World Famous Comics: Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
By: Carol Dweck Publisher: Ballantine Books Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Ballantine Books Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 288 Publication Date: December 26, 2007 Release Date: December 26, 2007
Product Description: World-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck, in decades of research on achievement and success, has discovered a truly groundbreaking idea–the power of our mindset.
Dweck explains why it’s not just our abilities and talent that bring us success–but whether we approach them with a fixed or growth mindset. She makes clear why praising intelligence and ability doesn’t foster self-esteem and lead to accomplishment, but may actually jeopardize success. With the right mindset, we can motivate our kids and help them to raise their grades, as well as reach our own goals–personal and professional. Dweck reveals what all great parents, teachers, CEOs, and athletes already know: how a simple idea about the brain can create a love of learning and a resilience that is the basis of great accomplishment in every area.
“If you manage any people or if you are a parent (which is a form of managing people), drop everything and read Mindset.” –Guy Kawasaki, author of The Art of the Start and the blog How to Change the World
"Highly recommended . . . an essential read for parents, teachers [and] coaches . . . as well as for those who would like to increase their own feelings of success and fulfillment.” –Library Journal (starred review)
“A serious, practical book. Dweck’s overall assertion that rigid thinking benefits no one, least of all yourself, and that a change of mind is always possible, is welcome.” –Publishers Weekly
“A good book is one whose advice you believe. A great book is one whose advice you follow. This is a book that can change your life.” –Robert J. Sternberg, author of Teaching for Successful Intelligence
“A wonderfully elegant idea . . . It is a great book.” –Edward M. Hallowell, M.D., author of Delivered from Distraction
Good book, small primitive print I had read some parts of the book and decided to own a copy. The price is not cheap but when I received the copy, it looks like everything is shrunk. The paper is very low grade and dark. Go for the hardcover or CD if you want to own one!!!!
Solid concepts plus anecdotes and research to back up I first read about Dweck and her research in a NYT article on child development. This is the dose of reality that we all need after years of "positive thinking" mantras. Without responsibility, action and growth-orientation, we block the positive path and fail to realize our potential. This book hammers the points home with detailed anecdotes from business, sports and general society.. plus the research that backs it up is solid.
Good idea; not that great a book. The underlying principle of the book - that valuing hard work is ultimately a better motivator than valuing inherent ability - seems to be a sound one. As another reviewer said, the problem with this book is that the author gets that across in the first chapter. After that, it's example after example, anecdote after anecdote, hypothetical situation after hypothetical situation. The only tool the author offers that would help you to bring this principle to your life, is basically "just do it". Other than the repetition of "you should value this rather than that, because it works better," you get nothing but a conclusion. I didn't find it that useful, even though I liked the underlying principle.
Good Medicine But Hard To Swallow For several months now I've been enjoying and at the same time agonizing over the book, MINDSET, The New Psychology of Success, by Carol S. Dweck, PH.D., a Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. The book presents the results of over 20 years of research into the question of why some experience more success than others.
"For 20 years, my research has shown that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. It can determine whether you become the person you want to be and whether you accomplish the things you value."
The views she is talking about are our old friends, nature versus nurture, genes versus environment, I.Q. versus effort. She doesn't really get into the the issue of whether some people are naturally more intelligent or talented than others, that's all besides the point. What her research shows is that people with a fixed mindset, i.e. they believe that their intelligence, creativity, abilities and talents are fixed and cannot be increased, cannot be grown, tend to be less successful than people with a growth mindset, who believe that their intelligence, creativity etc. can be developed. The interesting thing is that it doesn't matter if your fixed mindset is high or low, that is if you're a positive thinker or a negative thinker; either way a fixed mindset will impeded your success.
The book is filled with examples of the two types from the world of sports and business and sketches of her tests of the theory with elementary school children and college students.
After thinking about it for several months, here's my take on what Prof. Dweck has discovered. The definition of success for a person with a growth mindset is growth and improvement. Have I improved? Am I doing better today than yesterday? These are the questions a person with a growth mindset uses to evaluate performance. If I have improved then I am succeeding. If I have not improved then I need to change the way I'm studying, or practicing or preparing so I can be more successful.
On the other hand a person with a fixed mindset asks, What is my I.Q.? Am I smarter than the others? Am I better than everyone else? Am I worse than everyone else? Am I talented or untalented? Do I have musical abiilty or not? Do I have the talent to be a writer or do I not? I think that being discovered is one definition of fixed mindset success. If the fixed mindset person's talent hasn't been discovered he concludes that it's because he is not talented, or people are against him or no one will help him.
The growth mindset person sees the trophy, the medal, the promotion, as a mere byproduct of the growth that he has experienced. For the fixed mindset person the trophy, the medal, the promotion, is the point, they are the outward manifestations of his inward superiority.
The irony is that the fixed mindset person ends up sabotaging himself because his fixed mindset world view also makes it difficult for him to take risks, or to develop his abilities, in other words, to grow. The fixed mindset person doesn't, after all, believe in growth. As a result fixed mindset people become quite frustrated.
Prof. Dweck's studies give a scientific basis for something that Coach Wooden, of UCLA Basketball fame, discovered long ago: Focus on effort not winning. The factors which determine whether you will win or loose are not all within your control, but the effort you put in to developing and executing your game is.
I don't believe that I can overstate the importance of this book. I've been reading self help, positive thinking, motivational books since at 10 years of age I picked up a Norman Vincent Peale book that my mom had checked out of the library. Those books, all good, are trying to deal with the problem by attacking the fruit of an individuals mindset. Prof. Dweck is attacking the problem at the root.
This book was for me a very uncomfortable read and forced me to analyze my own mindset and much to the chagrin of this basically fixed mindset person I've discovered that I am in many areas a fixed mindset person. OUCH! But what's worse is realizing that many of the things which I have said and done, thinking I was encouraging others and building them up to achieve success, were in fact helping them to fail. OUCH! OUCH! Well the good news is that you can change your mindset.
Greg Marquez goyomarquez@earthlink.net
The Linchpin As an executive coach, I've been a fan of Carol Dweck's work for a couple decades -- it was pretty obvious she wasn't just talking about children. Now she's finally written a book I can recommend to all my clients. The bottom line here is that your approach to life and learning -- whether you assume one's own (and hence everyone else's) capacity for learning is fixed and permanent or fluid and expandable -- makes all the difference in both your own success and that of the people who work for and with you (not to mention the ones you raise or educate).
I've called those mindsets "performer" (focus on doing well and appearing to have no flaws) and "learner" (curiosity-driven, not concerned with how one appears to others.) She calls them "fixed-ability mindset" and "growth mindset." What she's done is explore their impact in nearly every domain of life -- failure and success, education, sports, business, leadership, and relationships -- and then explore how to change from a performer to a learner. Based on current neuroscience and her own experiences, this is one of the most practical and powerful pieces of work I've seen in a long time.
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Trevor
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