Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

By Carol Dweck (2006)

Praising children’s intelligence harms their motivation and it harms their performance.

If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning.

My Notes

Fixed Mindset

• It’s about proving you’re smart, talented, attractive…
• You care about validating these qualities
• You fail when you lose, get fired, get rejected. It means you’re not smart, talented, attractive…
• “Every comment, every look… registered on my intelligence scorecard, my attractiveness scorecard, my likability scorecard…”
• You want to succeed without effort
• Instead of learning from errors, you seek to repair self-esteem
• You tell yourself stories of what you might have done; you try to protect your ego by not doing the challenging things
• You see other people as judging you
• You think that some people are superior and others inferior
• Groupthink
• Shy fixed-mindset people worry about being judged, embarrassed; they’re anxious, blush, and avoid eye contact. This can hold you back from developing relationships
• Shy fixed-mindset people avoid meeting people more socially skilled

Growth Mindset

• You’re not afraid of failing, of difficult things
• You look forward to challenges. “This is hard. This is fun.”
• Failing doesn’t mean you’re a failure
• Failures hurt but they don’t define you
• You get less depressed
• You value the journey, regardless of the outcome
• If you want something badly and can achieve it, you go for it
• Other people are allies
• You reflect, analyse, and take control
• You are more likely to state honest opinions, express disagreements
• Shy growth-minded people look at social situations as challenges
• Take control of your shyness
• Set themselves up for success: plan, stick to plans…

NASA rejected people with pure successes vs people who bounced back from failures.

Jack Welch hired based on capacity for growth.

From “Good to Great” (James C Collins),

The minute a leader allows himself to become the primary reality people worry about, rather than reality being the primary reality, you have a recipe for mediocrity, or worse.

Managers should:

• Present skills as learnable
• Value learning and perseverance, not ready-made talent
• Give feedback in a way that promotes learning
• Present managers as sources for learning

Fixed mindset people are more likely to be shy, worry about what other people think, feel anxious meeting new people.

Shy people may be wonderful and interesting, but they often can’t show it with someone new.

In a shit job…

• Don’t complain
• Be helpful
• Work hard
• Learn