Super Mario Mindset for Lifelong Learning and to Succeed in Life

Lifelong Learning has emerged as one of the most important skills, for 21st century professionals and students. The premium is not on WHAT is the most important skill? We already know this answer. The premium is on HOW to develop Lifelong Learning skills in ourselves and in the people we care for, our family, friends, and work colleagues.

The answer to HOW to develop Lifelong Learning skills and to Succeed in Life? can be found in SUPER MARIO Effect - a basic coding challenge experiment conducted by Mark Rober.

Super Mario

He designed an experiment that has two scenarios of the Coding challenge. In the first scenario, the participants start with 200 points. Each time when they make a coding error they lose 5 points from their reverse. The second scenario, does not have a point system and the participants do not lose points for a coding error.

50,000 people took part in this coding experiment. Data interpretation showed statistical differences in the learning outcomes between the two scenarios.

LHS Scenario-1, RHS Scenario-2

 
The success rate of participants in the No Penalty scenario (no points reduction) for an error was 68% and the success rate of participants in the Penalty scenario (five points reduction) for an error was 52%.

In the No Penalty scenario, a participant made 12 tries to overcome a failed code. In comparison in the Penalty scenario, a participant made 5 tries on a failed code.

Mark Rober, calls this a data-backed mindset for life gamification as the Super Mario Effect.

Remember the first Super Mario game released by Nintendo in the year 1985? Mario the central character has to pass through levels of challenges in the Mushroom Kingdom. The objective of the game is to progress through levels by defeating enemies, collecting items, and solving puzzles without dying.

In the Super Mario game, the player does not quit the levels of challenges upon facing setbacks. They keep enjoying the game, continue to make multiple attempts, and eventually move up the levels.

The Super Mario Effect (Mindset) is the key to learning, which the experiment's No Penalty Coding scenario shows with empirical evidence. Like the Super Mario game, the participants in the No Penalty scenario were enjoying the process of coding (as a game), because they didn't perceive their failed attempts as failures.

Mark Rober in his Ted Talk, reminds us Real Life is quite like the Super Mario Game (Life Gamification). One's life journey will have its ups and downs, twists and turns, hurdles and levels of challenges. No one's life is a straight path, a walk in the park. There is always a big difference between Plan and Reality in Life.

Ted Talk The Super Mario Effect

The key to Lifelong Learning and to Success in Life is to inculcate the mindset of Super Mario. To keep jumping and failing, learning and jumping again, and overcoming the levels of challenges to progress and live a meaningful life.

Mark Rober Ted Talk: The Super Mario Effect - Tricking Your Brain into Learning More.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vJRopau0g0

Phil Stutz's TOOLS for Turning Problems [in]to Possibilities

There is so much of overload of media contents that if one sits down to consume it non-stop 24X7, they might end up spending their entire life, yet not finish watching all of it. Hence the onus is now so much  on the viewer to use their judgement to short-list good content and for spending their time in a worthwhile manner (Infotainment). 

I love to watch movies, series, documentaries and I consciously search for good content from my areas of interest. One such interest area of mine is Mental Health and Wellbeing. 

Image from IMDb

This blog is running notes of STUTZ a documentary film on Netflix, of a candid conversation between leading Psychiatrist-Author Phil Stutz and Hollywood Actor Jonah Hill. 

The actor benefited by taking therapy sessions from Phil Stutz, that's why he made this film for sharing the therapy (tool) so that many more can benefit by watching it. 

'I am making this movie because I want to give therapy and the tools I've learned in therapy to as many people as possible, through a film.' - Jonah Hill

This documentary is available in Netflix with a running time of just over One and Half Hour. In today's busy life, availability of time has become a scare resource. So many might not be able to take out one and half hour time to watch it. Moreover, one cannot learn by watching this documentary as a passive audience. They have to pause for making notes for effective learning, which will further increase their watch time. 

This is the reason I wrote this blog, so that it can help many who are hard-pressed with time. They can use this blog as a reference note to the documentary and apply Phil Stutz's TOOLs for solving their life's problems and for making their life better.

The blog is written in first person narrative style (Phil Stutz talking directly to the interviewer (Johan Hill) and audience, as he does in the Netflix documentary).

Image from goodreads

What are TOOLs?

Tools is a bridge between between the problem and gaining at least some control over the problem. It has to do with possibility. Possibility means you feel yourself reacting differently. 

The Tool kit comprises of: 

1. Life Force
2. String of Pearls
3. The Shadow
4. The Snapshot
5. The Maze
6. Active Love
7. Radical Acceptance
8. The Grateful Flow  
9. Loss Processing

Tools helps us to fight with Part-X. (Part X is explained below)

LIFE FORCE

To get a direction, purpose and passion in life, one should activate their Life Force.

Level 1 - Your relationship with your body: Do exercise, cultivate good dietary habits and sleep well.

Level 2 - Your relationship with other people: Take self-initiative to reach out to people, develop and maintain relationships.

Level 3 - Your relationship with yourself: Our subconscious is untapped and unknown. Journal writing is a good way to gain insight about your subconscious mind.

   PART X

Part X is that inner voice of your's which creates fear, resists change, blocks your evolution and blocks your potential. 

Part X will always be there in every human being. Hence, it's important to be aware that life consists of 3 Aspects of Reality.

3 Aspects of Reality are: Pain, Uncertainty and Constant Work.

Tools helps us to face and overcome these life's realities, make progress, create opportunities and enjoy the process.

STRING OF PEARLS

Image from Pedagonet.com

Each pearl in the string represents an action.

This string of pearls, helps you to look at yourself in terms of the actions and habits. 

"I am the person who puts the next pearl on the string."

So it's about getting up in the morning and putting the next pearl in the string.

The key is to take action!

THE SHADOW

Image from Stutz Netflix

It's the part of yourself that you are still ashamed of and haven't made peace with. Find your shadow, face it, focus on it and work on it.

  

Image from Stutz Netflix

Talk to your shadow, listen to your shadow. The shadow needs your attention and wants it to be included and embraced (part of your life). 

Life is not about perfection, it's about the process, it's it's about wholeness, it's about being your true-self.

THE SNAPSHOT

(A.K.A The Realm of Illusion)

Image from Stutz Netflix

The image of perfection in life (perfect snapshot) is an illusion created by Part X.

This still illusory image cripples one's progress and happiness. 

A perfect snapshot is not possible because the 3 realities of life: pain, uncertainty and constant work will always exist. 

THE MAZE

Image from Stutz Netflix

The MAZE always involves other people.

The maze keeps you trapped inside it, it takes away your time and energy and stops you from moving forward in life.

It's the product of Part X, because Part X wants fairness. 

You feel you have been mistreated by the other person and the quest for fairness, puts your life on hold.

In reality time is fleeting but you are still in the maze, waiting to move past it, after resolving the issue with the concerned person.

ACTIVE LOVE

You have to visualise this universe is made up of Love. It's a world that's almost dense with loving energy. Visualise yourself taking all the loving energy and placing it in your heart. Sent out the love you have concentrated in your heart to this other person (whom you have being hating). 

It's not so much about forgiving. It's about making you feel 'Whole'. If you can send love to the person who has hurt you, you can then make anyone part of yourself (wholeness). 

It's about releasing yourself from remaining trapped in the maze and not wasting (your energy and time) hours and weeks in the maze. 

The choice boils down to only two questions: You want to be right? or you want to create something new? 

Life is about moving forward and not being stuck in the maze and wasting the time and energy, because you can't get those hours and week back.

RADICAL ACCEPTANCE

It's training yourself to create a Reflex.

It's trying to find the state of not getting into a lot of negativity and training yourself to say, What am I gonna do about it now?

Every event has something in it that you can learn from. 

You have to squeeze the juice out of the lemon (event), meaning you not only have to have the will-power but the faith too that every event in life has something valuable (value) in it. With this mindset, everything starts becoming meaningful. 

If you can train to create this reflex (mindset) of looking at all events as having value, you will reach the Zone of Tremendous Opportunities.

THE GRATEFUL FLOW

Illustrations from The Tools by Phil Stutz & Barry Michels

Phil Stutz narrates his first plane journey as a child. It was a gloomy, cloudy day but when the plane reached above the clouds, there was sun and sunshine. This episode in Stutz's life, gave a new paradigm - The Sun is always there, no matter how many many black and dark clouds are over you. We have to find out a way of let the sunshine come through the clouds. 

Part X will resist you, it will tell you shouldn't be grateful, you are a victim, you didn't get enough, why should you be grateful for what you have? (given the dark circumstances of your life). 

The process of creative act of being grateful will change your mood. 

The classic time to use 'The Grateful Flow' is when your thoughts are out of control.

Gratefulness is the state you want to be in as often as you possibly can be in it, because it's the state that breaks through the cloud. Once you are up there, you are in a different world. 

LOSS PROCESSING

Image from Stutz Netflix

Most people are very bad at coming to terms with loss. They get depressed or bereft when there's a loss. But even before there is a loss, they're just worrying about a loss. 

The goal of Loss Processing, is to get what's called the potency of nonattachment. That means I can pursue something but I'm also willing to lose it. 

Visualization exercise: Pick up something you have got really attached to and fear of losing it. Imagine you are holding to it (branch of a tree), but eventually you let go of it. To your surprise, your fall is gentle and you fall into Sun, your physical body burns up and you become one sunbeam amongst all the other sunbeams. You are radiating a very loving, giving, outflowing sensation in this sun world. In this Sun World, all you can do is Give, You can't grasp and hold on to anything. It's just impossible.  

As human beings it not good to be completely non-attached. The goal here is not complete non-attachment, but moving towards the state of wholeness, where the loss of a material possession or a person, can't take away your wholeness.

Summary: 'No one is absolved from problems of life (not even the people whom you look upto). As humans everyone has to strive, adapt, struggle, go through pain, uncertainty, constant work for moving forward in life'. - Phil Stutz

References: The documentary Stutz on Netflix https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21819228/

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