Having spent more than a decade on the dance floor, Niccolo Filippi, a 23-year-old Italian dance performer, recently decided to explore Chinese culture and its traditional dance forms and believes that this experience will not only boost his career, but also broaden his horizons beyond the world of dance.

His interest in diversifying his skills grew after he stumbled upon a short video of traditional Chinese-styled dance on YouTube. “I saw it as an art that combines tradition and modernity, which was mostly the reason why I liked it.” says Filippi.

Ever since, he has been closely following Chinese dance performers and watching numerous videos to learn more about the traditional style that he admires. “I prefer the traditional style because of its light movements. It also reflects my personality with elegance,” he adds.

Filippi’s chance came when he was invited to perform for a Chinese New Year celebration in the central Italian city of Florence. He has fully committed himself to the art form, learning several pieces and putting his newfound passion into practice.

“The biggest difference that I found (compared to other disciplines) is the change of mood and emotional expressions among dances,” says Filippi, adding that he needed to shift from the dynamic moves of hip-hop to the graceful and fluid movements of Chinese dance. Despite various obstacles, Filippi’s efforts have not gone unnoticed. Two of his friends shared videos of his performances on social media, and the response was overwhelming. One video gathered 500,000 views, while the other received 200,000 views.

Filippi believes that learning about different cultures is priceless, and he sees it as a means of personal growth. “I like to think of a person as a book,” he says. “Embracing different traditions and cultures, such as Chinese culture and many others, is like adding new chapters to my book, making it more diverse and wonderful.”

The view you adopt for yourself significantly affects the way you lead your life. It can determine whether you become the person you want to be and whether you achieve the things you value. How does this happen? How can a simple belief have the power to transform your psychology and, as a result, your life?

Believing that your qualities are carved in stone—the fixed mindset—creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. Some of us are trained in this mindset from an early age. Even as a child, I was focused on being smart, but the fixed mindset was really stamped in by Mrs. Wilson, my sixth-grade teacher. She believed that people’s IQ scores told the whole story of who they were. We were seated around the room in IQ order, and only the highest-IQ students could be trusted to collect homework, or take a note to the principal. She was creating a mindset in which everyone in the class had one consuming goal—look smart, don’t look stupid.

I’ve seen so many people with this one consuming goal of proving themselves—in the classroom, in their careers, and in their relationships. Every situation calls for a confirmation of their intelligence, personality, or character. Every situation is evaluated: Will I succeed or fail? Will I look smart or stupid? Will I feel like a winner or a loser?

But doesn’t our society value intelligence, personality, and character? Isn’t it normal to want these qualities? Yes, but...

There’s another mindset, the growth mindset, which is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can develop through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which way—in their inborn talents, interests, or characters—everyone can change and grow through efforts and experience. Did you know that Darwin and Tolstoy were considered ordinary children? That the photographer Cindy Sherman, who has been on almost every list of the most important artists of the twentieth century, failed her first photography course? That Geraldine Page, one of our greatest actresses, was advised to give it up for lack of talent?

You can see how the belief that valuable qualities can be developed creates a passion for learning. Why waste time proving how great you are, when you could be getting better? Why hide weaknesses instead of overcoming them? And why seek out the tried and true, instead of experiences that will stretch you? The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even when it’s not going well, is the feature of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to achieve success during some of the most challenging times in their lives.