Mindset

Chapter 1

THE MINDSETS

As a young researcher, just starting out, something happened that changed my life. I was obsessed with understanding how people cope with failures, and I decided to study it by watching how students grapple with hard problems. So I brought children one at a time to a room in their school, made them comfortable, and then gave them a series of puzzles to solve. The first ones were fairly easy, but the next ones were hard. As the students grunted, perspired, and toiled, I watched their strategies and probed what they were thinking and feeling. I expected differences among children in how they coped with the difficulty, but I saw something I never expected.

Confronted with the hard puzzles, one ten-year-old boy pulled up his chair, rubbed his hands together, smacked his lips, and cried out, I love a challenge! Another, sweating away on these puzzles, looked up with a pleased expression and said with authority, You know, I was hoping this would be informative!

What s wrong with them? I wondered. I always thought you coped with failure or you didn t cope with failure. I never thought anyone loved failure. Were these alien children or were they on to something?

Everyone has a role model, someone who pointed the way at a critical moment in their lives. These children were my role models. They obviously knew something I didn t and I was determined to figure it out to understand the kind of mindset that could turn a failure into a gift.

What did they know? They knew that human qualities, such as intellectual skills, could be cultivated through effort. And that s what they were doing getting smarter. Not only weren t they discouraged by failure, they didn t even think they were failing. They thought they were learning.

I, on the other hand, thought human qualities were carved in stone. You were smart or you weren t, and failure meant you weren t. It was that simple. If you could arrange successes and avoid failures (at all

Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading researchers in the fields of personality, social psychology, and developmental psychology. She is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, and has won nine lifetime achievement awards for her research. She addressed the United Nations on the eve of their new global development plan and has advised governments on educational and economic policies. Her work has been featured in almost every major national publication, and she has appeared on Today, Good Morning America, and 20/20. She lives with her husband in Palo Alto, California.

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, as its ideas have changed mine. Robert J. Sternberg, co-author of Teaching for Wisdom, Intelligence, Creativity, and Success
 
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)
 
Everyone should read this book. Chip Heath and Dan Heath, authors of Made to Stick
 
One of the most influential books ever about motivation. Po Bronson, author of NurtureShock
 
If you manage people or are a parent (which is a form of managing people), drop everything and read Mindset. Guy Kawasaki, author of The Art of the Start 2.0