MIND OVER MOUNTAINS
When you work with college students, staff and faculty on a daily basis, being invited to apply to speak to the university community is a pretty cool honor. So when I received the invitation for the TEDxMSU event later this month, I started to think seriously about what I would want to share with undergraduate students.
18 minutes. That’s how long a speaker has to tell their story, to make their point, to leave an impression. What would you say if you had 18 minutes with a room full of college students?
I often look to the theme of these kinds of events for inspiration. The theme for TEDxMSU is "Mountains and Minds", a common phrase and tagline used on a host of Montana State University materials. These three words recognize the extraordinary beauty of the place we call home, Bozeman, Montana, and the remarkable students, staff, and faculty who study, work, and discover here.
Mountains and minds —— what do I have to share that connects to mountains and minds? Then it hit me. More often than not, the biggest mountains that have held me back have been in my own mind.
That is the story I want to share with students.
Mountains at Many Glacier in Glacier National Park
math mountain
The first mountain I encountered was in learning subtraction. I think I was in second grade and I simply could not wrap my head around the notion of borrowing from the "tens" and carrying it to the "ones" column. I remember my grandpa patiently trying to explain this math jujitsu at the kitchen table. My grandma said compassionately, "Fern (my grandpa's name), she just doesn't get it."
Well, that had me even more up in arms! No one would tell me I could not do something, understand something. I may have just been feeling sorry for myself because I didn't feel like I would ever get it but I was not going to be told that I didn't (or couldn't) get it. I would master this thing called subtraction.
Fast forward 30 years and I have re-told that story countless times to students in my Education Statistics class; many who also have math demons lurking in the dark corners of their minds. When the mountain in the mind bears down on concepts like a sampling distribution and confidence intervals, I think about 7 year old me ready to explode trying to learn math. But I did it. And my students do too.
Math Mountain -- summited.
non-success mountain
I made it through high school having done well. Not top of my class by any means but I felt confident. I went off to college thinking I was a solid student. That is until I received my first C- on an assignment.
I had never gotten a C, let alone a C-. I didn't know what to do with this information. It seriously shook my self-concept. I took my paper with the professor's feedback to my faculty advisor. I felt like I was failing. Dr. Sikora looked in my eyes and said with the most authentic kindness, "Tricia, you have always been very successful. This may be your first non-success."
Non-success? That's a thing?
The long and short answer is, yes -- non-success is a thing. It has helped me more fully appreciate when I have been in successful. But more importantly, it has invited me to look for the learning lesson in the non-success experience. What would I do differently if faced with the situation again? What will I take forward?
All mountains are comprised of many layers. For me, the non-success mountain has lifelong learning and humility as its foundational layers. I've come to realize that my non-successes have been more important for shaping who I am as a person than any recognition I have received.
Non-success Mountain is not one I have summited. It's one that takes new forms, over a new ridge, casting a long shadow over a waterfall, and is part of my every day journey.
mind over mountains
What I want to share is that I have the choice of how I view the non-success mountains in my life. They can be the real, physical obstacle that deters me on my journey. Or they can be places that are hard to climb, challenging to traverse, but that provide brilliant vistas toward the future.
It's my mind--Carol Dweck would call it my mindset--that influences how I view those mountains. Right now, I'm in the midst of a couple things I've never done before and I'm uncertain what route to take over these mountains. I am confident it is the mindset from which I approach this journey, that will make the difference.
First, I'm leading our department through an accreditation self-study that will culminate with a team of national experts conducting a site visit to evaluate our initial teacher and school leader licensure programs. As a higher education scholar, this is my first time hiking through the mountainous landscape of teacher education accreditation. I am so grateful for the tremendous good company of our department staff and faculty as well as colleagues across Montana who, in the words of Izaak Walton "make the way seem shorter."
At the same time, I'm traversing the world of woman-owned small business. It is important to me to stay connected with the people (teachers, counselors, parents) who have purchased and are playing Success Prints Crash Course®, the college life / college readiness board game (http://www.successprints.shop). Marketing and selling the game as well as managing the small business that oversees inventory and ensures timely manufacturing has resulted in my feeling like I am in the shadow of an entire mountain range.
There is so much I have had to learn about digital marketing, social media analytics, product licensing, balance sheets and income statements. In each case, I have confronted a non-success mountain. And every time, I have learned something new. How to streamline a process; communicate more effectively to an audience; celebrate the journey of lifelong learning.
What I would share with students at the TEDxMSU talk is this: the mountains may be in our minds. We choose the route we climb and how we take in the view from the summit. Just because we summited one mountain does not mean the end of the journey. In fact, it is often from the top of the summit that we glimpse the mountains that lie ahead.
My advice: Appreciate the flowers along the way.
Dr. Tricia Seifert is a professor in the Adult & Higher Education graduate program at Montana State University and co-developed the college life strategy game, Success Prints Crash Course® with a team of student designers.