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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
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.
You can look back and say, “I could have been…,” polishing your unused endowments like trophies. Or you can look back and say, “I gave my all for the things I valued.” Think about what you want to look back and say. Then choose your mindset.
Sure, people with the fixed mindset have read the books that say: Success is about being your best self, not about being better than others; failure is an opportunity, not a condemnation; effort is the key to success. But they can’t put this into practice because their basic mindset—their belief in fixed traits—is telling them something entirely different: that success is about being more gifted than others, that failure does measure you, and that effort is for those who can’t make it on talent.
“Your horse is only as fast as your brain. Every time you learn something, your horse will move ahead.”
Remember, test scores and measures of achievement tell you where a student is, but they don’t tell you where a student could end up.
As we feared, the ability praise pushed students right into the fixed mindset, and they showed all the signs of it, too: When we gave them a choice, they rejected a challenging new task that they could learn from. They didn’t want to do anything that could expose their flaws and call into question their talent.
"ability praise" means telling them they're smart and talented with high IQ, instead of being hard working.
Then we gave students some hard new problems, which they didn’t do so well on. The ability kids now thought they were not smart after all. If success had meant they were intelligent, then less-than-success meant they were deficient. Guettel echoes this. “In my family, to be good is to fail. To be very good is to fail….The only thing not a failure is to be great.” The effort kids simply thought the difficulty meant “Apply more effort or try new strategies.” They didn’t see it as a failure, and they didn’t think it reflected on their intellect.
Would you believe that almost 40 percent of the ability-praised students lied about their scores? And always in one direction. In the fixed mindset, imperfections are shameful—especially if you’re talented—so they lied them away. What’s so alarming is that we took ordinary children and made them into liars, simply by telling them they were smart.
see failure not as a sign of stupidity but as lack of experience and skill.
So in the fixed mindset, both positive and negative labels can mess with your mind. When you’re given a positive label, you’re afraid of losing it, and when you’re hit with a negative label, you’re afraid of deserving it.
dig down and find the strength even when things are going against you.
When you read about an athlete or team that wins over and over and over, remind yourself, ‘More than ability, they have character.’ ”
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.
As Morgan McCall, in his book High Flyers, points out, “Unfortunately, people often like the things that work against their growth….People like to use their strengths…to achieve quick, dramatic results, even if…they aren’t developing the new skills they will need later on. People like to believe they are as good as everyone says…and not take their weaknesses as seriously as they might. People don’t like to hear bad news or get criticism….There is tremendous risk…in leaving what one does well to attempt to master something new.”
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.
What he learned was this: True self-confidence is “the courage to be open—to welcome change and new ideas regardless of their source.” 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.
the job of this department, Jim Collins reports, was to give Churchill all the worst news. Then Churchill could sleep well at night, knowing he had not been groupthinked into a false sense of security.
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!
Or, as Morgan McCall argues, many organizations believe in natural talent and don’t look for people with the potential to develop. Not only are these organizations missing out on a big pool of possible leaders, but their belief in natural talent might actually squash the very people they think are the naturals, making them into arrogant, defensive nonlearners. The lesson is: Create an organization that prizes the development of ability—and watch the leaders emerge.
But those with the fixed mindset don’t buy that. Remember the fixed-mindset idea that if you have ability, you shouldn’t have to work hard? This is the same belief applied to relationships: If you’re compatible, everything should just come naturally.
Shy people worry that others will bring them down. They often worry about being judged or embarrassed in social situations. People’s shyness can hold them back from making friends and developing relationships. When they’re with new people, shy people report that they feel anxious, their hearts race, they blush, they avoid eye contact, and they may try to end the interaction as soon as possible.
work toward curing yourself of the need to blame. Move beyond thinking about fault and blame all the time.
Are you shy? Then you really need the growth mindset. Even if it doesn’t cure your shyness, it will help keep it from messing up your social interactions. Next time you’re venturing into a social situation, think about these things: how social skills are things you can improve and how social interactions are for learning and enjoyment, not judgment. Keep practicing this.
Listen for the messages in the following examples: “You learned that so quickly! You’re so smart!” “Look at that drawing. Martha, is he the next Picasso or what?” “You’re so brilliant, you got an A without even studying!” If you’re like most parents, you hear these as supportive, esteem-boosting messages. But listen more closely. See if you can hear another message. It’s the one that children hear: If I don’t learn something quickly, I’m not smart. I shouldn’t try drawing anything hard or they’ll see I’m no Picasso. I’d better quit studying or they won’t think I’m brilliant.
children love praise. And they especially love to be praised for their intelligence and talent. It really does give them a boost, a special glow—but only for the moment. The minute they hit a snag, their confidence goes out the window and their motivation hits rock bottom. If success means they’re smart, then failure means they’re dumb. That’s the fixed mindset.
love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, seek new strategies, and keep on learning.
“Praise should deal, not with the child’s personality attributes, but with his efforts and achievements.”
