Give Up the Fixed

Give Up the Fixed


“The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways.” ― Robert Greene, Mastery

People with a fixed mindset think their talents and intelligence are simply fixed traits, and that talent alone creates successwithout effort. They’re wrong.  It takes making lots of mistakes and failing over and over again until you can tease out a kernel of something that rings like truth and comes from deep within. Getting to that requires most times dealing with long ago mindsets that we brought forward from situations or events that we experienced as a child.  

It’s important to seek out those old mindsets that help keep us stuck, and actually speak them out loud, more than once.  Then really puzzle through what you want to do with them. Start wondering if the mindset that carries these emotions were actually real. Wonder to yourself if the feelings you were having were appropriate for the situation or event, or if you were kind of imagining it to be worse than it really was.

Successful people know this. They invest an immense amount of time on a daily basis to develop a growth mindset, acquire new knowledge, learn new skills and tools and change their perception so that it can help them get to where they want to go. Aria Ready! Well are you?

Carol Kirkpatrick

For as long as she can remember, singing and performing have always been in Carol Kirkpatrick’s blood. From her beginnings in a small farming town in southeastern Arizona, through her early first-place triumph at the prestigious San Francisco Opera Auditions, and subsequent career on international stages, Ms. Kirkpatrick has thrilled audiences and critics alike. “A major voice, one worth the whole evening.” (The New York Times) Since retiring from the stage, she continues to be in demand as a voice teacher, clinician, and adjudicator of competitions including the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.  Combining her knowledge of performance, business, and interpersonal skills, she has written the second edition of her highly regarded book, Aria Ready: The Business of Singing, a step-by-step career guide for singers and teachers of singing.  Aria Ready has been used by universities, music conservatories and summer and apprentice programs throughout the world as a curriculum for teaching Ms. Kirkpatrick’s process of career development, making her “the” expert in this area.  She lives in Denver, Colorado.   YouTube.com/kirkpatrickariaready