Mindset - Carol Dweck

My first on the Kindle

I'd actually started with 'Fooled by Randomness', but couldn't go through with it.....kind of too preachy and technical......and just by title, difficult for a person who believes in everything having a reason, and the will being above all, I guess. Hopefully, I'll get back there one day.

Anyways, back to Carol Dweck.

                             

She has an interesting concept here: A Fixed Mindset and a Growth Mindset

She's a renowned Stanford psychologist with over three decades of systematic research on Achievement and Success.....and what she says in essence, is that the Star, the Champion is Made.......not Born, and it's all about the Mindset. 

And what's best.....this mindset can be adopted, can be changed

A 'Fixed Mindset' assumes that character, intelligence and creative abilities are static and cannot be altered in any significant way. So there's a lot of dependence on talent and innate ability, including intelligence.

A “Growth Mindset,” on the other hand, is looking at constant opportunity to get better, it could actually thrive on challenge, and see failure not as evidence of unintelligence, but as an opportunity for stretching our existing abilities......for learning and for growth.

Out of these two mindsets which we manifest from a very early age, springs a great deal of our behavior, our relationship with success and failure in both professional and personal contexts, and ultimately our capacity for happiness.

There are parts of the book which read like thrillers in synopsis ........it has lots and lots of examples taken from the world of sports, corporate and personal equations. 

It's very factual, and solidly researched, but there are stories that can touch you deep, like with Xerox, where she talks of how Anne Mulcahy took the company from the brink of disaster to a name that's now synonymous with photo copying...this one actually got out the tears.

Strong recommendation to read.....you cannot but look for facets of it reflected in you, which parts of you might be more fixed mindset and which growth.

Especially considering how much we tend to be fixated by this image we have of ourselves, that we don't even think it's possible to change any of it........well, here's seeing how there's always possibilities.