Does Every Obstacle Feel Like a Verdict?

My mind went blank. Cold sweat. Feeling like I was going to barf.

“I am a terrible public speaker.”

That’s what I told myself standing at the front of the room. Why did I think that college elective was a good idea? Like most people, I had at least a general anxiety about public speaking. Was mine worse? A clinical phobia? All I know is that it was bad.

The verdict was in.

But I tried again. I signed up for a Dale Carnegie class soon after college. At “graduation” we had to sing and act out “I’m a little teapot” to the audience of mostly family members. It helped. A little. But years later, even when I owned the company, I would still get almost as nervous leading larger meetings.

At 47, I had started and sold two startups and recently earned my MBA. But that fear was still there. In fact, my MBA class presentations weren’t much better than my undergraduate speeches.

After starting my first corporate position, I joined Toastmasters. I “knew” I was a terrible public speaker, but I didn’t want that fear to hold me back. (I also took golf lessons since I was a terrible golfer) 🤣 Toastmasters helped. But again, only a little.

Fast forward 12 years.

Now I’m an adjunct college professor.
Public speaking is the majority of my job.

What changed?

I stopped believing the lie — “I am a terrible public speaker.”

The truth is that I wasn’t terrible. I just needed to improve. Still do.

In her best-selling book Mindset, Carol Dweck explains what was actually happening.

Fixed Mindset believes your ability is fixed, effort is pointless, and obstacles are verdicts. It’s loss aversion disguised as self-awareness. It feels like you’ve done an honest accounting of your abilities — but you haven’t. Not really. You’ve just found a comfortable story that protects you from feeling like a failure. You can’t fail if you don’t try. Accepting “I’m a terrible public speaker” is safer than striving to get better.

Growth Mindset believes ability is developed, effort is the point, and obstacles are teachers. It doesn’t promise you’ll succeed. Only that the journey is worth taking. Where the fixed mindset hears “you’re not good enough” as a verdict, your growth mindset hears it as an invitation. Not to prove something. To learn something.

“Terrible public speaker” was a harsh verdict. An uncomfortably comfortable lie. I generally have a growth mindset, but as I considered the invitation to teach, I realized that I had a fixed mindset about my ability to speak in front of large audiences. My overall growth mindset led me to keep trying, but I had never let go of the uncomfortably comfortable lie before. That’s when I finally adopted a growth mindset about public speaking.

My fear of public speaking was just one more obstacle to overcome.

Risk is scary. Making an effort might prove you weren’t up to the task if you fail. Every effort becomes a potential exposure, not an opportunity.

Striving creates anxiety, not joy.

With a fixed mindset, we set expectations low enough that we’re sure to meet them. Or, if we don’t, falling short doesn’t hurt too bad. Or we opt-out of the challenge altogether. The worst part? We never find out what we’re actually capable of.

It doesn’t just limit your ceiling — it poisons the entire journey. Dweck is specific about this. In Mindset, she identifies what the fixed mindset actually does to your experience of striving: challenges trigger anxiety, setbacks feel like defeat, and criticism lands like an attack. Every hard thing becomes a test that you might fail.

Left unchecked, the fixed mindset doesn’t just make striving uncomfortable. Striving becomes pointless. We start to believe we are less. Help-less. “Learned Helplessness” to be precise. That’s where the fixed mindset inevitably leads us.

You can’t enjoy the journey if every obstacle feels like a verdict about who you are. The Striver with a fixed mindset is not only less likely to succeed — they’re miserable while trying. If they try.

That’s not striving. That’s surviving.

Can they see how nervous I am? Can they see me shaking?

Did they notice when I lost my train of thought?

Standing in front of large groups, I was always worried about what they were thinking about me. That’s “evaluation apprehension” — the fear of being judged. It’s one of the most common fears in public speaking.

While it may have been a little self-centered, my concern was valid. We want our audiences to be interested in what we’re saying. That’s why we’re there. I always thought that meant I had to be especially interesting. But to improve, I had to flip that theory on its head.

I stopped trying to be interesting to them.
I started being more interested in them.

As a professor, I have shifted the spotlight from me to my students. I’m interested in hearing what they have to say. Striving to unlock their critical thinking skills — not mine. I still speak of course. But my classes are more of a conversation than a lecture. I use slides to make sure we talk about what they need to learn. But I don’t read them.

Dweck would call this a shift from the fixed mindset to growth mindset. I stopped letting my limiting beliefs hold me back and turn public speaking into a miserable experience. Focusing on learning — theirs and mine — shifted me into growth mode.

As I wrote this, I had taught the same subject to four different classes. Three of them went well — following the Pareto principle, roughly 80% of the students were engaged, did the work and got the grades they wanted. Many of them even told me it was their favorite class.

The fourth class was just the opposite. Only 20% seemed to give a sh*t. I felt like I failed the other 80% who didn’t. If that had been my only class, the old me might have called it proof. Proof that I wasn’t cut out for this whole teaching thing. Back to the comfortable lie.

But fortunately, this wasn’t my only class. Context matters. A growth mindset includes being curious about the outlier instead of letting it become your verdict.

I choose to view that fourth class as feedback. Not failure. Feedback.

That’s what a growth mindset actually unlocks — not just better outcomes, but a better experience while striving. The growth mindset isn’t a personality trait you either have or don’t. It’s a practice. A choice you make repeatedly — intentionally — especially when the fixed mindset shows back up.

My fourth class proved that the fixed mindset is never far away. But the other three show how a growth mindset can overcome that negative pull.

Notice the fixed thought

Dweck doesn’t ask you to eliminate the fixed mindset. Notice it. Name it. When your inner voice says “you’re not good enough” — that’s your fixed mindset talking. Acknowledge it. But don’t obey it.

Reframe the obstacle

Every obstacle is either a verdict or a teacher. Your job is to override your fixed default. When a class doesn’t go well, when a presentation falls flat, when the feedback stings — ask what it’s teaching you instead of what it’s proving about you.

Focus on effort and process, not the outcome

Dweck is clear that the growth mindset isn’t just about believing you can improve — it’s about finding meaning in the effort. The Striver who only measures success by outcomes will always be one bad result away from a fixed mindset spiral.

Not yet

Be careful with whatever you say after “I am”. “I am not a great public speaker” is a fixed statement about who you are. “I’m not a great public speaker — yet” is a roadmap. One word. Completely different relationship with the thought.

Separate your identity from your performance

You are not your worst result. The fixed mindset wants to collapse the distance between what you did and who you are. Don’t let it. One bad outcome is data. It only becomes a verdict if you let it.

I strive to improve with every class I teach. It’s not always easy to reach these young adults, especially those who haven’t yet figured out their “Why”. But that’s why I’m there — to help them move closer to whatever that is.

You don’t need to immediately love doing the hard thing. You just need to stop letting fear of the verdict keep you uncomfortably comfortable.

Dweck gives you the framework. The journey gives you the joy.

Keep Striving ✈️
Eric