Think like an entrepreneur Emily Clements, Research Assistant & PhD Candidate at King’s, explores whether you can cultivate a growth mindset by understanding neuroplasticity in the brain.
By Emily Clements
‘I believe that entrepreneurial thinking can be developed, the same as any other skill. But this requires perseverance, the right environment and mindset and a lot of practise.’
I am a Research Assistant and PhD candidate at King’s College London, working with Dr Vincent Giampietro and Professor Steven Williams in the Department of Neuroimaging, in collaboration with Julie Devonshire at the Entrepreneurship Institute. My current research focuses on the Neuroscience of Entrepreneurship. People often debate whether entrepreneurs are born or made. Evidence suggests they’re mainly shaped by their environment, rather than genetics – but more research is needed. I believe that entrepreneurial thinking can be developed, the same as any other skill, although this requires perseverance, the right environment and mindset, and a lot of practise. With my PhD and work on this collaborative project, I aim to show how expertise in entrepreneurial thinking corresponds to neural differences within the brain. Entrepreneurship and the growth mindset What we already know is that entrepreneurs are experts in thinking innovatively and being effective decision makers, particularly in volatile environments. They aren’t afraid to push themselves outside of their comfort zones, and often have to persevere and drive forward when they cannot predict the outcome of their actions. These are factors which resonate with theories of a ‘growth mindset’. The growth mindset is a concept created by American psychologist Carol Dweck (1988). It’s based on the idea that people have underlying beliefs about learning and intelligence: either the fixed mindset, or the growth mindset.
18 Start! Issue six 2020-21
Fixed mindset: Those with a fixed mindset believe that intelligence is static. This makes them more likely to internalise failure, exert less effort when faced with difficulty, experience self-imposed limitations, and avoid challenging work to preserve their selfimage. Growth mindset: Those with a growth mindset believe we can change and develop our intelligence and abilities. This makes them more likely to take on challenging experiences and seek growth opportunities. Such people feel most successful when learning and further developing their intelligence. As Shakespeare once said: “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” Hence the wisest people are aware of what they do not know, and constantly seek to better themselves. As always in science, not all theories are met with approval. The main controversies with this concept have been the weak link between teaching a growth mindset to students and improving academic performance (To What Extent and Under Which Circumstances Are Growth Mind-Sets Important to Academic Achievement? Two Meta-Analyses, 2018). It may well be that cultivating a growth mindset is much more difficult than we think. I suggest that learning the basic concepts of neuroscience and neuroplasticity may help us understand the way our own behaviour and effort could shape changes in the brain and subsequent learning.
