Growth Mindset: Reasons Behind Failure

This week, I continue my learnings on the growth mindset. I read the article entitled, "Behavioral research illuminates the very human heart of when, why, and how we fail," by Cassie Werber.

One thing that this article confirmed was that we often blame ourselves when we fall short of our goals. For instance, when someone doesn't go to the gym on February 1st, they try to blame themselves for their failure. But perhaps instead, we should just view it as an inconsistency that is surrounded on one side by 30 days of success, and has the potential to be surrounded by 30 more. I was able to learn that another approach to this is by applying Game Theory. Game Theory is a sort of economic theory that tells us how a multi-player interaction can be optimized. They give the example of a smoker as both players in a two player game and how he was able to overcome his vice.

One thing I would like to know more about is how many people simply give up on an entire goal when they have moderately failed. For instance, eating junk food within a week after making a goal not to, and whether or not we look for excuses in our life, or use it as motivation forwards.

Success and Failure cross when we face adversity. Source: Flickr

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Wikipedia Trail: From Indra to Pressure

This week, I researched more into Indra, the Thunder God, and followed a Wikipedia Trail that lead me to scientific pressure. My starting point: Indra, the Thunder God . Indra is a deity in Hindi and Buddhist texts, and he is often thought of as the Thunder God, God of the heavens, rains, lightning, and rivers flowing. He is known for defeating Vritra, a serpent monster associated with the drought, and he is seen in high regard. Also mentioned on his page is: Thor , the Norse God of Thunder. Thor is known for his red hair, beard, and his hammer that he wields. There is thought to be a parallel between Thor and Indra based on their hair color, and different weapons they wield that are considered to be signature items. Thor wields his hammer while Indra wields a thunderbolt named Vajra. Mentioned on Thor's page is: Thunder . This one should seem obvious, but an interesting thing about thunder is that while it is often considered to be connected to lightning in some way, it is a...

Week 10 Story: The Wise and Foolish Trader

The NASDAQ had already fallen 1200 basis points, the biggest crash in 10 years. Tech stocks fell further and further, with nothing but a sea of red on the historically upbeat ticker feed above the trading floor. Shouts from one trader to another rained out, but they were more out of desperation than information. The entire market was crashing, and no one could do anything about it. While many traders were winners and losers of this false-flag correction, two in particular stand out. A trader at Goldman and a trader at JP Morgan. Both accosted by a trader at Morgan Stanley, but only one escaping with his dignity- and more importantly, his money. One day, Salomon was sitting at his desk, and he noticed that NASDAQ and Dow futures were trading lower than normal. He ringed up one of his friends, Bill, at Goldman, and he mentioned how he was surprised that the market seemed to be going lower. Bill was also surprised. But the two were different in their reaction. Salomon was excited to s...

Week 6: Reading Notes, Mahabharata A

This week, we start reading a new Indian class, the Mahabharata, I chose to read the PDE (public domain edition) again, and this serves as notes for the first twenty stories within the epic. During the reading of the Ramayana, I would pre-read the plot on Wikipedia, this time, I will try to read only the PDE first, then the Wikipedia story if necessary. One thing that immediately stuck out was the high character turnover, compared to the Ramayana. In the Ramayana, there were not too many different characters, and the plot seemed to revolve around the characters. In contrast, the Mahabharata seems to have the characters revolve around a different plot. This seems to highlight the role that karma and the Gods play in the fate of the other people as their wills are shaped to the God's destiny. A second thing that stuck out was the role of curses in this story as well. In the ninth story of the PDE, "Pandu and His Wives", there is a similar role of a character killing som...

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