How To Spot Future Stars – 6 Questions That Reveal A Growth Mindset

To build a high-performance team, your staff must be growth-minded. A growth-minded individual embraces challenges, values effort and learning, persists through setbacks, and believes in the potential for continuous improvement and development.

Thankfully, my childhood experiences led me to develop a growth mindset. (Thanks Mom and Dad!) The challenge with this, however, is that I think everyone views the world the same way that I do – which isn’t the case. Some people have a fixed mindset. An individual with a fixed mindset tends to believe that their abilities and intelligence are fixed traits, leading them to avoid challenges, fear failure, and perceive setbacks as indicative of their inherent limitations rather than opportunities for growth.

Since I was more likely to think people are growth-minded, even when they’re not, I was easily deceived during interviews. But not anymore! When studying with one of my mentors, Darren Hardy, several years ago, he shared with me six questions we can ask during an interview that will help us determine whether someone has a growth mindset or not.

The 6 interview questions to ask are:

1. What’s a recent book/article/podcast that inspired you or changed the way you think about your work? 📚

2. What is one skill you are working on improving right now? What resources are you studying for it? 🛠️

3. Who inspires you? 🤩

4. What helps you to bounce back when things are going badly? 💪

5. Do you receive negative feedback or constructive criticism often? Do you like it? And how do you handle it? 🗣️

6. How would you go about becoming a really good saxophonist? (They should have a go-to process for learning anything new!) 🎷

Use these questions during your next interview to spot the future star of your high-performance team.

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Happy hunting!
With love,
💜 Your Coach,
Sara

P.S. Want to ensure you raise children with a growth mindset? Praise their effort (e.g. studying for a test) and perseverance (you played hard all the way to the end of the game, even though you were down by 5 points), rather than the outcome (the A grade or home run) or their innate abilities (You’re so smart).