Name: The Mindset of a Champion | Carson Byblow | TEDxYouth@AASSofia
Uploaded: 2025-06-14T02:17:56.000Z
Duration: 6 min 49 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

To-infinitive

Michael Jordan has said, I've missed more than 9,000 shots, lost almost 300 games, and 26 times I've been trusted to make the game-winning shot and missed.

I fail over and over and over again, and that is why I succeed.

Past simple

Michael Jordan is one of the most famous basketball players in the world, though he was not always a star.

He didn't make his high school basketball team because he was too short and wasn't good enough.

He could have quit, but instead he had the mindset to continue and get better.

He was at practicing each day before most people were eveyed out of bed.

And because of this, he not only made the team the following year, but he went on to become the greatest player of all time and a true champion.

The question that comes to our mind is can we all learn to have a mindset of a champion?

A mindset is a word describing how we think.

There are two types of mindsets, one, a growth mindset, and two, a fixed mindset.

A growth mindset is when somebody believes they can learn to be good and they can learn to get better.

They are not afraid of challenges, they continue when things get hard, they know that they have put effort into learning, and they learn from criticism.

They are also inspired by people who do well.

Michael Jordan has this trait, though another person with a growth mindset is The Rock, Dwayne Johnson.

He was cut from the Canadian Football League early on in his career.

He could have quit, but instead he worked very hard, faced many challenges, and is now a super, super famous movie star, one of my favorite.

Did you know that coaches and professional scouts look for athletes who don't just have skill?

They want someone who wants to learn, who is coachable, and will give 100% effort in their practices.

What they don't want is somebody who thinks they are already good enough, they don't need to learn, and are not coachable.

A fixed mindset is the opposite of a growth.

These people either think they're born good or born not so good.

They feel criticized when given feedback and are threatened by people who do well.

Reading has always been hard for me, and even now I still find it challenging.

From kindergarten to fourth grade, I was always a bit below grade level in reading, so each night I read aloud to my parents to try to get better.

This was always the worst part of my day.

Whenever I was reading, I would of course make mistakes, misread words, say words that weren't there, miss words that were there, and miss punctuation.

But whenever my mom or dad tried to correct me, I'd get upset.

I told them that they were wrong and sometimes even have a meltdown.

This happened from my friends and teachers, and with other subjects and activities too.

I thought that I should know how to do everything already, and if I didn't, I would get upset.

I thought that while my teachers were teaching, it should come to me easy.

Some of the things I was learning or reading were not easy.

Suddenly, I felt tears coming down my face in front of my friends and teachers too.

In my head, I'm saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, please, no.

You see, I lose control of my emotions, I stop listening, and I stop thinking.

I become difficult to those around me, and when I finally get through it, I am very tired.

This is not healthy and it's not the person I want to be.

I want to know why I feel this way and why my emotions were so strong.

Well this year, in fifth grade, it's the first year I was able to answer these questions.

I learned what a growth and fixed mindset are, and learning how to change my fixed mindset into a growth mindset, and have a mindset of a champion.

I believe we can have both of these mindsets, a growth mindset and a fixed mindset.

I have a growth mindset with things like soccer, basketball, change, and learning new languages.

I also believe we can change our fixed mindset into a growth mindset and have a mindset of a champion.

Well, maybe not a champion like Michael Jordan, but a champion in our own way.

We may just need a little help to do this.

My dad and I read this book called Mindsets, written by Carol Dweck.

Carol Dweck is a professor and professional psychologist who researched and came up with the idea of a growth and fixed mindset.

Her book told me that I was not the only one who has a fixed mindset from time to time.

However, the best advice I ever got was from my teacher and school counselor.

Their advice was a one little three-letter word.

They told me I always put the word yet at the end of my sentence.

The word yet makes me feel I just need to put a little more effort in before I understand it.

I still struggle with a fixed mindset from time to time.

However, I now know why I get frustrated and upset.

For any of you out there who may have a fixed mindset from time to time, please know that I am proof that you can beat it.

Writing this talk, I struggled the whole time, though every day I've gotten a little better than the day before.

This is why I can say I'm winning, because I'm here in front of you now today.