WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Healthy as a Horse: Episode 4 - The Growth Mindset

Episode Date: October 19, 2025

Coach Kurt Kirner joins the show again to explain the idea of a growth mindset. He discusses how improvement- not perfectionism- is the best goal.

Welcome to Healthy as a Horse where we discuss health and wellness for the Hillsdale Chargers. I'm Ellen Malone. And today we have Coach Kerner back with us. He's the head women swim coach and a sports side coach here at Hillsdale. And today we'll be digging into his concept of the growth mindset. Welcome back, Coach. Thank you for having me. So first, if you could provide your general definition of the growth mindset, that would be great.

Back in 2008, I wrote a article of publication when growth mindset was first coming out and it was called the idea of just getting better. And, you know, often in the framework of trying to succeed at something, we can get what we call fixed or static. They primarily used studies where they looked at intelligence and they looked at a fixed mindset versus what was considered a growth mindset. And a fixed mindset is where, you know, individuals avoid situations that would allow them to get better. They just found ways to kind of stay static. And a growth mindset is really developing a way of learning, you know, move forward with the idea that you failure is something that is actually good for your growth. Is this growth mindset more important in practice or an actual competition?

You know, it is about practice. I mean, the idea is you really want to be able to understand that everything we learn from when we're being evaluated from meats and stuff is the idea that that we take these things into practice and we work hard in them. From the last Olympics, and really the last few Olympics, we've noticed that the Americans in swimming have been just great in their underwater's off the wall. It separates them. And that's got to start in practice. And we spend a lot of time being in the pool, doing exercise, doing different types of sets

that extend the amount that we can, you know, do underwater. do underwater glides. And we're just faster by doing that. And that's what takes a growth mindset forward is, you know, it's about the process. It's about putting things in practice. It's about embracing the challenges that come along with getting better. And we know that that's a distinct advantage in terms of getting better. Yeah, I think some of my failures in big competitions have been very formative, but they've been formative in the way that they encourage me to focus on a growth mindset while I'm in practice. We build integrity into what we, what's very meaningful for us.

And integrity means that, you know, we keep our emotions in check. And we take the value of the things that we learn from these experiences and move them forward. How have you seen this impact your athletes on the team here? I know you mentioned in the Olympics, the Americans stand out because they focus on underwater and things like that. How has that helped our team? Well, I think that it makes us process-oriented athletes, you know, understanding swimming, track, and field, you know, some of these individual sports, you don't have career highlight nights, you know, in the middle of the season.

Really, it's when you're rested, when you're prepared, having the proper equipment. And so you have to be very patient. And growth mindset gives you patience, spend, you know, time talking about a constructive mindset and also a solution focus. A lot of times we, as athletes, we tend to focus on the problem. And if we can turn that around and focus on a solution, then we're engaged in the process. If we get caught in what's called a fixed mindset, what ends up happening is we avoid obstacles. We don't look for good criticism, good hard conversations about what is it that I need to get better. You know, my growth mindset, athletes, they ask questions.

They look for answers. So what is one super practical habit an athlete could implement to shift toward a growth mindset? Well, and I'm going to give you two here. One is embrace challenge. Anything that looks hard, that's going to help you get better. And you need to figure out how to get through that challenge. Sometimes it's modifying or adapting, you know, the way you're looking at it. We all dread the really, really hard set or the really, really hard, you know, workout.

The second thing is to not be threatened by teammates, but actually, admire good performances by teammates because if you surround yourself with the right type of people, it becomes a team thing. And so I think that, you know, the embracing the challenge, bracing things hard. And then the second thing is, you know, admiring, being inspired by great plays of your teammates and what your team does and not looking at it like they're taking your place. Awesome. Well, thank you for being here today, Coach Turner. I am L. Malone. And this has been Healthy as a Horse for Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.