Her student challenged Dr. Carol S. Dweck to write a book on the results of years of her research study. Dr. Carol S. Dweck rose to the occasion and has written this book, “The Mindset: The New Psychology of Success and How We Can Learn to Fulfill Our Potential” in the hope that it will help the average human understand that life is what you make it and not what was given to you at birth. She has written in plain language giving examples of real, ordinary people like her and her students, artists like Picasso, athletes like Michael Jordan the basketball player and John McEnroe the tennis player, Marina Semyonova the great Russian dance instructor, and CEOs of different companies to name a few. In the third paragraph of his introduction, he writes: “…you will learn how a simple belief about yourself…guides a large part of your life…Indeed, it permeates every part of your life…” Thus, it draws the reader into the book, making it one of its real-life examples as the reader finds himself or herself in these examples.
Dr. Dweck introduces the two types of mindsets, the fixed mindset and the growth mindset in the first section of the book. She writes how she learned from ten-year-olds that failure can be a gift if you have the right mindset. By giving them difficult riddles to work on, the children cultivated their intellectual abilities through effort and did not give up. These children became her role models in her search for whether human qualities are things that can be cultivated or things carved in stone. Each person has a unique genetic endowment, but experience, training, and personal effort take them the rest of the way.
Dr. Dweck’s twenty years of research have shown that the view you take of yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. She writes that if you believe your qualities and traits are set in stone and cannot be changed, then you have a fixed mindset. And if you believe that prized qualities and traits can be developed and cultivated, then you have a growth mindset.
People with a fixed mindset believe that an individual’s intelligence, quality, and traits are a fixed quantity that cannot be increased. If they do well in school, then they are smarter than others who are not doing well. If they do well in sports, then they have talent that was given to them at birth. They spend time proving that they are better at the qualities given to them just to show that they got a healthy dose and that they are not deficient. If something doesn’t work out for fixed mindset people, they always blame something else.
People with a growth mindset work hard to always do better. Don’t sit back and see your achievements as the ultimate goal. In their minds there is always room for improvement. They don’t have time to sit back and see themselves as the best or better than everyone else. They don’t have time to sit around and think they have a special talent. They are busy thinking about how they can improve it and what changes they can make if something they hoped for didn’t work out. For them, if something doesn’t work out, it’s not a failure, it’s a challenge to find ways to make it happen.
In the second section of the book, Dr. Dweck takes us through her fixed mindset research journey and a growth mindset journey through multiple pairs of eyes. Showing how these two mindsets make or break people in their daily lives. In individual sports, she exemplifies John McEnroe’s fixed mindset in tennis. He was a brilliant player who believed in talent and not in effort and work. When he didn’t win, he blamed something else. Like when he blamed the system for not liking the game anymore. He would not take responsibility. Micheal Jordan, on the other hand, has a growth mindset. If he missed a goal, he would go and practice for several hours trying to figure out why he missed it. In team sports, the author gives an example of Couch John Wooden, who was tactically and strategically average, but won ten national championships. Coach Wooden has a growth mindset, he tells us he was good at getting players to fulfill roles as part of a team. He cared about the feelings of the players. He had a fixed mindset like Coach Bobby Knight who picked players based on his talent. He was an excellent coach, but he used the dictatorial approach to win. The winners were short-lived and broke people’s character in the process.
In corporate companies, the author uses General Electric CEO Jack Welch as the fixed mindset that managed to humble itself into a growth mindset, and as he grew in his mindset, the company grew at the same time. Lee Iacocca, whose fixed mindset is good at getting the company to the top quickly, but then you have to get rid of him before he breaks it. The Ford Motor Company did exactly that, and Lee Iacocca was not happy. Fixed-mindset leaders are more concerned with being heroes and putting their ego before the well-being of the company. The author gives the example of Enron as a company that broke in the hands of smart, high-level, fixed-mindset people. Enron employed smart, talented people and paid the ultimate price in closing the company. Enron is a good example of groupthink where executives get carried away by their brilliance and superiority and make catastrophic decisions.
In love, these two mindsets can make or break a relationship. In her research, Dr. Dweck found that fixed mindsets feel judged and labeled for rejection in a breakup. They also take revenge as a means of getting to the person who hurt them. The growth mindset is something to forgive, learn from, and move on from. The author gives as an example Hilary Clinton who forgave her husband and decided to cancel to save her relationship. It takes time and effort to cultivate the emotional skills necessary to maintain a relationship.
Dr. Dweck ends this third section with the influence that the mindset of parents, teachers, and coaches has on the children in their care. In his research, he found that children interpret words of support and encouragement from caregivers with a fixed mindset approach. This sets them up for failure. For example, “…You learned that so fast! You’re so smart…” is interpreted as “…If I don’t learn something fast, I’m not smart…” She explains that parents, teachers, and coaches they should refrain from giving praise that judges their intelligence or talent, but praise them for the work they do. She goes on to say that parents, teachers, and coaches need to give children equal time and attention, regardless of their starting abilities. The children in turn will give everything and flourish. The author points out, “…As parents, teachers and coaches we are entrusted with the lives of people. They are our responsibility and our legacy…”
In the fourth section of the book, Dr. Dweck begins with the most rewarding part of her job, seeing how people change. People are not aware or aware of their beliefs. Dr. Aaron Beck, a psychiatrist, discovered that he could teach them how to work with these beliefs and change them. And cognitive therapy was born, one of the most effective therapies ever developed. Dr. Dweck used workshops to investigate how fixed-mindset people handled the information they received. She discovered that they put a strong assessment on every piece of information. Something good led to a very strong positive label and something bad led to a very strong negative label. People with a growth mindset are also constantly monitoring what’s going on, but their internal monologue isn’t about judging themselves or others. They are sensitive to positive and negative information, but are attentive to its implications for learning and constructive action. Dr. Dweck also had a workshop for students. The workshops require a large staff to deliver the material. The workshop material was then placed into interactive computer modules. The teachers guide their classes through the modules and they called it Braintology. These mindset workshops put students in charge of their brain.
It is interesting to note how a simple characteristic like mindset affects decision making across a wide spectrum of the population. A kindergarten student, a CEO in a multi-billion dollar company, a surgeon working in a hospital, an athlete in practice and on the court, a chef in a luxury hotel, a selection of students from dance and a sports team. College students drop classes or drop out of school due to having a fixed mindset. A growth mindset helps you learn to deal with anger and stereotyping in racial and gender discrimination. It’s quite fascinating.