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Book Review: Mindset, The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck

This is another book review about one of my most favorite published works recently – the phenomenal book Mindset, The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck. I love this so much I bought 100 books to give away to people – to teachers at my kid’s school, friends and podcast audience. My Mom got this book a couple of weeks ago and said she wished she had this 20 years ago.

Below are some of the highlights – there are lots of good chapters here, from teaching to parenting to being an entrepreneur and I am going to discuss each chapter briefly section by section. Carol talked about the two mindsets:

This is phenomenal in figuring out what kind of mindset you need to have in all aspects of your life.

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.

People who have a fixed mindset think their intelligence is, well, fixed, and they care the most about looking smart. They avoid challenges (because they might lead to failure), give up easily (because setbacks might hurt their self-image), and see hard work and effort as a waste, because they think they’re either talented enough to do something or they’re not.

A growth mindset comes from the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through effort. Yes, people differ greatly – in aptitude, talents, interests, or temperaments – but everyone can change and grow through application and experience.

Folks that have a growth mindset see their intelligence as malleable – they see their mind as something that can be developed, and they have an intense desire to learn. They embrace challenges, persist against setbacks, and see hard work as a chance to get better at something.

Human skills can be cultivated through human effort. If you are not failing, you’re not going to succeed.

Most of us think that our intelligence is something we were born with – but it can be cultivated.

People’s ideas grow out of their own mindset – people who are open to growth are welcoming of challenge and motivations.

Self-insight – people who know themselves more and pretty much have self-awareness, willing to put effort to improve and grow.

The other thing exceptional people have is the talent of converting personal or life setbacks into future successes.

Effort is what makes you smart or talented.

Low effort is the biggest risk in the growth mindset – as long as you learn something, it was a good experiment.

It is very important how you challenge your kids, how to reward them.

The growth mindset doesn’t mean that everything that needs to be changed has to be changed. We have to accept some of our imperfections.

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