Carol S. Dweck Quotes

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.

Think about effort as a positive constructive force, not as a big drag.

Many of the most accomplished people of our era were considered by experts to have no future. Jackson Pollock, Marcel Proust, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Lucille Ball, and Charles Darwin were all thought to have little potential for their chosen fields.

Just because some people can do something with little or no training, it doesn’t mean that others can’t do it (and sometimes do it even better) with training.

People may start with different temperaments and different aptitudes, but it is clear that experience, training, and personal effort take them the rest of the way.

They were self-effacing people who constantly asked questions and had the ability to confront the most brutal answers — that is, to look failures in the face, even their own, while maintaining faith that they would succeed in the end.

CEOs face this choice all the time. Should they confront their shortcomings or should they create a world where they have none? Lee Iacocca chose the latter. He surrounded himself with worshipers, exiled the critics — and quickly lost touch with where his field was going. Lee Iacocca had become a nonlearner.

In 2001 came the announcement that shocked the corporate world. Enron — the corporate poster child, the company of the future — had gone belly-up. What happened? How did such spectacular promise turn into such a spectacular disaster? Was it incompetence? Was it corruption? It was mindset.

In fact, studies show that people are terrible at estimating their abilities.

So what should we say when children complete a task — say, math problems — quickly and perfectly? Should we deny them the praise they have earned? Yes. When this happens, I say, “Whoops. I guess that was too easy. I apologize for wasting your time. Let’s do something you can really learn from!

Yes, he was depressed, but he was coping the way people in the growth mindset tend to cope — with determination.

In the fixed mindset, setbacks label you.

no matter what your ability is, effort is what ignites that ability and turns it into accomplishment.

The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset.

Success is about being your best self, not about being better than others; failure is an opportunity, not a condemnation; effort is the key to success.