Good morning and welcome to the Increase Your Impact podcast. I'm Justin Sua episode 2008. I want to

imagine that you're a sculptor standing before a block of marble and you can either see a masterpiece

waiting to be revealed or just another hunk of stone. How you see it changes everything. This idea goes all the

way back to mythology. Pygmillian, the group's sculptor, carved a statue so beautiful that he fell in love with it.

His belief was so strong the gods brought it to life. That's the Pygmillian effect, when high expectations

lead to high performance. In 1986, researchers Rosenthal and Jacobson proved this phenomenon

in schools. When teachers believed certain students had high potential, even though they were

chosen at random,

those students improved more. Expectation shaped reality. Now contrast this with the golem

effect named after Jewish folklore. A golem was a creature made of clay, seen as lesser, clumsy, incomplete.

When people are treated as incapable, they often become exactly that.

Studies also show that when leaders or teachers or coaches expect less from someone,

they offer fewer opportunities, less encouragement, and this leads to lower performance.

So here's the reality. Leaders, coaches, parents, we're all sculptors. The way we see our people,

the expectations we set, and the belief we communicate, shape how the people we lead see themselves.

So the question we need to ask ourselves is, are we chiseling with belief or doubt?

Are we pulling greatness out of our people or unintentionally holding them back?

Because history, science, and experience

all point to the same truth that people tend to become what we expect them to be.

My invitation to you today is to consider how you're viewing your people.

Is your faith in them? is your care for them,

is your belief in them, easy to detect. Something that you want. Have a great day. And we'll do it

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