E12: Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

3 Lessons 💡

1) Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset

1. Believing your qualities are carved in stone, or having a fixed mindset, creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. Failure has often been transformed from an action I failed to an identity, I am a failure. This is especially true in the fixed mindset.
2. Growth mindset supporting environments include presenting skills as learnable, conveying that the organization values learning and perseverance, giving feedback in a way that promotes learning and future success and presenting managers as resources for learning
3. Valuable Quotes:
   • An assessment at one point in time has little value for understanding someone's ability, let alone their potential to succeed in the future.
   • I'll be damned if I'm going to sit here and feel sorry for myself.

2) Praise effort, not intelligence

1. Praising children's intelligence often harms their motivation and performance.
2. Examples:
   • You put so much thought into this essay, it really makes me understand Shakespeare in a new way.
   • I like the effort you put in, but let's work together some more and figure out what it is you don't understand
   • We all have different learning curves. It may take some more time for you to catch on to this and be comfortable with this material, but if you keep at it like this, you will

3) Perspective about Change

1. Change often takes effort and requires patience to achieve what you want.
2. Even when you change, old beliefs aren't just removed and replaced with better ones. Instead, the new beliefs take their place with the old ones, and as they become stronger, they give you a different way to think, feel and act.

3 Actions ✅

1. Seek constructive criticism and ask yourself what you can learn from all experiences (both positive and negative)
   1. Could write on mirror “What are the opportunities for learning and growth today, for myself, for the people around me?
2. Create an environment that teaches growth mindset to all adults and children
   1. At the dinner table, discuss with your family, what you learned or what mistakes you made that taught you something?
3. Make a concrete plan for something you need to do, learn, or a problem to confront

Helpful Links:

• Mindset Book
• Gavin's Additional Notes on Mindset
• Purchase Books: ThriftBooks or BetterWorldBooks
• Alex and Books Website

Book Mentioned: "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success" by Carol Dweck