Robert Sternberg, the present-day guru of intelligence, writes that the major factor in whether people achieve expertise “is not some fixed prior ability, but purposeful engagement.” Or, as his forerunner Binet recognized, it’s not always the people who start out the smartest who end up the smartest. (Location 153)
Believing that your qualities are carved in stone—the fixed mindset—creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. (Location 160)
This growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which way—in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments—everyone can change and grow through application and experience. (Location 174)
The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. (Location 185)
another—how a belief that your qualities are carved in stone leads to a host of thoughts and actions, and how a belief that your qualities can be cultivated leads to a host of different thoughts and actions, taking you down an entirely different road. (Location 235)
When you enter a mindset, you enter a new world. In one world—the world of fixed traits—success is about proving you’re (Location 336)
smart or talented. Validating yourself. In the other—the world of changing qualities—it’s about stretching yourself to learn something new. Developing yourself. (Location 337)
One seventh-grade girl summed it up. “I think intelligence is something you have to work for … it isn’t just given to you…. Most kids, if they’re not sure of an answer, will not raise their hand to answer the question. But what I usually do is raise my hand, because if I’m wrong, then my mistake will be corrected. Or I will raise my hand and say, ‘How would this be solved?’ or ‘I don’t get this. Can you help me?’ Just by doing that I’m increasing my intelligence.” (Location 357)
“You can always substantially change how intelligent you are.” (Location 369)
People with the growth mindset hoped for a different kind of partner. They said their ideal mate was someone who would: See their faults and help them to work on them. Challenge them to become a better person. Encourage them to learn new things. (Location 387)
“All my life I’ve been playing up, meaning I’ve challenged myself with players older, bigger, more skillful, more experienced—in short, better than me.” (Location 419)
“When you’re lying on your deathbed, one of the cool things to say is, ‘I really explored myself.’ (Location 426)
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I’ll never forget the first time I heard myself say, “This is hard. This is fun.” That’s the moment I knew I was changing mindsets. (Location 464)
“Becoming is better than being.” The fixed mindset does not allow people the luxury of becoming. They have to already be. (Location 491)
Jordan knew how hard he had worked to develop his abilities. He was a person who had struggled and grown, not a person who was inherently better than others. (Location 591)
Even in the growth mindset, failure can be a painful experience. But it doesn’t define you. It’s a problem to be faced, dealt with, and learned from. (Location 614)
Another way people with the fixed mindset try to repair their self-esteem after a failure is by assigning blame or making excuses. (Location 660)
John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach, says you aren’t a failure until you start to blame. What he means is that you can still be in the process of learning from your mistakes until you deny them. (Location 668)
In short, when people believe in fixed traits, they are always in danger of being measured by a failure. It can define them in a permanent way. Smart or talented as they may be, this mindset seems to rob them of their coping resources. (Location 710)
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When people believe their basic qualities can be developed, failures may still hurt, but failures don’t define them. And if abilities can be expanded—if change and growth are possible—then there are still many paths to success. (Location 711)
Malcolm Gladwell, the author and New Yorker writer, has suggested that as a society we value natural, effortless accomplishment over achievement through effort. We endow our heroes with superhuman abilities that led them inevitably toward their greatness. It’s as if Midori popped out of the womb fiddling, Michael Jordan dribbling, and Picasso doodling. This captures the fixed mindset perfectly. And it’s everywhere. (Location 732)
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People with the growth mindset, however, believe something very different. For them, even geniuses have to work hard for their achievements. And what’s so heroic, they would say, about having a gift? They may appreciate endowment, but they admire effort, for no matter what your ability is, effort is what ignites that ability and turns it into accomplishment. (Location 740)
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Seen through the lens of the growth mindset, these are stories about the transformative power of effort—the power of effort to change your ability and to change you as a person. But filtered through the fixed mindset, it’s a great story about three men and a horse, all with deficiencies, who had to try very hard. (Location 750)
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Many growth-minded people didn’t even plan to go to the top. They got there as a result of doing what they love. It’s ironic: The top is where the fixed-mindset people hunger to be, but it’s where many growth-minded people arrive as a by-product of their enthusiasm for what they do. This point is also crucial. In the fixed mindset, everything is about the outcome. If you fail—or if you’re not the best—it’s all been wasted. The growth mindset allows people to value what they’re doing regardless of the outcome. They’re tackling problems, charting new courses, working on important issues. Maybe they haven’t found the cure for cancer, but the search was deeply meaningful. (Location 859)
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The growth mindset is a starting point for change, but people need to decide for themselves where their efforts toward change would be most valuable. (Location 898)
Grow Your Mindset ■ People are all born with a love of learning, but the fixed mindset can undo it. Think of a time you were enjoying something—doing a crossword puzzle, playing a sport, learning a new dance. Then it became hard and you wanted out. Maybe you suddenly felt tired, dizzy, bored, or hungry. Next time this happens, don’t fool yourself. It’s the fixed mindset. Put yourself in a growth mindset. Picture your brain forming new connections as you meet the challenge and learn. Keep on going. ■ It’s tempting to create a world in which we’re perfect. (Ah, I remember that feeling from grade school.) We can choose partners, make friends, hire people who make us feel faultless. But think about it—do you want to never grow? Next time you’re tempted to surround yourself with worshipers, go to church. In the rest of your life, seek constructive criticism. ■ Is there something in your past that you think measured you? A test score? A dishonest or callous action? Being fired from a job? Being rejected? Focus on that thing. Feel all the emotions that go with it. Now put it in a growth-mindset perspective. Look honestly at your role in it, but understand that it doesn’t define your intelligence or personality. Instead, ask: What did I (or can I ) learn from that experience? How can I use it as a basis for growth? Carry that with you instead. ■ How do you act when you feel depressed? Do you work harder at things in your life or do you let them go? Next time you feel low, put yourself in a growth mindset—think about learning, challenge, confronting obstacles. Think about effort as a positive, constructive force, not as a big drag. Try it out. ■ Is there something you’ve always wanted to do but were afraid you weren’t good at? Make a plan to do it. (Location 937)
important achievements require a clear focus, all-out effort, and a bottomless trunk full of strategies. Plus allies in learning. This is what the growth mindset gives people, and that’s why it helps their abilities grow and bear fruit. (Location 1272)
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Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. (Location 1292)
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Here’s what this means: 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. (Location 1303)
praise for effort? (Location 1360)
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So telling children they’re smart, in the end, made them feel dumber and act dumber, but claim they were smarter. I don’t think this is what we’re aiming for when we put positive labels—“gifted,” “talented,” “brilliant”—on people. We don’t mean to rob them of their zest for challenge and their recipes for success. But that’s the danger. (Location 1369)
Everyone knows negative labels are bad, so you’d think this would be a short section. But it isn’t a short section, because psychologists are learning how negative labels harm achievement. (Location 1386)
When stereotypes are evoked, they fill people’s minds with distracting thoughts—with secret worries about confirming the stereotype. People usually aren’t even aware of it, but they don’t have enough mental power left to do their best on the test. (Location 1394)
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Prejudice is a deeply ingrained societal problem, and I do not want to blame the victims of it. I am simply saying that a growth mindset helps people to see prejudice for what it is—someone else’s view of them—and to confront it with their confidence and abilities intact. (Location 1434)
The fixed mindset, plus stereotyping, plus women’s trust in people’s assessments: I think we can begin to understand why there’s a gender gap in math and science. (Location 1458)
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It was inconceivable to him that you could have a goal and not take steps to make it happen. (Location 1475)
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In short, the growth mindset lets people—even those who are targets of negative labels—use and develop their minds fully. Their heads are not filled with limiting thoughts, a fragile sense of belonging, and a belief that other people can (Location 1475)
define them. (Location 1477)
Float like a butterfly, Sting like a bee Your hands can’t hit What your eyes can’t see. (Location 1603)
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“a genius who constantly wants to upgrade his genius.” (Location 1624)
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“The mental toughness and the heart are a lot stronger than some of the physical advantages you might have. I’ve always said that and I’ve always believed that.” (Location 1625)
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Character, the sportswriters said. They know it when they see it—it’s the ability to dig down and find the strength even when things are going against you. (Location 1717)
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Character, Heart, Will, and the Mind of a Champion It goes by different names, but it’s the same thing. It’s what makes you practice, and it’s what allows you to dig down and pull it out when you most need it. (Location 1768)
Eureka! moment. All at once, she understood what a champion was: someone who could raise their level of play when they needed to. When the match is on the line, they suddenly “get around three times tougher.” (Location 1778)
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All of these people had character. None of them thought they were special people, born with the right to win. They were people who worked hard, who learned how to keep their focus under pressure, and who stretched beyond their ordinary abilities when they had to. (Location 1801)
“I believe ability can get you to the top,” says coach John Wooden, “but it takes character to keep you there…. It’s so easy to … begin thinking you can just ‘turn it on’ automatically, without proper preparation. It takes real character to keep working as hard or even harder once you’re there. When you read about an athlete or team that wins over and over and over, remind yourself, ‘More than ability, they have character.’” (Location 1806)
This idea—that personal success is when you work your hardest to become your best—was (Location 1820)
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Uh-oh, it’s the somebody–nobody syndrome. If I win, I’ll be somebody; if I lose I’ll be nobody. (Location 1933)
“If you work hard at something, you get out what you put in.” (Location 1947)
Character, heart, the mind of a champion. It’s what makes great athletes and it’s what comes from the growth mindset with its focus on self-development, self-motivation, and responsibility. (Location 1956)
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What distinguished the thriving companies from the others? There were several important factors, as Collins reports in his book, Good to Great, but one that was absolutely key was the type of leader who in every case led the company into greatness. These were not the larger-than-life, charismatic types who oozed ego and self-proclaimed talent. They were self-effacing people who constantly asked questions and had the ability to confront the most brutal answers—that is, to look failures in the face, even their own, while maintaining faith that they would succeed in the end. (Location 2146)
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They’re not constantly trying to prove they’re better than others. For example, they don’t highlight the pecking order with themselves at the top, they don’t claim credit for other people’s contributions, and they don’t undermine others to feel powerful. (Location 2153)
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In every growth-mindset autobiography, there was deep concern with personnel development and extensive discussion of it. (Location 2192)
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When bosses become controlling and abusive, they put everyone into a fixed mindset. This means that instead of learning, growing, and moving the company forward, everyone starts worrying about being judged. It starts with the bosses’ worry about being judged, but it winds up being everybody’s fear about being judged. It’s hard for courage and innovation to survive a companywide fixed mindset. (Location 2383)
Jack Welch of General Electric because he is a larger-than-life figure with an ego he held in check—not your straight-ahead naturally self-effacing growth-minded guy. And I chose Lou Gerstner (the man who came in and saved IBM) and Anne Mulcahy (the woman who brought Xerox back to life) as contrasts to Alfred Dunlap, the other turnaround expert. (Location 2393)
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Real self-confidence is not reflected in a title, an expensive suit, a fancy car, or a series of acquisitions. It is reflected in your mindset: your readiness to grow. (Location 2430)
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What would this feedback look or sound like in the workplace? Instead of just giving employees an award for the smartest idea or praise for a brilliant performance, they would get praise for taking initiative, for seeing a difficult task through, for struggling and learning something new, for being undaunted by a setback, or for being open to and acting on criticism. Maybe it could be praise for not needing constant praise! (Location 2593)
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Finally, it means creating a growth-mindset environment in which people can thrive. This involves: ■ Presenting skills as learnable ■ Conveying that the organization values learning and perseverance, not just ready-made genius or talent ■ Giving feedback in a way that promotes learning and future success ■ Presenting managers as resources for learning (Location 2656)
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Create an organization that prizes the development of ability—and watch the leaders emerge. (Location 2673)
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“Tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner.” To understand all is to forgive all. (Location 2886)
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The growth mindset says all of these things can be developed. All—you, your partner, and the relationship—are capable of growth and change. (Location 2926)
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In the growth mindset, there may still be that exciting initial combustion, but people in this mindset don’t expect magic. They believe that a good, lasting relationship comes from effort and from working through inevitable differences. (Location 2946)
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I remember when we were kids and did something dumb, like drop our ice-cream cone on our foot, we’d turn to our friend and say “Look what you made me do.” Blame may make you feel less foolish, but you still have a shoe full of ice cream—and a friend who’s on the defensive. In a relationship, the growth mindset lets you rise above blame, understand the problem, and try to fix it—together. (Location 3089)
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When people embark on a relationship, they encounter a partner who is different from them, and they haven’t learned how to deal with the differences. (Location 3109)
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In a good relationship, people develop these skills and, as they do, both partners grow and the relationship deepens. But for this to happen, people need to feel they’re on the same side. (Location 3110)
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Conventional wisdom says that you know who your friends are in your times of need. And of course this view has merit. Who will stand by you day after day when you’re in trouble? However, sometimes an even tougher question is: Who can you turn to when good things happen? When you find a wonderful partner. When you get a great job offer or promotion. When your child does well. Who would be glad to hear it? Your failures and misfortunes don’t threaten other people’s self-esteem. Ego-wise, it’s easy to be sympathetic to someone in need. It’s your assets and your successes that are problems for people who derive their self-esteem from being superior. (Location 3160)
Shyness harmed the social interactions of people with the fixed mindset but did not harm the social relations of people with the growth mindset. (Location 3176)
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Parents think they can hand children permanent confidence—like a gift—by praising their brains and talent. It doesn’t work, and in fact has the opposite effect. It makes children doubt themselves as soon as anything is hard or anything goes wrong. If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning. That way, their children don’t have to be slaves of praise. They will have a lifelong way to build and repair their own confidence. (Location 3440)
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“Praise should deal, not with the child’s personality attributes, but with his efforts and achievements.” (Location 3472)
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Skills and achievement come through commitment and effort. (Location 3481)
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‘We’re both learning how to do this. I know you’re hungry. I know it’s frustrating, but we’re learning.’ (Location 3614)
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Next time you’re in a position to discipline, ask yourself, What is the message I’m sending here: I will judge and punish you? Or I will help you think and learn? (Location 3646)
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The great teachers believe in the growth of the intellect and talent, and they are fascinated with the process of learning. (Location 3745)
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“I’m going to teach you,” not “I’m going to judge your talent.” (Location 3797)
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When students don’t know how to do something and others do, the gap seems unbridgeable. Some educators try to reassure their students that they’re just fine as they are. (Location 3835)
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Growth-minded teachers tell students the truth and then give them the tools to close the gap. (Location 3836)
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Seymour Sarason was a professor of mine when I was in graduate school. He was a wonderful educator, and he always told us to question assumptions. “There’s an assumption,” he said, “that schools are for students’ learning. Well, why aren’t they just as much for teachers’ learning?” I never forgot that. In all of my teaching, I think about what I find fascinating and what I would love to learn more about. I use my teaching to grow, and that makes me, even after all these years, a fresh and eager teacher. (Location 3863)
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“Sometimes I don’t like other grown-ups very much because they think they know everything. I don’t know everything. I can learn all the time.” (Location 3868)
“You have to apply yourself each day to becoming a little better. By applying yourself to the task of becoming a little better each and every day over a period of time, you will become a lot better.” (Location 3952)
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Beware of success. It can knock you into a fixed mindset: “I won because I have talent. Therefore I will keep winning.” Success can infect a team or it can infect an individual. (Location 4013)
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She tells me: “I never felt judged again. Never. Every time I get that critique, I tell myself, ‘Oh, that’s their job,’ and I get to work immediately on my job.” (Location 4355)
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Think of something you need to do, something you want to learn, or a problem you have to confront. What is it? Now make a concrete plan. When will you follow through on your plan? (Location 4416)
Where will you do it? How will you do it? Think about it in vivid detail. (Location 4417)
You try to spend more time with the veteran quarterbacks, asking them questions and watching tapes with them. Instead of hiding your insecurities, you talk about how different it is from college. They, in turn, tell you that’s exactly how they felt. In fact, they share their humiliating stories with you. (Location 4448)
All of our top growth-mindset CEOs knew their companies from top to bottom, inside out, and upside down. (Location 4477)