Quotes from Carol S. Dweck

What eventually set him apart was his mindset and drive. He never stopped being the curious, tinkering boy looking for new challenges.

Picture your ideal love relationship. Does it involve perfect compatibility—no disagreements, no compromises, no hard work? Please think again. In every relationship, issues arise. Try to see them from a growth mindset: Problems can be a vehicle for developing greater understanding and intimacy. Allow your partner to air his or her differences, listen carefully, and discuss them in a patient and caring manner. You may be surprised

I was intensely curious because Cézanne is one of my favorite artists and the man who set the stage for much of modern art. Here's what I found: Some of the paintings were pretty bad. They were overwrought scenes, some violent, with amateurishly painted people. Although there were some paintings that foreshadowed the later Cézanne, many did not. Was the early Cézanne not talented? Or did it just take time for Cézanne to become Cézanne?

Bloom concludes, "After forty years of intensive research on school learning in the United States as well as abroad, my major conclusion is: What any person in the world can learn, almost all persons can learn, if provided with the appropriate prior and current conditions of learning.

important achievements require a clear focus, all-out effort, and a bottomless trunk full of strategies.

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.

Mia, what is the most important thing for a soccer player to have?" With no hesitation, she answered, "Mental toughness.

The growth mindset also doesn't mean everything that can be changed should be changed. We all need to accept some of our imperfections, especially the ones that don't really harm our lives or the lives of others.

When people are in a growth mindset, the stereotype doesn't disrupt their performance. The growth mindset takes the teeth out of the stereotype and makes people better able to fight back. They don't believe in permanent inferiority. And if they are behind—well, then they'll work harder, seek help and try to catch up. The growth mindset also makes people able to take what they can and what they need even from a threatening environment.

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.

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 Without a belief in human development, many corporate training programs become exercises of limited value.

Actually, people with the fixed mindset expect ability to show up on its own, before any learning takes place.

True self-confidence is "the courage to be open—to welcome change and new ideas regardless of their source.

Now consider the idea that they just used better strategies, taught themselves more, practiced harder, and worked their way through obstacles. You can do that, too, if you want to.

John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach, says you aren't a failure until you start to blame.

the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life. It can determine whether you become the person you want to be and whether you accomplish the things you value.

Is there something you've always wanted to do but were afraid you weren't good at? Make a plan to do it.

the fixed-mindset premise that great geniuses do not need great teams. They just need little helpers to carry out their brilliant ideas.

Some of the world's best athletes didn't start out being that hot. If you have a passion for a sport, put in the effort and see.

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.

Mindsets are just beliefs. They're powerful beliefs, but they're just something in your mind, and you can change your mind.

Benjamin Barber, an eminent sociologist, once said, "I don't divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures.… I divide the world into the learners and nonlearners." What

Think of times other people outdid you and you just assumed that they were smarter or more talented. Now consider the idea that they just used better strategies, taught themselves more, practiced harder, and worked their way through obstacles. You can do that too, if you want to.

There was a saying in the 1960s that went: "Becoming is better than being." The fixed mindset does not allow people the luxury of becoming. They have to already be.