In a growth mindset, challenges are exciting rather than threatening. So rather than thinking, oh, I'm going to reveal my weaknesses, you say, wow, here's a chance to grow.

Research reveals praise has powerful effects on mindset development:<ul><li>Praising intelligence (you're so smart) promotes fixed mindsets</li><li>Praising process (you worked hard) fosters growth mindsets</li><li>Intelligence praise creates vulnerability to setbacks</li><li>Process praise builds resilience</li></ul>Studies show children praised for intelligence perform worse after difficulty, while those praised for effort maintain or improve. The irony: well-intended smart praise actually undermines the qualities parents hope to encourage.

Praise That Backfires

Organizations develop collective mindsets that impact performance:<ul><li>Fixed-mindset companies typically:</li><li>Worship star talent and genius leaders</li><li>Hide weaknesses and mistakes</li><li>Resist change and feedback</li><li>Growth-mindset organizations tend to:</li><li>Value learning and development</li><li>Share information openly, including failures</li><li>Adapt readily to changing conditions</li></ul>Research shows growth-minded companies outperform peers during disruption, maintain higher engagement, and innovate more. Their advantage comes from different interpretations of challenges, not different challenges.

The Business of Growth

Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better?

Becoming is better than being.

Labels—even positive ones—can foster fixed mindsets with damaging effects:<ul><li>Terms like gifted or natural imply unchangeable qualities</li><li>Fixed-trait identities create contingent self-worth</li><li>This breeds vulnerability when facing challenges requiring effort</li><li>Fear of losing valued labels leads to avoiding growth opportunities</li></ul>Research shows many gifted students later avoid challenges, underperform, and experience anxiety about maintaining their status as smart.

The Danger of Labels

Elite performance correlates strongly with growth mindset characteristics:<ul><li>Champions view setbacks as information, not judgment</li><li>They focus on improvement rather than proving ability</li><li>They study failure methodically instead of avoiding it</li><li>They target weaknesses rather than showcasing strengths</li></ul>Studies of Olympians, musicians, and business leaders show top performers rarely credit innate talent. Instead, they point to their approach to practice, feedback, and development as the key differentiator.

The Mindset of Champions

Mindsets spread through social environments via explicit and implicit signals:
<ul>
<li>Leaders transmit beliefs through what they emphasize and reward</li>
<li>Parents convey mindsets in how they frame success and failure</li>
<li>Organizations develop collective mindsets that shape culture</li>
<li>Subtle cues about what's valued impact prevailing attitudes</li>
</ul>
This social dimension explains why transformations require leadership mindset shifts first. When leaders embody growth principles, cultures shift toward valuing development over fixed performance.

Mindsets Are Contagious

Research reveals how mindsets shape our relationships:
<ul>
<li>Fixed mindset leads to:</li>
<li>Believing perfect relationships shouldn't require work</li>
<li>Seeing problems as signs of incompatibility</li>
<li>Keeping score and assigning blame</li>
<li>Growth mindset creates:</li>
<li>Expecting relationships to develop through challenges</li>
<li>Viewing problems as opportunities for mutual growth</li>
<li>Focusing on development rather than evaluation</li>
</ul>
Studies show growth-minded couples maintain satisfaction longer, resolve conflicts better, and show greater resilience through transitions.

Mindset in Relationships

Dweck's transformative finding is that mindsets can change through targeted interventions:<ul><li>Teaching neuroplasticity shifts thinking about ability</li><li>Learning that struggle builds neural connections reframes difficulty</li><li>Brief interventions create lasting performance changes</li><li>Effective approaches focus on how abilities develop</li></ul>Studies show students receiving mindset interventions improve motivation and performance immediately. These changes persist and amplify as new mindsets create positive loops of effort and achievement.

Changing Mindsets

The word yet bridges present struggle and future success, embodying growth mindset in one linguistic shift:
<ul>
<li>Reframes failures as temporary states, not permanent conditions</li>
<li>Creates a path forward rather than a dead end</li>
<li>Acknowledges reality while maintaining potential</li>
<li>Shifts focus from judgment to journey</li>
</ul>
This simple change activates different neural pathways. Students hearing not yet instead of failing show greater persistence, better strategies, and higher achievement. The brain responds differently to temporary versus permanent ability assessments.

The Power of Yet

The journey mindset represents the fullest expression of growth-oriented thinking:
<ul>
<li>Success means development rather than destination</li>
<li>The key question shifts from Am I successful? to Am I growing?</li>
<li>Focus moves from external validation to internal progress</li>
<li>Setbacks become part of the growth narrative</li>
</ul>
This mindset creates psychological freedom, replacing anxiety with engagement. Research shows journey-oriented people report greater satisfaction, more authentic relationships, and sustained motivation—even after achieving conventional success.

The Journey Mindset

Dweck's research reveals two distinct mindsets that shape our response to challenges and setbacks:
<ul>
<li>Fixed Mindset: Intelligence is static; success means proving you're smart; failure indicates deficiency</li>
<li>Growth Mindset: Intelligence develops through effort; success comes from learning; failure provides valuable feedback</li>
</ul>
These mindsets create different behaviors: fixed mindsets avoid challenges that might reveal inadequacy; growth mindsets embrace challenges as growth opportunities. This explains why equally talented people achieve dramatically different outcomes.

Fixed vs. Growth Mindset

Ever wonder why some people crumble under failure while others thrive? Carol Dweck's groundbreaking research reveals it's all about mindset—the way you view your abilities and intelligence. This isn't just feel-good psychology; it's backed by decades of research showing how your beliefs literally create your reality. The best part? You can actually change your mindset at any age and transform your potential. Read this and you'll never look at success the same way again!

From the renowned psychologist who introduced the world to “growth mindset” comes this updated edition of the million-copy bestseller—featuring transformative insights into redefining success, building lifelong resilience, and supercharging self-improvement. “Through clever research studies and engaging writing, Dweck illuminates how our beliefs about our capabilities exert tremendous influence on how we learn and which paths we take in life.”—Bill Gates, GatesNotes “It’s not always the people who start out the smartest who end up the smartest.” After decades of research, world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., discovered a simple but groundbreaking idea: the power of mindset. In this brilliant book, she shows how success in school, work, sports, the arts, and almost every area of human endeavor can be dramatically influenced by how we think about our talents and abilities. People with a fixed mindset—those who believe that abilities are fixed—are less likely to flourish than those with a growth mindset—those who believe that abilities can be developed. Mindset reveals how great parents, teachers, managers, and athletes can put this idea to use to foster outstanding accomplishment. In this edition, Dweck offers new insights into her now famous and broadly embraced concept. She introduces a phenomenon she calls false growth mindset and guides people toward adopting a deeper, truer growth mindset. She also expands the mindset concept beyond the individual, applying it to the cultures of groups and organizations. With the right mindset, you can motivate those you lead, teach, and love—to transform their lives and your own.

Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., is one of the world’s leading researchers in the field of motivation and is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. Her research has focused on why people succeed and how to foster success. She has held professorships at Columbia and Harvard Universities, has lectured all over the world, and has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her scholarly book Self-Theories: Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development was named Book of the Year by the World Education Federation. Her work has been featured in such publications as The New Yorker, Time, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe, and she has appeared on Today and 20/20.

CAROL DWECK

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