39 Chapter 2 Mindset Matters Copyright Goodheart-Willcox Co., Inc. Ultimately, it’s the experience of being open to possibilities and being willing to risk some degree of exposure. If you move into your college experience feeling you know everything and that campus life will be predictable, you will never get to a place of being vulnerable enough to truly feel and grow and change. If you begin college with a sense of being open, however, you have a greater chance to grow and change through your experiences, experiences that can only truly be felt when you meet them with a sense of vulnerability. In Dr. Brown’s 2010 TED Talk on vulnerability, one of the most impactful points she makes is about love and belonging. In her research, she found that one particu- lar and critical barrier distinguishes people who possess a strong sense of love and belonging and those who struggle for it. The singular differentiating factor was that people who experienced a strong sense of love and belonging believe they are worthy of feeling love and belonging. These people are considered “wholehearted.” It wasn’t that the latter group didn’t want love and belonging, but they lacked the belief that they were deserving of it, and because of that, they did not possess it. So, how does this connect to your college experience? Part of your college expe- rience asks you to grow and change in a way that helps you become more and more yourself. This is really the power of you and the power of a transformational THINK ABOUT IT Think back to past experiences, perhaps a retreat you went on, or something related to your first week at college, or something you remember as a “bonding” experience. What was the experience? Were there opportunities to try new things or challenge yourself in ways that felt risky (because of the people you were with or the actual task)? Did you feel vulnerable? How did you feel in the end—either about yourself or about your relationships with the other people in your group? THINK ABOUT IT Think about a time when you had to make a decision between a choice that felt risky but the reward would be greater, and another choice that felt more comfortable or safer with less reward. What influenced your decision? What was your thought process? What can you learn about yourself from how you made the decision? Does this experience connect to your understanding of Brown’s idea of vulnerability?