Storytelling: What fear can teach us

One of the most important and powerful aspects of a growth mindset is that it gives you a way to think about facing your fears, and as you overcome your fears, you can grow. So, on the subject of overcoming fears, I wanted to share this TED talk: What fear can teach us by Karen Thompson Walker.

You can also read the transcript, and you can learn more about the speaker here: Karen Thompson Walker.

The theme of this talk really resonates with the classes I teach, because she focuses on a connection with storytelling:

Just like all great stories, our fears focus our attention on a question that is as important in life as it is in literature: What will happen next? In other words, our fears make us think about the future. And humans, by the way, are the only creatures capable of thinking about the future in this way, of projecting ourselves forward in time, and this mental time travel is just one more thing that fears have in common with storytelling.

And here is the whaleship Essex that she talks about at the beginning of the talk: