The Pygmalion Effect is Holding You Back in Life

I grew up being told that my ADHD was a problem. And this manifested in the school system by being put into special programs, special classes, being put alongside the other kids who might have had other, you know, social programming disorders. And it affected the way that I saw myself. It affected the way that I saw myself relative to my peers, which was that I wasn’t normal. There was something wrong with me, something different. And it wasn’t until many, many years later that I started to realize that different didn’t necessarily mean worse, it just meant different. Right? Like, some people are tall, some people are short. That can be an advantage depending on the game that you’re gonna play.

My ADHD really didn’t have to be a weakness. If I played the right games, it could be a strength. And that took me a lot of time to unpack. But what was very clear, and I didn’t have words for this until many, many, many years later, was simply that I lived up to the low expectations everybody seemed to have for me. I think the main reason I struggled so much in school specifically to be focused and disciplined was because everybody was telling me that I had those problems and they set their bar really low, their expectations for me really low. And sure enough, I lived up to it, but I didn’t go past those expectations. And this is actually a psychological phenomenon called the Pygmalion effect. What the Pygmalion effect shows, as researchers, they observed the effect that teachers could have on the outcomes of students scores in class simply based off of the expectations the teacher had for that student.

For instance, if the student was told by the teacher, hey, you’re great, you’re smart, you’re one of the top in the class, I expect great things from you. You’re going to be a world beater, it’s going to be fantastic. That person lived up to the expectation that the teacher had set for them compared to the other student who is maybe told, you’re going to struggle, you have attention problems, it’s going to be difficult for you and you’re going to. You’re only ever going to be, you know, you’re gonna have to work extra hard at this, right? That person lived up to that expectation, which was the lower standard. The thing is, though, like both students, from a qualitative standpoint, were effectively the same, the only difference in their test scores leading up to this and their performances lagging. This was the expectation that the teacher had for them in those moments. And the takeaway here is that the simplest, quickest way to level up your life is to stop surrounding people who tolerate and expect mediocrity from you. Stop hanging out with people who tolerate and expect mediocrity from you.

My life, everybody, up until, like, I was almost 30 years old. And even then, a little bit after that, with the close friends and family, they expected mediocrity from me. And so I lived up to that. That’s what I expected for myself. It wasn’t until I started getting around people who had higher expectations of me, saying, like, you could be the best in the world at this. I believe in you. I see potential. And they stopped putting up with the shit that I was doing, and they held me accountable to that vision that they had for me, which was higher than the one that I even had for myself.
That’s when I really started to transform. And the way that we see this play out is really interesting. Say, in the example of championship teams, if you’ve ever been on a championship team, you know that the way the team shows up is very different than the other teams in the league who maybe don’t have a chance to compete for the win, maybe like the bottom 10% team. If you’ve ever gone from being on a shitty team to a great team, you notice the expectations of everybody on the team are different fundamentally, same player. But the way you show up, the way that you perform is different because the expectation the team leaders have on you. I think this is one of the reasons Michael Jordan is the goat of basketball. It wasn’t necessarily because he was the best singular player. That’s probably a lot of it.
It was because he had a higher expectation for the people that he surrounded himself with than they had for themselves. And he held them accountable to the expectations he had for them. So his teammates, he’s like, if you’re going to be a bull, if you’re going to be on my team, this is what that means. This is how you show up. This is what I expect from you. And if you don’t, you’re off the team. And he gave them a higher expectation to live up to, and of course they did. And they went on to becoming a really dominant basketball team.

And this can play out for you in one of two ways. Either by leveling up the people in your life, leveling up the people on your team, by increasing the expectations you have of them, and then expressing this to them. I believe you have greatness within you. I’m not going to tolerate your mediocrity. It’s a disservice to you. It’s a disservice to the world when you don’t play up to your full potential. And on this team, that’s not how we play. I think you have the potential to be a world champion on this team.

I’m going to hold you to that standard. And then when you do that, people, they tend to live up to it. The reverse is if you set the bar low for your people, low for your team, and you tolerate the mediocrity, they will show up with mediocrity. So that’s one way that we can use this concept of the pygmalion effect to our benefit. The other way is in our personal lives and saying, who am I surrounding myself with? Who tolerates and expects mediocrity from me? Get rid of those people. Level those people up. And a lot of times, unfortunately, that means getting around, getting rid of the people who’ve known you for the longest, the people who knew you when you were less than. And as you’re pursuing your greatness, they still hold on to that identity of who you were.

And you have to be comfortable saying, that’s not who I am going to be. And therefore, I’m shedding that personality and I’m shedding your expectations of me and I’m leveling up. That right there is the secret unlock to achieving your greatness. And as quick a period of time as you as you could ever imagine. Get around the people, the coaches, the players who hold you to that standard, who believe in you and that they won’t put up with your shit. That’s all I got. We’ll see you guys in the next episode. Until then, stay hyper focused, my friends.