Ep 185 The lessons are in the failures with guest Prof Shauli Mukherjee
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the bold goal crusher podcast for anyone looking to stop letting life get in the way and start crushing bold goals. I'm your host, Sara Mayer, and I'm thrilled to navigate this journey with you because it's time to start boldly achieving without working double time. So let's dive in.
Sara Mayer: Hello, bold goal crushers. I'm excited about this episode today because we are gonna jump into some really cool topics because my guest is a dynamo. Let me introduce you to Professor Shali. She is a passionate act mathematician, global thought leader, and internationally, Inc. Acclaimed.
Sara Mayer: Inspirational speaker with more than 23 years in the education space. She's [00:01:00] been awarded as India's top 50 women leaders in the education industry and the top 20 revolutionary. Education leaders as well as among 99 women achievers in India for the year 2021. She's also been listed among the top most courageous women in business leadership and entertainment in 2022.
Sara Mayer: She's been the founder principal of the first STEM school in West Bengal awarded as the second best international day school by education world. She served She currently serves as the professor and director of the school of education at Adama's university in India. I am so excited to have you on the show.
Sara Mayer: I just think that you have such an impressive resume and I can't wait to dive [00:02:00] into all the things that you've done.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Thank you so much, Sara. At the very outset, I would like to say that I'm really so happy. To be on this platform today, and I'm really looking forward.
Sara Mayer: Yes. I am as well. One of the things that many people may not know about me is that I, like you spent a lot of time in education, about 15 years in higher education, working on the administrative side.
Sara Mayer: I'm always inspired to talk about educating our youth and helping them to truly blossom into what they are meant and destined to be. So I'd love to hear a little bit about your journey. How did you end up in education and now how are you using that to change? Maybe the world.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Yeah, that's an interesting question.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: How did I end up in the sector of education? So rather, I would like to say that I did not end up in the sector of education. I [00:03:00] started off with this in mind at a very young age. So right. When I was very young, in fact, when I didn't even understand the implication and importance of an educator's role in somebody's life.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Even from that time onwards, I always had a kind of a fascination. I cannot say that it was a purpose then, but it was a kind of fascination that I wanted to be in the sector of education, wanted to be a teacher, wanted to be an educator. So that was when I actually didn't understand the implication of the impact that an educator may have on a person's life later on in my life.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: And I actually realized that this is actually a kind of a position and a profession, which has a tremendous importance, no doubt about that. [00:04:00] But added on to that, it's a very responsible position, because it's a very powerful position. An educator can impact a child's life. And through that child, The life of the entire family and extended family.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: By everything that you say, and by everything that you do, and by everything that you stand for, you're actually always creating a lot of impact. And the best part is oftentimes you are not even aware of the fact that you are creating a great impact. But I always believed Sarah, that, it's definitely, it's a very powerful position.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Yeah. Because of, children start imitating you, children start living by whatever you are doing in front of them. But the thing is that it's extremely responsible. It's a very [00:05:00] responsible profession and often people don't understand that, but it's very responsible. It's a very responsible job.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: I would say it's a
Sara Mayer: vocation. Yeah. And one thing that you mentioned is that the impact is so great. Somebody said when you're. When you're grown, you spend most of your time with your work family. And when you're younger, you spend most of your time in school, like more than 50 percent of your day in school with others and educators.
Sara Mayer: And I love that you bring up that it is. An opportunity to make a tremendous impact, but it's also a responsibility because you can't just recklessly go into a classroom and impart your ideas. You're being accountable to somebody else's children and helping to almost raise them. I wonder, based on your story of when you were young, was there a teacher that had a particular impact on you?
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: [00:06:00] Yeah, there was not a single teacher, but there were many, and in fact there have been many people in my life who had not been technically a teacher, but had greatly impacted something that I do right now. It can be my parents, it can be somebody whom I had seen very closely and the kind of value systems, the kind of ethics that they live by.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: That had led a lot of imprint on my mind and of course, why only people, why only persons, but a lot of stuff that I have read and overall life's experience. I think that is the greatest teacher, because a lot of experiences that we have in our lives, both pleasant as well as not so pleasant, they leave an intellible mark on your life.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: And they even, subconsciously they bring about a lot of [00:07:00] things that you perhaps embody right now. Yeah. So the same has happened for me as well. There have been a lot of incidents, experiences. people in my life teachers, parents. So it's all a collective an experience that I carry along with me.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: So I always feel Sada that it's not me when I walk into the room, when I walk into a particular room, I feel that it's not me only. So it's all those collective experiences and everybody who had consciously or not consciously mentored me at some point of time, I carry that ethos when that, when I actually walk into a particular space.
Sara Mayer: And that's so great that you had that community out there to impact you. I think so many children these days have a lot of negative experiences at school and they don't [00:08:00] have that collective. Force of inspiration to carry them through that. I know when I was younger, I had a teacher and I wish I could track this man down.
Sara Mayer: I've tried, I haven't been able to, he may have passed at this point, but Mr. Conlon in English, he was the first one when we were writing stories and I was writing about something right outside the window of his classroom that he like noticed me and was like. You should sit by the window and move my seat from the middle of the room.
Sara Mayer: And I don't think he realized that simple act of just realizing that if I was closer to the window, I could probably write more colorful descriptions of the stories, but I'll never forget that class. And maybe I wasn't, really into English, but at that point, I. I remember feeling oh, okay, he's noticed me, he put me where I needed to be.
Sara Mayer: And I tried really [00:09:00] hard in his class to do really well, simply by him just saying, you should sit by the window. And that was
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: it. So that's exactly what I meant when I said that it's a tremendously responsible position because a single word that you utter or your gesture It can have tremendous impact on the child who is in front of you, and oftentimes they are not aware of it.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Yeah, that's the danger. That's the danger. And I'm not only talking about the educators or the teachers, even parents are also often not conscious. About what they speak and what they do in front of their children, which may have a lifelong effect on them.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. Yeah. And also who your children are exposed to, we, we in society sign our kids up for things, cheerleading camp, basketball camp, all these different [00:10:00] things.
Sara Mayer: And many times it's just, Oh, you want to do this. Let me sign you up. But I had a. I used to teach horseback riding lessons and I had a parent one time I was younger in my twenties. She wanted to interview me before she signed up her kid. And I thought I'd never had a parent asked to interview me for that.
Sara Mayer: And when I sat down, she asked me, and I thought this was such a, in hindsight, I think it was such a great parental move. She said, what are your values? How do you teach children? And what do you hope my daughter will learn? Which was great. She asked me those questions. And then she said, how will you handle it?
Sara Mayer: When my daughter doesn't listen, And now, and thinking back at the time, I was like what do you mean? I hope your daughter listens, but we know that doesn't always happen. And I remember that parent because. She took such an interest in not only that her [00:11:00] daughter was going to learn how to ride horses, but how she was going to learn to ride horses and the life lessons from that.
Sara Mayer: And I think that's
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: pretty rare. Wonderful. And in fact, I believe that whether it's for the educator or it does the case for the parents. I always feel that it's a great learning opportunity. For both educators, as well as the parents problem is we always think that we are here to teach them. Yes, forget the fact that we are here to learn a lot of stuff from them.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: And the most important things that we need to learn from them. Yeah. Other things, or the stuff which are there within us, and we are perhaps. Often not very comfortable to face those things, we keep them hidden within us and if it's your own children and they will [00:12:00] trigger you to a point sometimes when you are actually forced to face those things, which you will not be comfortable to face.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Otherwise, I would have. Those are the points when you get triggered. Those are the points when you get infuriated, maybe, but those are great learning experiences. Those are great learning opportunities for parents and for educators. It's so easy when you face a class where you feel that everybody is like paying attention to whatever you're saying.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: And they're like, they're keeping quiet. For me. Who had spent 23 years in the education space, I always consider these signals and signs as dangerous signs, because we have to understand the attention span of the children. They are not very long, so when you see that they're quiet, and they're pretending to pay attention, please understand they're pretending to do it.[00:13:00]
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Yeah. So a great teacher will always facilitate curiosity or that ability to question the children will be curious in your class. The children will be dying to ask questions. And they will be so very comfortable to ask a lot of questions. That's when a class becomes lively.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: That's when a class becomes interactive. Yeah. You cannot experience a lively class when the class is quiet. That's my experience.
Sara Mayer: Yeah, and creating that comfort. You mentioned that it's such a responsibility, but allowing and creating the group comfort, the ability to develop that confidence in children, especially when they're young, and then when they do decide to step out there and raise their hand or make a statement that may or may not be the answer a teacher is looking [00:14:00] for, but giving them...
Sara Mayer: The ability to do that again, because that's difficult for a lot of children, but also for adults, sometimes I don't want to raise my hand if I'm not sure or not confident. So I think that's a tremendous responsibility, but that's not easy either.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Absolutely. That's not easy, creating that safe space for the children where they can be themselves.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Yeah, they they will not be having any inhibitions to ask a lot of questions that are coming to their minds because see, the problem is I have always felt, Sarah, that the problem with the current education system, why we consider the current education system as a flawed system is because of the single most factor that we teach our children compliance and conformity.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: And we do not give importance to creativity and innovation. Now, [00:15:00] in theory, Or in discussions, we always say that we want our next generation or the Gen Z to be, creative problem solvers, critical thinkers. So how would they be critical thinkers and creative problem solvers? If since the very beginning, you have not created that safe and comfortable space for them to be curious and open.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Yeah, because you have created a kind of an ambience, which embodies conformity and compliance. These are the two dangerous pillars on which our current education system is resting right now. So I always want them to comply, to obey the norms. But anybody who asks us a question, which is not very comfortable, how many of us as educators and as parents will be willing to answer those [00:16:00] questions and will be willing to create that ambience where they can ask more questions.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. Yeah. And I think so many times, this is not only for children, it's for adults as well. We interact in groups, we create communities, we connect with people online and being able to create that space where people can be curious, can really have that vibrant conversation is not easy, but also being in that space.
Sara Mayer: And helping to create it from within is also not as easy, easier said than done. I think many times as adults, we've come from environments that maybe weren't inclusive or weren't that vibrant, creative sharing of ideas. How do you suggest people go about maybe readjusting their thought process or their [00:17:00] mindset to move into a growth
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: mindset?
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: I believe, Sarah, that a growth mindset is an abandoned mindset. So it's not a scarcity mindset at all. So a mind which thinks about scarcity, a mind which thinks about lack, cannot attract abundance and prosperity. Never. Now, when you have this kind of a growth or an abandoned mindset, I believe your body language changes, your words change.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Your thought patterns change, everything changes around you, and the milieu in which you are comfortable with that milieu also changes, because the growth mindset is that kind of a mindset, which believes that there is always room for everyone. Yeah. So it's not a constricted or a restricted space that we have to compete.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: So [00:18:00] growth mindset is not a competitive mindset. The first thing that we have to understand about growth mindset is that it's definitely not competitive, it's collaborative, it's cooperative. So it believes more in collaboration and cooperation over competition, rather over cutthroat competition, because it believes that there is room for everyone.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: And secondly, this kind of mindset also believes That the situation which is your current or your present situation is not your ultimate situation is not your final situation. So there was a magical word, I often, I tell my students. Also, I often tell parents that there's a magical word, which we rarely use.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: And that magical word is yet. So when a child comes to you yet, yes, when a child [00:19:00] comes to you and tells you that when my child comes to me and tells me, mama, I'm not good in math. I said, and how do you understand that? And he says, no, I'm not getting, good scores in maths.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: So what should I tell him at that point of time? I'm not supposed to say no, you are excellent in maths. Who said that you are not good in maths? Rather, I can tell him that you are not good in maths yet.
Sara Mayer: So powerful one word can change the context of every interaction.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Absolutely. Not that is essence of growth mindset.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Human. Yeah. When you believe in growth, you know you have to be your authentic self firstly. Because if you are not authentic, if you're not real then you cannot exude that growth mindset because it's always said, Sarah, that it's your it's your wife. Which attracts your train.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: So [00:20:00] the kind of people that you you know that are mixed up with, or you perhaps you're more comfortable being with, you will always see that, there's a kind of a vibe which binds all of them. So if you're a positive, if you're a person who thinks positive, if you're a person who always sees opportunity or tries to figure out opportunity in everything.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Come what may. So I have seen it myself that the kind of people with whom you work with maybe takes time, they also start believing, they also start gradually believing in those same things, so this is I think very contagious and I'm happy that it is because it ultimately, sorry, depends on you at the end of the day.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Because situations, whatever situations will come your way, it's not in your control. You cannot control the situations, right? But definitely you can control [00:21:00] one major thing is how you respond to those situations, whether you view those situations which are coming your way as opportunities or as challenges or as obstacles.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Are they making you better or better? Yeah. Are they making you a victim or a victor out of it? And that depends. And that's so powerful because it ultimately depends on me. What I make of everything.
Sara Mayer: Yep. And I think one of the cool things that you mentioned was it's really about turning those obstacles into an opportunity.
Sara Mayer: It's. Looking at what you're learning or what you're experiencing and turning that into what you're learning from that, and then how you're moving forward and growing, do you have advice for maybe somebody who's listening that maybe is [00:22:00] stuck in a rut and might not have developed that growth mindset, but is looking to move into that, how would they go about.
Sara Mayer: Really diagnosing where they're at and then moving forward. So they are able to step into that type of mindset.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Yeah, definitely. See, I believe that everything starts with your mindset, everything starts from there. Everything starts from what you think it's not your action. What comes first is what you think that thought pattern actually determines your action.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: So whatever we are faced with. The first thought comes to your mind. Is it a thought that is moving you towards a feeling of lack, scarcity, or is it a kind of a thought that's a grateful thought, you're happy. That something has happened to, nobody can give you a guarantee that [00:23:00] everything that's going to happen in your life is going to be pleasant, is going to be a happy thing.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: But then the very first thought, and I always believe that the first thought is very powerful. The first thought is your default
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: thoughts. Because it's, so the very first thought that you have, whether that is a lack oriented thought, let me just give you an example any, suppose, there has been a kind of a fight or an argument with one of your friends. What is the first thought that would come to your mind?
Sara Mayer: Probably.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Yeah. Yeah, please.
Sara Mayer: Probably the first thought if I had a fight with someone is how come they don't see it my way, or don't they understand this is, how it is or something like that, depending on what the topic is. Yeah,
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: exactly. So the very first thought is they have not been able to [00:24:00] understand me or maybe I have not been respected.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: I have not been seen. I have not been heard. Now, all these feelings, Sarah, I have not been respected. I have not been heard. I have not been seen. These are all feelings of lack.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: These are all watering on scarcity. Maybe you know,
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: thought pattern. So maybe we can think that maybe, My friend was going through something, he was not, he, or she was not in his or her best frame of mind. So everything is not about you. We cannot take everything personally. This has been honestly, Sara, my greatest learning. So I was also not a kind of a person who used to think like this.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: So I always thought that everything was about me, [00:25:00] but no, everything is not about me. I do not know the whole narrative. I'm just interpreting it in my own way, and maybe I shouldn't be doing that. And if I don't do that, because, see, when I take everything personally, what is more important to me is my E G O ego.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: And that's a great killer for any relationship and for any kind of, we all know that. So every time you take things personally, it's your ego that is working. And every time you try to take a compassionate stand, you try to empathize and think about the other person who was involved in that interaction.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: You step out of your ego and try to think about the other person. which may give you a very different narrative. So we can at least try.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. [00:26:00] And that is sometimes easier said than done. Sometimes it's hard to put yourself as people will say in other people's shoes, but I think one of the things when I've tried to take it in my own learning, like how can I learn in your example from this argument from somebody, how can I learn so that I can maybe avoid being in the situation in the future or learn to become a better communicator so it doesn't get to the point that we're having an argument and when I.
Sara Mayer: Okay. Try and frame it a little bit into what can I learn from it? It's helped me to then say, Oh, maybe. I'm able to think of it in their shoes a little more, a little easier because we never know where everybody's coming from. But when I've like really thought about, okay, what am I gonna learn and take from this interaction?
Sara Mayer: So I don't have this rub [00:27:00] anymore with somebody else. It's helped me to really move into that growth mindset.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Very true. Very true. I know it's difficult. I know it's We can see about it and we can discuss about it. But then when it, when you are facing this kind of a situation, often you are unable to do that. But don't you think that is exactly what learning is all about? And you not be you will not be the right kind of, you will always not be projecting the right kind of behavior right at the very outset.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: That's what learning is all about. We are not perfect beings, right? Neither are we trying to be perfect. Yeah, but at least that compassionate stand and coming out of your ego and thinking about the other person is I would also like to link it with education. Sarah, because.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: This is also one of the major flaws of our current education system, which gives so much of importance to the intelligence quotient, to the [00:28:00] IQ of the child, often neglecting the EQ, though almost all the significant research has proved that more than 80 percent of the success in your life, be it in your professional sphere or in your personal endeavor, it actually rests on your EQ and not on your IQ.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Yup. So the problem is we don't teach EQ to our children, the schools, they don't teach EQ. They're busy teaching maths, science, geography,
Sara Mayer: chemistry, and memorizing historical facts that you we do
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: not have lessons in emotional intelligence. We do not teach them EQ right when they're very young, neither the parents do that. But then we expect them to be emotionally intelligent when they grow up. Yeah. Yeah.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. We don't teach a lot of things. One of the things I've said is we don't teach people how kids, how to work.
Sara Mayer: Like in high school, they go out and get their job [00:29:00] and we just expect them to know how to work or how to be efficient or how to do any of these things. And in reality, I feel like we're missing the mark in education. On some of the life skills, and I understand there's requirements, at least in the U. S.
Sara Mayer: that they must do this and they have to pass the state test, but it seems like there's an opportunity for reform and in a lot of areas, especially for what We need kids to be when they grow up and that's really a difficult task adulting as my foster daughter says adulting is hard. Nobody taught me how to adult.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Yeah, that reminds me of the fact that it's easy to learn, but it's very difficult to unlearn. And so it makes it impossible to relearn after unlearning. So I can completely resonate with whatever you said.
Sara Mayer: Yep. So really quickly, [00:30:00] I wanted to ask you about something. So you were... Listed among the top 50 most courageous women in business.
Sara Mayer: Where do you get your courage from?
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: I believe that it always comes from within, and I always believe that, the real fight, see as women, Sarah, let's face it as women, we have to fight a lot of battles. Yeah. Some are seen, some are not seen, almost on a daily basis, we have to fight a lot of battles, but at the end of the day, I believe that the real courage comes from the realization that the real fight is never outside.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: It's always within you. It's always fighting those voices in your head, which keeps on telling you that you're not good enough. Yeah. Those are the times. Every time [00:31:00] you are victorious over those voices, which run in your head, and every time you triumph, those are the moments of your victory and that gives you courage.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: And the more you do it, the more courageous you feel.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. And courage is it's like building a muscle. I think growth mindset as well. You have to build that muscle up. It's not something you just all of a sudden have, or you just do it. You have to put yourself in situations and not dangerous situations, but situations where you have to show courage, learning something new, trying something different, moving into a different area and also the growth mindset as well.
Sara Mayer: It's a muscle that you can build over time. But it takes intentional intentionality to do that.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: I'll just add one more thing with what you said right now, the growth mindset also enables you [00:32:00] to fail comfortably. You need to fail and you need to impress your failures and your mistakes.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Yes. Yeah. That's the hallmark of a growth mindset. Yeah. The problem is we stigmatize failures and mistakes. Yeah. Yeah. That's the major problem with adults, with parents and with educators. We stigmatize failures and mistakes. We give our children a kind of an impression that they should never fail or they should not commit any mistake.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Yeah. That's not how we have also learned and evolved and grown. We have also committed a lot of mistakes and sometimes even blunders, right? And that has actually brought us here.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: These are the life lessons, how can you just [00:33:00] restrict your children from failing and from embracing those mistakes and and of course growth mindset is definitely connected with resilience. Because every time you fail and every time you pick your pieces up and you stand tall again, that's courage.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: That's resilience. But we do not appreciate that.
Sara Mayer: Yeah. And so often we talk about people like great athletes. I'm from Chicago. So great athlete, Michael Jordan, he won X number of games made so many shots and he is very quick in quotes in the past to say, yeah, but I missed this. This meant I missed this many shots and he actually has failed more than he has succeeded.
Sara Mayer: And we don't really celebrate that. Like the learning that he had to go through to. To get to where he was at from all those failures and the resilience as you bring up. [00:34:00]
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Yeah. It's because we celebrate success and we tell the success stories to our children. We never tell them the failure stories.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: Maybe it's time now when we should start telling them the failure stories. You need to know those 99 times. Where this person had failed, not that one moment where he succeeded. So the client will ultimately realize and understand that it had taken 99 failed attempts to reach that one moment of success.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: So the value of success will be realized by the child.
Sara Mayer: Yes. Let's make that a new trend. Tell the failure stories. I love it. I have just really enjoyed this conversation with you. If one of the listeners is like, Oh, I could talk about this all day. How might they get in touch with you and how could they work with you?
Sara Mayer: Yeah.[00:35:00]
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: I'm an educator by profession but in spite of that, I'm a kind of a person who is very active on social media. So any person who would like to get in touch with many like minded people, so they can get in touch with me through Facebook, through LinkedIn or through Instagram.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: So I'm quite active on all social media
Sara Mayer: handles. I love it. And we'll drop those in the show notes so they could check you out. It has truly blend a pleasure having you on the show. I feel like I could talk to you all day, we all have other things to do in the day as well. You have such a great perspective on not only the world and how we can change the way we all educate each other throughout interactions, but a great perspective on showing courage and.
Sara Mayer: Pushing through those failures. And I'm going to use that word yet more often. Thank you so much.
Prof Shauli Mukherjee: It's absolutely a pleasure [00:36:00] interacting with you and being on this platform today have been a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much.
Sara Mayer: Thank you. All right, bold goal crushers. It's time to crush your goals and everything that gets in the way because you do not have to work double time.
Sara Mayer: So let's get to it.
Thank you for tuning into the bold goal crusher podcast where we crush goals and everything that gets in the way. I always love to support my community.
I look forward to seeing you crush your goals this year.
