Buy from Amazon
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
Executive Summary
How would you respond, think? If you thought, “What a horrible day. I would feel like a complete failure. I would be frustrated, wouldn’t feel motivated to study for the final exam. Maybe I’m just dumb in school.” then you may have a fixed mindset. If you think, “Maybe my friend had a horrible day? I’ll have to study harder this time for the final.” then you may have a growth mindset.
You don’t have to be of one mindset or the other to get in a fowl mood. But those with the growth mindset don’t tend to label themselves and throw up their hands in defeat at the first sign of failure or challenge. They take on challenges and work towards the goal. The growth mindset enables people to convert life’s setbacks into future success. The fixed mindset often results in little or no effort; Dweck mentions she is startled by how much people with a fixed mindset do not believe in ability or effort.
Much of who you are comes from your mindset. Your mindset is the view you have of your qualities and characteristics and where they come from and whether they can change.
These following two mindsets represent the spectrum.
A fixed mindset comes from the belief that your qualities are carved in stone: who you are is who you are, period. Characteristics such as intelligence, personality, and creativity are fixed traits, rather than something that can be developed.
A growth mindset comes from the personal belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through hard work and effort. Yes, people differ greatly in motivation, talents, interests, or temperaments, but everyone can change and grow through application and experience.
The Ten Things Managers Need to Know from Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
1. People have two mindsets. A fixed mindset and a growth mindset. Obviously a growth mindset is more beneficial to the person. But often many people have a fixed mindset due to past history or upbringing.
2. Admitting failure is key to success. Sometimes saying to yourself I messed up can be a good learning experience. People with a fixed mindset often cannot admit failure and struggle for longer when failure is part of their lives.
3. Human qualities are not carved in stone. Everyone can change. All it takes is time and training. Just realizing what mindset you have sets you on the road to acquiring a growth mindset.
4. Some days may seem bad. But are they really? It’s important when having a growth mindset that one try to use bad days and failures as learning experiences. These days happen and maybe next time you will be better prepared.
5. Fixed mindset people don’t learn as fast. When a person has a fixed mindset they often give up on attempts to learn. Learning sometimes can be a struggle and the fixed mindset often feels that failure is not an option. That being said when challenge arise the fixed mindset can get frustrated. And often the don’t try new challenges because it might show weakness
6. Growth Mindset people make good CEOS: When looking at highly successful companies one thing was standing out. The CEO’s themselves were normal people that drive other normal people to do extraordinary task. They often succeeded and these companies are some of the best in the world.
7. CEO’s with a fixed mindset often destroy companies. These types of ceos often only hire people that they can feel superior to. And often if someone offer criticism the boss will take it personally and fire that employee. These sort of companies have a bad track record. Enron and Aol and just a few to name.
8. Athletes are the ultimate definition of a natural. And often our assumption that being an athlete is a born trait can often get in the way of learning. This idea that traits are given at birth can lead to a fixed mindset
9. The smartest guys in the room are often not. Like Praising talent and trying to find way to inflate price in the short run often lead to failure. Enron is the supreme example in this. By not accepting failure and creating a culture that thrives off this Enron was doomed to fail. The people in charge would manipulate figure to show gains when there had been none. This was all because failure was not an option.
10. People can change. Throughout Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Dr. Dweck shows that people can change. But old habits dies hard and often maintaining this change can be as hard as achieving it. But with positive motivation a team can go far.
Full Summary of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
Chapter 1 - The Mindsets
Carol Dweck starts out her book with an introduction. She explains that she is a psychologist and that she’s interested in the “power of people’s beliefs”. She then goes on to describe how she came about studying mindsets. “When I was a young researcher… something happen that changed my life. I was obsessed with understanding how people cope with failures.” This statement sets up the first chapter “The Mindsets”
Dr. Dweck describes how she wanted to learn more about how people cope with failure and difficulty. She starts out by giving young children puzzles. First starting with an easy puzzle then moving onto harder ones she noticed something interesting. One student started with an easy puzzle and as they got harder he exclaimed “I love a challenge…I was hoping this would be informative!” Dr. Dweck was taken aback, “I never thought anyone loved failure”. At that point she says that the children in this first study were her roles models. These kids knew that human qualities, like intellectual skills could be cultivated through effort. Getting smarter is one way to describe it. Before this Dr. Dweck felt before that human qualities were “carved in stone” either you were smart or not.
Dr. Dweck goes on to write about why people do differ. Basically since the dawn of time people have all been different. People act different than one another and of course over past hundred years people have wondered the same things as her. In the past scientist measured bumps on skulls and the way skulls were shaped. Up until now genes play a major role in the study of why people differ from one another. She then goes on to talk about Alfred Binet, inventor of the IQ test, and how he summarizes his work with children. To quote Mr. Binet, “A few modern philosophers…assert that an individual’s intelligence is a fixed quantity, a quantity that cannot be increased. We must protest and react against this brutal pessimism…With practice and training, and above all, method, we manage to increase our attention, our memory, our judgment and literally become more intelligent than we were before.” This seems to be a driving idea in the book. Dr. Dweck says; “….as Binet recognized, it’s not always the people who start out the smartest who end up the smartest.”
Dr. Dweck describes that during her research over the past twenty years that “the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way that you lead your life.” She describes that thinking your human qualities are carved in stone is in fact the “Fixed mindset”. This mindset creates an urgency to prove oneself over and over. While at the other end of the spectrum the “Growth Mindset”, “…is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts.” Basically having a growth oriented mindset enables one to grow from problems and people with this mindset often thrive during challenging times.
Dr. Dweck goes on to describe an experiment that she set up to test her theory. She tells individuals that imagine you go to class and get a C+ on a test and then later that day you happen to get a parking ticket. She then asks these individuals “how would you feel?” People with the fixed mindset describe feeling dumb or like a reject, a loser and that life is unfair. While in reality it was just a test and maybe they got the parking ticket because they were not observant enough. Basically it’s not the end of the world and the scenario she sets up is not life changing or ending. She runs the same scenario to the growth mindset people and the results were encouraging. The Growth mindset people go on to tell her that “I would try harder on the next test”, or that they would even not park in a no parking zone. Basically the people with the growth mindset would look to resolve their problems not dwell on them like the fixed mindset students.
Chapter 2 - Inside the Mindsets
Carol Dweck starts this chapter off by describing what got her to personally change her mindset. She saw that some students were very caught up in proving their abilities while others could just “let go and learn”. This leads her to believe that there are two meaning to ability, a fixed ability that needs to be proven and a changeable ability that develops though learning. In the mind of the fixed mindset success is about proving that you are smart or talented. In the growth mindset success is about learning new things or accomplishing things once thought unachievable. In the Fixed mindset a failure is seen as a setback. For example, being fired or rejected must mean one is not smart or talented enough. While in the growth mindset failure is seen as not growing.
Dr. Dweck then goes onto talk about how this development of mindsets can even be seen in young children. Everyone is born with the desire to learn. Infants are always learning to stretch whatever skills they have. For example learning to talk or walk. And these babies don’t worry about humiliating themselves or what other people think. As they grow up a child with a fixed mindset put an end to this constant discovery and learning. Why? As children are able to evaluate themselves they become afraid of challenges, they become afraid of not being seen as smart. Dr. Dweck describes another scenario with puzzles. This time she gathers four year old children and presents a puzzle to them. After they solve it they have a choice. To either do the same puzzle over or try a harder puzzle. Kids with the fixed mindset stuck with the easy puzzle. One child even says, “Kids who are born smart don’t do mistakes.” While children with the growth mindset could not understand why someone would want to do the same puzzle over and over. They chose a harder puzzle every time. Basically the fixed mindset children want to succeed. Children with the growth mindset are all about becoming smarter. A seventh grader sums this up perfectly. “I think intelligence is something that you work for.”
Next Dr. Dweck describes what she labels as “CEO disease” and what it means. Basically in a nutshell is people who reign from atop a pedestal and they want to be seen as perfect. CEOS face decisions every day that define who they are. Should they confront their shortcomings or create a world free of short comings? Another way to look at this is the dilemma of long-term vs. short term results. Often CEOS will take a route, for their corporation, that either promotes short term strategies, driving stock price up, or inflating the value of the company short-term. This might make the CEO look like a hero but a long term strategy is always more important for a large corporation.
Being that there are so many ways to describe each mindset Dr. Dweck goes on to describe different ways people think and act. People with a growth mindset “thrive” in atmospheres that challenge them. But what about the fixed mindset people? They thrive when everything in complete control and they are in front of everyone. If there is a challenge or if things are too hard they lose interest. This can be seen in a small study Dr. Dweck carried out at one college. She noticed that some straight a student’s lost interest after taking a challenging chemistry class. The ones who dropped out had never gotten grades so bad in one course. The course was designed to be hard and challenging. The students with the growth oriented mindset learned how to study correctly for the exams and went with the challenge. And that is what Dr. Dweck notices smart people feel smart in two ways. (1.) When they are perceive as flawless. And second when they are learning. And at the same time people with a fixed mindset feel that ability should come naturally before any learning actually takes place.
Test scores seem to be the ultimate decide in a fixed mind set. The idea that one test could determine your life forever is daunting to some people. Dr. Dweck ask students “Do you think test measures how smart you are?” and “Do you think test measure how smart you’ll be when you grow up?” Growth minded students felt that measured ability but in no way measured total smartness. Fixed mind set student felt completely opposite. Feeling that test were going to determine how smart they are going to be in the future. This proves Dr. Dwecks other assumption hat fixed mind set people need success constantly to define them.
Mindset and depression is next studied by Dr. Dweck. She asked students to keep an online diary. Each day they would answer a series of questions about mood, things they were doing with their time and problems in their life. What was discovered was interesting. First Fixed mindset students had levels of depression much higher than the growth mindset students. This was mainly because fixed mindset people stew over problems and setbacks. The more depressed the less they cared. Sometimes completely giving up on whatever they were trying. When success doesn’t come every time a challenge arises fixed mindset people get depressed for longer. Growth mindset people on the other hand did get depressed. But when depressed they seemed to be motivated to get past whatever challenge they were in.
Next she talks about effort and mindset. People with a growth mindset put much higher amount of effort with what they do. Whether it is studying, working etc. People with a fixed mindset often don’t put much effort into something unless they are good at it. Two people Dr. Dweck constantly talks about throughout the book are John McEnroe and Michael Jordan. John McEnroe was one of the most dramatic tennis players to ever exist. He was only good at tennis and often did not practice. When he would lose he would blame other people. Whether it was a line judge, trainer or weather. Michael Jordan on the other hand is one of the hardest workers in sports and faced challenge many times in his life but overcame them with hard work and determination.
Chapter 3 - The truth about ability and accomplishment
Everybody has heroes. Heroes are people with extraordinary abilities who achieve with little effort. Think of professional athletes. Some football players on Sunday make catches in the end zone that seem easy. But in realty it’s not easy its hours and hours of hard work coming to fruition. Another example is Thomas Edison. Everyone thinks of Edison as a lone scientist working on the light bulb by himself. When in reality he worked with a team of scientist for years just to accomplish the light bulb. Edison was known as a tinkerer someone always looking to find out why things work.
The rest of Chapter four describes different people that overcame adversity and embraced a growth mindset. Artist like Jackson Pollock and Mozart are highlighted. Both of the artists struggled early in their careers and over time became the artist they were known as. They were not born superstar artist nor were they overnight. And Dr. Dweck uses this point to highlight an important fact. “Just because some people can do something with little or no training, it doesn’t mean that others can’t do it (and sometimes do it even better) with training. This is important because fixed mindset people believe early success predicates future success ultimately.
Chapter 4 - Sports: The mindset of a champion
Natural talent is what separates us apart from intelligence. Athletes are the very natural in what they do. Mainly just using their bodies to define what their talents are. Many seen to almost “not try”. Once again Michael Jordan is highlighted. He was considered the hardest working athlete in NBA history. Cut from the high school varsity team, not being picked by the college he wanted to go to, not being first picked in the draft the list could go on. All these setbacks only drove Michael to try harder and to work with greater strategy to his goals. Jordan once said: “The mental toughness and the heart are a lot stronger than some of the physical advantages you might have. I’ve always said that I’ve always believed that.”
Dr. Dweck then goes on to explain that character also plays a role in sports. All great athletes had character in their prime. None were particularly special but the worked hard and were determined to succeed. In the sports world character is sometimes defined as getting to the top and staying there.
A question Dr. Dweck asks in her questioners is “to be good at sports you need to be naturally gifted.” People with growth mindsets answered that in sports how hard you work to improve determines where you end up in the sports world. Next she goes over what a finding she has about success being defines. Her first is that growth mindset people found success in doing their best like athletes and constantly working towards a goal. Second finding is that growth minded people find setbacks motivating. Almost like a wakeup call. And third people with a growth mindset took charge of a process to achieve success and later to maintain it. Basically winning is not everything. Winning comes with all the hard work it takes to achieve it.
Chapter 5 - Business: Mindset and leadership
I feel that this chapter pertains very much to Management 464. Business is all about building relationships and self-image. This self-image is one of the hallmarks of mindset. Dr. Dweck starts out with the example Enron and what happened to that company. Basically Enron had a “Smartest guys in the room mentality”. This way of thinking caused the company to only hire super talented people. And this atmosphere put complete faith in talent and worshiped these talents. Thereby forcing all the employees into a fixed mindset. Writer Malcom Gladwell reasserts Dr. Dwecks point in his writing for the New Yorker. “..When people live in an environment that esteems them for their innate talent, they have grave difficulty when their image is threatened…they will not admit their wrong doings to investors and the public. They’d sooner lie.” A company cannot survive on this method.
Another author that reviews companies is Jim Collins in his book “Good to Great”. Jim seeks out companies that were successful and sought out “why?” he found that there were several key factors but the main one was that there was always a leader that led the company into greatness. And these leaders were not flashy or super special in any particular fashion. What set them apart from other companies is that they could look failure in the face and overcome it. And they were always good team players and inspired companies to have a growth mindset. They (ceos) were not constantly trying to prove that they were better. They were constantly trying to improve.
Fixed mindset leader and ceos often view people in two ways. Inferior and superior. While at the same time using the platform of ceo to drive home the fact that they are superior. They are the boss after all. Collins goes on to explain that these super egos often hampered company growth and sometimes stopped growth all together. As can be seen with Enron and Chrysler. Collins says that these companies operate within a “genius with a thousand helpers” model.
Chapter 6
What happens when two fixed mindset ceos cross paths? Well this happen in early 200’s with the AOL Time Warner merger. Steve Case of AOL and Jerry Levin of Time Warner were two ceo’s and both had a lot in common. Both companies praised people with super intelligence and often tried to intimidate people with this power. Both ceos did not like to of complaints and failure and often fired people who did not meet their standards. The merger resulted in the merger company to have a loss of 100 billion dollars in 2002. This was the largest yearly loss in American history.
Dr. Dweck touches on groupthink for a moment in her book. The term being popularized by Irving Janis in the 1970’s. Groupthink is when everyone in a group is thinking alike. No one disagrees and no one takes a critical stance. This mindset can lead to wrong decisions and failure. Groupthink is often seen in companies that put unlimited faith in their leaders. Also in companies that get carried away with brilliance and superiority.
The chapter ends with an interesting story. It was about how David Packard gave out an award to an employee who defied him. Sometimes before young engineer brought a monitor sample to David and asked for it to be further developed. David said no and asked the engineer to discard the monitor. The engineer however kept working with the development of the monitor and got feedback from customers. Well after sometimes he was able to get it into production and the monitor made the company millions. And for that the engineer received an award from the owner for disobeying him and succeeding.
Chapter 7 - Parents, teachers, and coaches: Where do mindsets come from?
Carol Dweck explains that every word and action sends a message. Students and athletes all have people telling them what they are like. Whether it is bad or good. Sometimes this can cause a fixed mindset. The fixed mindset says you have permanent traits and I’m judging you on those traits. While someone who teaches coaches with a growth mindset can say “you are a developing person”, and
“I’m interested in your development”. Basically praise and failure.
To look close at praise Dr. Dweck talks about praising children for speed and perfection. If you were to say “wow, you did that so quickly!” or “you didn’t make any mistakes!” What message are we sending to our children? We are sending the message that speed and perfection are part of learning. When in fact the complete opposite is true. Sometimes challenges take day or weeks. These Teaches children that solving problems fast will discourage them from challenges in the future. Dweck explains that a good way to combat this is when a child solves something fast encourage them to try something harder. Maybe say that it was too easy for you.
Failure is another form of judgment, something that was touched on throughout the book. Kids with a fixed mindset are constantly judged by their parents. They said they feel like it’s a constant measuring of traits. While the kids of growth minded parents felt encouraged and their parents promoted good study habits. Basically the fixed felt judged and the growth felt helped. Dr. Dweck also finds that this sort of development starts when the child is very young. Sometimes when they are toddlers. She concludes the section with the phrase “Don’t judge. Teach. It’s a learning process.”
The ideal environment is next described in “Mindset”. Dweck goes on to describe that yes parents can be judgmental. But it’s important to make sure that goals are attainable and can be learned. Having high expectations that rely on naturally born traits can create a fixed mindset. And that was what was seen with students who had fixed mindsets. You either have or you do not. While the opposite student experienced success through constant learning and personal betterment. From there Dr. Dweck goes on to describe teachers and the perfect atmosphere. Which is a learning and empowering growth atmosphere. This can be achieved by positive criticism and no personal stereotypes. Coaches on the other hand promote growth through different ways. Coach Wooden is one the most praised coaches in college basketball. His motto to his players what you have to apply yourself each day to become a little better, and over a long period of time you will get much better. His players bought into this way of thinking and as a result Wooden won numerous championships. And he did this because of equal treatment and showing students that when effort was applied the results were always outstanding.
Chapter 8 - Changing Mindsets: A workshop
In the final chapter the author goes over different stories that show her methods work. She first explains the nature of change. And during some test she notices that the simplest of changes can make a huge difference. And it could be in many ways. Sometimes the way she talked to people. Or how she encouraged children to overcome their setbacks rather than allow those setbacks to define them. Because setbacks happen and thinking that they won’t happen is wishful thinking.
In her work shop Dr. Dweck first shows students brainwaves. She compares growth minded brains to fixed brains. She continues that brains make connections when new things are learned. So the more you learn the more connections are in your brain. The more that this happens the easier some task become, like leaning a language. From there she points out to the students that no one laughs at babies for their apart lack of intelligence. This workshop was only eight combined sessions. But during that time almost every student showed a jump in a positive direction. And at the same time put the students in charge of their brains. The rest of the chapter explains how the reader can learn to take control of their brain. She goes on to explain that keeping anger and using high degrees of self-control can get you far. And she concludes that when the reader gets somewhere in their mindset to remember to maintain this way of thinking.
The Video Lounge
John McEnroe Meltdowns:
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8Nyc9jzSDg]
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPdM6vu2Jao ]
Michael Jordan and Failure:
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45mMioJ5szc]
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Uugz5Y7u6M ]
Personal Insights
Why I think:
The author is one of the most brilliant people around…or is full of $%&#, because:
Carol Dweck is quite brilliant. She started out at an early age asking herself “Why?”. And over the years she learned about people and what drives them to do the things that they do. And by doing that she is able to point out real world examples on her ideas that truly make sense.
If I were the author of the book, I would have done these three things differently:
1. Modernized the book: I feel like seven years in the digital age is a long time. Some people mentioned in the book for being successful have failed or no longer run those companies etc.
2. Give more examples that people can work through: She only seems to relate finding through stories. I feel that if she had a section set up like a fill in the blank test it would make more sense.
3. Create visualizations in the book: The book can be a little dry at some points. Having so many written descriptions
Reading this book made me think differently about the topic in these ways:
1. That the lessons in Mindset can be used in all aspects of life. IT made me observe people more closely and the decisions that people make. It also showed me that some people don’t like to take on a challenge because it might make the look bad.
2. Qualities that a good leader has. Throughout the book Dr. Dweck shows what it takes to be a good leader. Leaders are people who lead companies into greatness not rule them with an iron fist.
3. Anyone can change their outlook it just takes an open mind Everyone can learn good lesson from this book. But it takes an open mind and a positive outlook. It also takes some skill to maintain the lesson learned.
I’ll apply what I’ve learned in this book in my career by:
1. Using every challenge as an opportunity to learn. That is a hall mark of the growth mindset. Using challenges as a reason to learn.
2. I would like to help people understand that they don’t have to be stuck in a fixed mindset.
3. That growth mindset can be used in all aspects of life. Whether personal or professional tips in this book are something that everyone can use.
Here is a sampling of what others have said about the book and its author:
“What it all comes down to is that a mindset is an interpretative process that tells us what is going on around us. In the fixed mindset, that process is scored by an internal monologue of constant judging and evaluation, using every piece of information as evidence either for or against such assessments as whether you’re a good person, whether your partner is selfish, or whether you are better than the person next to you. In a growth mindset, on the other hand, the internal monologue is not one of judgment but one of voracious appetite for learning, constantly seeking out the kind of input that you can metabolize into learning and constructive action.” – Maria Popova
“Dweck is now expanding her work on how beliefs about intelligence interact with anxieties about stereotypes among women and people of color. (To some degree, she is filling the shoes of Claude M. Steele, the theorist of “stereotype threat” who recently left Dweck’s department to become provost of Columbia.) She and a colleague are studying how a “sense of belonging” contributes to students’ willingness to persist in science majors at Stanford.” – David Glenn
Bibliography
Dweck, Carol Dr. (March 2007). Mindset: The new psychology of success.
Gladwell, Malcolm (July 22 2002). New Yorker. “The Talent myth” Retrieved from http:// http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/07/22/020722fa_fact?currentPage=all
Glenn, David (May 9th 2010). Carol Dwecks Attitude Retrieved from http:// https://chronicle.com/article/Carol-Dwecks-Attitude/65405/
Popova, Maria (unknown). Fixed vs. Growth: The Two Basic Mindsets That Shape Our Lives. Retrieved from http:// http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/01/29/carol-dweck-mindset/
Collins, Jim (October 16th 2001). Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Contact Information
To contact the author of this article, “Book Summary: A Synopsis and Review of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Dr. Carol Dweck,” please email w0238052@selu.edu.
About Good Advice Publishing Company
Good Advice Publishing Company is a media/PR/content marketing firm based in Hammond, Louisiana. We publish articles that provide useful information on a whole range of topics, including business, career, books, home improvement, medical, and food/dining. Find us on the Interweb at http://goodadvicepublishing.com/.
We are proud to facilitate in the Student Publication Program for the College of Business at Southeastern Louisiana University. Through this effort, students like the one featured in this article have the exemplary projects turned into published works in edited online periodicals. For more information on this program, please contact Professor David Wyld (dwyld@southeastern.edu).
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
