Sam Webster-Harris

Hello and welcome to the Growth Mindset Psychology Podcast with me, Sam Webster-Harris, where we look at the science behind self-improvement and discuss philosophically what it means to live a life well-lived.

If you have listened for a while, you know that I enjoy finding inspiration in unexpected places.

It is also Christmas lately, so why not reflect on some more personal backstories that define our human experience?

For our episode today, we have a slightly sentimental set of ideas on growth mindset and life in general by looking at the concept of cooking, family, weird schooling practices and the cool things my nan used to do.

To fill you in, my nan was an entrepreneur, artist and self-assigned chief baker for all of her friends in the village.

As she grew old, she turned blind and without complaining, still found ways to do the things that she loved and was always a source of positive encouragement for me and the whole of our wider family.

So if you are looking for an episode where I teach you specific lessons about an idea or concrete tips on mastering an aspect of mindsets, this is probably not the episode for you.

But if you enjoy heartwarming stories and lessons on family, growing up and growing old, then I think you'll love it.

You're going to hear me being interviewed by Becky Hadid, who runs the excellent podcast called The Storied Recipe, where she asks people about a specific recipe that means something deeply important to that individual and the weird and moving stories behind it.

In my case, my special recipe is the coconut pineapple upside down cake that my nan used to make religiously for me.

every single time I saw her for over a decade because I had been slightly traumatized by my schooling system that would force feed me food until I vomited and this pineapple cake was one of the only things she could get me to eat and so she just did not stop giving it to me.

But it's a long and heartwarming story that I would be honored if you have the time to take a listen.

So the cake and Manan definitely got linked slowly over time, but I think there was a moment when it clicked.

One Sunday afternoon, going home with another pineapple cake, and my sister being like, do we have pineapple cake again?

Yeah.

it had been a thing that I just not stopped every single time we've been to see her is that she would give me a pineapple cake and I liked it, but the rest of my family stopped liking it at some point in the three to four year boundary.

And she carried on anyway, just for me, which was lovely because of, I basically struggled to eat much food and really hated chocolate cake or

I couldn't really eat ice cream other than mint ice cream or vanilla ice cream.

Because I was super fussy, my nan just realized one day when she was trying her different cakes that this was one thing I would eat.

So she just kept on making it for me every single time, which was a lovely offer to do.