Mindset
Mindset is one of those rare books that can help you make positive changes in your life and at the same time see the world in a new way.A leading expert in motivation and personality psychology, Carol Dweck has discovered in more than twenty years of research that our mindset is not a minor personality quirk: it creates our whole mental world. It explains how we become optimistic or pessimistic. It shapes our goals, our attitude toward work and relationships, and how we raise our kids, ultimately predicting whether or not we will fulfill our potential. Dweck has found that everyone has one of two basic mindsets.If you have the fixed mindset, you believe that your talents and abilities are set in stone--either you have them or you don't. You must prove yourself over and over, trying to look smart and talented at all costs. This is the path of stagnation. If you have a growth mindset, however, you know that talents can be developed and that great abilities are built over time. This is the path of opportunity--and success.Dweck demonstrates that mindset unfolds in childhood and adulthood and drives every aspect of our lives, from work to sports, from relationships to parenting. She reveals how creative geniuses in all fields--music, literature, science, sports, business--apply the growth mindset to achieve results. Perhaps even more important, she shows us how we can change our mindset at any stage of life to achieve true success and fulfillment.
Stats for nerds
86recommend
144mentions
121people
2007–2025years
72% recommend24% neutral3% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- > Neuroplasticity is the brain’s remarkable ability to adapt its structure and function by rewiring neural connections in response to learning, experience, or injury.
The invention and innovation of language, agriculture, writing, and mathematics has driven the change in neuroplasticity remodeling, but the overall structure of the brain hasn't changed.
Often in modern societal structures there has been pruning of intellectuals, i.e. the intelligent members of a society are removed from the gene pool, sent to Siberia. However, that doesn't stop the progeneration of humans capable of immense intelligence with training and development, it only removes the culture being passed down.
And, I say, with strong emphasis, not only has the brain of humans been similar for 25,000 years, the potential for sharpening our abilities in abstract reasoning, memory, symbolic thought, and executive control is *equal* across all sexes and races in humans today. Defending that statement is a hill I'm willing to die on.
"Mindset" by Carol Dweck is a good read.
- Describing "Growth Mindset" as some sort of pseudo-science or cult-like thinking is kind of a stretch.
When I read Dweck's work the first time (after coming across it in an Inc. interview with Nadella), it was not that I learned something new. It was more like she put a label on something that I think we can all intuit when we work with peers, manage others, sift through applicants for a job.
- I’ll give a few.
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (and the great TA I had teaching the course) got me to change my major to English as a college freshman. I was just hit with a thought like, “I’ve never read anything like this and I’ve never heard a teacher want to talk about books this deeply.”
Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell showed a voice that I’d never heard before — knowledgeable about history, indie rock, cult movies, rural living, and very funny. It was like, “This is exactly who I want to be.”
Then I spent my whole life thinking I was a disorganized person and through the power of a really good memory I was able to hold things together at work. Then I read Mindset by Carol Dweck and Everything In Its Place by Dan Charnas that convinced me that a) I was holding myself back by thinking I was a disorganized person and that b) I could become an organized person. Maybe the best professional decision I’ve ever made because it turns out that being organized is really really useful.
- My 3 favorite non-fiction books are:
* Mindset by Carol S. Dweck
* Innovating: A Doer's Manifesto for Starting from a Hunch, Prototyping Problems, Scaling Up, and Learning to Be Productively Wrong by Luis Perez-Breva
* Fall In Love with the Problem, Not the Solution: A Handbook for Entrepeneurs by Uri Levine
These three books really changed my viewpoint and I've been rereading them every year.
- Mine is Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck. It taught me the power of a growth mindset, transforming challenges into opportunities for growth.
- Not a book worm myself but I found this one really enlightening: https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Carol-S-Dweck/dp/0...
