazy because really what I actually meant was I know you're capable of more. That's right. And and and owning it that way. So the kids kind of see, okay, they're seeing me, they saw me this way. Now they're seeing me in a different way. And then when you say, Let's uh, you know, increase your expectations of yourself, now you're giving them something to reflect on. Like, wow, are my expectations of myself pretty low? And you're giving them that opportunity to reflect. And that's what goes back to what you just said. Awareness is the first step, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:07

It's the first step. I think back in my life to the people who had the greatest impact on me, Dr. Williams. And here's what they here's here's what they did for me. And I think this is really important. Expectations for me, but they tied that in with high belief in me to go together, so you can tell them to get to raise their expectations, but your belief, they gotta feel like you believe it. And so, in other words, the people who they said you can do more, but I and I believe you can do more, it gave me a lot of confidence. And so, as a teacher and as a parent, it's like people tell me you don't believe in them. And so you've got to find a way as a leader, particularly, to put that belief in them. And so in the work in the work environment, it's a little bit easier, but I can remember this as a teacher. And some of the some of the teachers may remember this and they might might not, but when I was a child in the in in elementary school in the 60s, one of the things that that you wanted to do as a child is you wanted to be the kid that got to clean the erasers and clean the board and those kind of things. And so if the teacher said, I want you to go out and clean erasers, I was like, She believes in me. Yeah, so when they gave you things to do in the classroom, we said that was a way of instilling that belief um in the person. And so, what kind of things can we do in a classroom that says to a student? Like maybe it's sometimes just passing out the pencils, it's whatever, but it's I believe in you, right? And so there's you gotta look around and say, like, how do we do that as a as a parent? How do we say that? And sometimes we give our our our children, we have to give them some responsibility, like you say, you know, like I believe in you. So that's really important when you raise expectations and you don't roll raise the how much that you believe in them, then you give it's gonna feel false to the to the uh child to think, oh, you believe I can do it, but you're not treating me like you believe I can do it, right? So they have to go hand in hand.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

Yeah, I love that because I know I'm guilty of that with my my own kid. I'm like, you know, I believe you can do it, and then he'll even say back, like, well, it doesn't seem like it because you're standing over me while I'm doing it. And then I'm like, Oh, yeah, I am.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

Yeah, and what that might look like about the wheels is is hey, we're gonna, I want you to work on this, and I'm gonna come back in 30 minutes. I think you can have this done in 30 minutes. What do you think? Yeah, I think I have it, and when you leave, now they're gonna like, she did leave. She believes I can do this in 30 minutes. And now I'm like, okay, I gotta get this done in 30 minutes, right? Because she believes I can do it, she expects me to do it, and so you know, right.

SPEAKER_02 31:05

So it has to match up. Your words have to match with the actions. And I like how you said about giving responsibilities because I know a lot of times, especially in the younger grades, they have class jobs, like your job is to you know, do this in the classroom, your job is to do that, and so then kids take ownership of that, and if they're not meeting the expectation, then that's when you have that conversation with them about effort, about you know what they're capable of, so that they can continue to rise to the expectation. But giving them that sense of responsibility helps them see what you're believing in them in themselves, and that is like a small seed that you can plant in the younger grades that I think can grow and grow and grow up, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:50

As it goes up, as it goes up, and and in the workplace for me, uh leading the people I have, I always give them a little bit more than what they're capable of. Okay, and it but it's always like when a kid is riding a bicycle for the first time, you hold the seat, you push them, and then you let them go and you stand by. Our children need more of that, and you know, and so I'm not having left you, you know. Right, uh, I'm not gonna let you get hit by a car, I'm not gonna let you fall, but my hands are off to let you navigate for a little while. And and you know what happens, they wobble, they wobble a little bit, and then they stand up. It's similar to the way to that in other things that we do with children. If we just think back to when we had them ride the bike for the first time, they were never gonna ride the bike by themselves until you let go, but it didn't mean that you had to disappear, right?

SPEAKER_02 32:46

Yeah, I like that, and I think that's particularly important in the older grades, like the for the older students. If you have especially middle school, I've talked about that a lot on here. That is, I think, the trickiest age group to work with because they think they know everything and they are just at the tip of the iceberg of knowledge and life, right? But you almost feel like you can't tell them anything. But I think if you start speaking to them in this way of you're capable of more, I see that you know, we can raise your level of expectation so you can, you know, be proud of the hard work and what that hard work got you on the other side of it, and not almost force it, but give them those words and then taking our hands off to see what they're gonna do with it.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

Yes, and then step back in when you and step back in when you need to, right? And give them good feedback and say, I loved you, I loved your effort. I I love, you know, if because there is a there's a high possibility that they're gonna fail. And so you can't go back and say, Oh, I you didn't do it all, you know, and be sad about it. You know, I loved your effort. You know, let's get back in it and try it again. I love see that's the and the second part is that is where the resilience piece comes in. I love your effort. Now, get back in there and let's try again. That's building the resistance, right? And that's important too, because it's really important that you help them build their resistance. So every time a child doesn't do it, they there's got to be something that pushes them right back into it in order for them to have a growth mindset because I that they don't then they won't quit the first time they fail because you you you're I love your effort. Let's try again.

SPEAKER_02 34:34

Yeah, and then they start to gauge what that effort feels like, what that hard work feels like. So asking some of those reflective questions and then giving them the feedback, I think, is really important because that resiliency, what the way I term it with my kid is the bounce back spirit. I need you to have some bounce back spirit, right? I need you to take a hit and bounce back.

SPEAKER_00 34:58

Well, you use that. Teachers everywhere, y'all just heard it. I need that bounce back spirit. Come on, you know. So right, that's a usable phrase right there. We need that uh we need that to become a phrase of the of the year.

SPEAKER_02 35:11

Let's bounce back that bounce back spirit because, like you said, they're gonna fail. Life is full of first times with many things, and you're going to fail. And then what are you gonna do then? That's the question. You fail now. Now, what are you gonna do? Yeah, what are you gonna do for the next time? Or are you okay with just failing? And if they are, then I think that takes the conversation into a different space to understand why they're okay with that low expectation using those phrases like you just gave us about hey, let's set higher expectations for yourself because you're capable of more. And I think if we can do that with the students in the classroom and even with our own kids at home, we'll see a ripple effect.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

Yeah, and if you do it at home, they'll go in in the classroom that way, and it possibly could the other children who go like, I want I'm gonna follow him, I'm gonna follow his lead. Right. Whatever he's you know, and so typically you know what happens when a child they watch other children to see what they're doing, and they go like, Wow, I mean, okay, I'm gonna do what he's doing. And so before you know it, you've built a culture in your classroom, you've built a culture in school, and you build a culture at home, you know, uh as well.

SPEAKER_02 36:32

I love that because it it kids are watching, they might not show it outwardly that oh, that that hit uh that impacted me. They might not show it outwardly in the moment, but they're watching, they're soaking things up, and so that's why I think it's it's really important that teachers set a good model of a growth mindset because kids are watching, like we just said at the time of the episode, that fixed mindset can be at the top, and we all know as the saying goes, poop runs downhill, so we don't want that. So setting that model at the top, the kids are watching, and then they start to impact each other, and that's the kind of culture that we want and need in the classrooms and in our schools and at home, too, quite honestly.

SPEAKER_00 37:16

Yeah, right, and so that's a beautiful thing, and I've watched it had plays here at Chick-fil-A. Uh, how someone with a with a um growth mindset has changed the lives of many. True Kathy, I found her, would be the perfect person. I'll just kind of review his background a little bit for people that didn't know. Uh, when he started opening his restaurant in 1946 in Hakeville, two years after that, his brother Dan, who is was his business partner, was killed in an airplane crash. And he actually lost two brothers in there. Uh later on, uh, he um he tried to open a second restaurant and uh in Forest Park, it ended up burning down. And so on and on and on, at the end of the day, uh, so many tragedies, but he stayed with it. And so in 1967, when he opened his first Chick-fil-A, and building upon that, everybody knows what Chick-fil-A is now, but at any given point when I'm in there, I'm thinking I always grateful to him, thank you for not stopping. Thank you, you know, having benefited from being. I'm like, thank you. That in 1946 you started, and in 1948 you didn't stop, and in 1950s you didn't stop, in 1960s. There were tough times all along the journey. Thank God you didn't stop. What's so interesting about that is because he had such a growth mindset, he attracted other people with a growth mindset. And our our our organization is built on leaders who have a growth mindset who set high expectations, who create high belief. Um, and we cry, we climb our uh one of our favorite uh quotes is to climb with care and confidence. So we're going up and we're gonna do it with care, and we're gonna do it with confidence. And so we saw every young person that we have go like, I'm climbing, but I'm gonna be sure on every point of the climb and I'm gonna be confident about it, we'll we'll see wonderful, wonderful children made uh through our school systems.

SPEAKER_02 39:26

Yeah, and I think that's so important because what we do at home impacts how kids show up at school. What we do at school impacts how kids show up in the community. Like it's it's a big cycle.

SPEAKER_00 39:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:41

And so if we can take a lot of these concepts that we talked about today to get kids on that path to having growth mindsets and being able to, you know, resolve any fixed mindset areas, our community will be better for it.

SPEAKER_00 39:57

Absolutely. There's no question. There's no question. Thanks for having me on today. I watched you and have watched you for a long time. Some of our uh listeners may not know this, but uh I grew up with Dr. Williams' uh mom uh in Columbus, Georgia, and it's just been a joy to get to know over the years because from day one, she's always had that growth mindset and she continues to exhibit it. She's doing this podcast as a gift to everybody because she's trying to help all teachers, children, parents uh grow. And so it's just great to be on with you today and share and uh and hear you uh talk about that.

SPEAKER_02 40:43

Thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking time out to be with us today. If you're listening, please make sure you come back to this if you were not taking notes because there were some nuggets of knowledge dropped here, and you need to be writing this down so you can share it, apply it, and reuse it so that you can impact at home and at school. So I want to thank you so much for joining me this week for Tuesday Talks, and with that, I'll see you next week for a great episode. Bye. Be sure to share this episode and join me next week for a brand new Tuesday talk. See ya.