Carol S. Dweck Quotes

Edison was not a loner. For the invention of the lightbulb, he had thirty assistants, including well-trained scientists, often working around the clock in a corporate-funded state-of-the-art laboratory!

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.

Math and science need to be made more hospitable places for women. And women need all the growth mindset they can get to take their rightful places in these fields.

John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach, says you aren’t a failure until you start to blame. What he means is that you can still be in the process of learning from your mistakes until you deny them.

to see failure not as a sign of stupidity but as lack of experience and skill.

fixed ability that needs to be proven, and a changeable ability that can be developed through learning.

So in the fixed mindset, both positive and negative labels can mess with your mind. When you’re given a positive label, you’re afraid of losing it, and when you’re hit with a negative label, you’re afraid of deserving it.

For thirty years, my research has shown that 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. How does this happen? How can a simple belief have the power to transform your psychology and, as a result, your life?

I’ve met with many coaches and they ask me: “What happened to the coachable athletes? Where did they go?” Many of the coaches lament that when they give their athletes corrective feedback, the athletes grumble that their confidence is being undermined. Sometimes the athletes phone home and complain to their parents. They seem to want coaches who will simply tell them how talented they are and leave it at that. The coaches say that in the old days after a little league game or a kiddie soccer game, parents used to review and analyze the game on the way home and give helpful (process) tips. Now on the ride home, they say, parents heap blame on the coaches and referees for the child’s poor performance or the team’s loss. They don’t want to harm the child’s confidence by putting the blame on the child.

There’s another mindset in which these traits are not simply a hand you’re dealt and have to live with, always trying to convince yourself and others that you have a royal flush when you’re secretly worried it’s a pair of tens. In this mindset, the hand you’re dealt is just the starting point for development. This growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts.

Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them?

For twenty years, my research has shown that the view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life.

People in a growth mindset don’t just seek challenge, they thrive on it. The bigger the challenge, the more they stretch. And nowhere can it be seen more clearly than in the world of sports. You can just watch people stretch and grow.

The great teachers believe in the growth of the intellect and talent, and they are fascinated with the process of learning.

I’ve noticed and interesting thing. When some star players are interviewed after a game, they say we, they are part of the team and they think of themselves that way. When others are interviewed, they say I and they refer to their teammates as something apart from themselves - as people who are privileged to participate in their greatness.