Lesson 10: Seek Negative Feedback and Adopt a Growth Mindset

Stop Trying to Look Good—Start Getting Better

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One of the first assignments at Founder Institute was to seek negative feedback. We had to pitch our favorite idea to people, ask them to give us negative feedback, and actively listen without saying anything. Then, we had to summarize the feedback we received, and have the person giving it rate the accuracy of our summary. I remember this task very vividly, as it marked a turning point for me.

It felt like all my life before I’ve been trying to actively avoid negative feedback and do my best in order to not receive negative feedback. And here I was voluntarily embracing it.

This task aimed to address one of the most common reasons founders fail—confirmation bias—and opened up countless learning opportunities for me. As founders, we are driven by our passion and enthusiasm to solve a certain problem. We need this inner drive to help us swim against the current. But if we get attached to our idea (the solution we want to develop), and fail to keep an open mind, we automatically ignore information that doesn’t support what we want to see. And this can mean the death of our ‘baby’.

Kill your baby early on—because it’s not your baby.

When I was in a particularly challenging phase of developing my startup, my cousin got a baby. I remember a conversation where I was trying to explain to her how running a startup is like having a baby. I was arguing that my startup is my baby, and she was arguing that it cannot possibly be one and the same, and that a startup is not a baby.

Looking back, I can see she was right, and I was wrong.

From where I stand now, I see the common comparison of a startup to a baby, or choosing a co-founder to choosing a spouse, as overly dramatic and far from reality.

You can ditch a startup idea, and begin working on a new one. You can pivot, sell or close your company, and start a new one. But you can’t exchange your baby for a new one, or just get rid of it. Once it’s there, it’s your child forever.

As a founder, you need to be totally comfortable with testing different business ideas, as well as adjusting and pivoting throughout the lifespan of your startup. The less attached you are to your solutions, the more objectively you can assess them and the freer you’ll feel to change direction when needed.

More often than not, our initial ideas prove unsuitable after a rigorous validation process. We might assume a problem exists and needs solving, but research may reveal it’s either not real or not something people are eager to address. We might believe that the solution we are building is the best one, but customer adoption might indicate otherwise.

It’s essential to cultivate critical thinking and consider all scenarios where your startup could fail to actually have a better chance at succeeding.

This is where growth mindset comes in. It’s a concept developed by Dr. Carol Dweck as part of her groundbreaking research in psychology. And it’s a must-have for any entrepreneur.

A growth mindset is the watershed that separates the river of potential from the stagnant pools of limitation.

Having a growth mindset means you learn from your mistakes and the criticism you receive. It means embracing challenges as opportunities to grow and problems as chances to improve.

Here are some ways to develop a growth mindset:

? Recognize and challenge fixed mindset thoughts: Pay attention to moments when you feel limited or fear failure.

? Embrace challenges: View setbacks as part of the learning process.

? Reframe criticism: See it as valuable information for improvement.

? Celebrate effort: Focus on the process and learning journey rather than only outcomes.

Dweck contrasts growth mindset with the “fixed mindset.” Fixed mindsets trap people in a cycle of avoiding effort or criticism to protect their self-worth, while growth mindsets open up a world of possibilities by redefining effort and setbacks as valuable.

A growth mindset suggests going out of our comfort zone to learn and develop. It means prioritizing effort over recognition, and being more interested in improving and expanding than in being right and validated.

To sum it up, the more we set our ego aside, the more we can win at the game of life.

Believing that your qualities are carved in stone—the fixed mindset—creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better? — Dr. Carol Dweck

This post is part of the series “100 things I learned by becoming an entrepreneur,” which I launched to reflect on my founder journey, encourage fellow founders to appreciate their own progress and growth, and inspire more women to take the leap into entrepreneurship. You can find the previous posts here, and subscribe to receive future ones directly in your inbox as soon as I hit publish. ??