Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success Details:
• •
Carol Dweck Random House
Mindset is one of those rare books that can help you make positive changes in your life and at the same time see the world in a new way. A leading expert in motivation and personality psychology, Carol Dweck has discovered in more than twenty years of research that our mindset is not a minor personality quirk: it creates our whole mental world. It explains how we become optimistic or pessimistic. It shapes our goals, our attitude toward work and relationships, and how we raise our kids, ultimately predicting whether or not we will fulfill our potential. Dweck has found that everyone has one of two basic mindsets. If you have the fixed mindset, you believe that your talents and abilities are set in stone–either you have them or you don’t. You must prove yourself over and over, trying to look smart and talented at all costs. This is the path of stagnation. If you have a growth mindset, however, you know that talents can be developed and that great abilities are built over time. This is the path of opportunity–and success. Dweck demonstrates that mindset unfolds in childhood and adulthood and drives every aspect of our lives, from work to sports, from relationships to parenting. She reveals how creative geniuses in all fields–music, literature, science, sports, business–apply the growth mindset to achieve results. Perhaps even more important, she shows us how we can change our mindset at any stage of life to achieve true success and fulfillment. She looks across a broad range of applications and helps parents, teachers, coaches, and executives see how they can promote the growth mindset. Highly engaging and very practical, Mindset breaks new ground as it leads you to change how you feel about yourself and your future. “This book is an essential read for parents, teachers, coaches, and others who are instrumental in determining a child’s mind-set, and in turn, his or her future success, as well as for those who would like to increase their own feelings of success and fulfillment.” --Library Journal Contents Introduction 1. The Mindsets Why Do People Differ? What Does All This Mean for You? The Two Mindsets A View from the Two Mindsets So, What’s New? Self-Insight: Who Has Accurate Views of Their Assets and Limitations? What’s iIn Store 2. Inside The Mindsets Is Success About Learning–Or Proving You’re Smart? Mindsets Change the Meaning of Failure Mindsets Change the Meaning of Effort Questions and Answers 3. The Truth About Ability and Accomplishment Mindset and School Achievement
Is Artistic Ability a Gift? The Danger of Praise and Positive Labels Negative Labels and How They Work 4. Sports: The Mindset Of A Champion The Idea of the Natural “Character” What Is Success? What Is Failure? Taking Charge of Success What Does It Mean to Be a Star? Hearing the Mindsets 5. Business: Mindset and Leadership Enron and the Talent Mindset Organizations That Grow A Study of Mindset and Management Decisions Leadership and the Fixed Mindset Fixed-Mindset Leaders in Action Growth-Mindset Leaders in Action A Study of Group Processes Groupthink Versus We Think Are Leaders Born or Made? 6. Relationships: Mindsets In Love (Or Not) Relationships Are Different Mindsets Falling in Love The Partner as Enemy Competition: Who’s The Greatest? Developing in Relationships Friendship Shyness Bullies and Victims: Revenge Revisited 7. Parents, Teachers, And Coaches: Where Do Mindsets Come From? Parents (and Teachers): Messages About Success and Failure Children Learn The Messages Teachers (and Parents): What Makes a Great Teacher (or Parent)? Coaches: Winning Through Mindset Our Legacy 8. Changing Mindsets: A Workshop The Nature of Change The Mindset Lectures A Mindset Workshop Brainology More About Change Taking the First Step: A Workshop for You People Who Don’t Want to Change Changing Your Child’s Mindset Mindset and Willpower Maintaining Change The Road Ahead Notes Recommended Books Index • This is an interesting book that will certainly open your eyes to your own attitudes and habits about success, praise and criticism. If you are interested in this book from the perspective of how to improve your parenting though, please take a look at 'Between Parent and Child' by Dr. Haim Ginott. The author actually quotes Dr. Ginott in several places. This book was written in 1965 and it reveals the same counter-intuitive but highly effective advice on how to better communicate with, praise and motivate our children (e.g. 'Children need to be free from the pressure of evaluative praise so that others do not become their source of approval', 'It is not unusual for children who are praised for being smart, to become less likely to take on challenging learning tasks'). It also provides much more comprehensive, readable and coherent advice on parenting strategies in
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
•
• •
•
general. Just by accident I happened to purchase these two books at the same time and I was struck by the similarity between the ideas in both books. If the desire for parenting strategies drew you to the Mindset book, do yourself a favor and check out Dr. Ginott's book. If manage people, want to understand yourself or are involved in teaching or communicating then this book is for you. A simple but powerful for framework for understanding how intrinsic and extrinsic motivations work. Fascinating examples of why 'teaching' to the test and managing via competition don't work. As a great manager friend of mine used to say organizational culture is what happens when the boss isn't around. Read this book and get some insights into what makes people and yourself tick. I now feel highly motivated to improve myself. It was well written and provides numerous practical examples and tips! Carol Dweck doesn't try to pick a fight with the Self-Help Industry, nor does she address any of its dogmatic statements head on, she simply demonstrates that too often what passes for 'self help' advice these days and his impact on IBM contributes to a 'fixed mindset' that leads to the opposite of success.
Our society values motivational speech so much that motivational speech has become a good in itself and motivators see themselves as good people. People who praise are considered motivating, while people who hold their praise are seen as de-motivating. As a result, teachers, coaches and bosses are appraised by their ability to gain results where the bar has been lowered rather than raised.
The fault of this book is in the anecdotal style that Carol Dweck has chosen for this book. In discussing the world of athletes and CEO's, Dweck seems to be talking about a world she only knows second-hand and from insider accounts. Does she really believe everything Lou Gerstner says about himself and his impact on IBM in his autobiography?
On the other hand, the anecdotal style is most effective in her chapter on raising kids. Is there anyone who reads that chapter who won't think a second time about praising their kids for being 'smart' and 'brilliant.' Instead of puffing up their little egos, Carol Dweck makes a powerful case for teaching them other (traditional) abilities, such as hard work, humility and, above all, resilience. Let me keep this brief by sorting out for potential buyers why they should consider buying this book despite some negative reviews.
1. This is not a self-help book. It is a summary of a body of research in a scientific field. It is not SUPPOSED to tell you how to achieve riches or social popularity or zen, like self-help works.
2. The ideas expressed in this book are not necessarily totally new. Dr. Dweck has been doing research in this field for a long time, and many of the people she cites as growth-minded thinkers were doing it long before she came up with these ideas. However, the reason to buy and read this book is that it lays out for readers the beginnings of a unified theory of how humans learn. Specifically, it focuses on two very general approaches to learning. Yes, the anecodotes seem very simple and repetitive, but they all work to support this theory.
3. I don't want to overstate the importance of the ideas Mindset presents, but in my mind, there's not a person I've ever met (including me) who couldn't improve their own life just by reading, understanding and applying the ideas in this book. Not surprisingly, those who come away from this book complaining that it didn't tell them how to apply the ideas it contains are missing the forest for the trees. It's very difficult to admit when one's faults are exposed . As I said earlier, we all have fixed mindsets about something or other in our lives. Consequently, someone who thinks too much in a fixed mindset hears all the ways that their life could be better if they embraced the idea that they can learn and do anything with the appropriate amount of work, their inate response is: 'How?' The problem is that the solution is too simple for them to admit that they've been missing it their whole lives. There is no real big secret to this book. It simply provides evidence (and anecdotal support) for the idea that a growth mindset can enrich people's lives in a multitude of ways.
So go out and buy this book if you think that there's something in you life that you'd like to change or if you'd like your children to have a chance to maximize their potential. However, if you recognize yourself as a know-it-all who's willing to suppress your own and other people's potential with strict ideas about what can't be done, don't bother wasting your time.