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. She looks across a broad range of

applications and helps parents, teachers, coaches, and executives see how they can promote the growth mindset.

Highly engaging and very practical, Mindset breaks new ground as it leads you to change how you feel about yourself and your future.

“This book is an essential read for parents, teachers, coaches, and others who are instrumental in determining a child’s mind-set, and in turn, his or her future success, as well as for those who would like to increase their own feelings of success and fulfillment.” --Library Journal

Contents

Introduction

1. The Mindsets

Why Do People Differ?

What Does All This Mean for You? The Two Mindsets

A View from the Two Mindsets

So, What’s New?

Self-Insight: Who Has Accurate Views of Their Assets and Limitations?

What’s iIn Store

2. Inside The Mindsets

Is Success About Learning–Or Proving You’re Smart?

Mindsets Change the Meaning of Failure

Mindsets Change the Meaning of Effort

Questions and Answers

3. The Truth About Ability and Accomplishment

Mindset and School Achievement

Is Artistic Ability a Gift?

The Danger of Praise and Positive Labels

Negative Labels and How They Work

4. Sports: The Mindset Of A Champion

The Idea of the Natural

“Character”

What Is Success?

What Is Failure?

Taking Charge of Success

What Does It Mean to Be a Star?

Hearing the Mindsets

5. Business: Mindset and Leadership

Enron and the Talent Mindset

Organizations That Grow

A Study of Mindset and Management Decisions

Leadership and the Fixed Mindset

Fixed-Mindset Leaders in Action

Growth-Mindset Leaders in Action

A Study of Group Processes

Groupthink Versus We Think

Are Leaders Born or Made?

6. Relationships: Mindsets In Love (Or Not)

Relationships Are Different

Mindsets Falling in Love

The Partner as Enemy

Competition: Who’s The Greatest?

Developing in Relationships

Friendship

Shyness

Bullies and Victims: Revenge Revisited

7. Parents, Teachers, And Coaches:

Where Do Mindsets Come From?

Parents (and Teachers): Messages About Success and Failure

Children Learn The Messages

Teachers (and Parents): What Makes a Great Teacher (or Parent)?

Coaches: Winning Through Mindset

Our Legacy

8. Changing Mindsets: A Workshop

The Nature of Change

The Mindset Lectures

A Mindset Workshop

Brainology

More About Change

Taking the First Step: A Workshop for You

People Who Don’t Want to Change

Changing Your Child’s Mindset

Mindset and Willpower

Maintaining Change

The Road Ahead

Notes

Recommended Books

Index