It’s been a second since I’ve picked up a book. Maybe several seconds. Minutes? Hours? Days? Probably a good number of years to be honest. It’s surprising how far you can get by in college without ever opening a non-technical book.
Anyways, this book is going to be my first in a while. Have you read it? Would love to hear your thoughts on it as I document my own thoughts here :)
Book Club notes on Mindset by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D.
Chapter 1 - The Mindsets
Here’s an excerpt form the end of the chapter that really stuck out to me.
Okay, now image you’ve decided to learn a new language and you’ve signed up for a class. A few sessions into the course, the instructor calls you to the front of the room and starts throwing questions at you one after another.
Put yourself in a fixed mindset. Your ability is on the line. Can you feel everyone’s eyes on you? Can you see the instructor’s face evaluating you? Feel the tension, feel your ego bristle and waver. What else are you thinking and feeling?
Now put yourself in a growth mindset. You’re a novice - that’s why you’re here. You’re here to learn. The teacher is a resource for learning. Feel the tension leave you; feel your mind open up.
pg. 14
I felt this passage because I could imagine it so vividly. There were many times in my life where I was put on the line in a similar way, but let the stress and anxiety get to me. I let it effect my actions that followed immediately in a negative way. A fool would be made of myself, and I would learn nothing from the situation; my confidence would be shot. The fixed mindset.
But that’s not all. I also felt the growth mindset. There are also many times where, put in a similar situation, I didn’t care that I didn’t know the answer to a question while being in the spotlight. That’s fine. I think it’s unrealistic to imagine and expect yourself to be this perfect human being who’s supposed to know it all. In such situations under a growth mindset, I find myself owning up to my lack of knowledge. I identify it, and communicate the lack of in order to obtain knowledge from others in a fearless way.
I’m happy to say that my transition from a fixed mindset to a more growth mindset has happened pretty organically over the course of my life. Needless to say, I definitely don’t have a 100% growth mindset yet, but it’s something I’m fearlessly striving for.
Chapter 2 - Inside the Mindsets
… we value natural, effortless accomplishments over achievement through effort. We endow our heroes with superhuman abilities that led them inevitably toward their greatness.
pg. 41
Ain’t that the truth. Would it be right to consider this a problem? If so, how would we even solve it? It’s impossible.
Say, for example, Alice was born into a nice and loving family, endless educational resources, and many positive influences to learn important life lessons from.
Then there’s Bob. Born into a low income family, schools don’t really care about education, and family life isn’t the best for him.
It’s impossible for Bob to be compared to Alice. Even if Bob was able to, at some point in his life, reach Alice’s level, very little people would care to look at their history. Sure, it’s all about the journey and not the destination, but that only matters for the traveler right? At the end of the day, the destination is the same and most people won’t care how you got there.
At first, he uses the knowledge to further his typical agenda, making fools out of other people. Since he is the only one reliving the day, he can talk to a women on one day, and seduce her the next. He is in fixed-mindset heaven…
But after countless such days, he realizes it’s all going nowhere and he tries to kill himself…With no way out, it finally dawns on him. He could be using this time to learn. He goes for piano lessons. He reads voraciously. He learns ice sculpting. He finds out about people who need help that day…and starts to help them…Only when this change of mindset is complete is he released from his spell.
pg. 46
In that passage, Dweck is describing Groundhog Day, a move in which Bill Murray wakes up to live the same day over and over again.
I included this passage because I thought it was an interesting thought exercise. Phil Connors (the character Bill Murray played) was given an infinite number of opportunities to take advantage of a static, unchanging, environment.
Dweck described this is a fixed-mindset heaven because Connors put himself comfortably in a fail-safe environment. He would learn about some woman he was trying to seduce one day, just so he could be sure he wouldn’t fail in seducing the next day. Similar acts of such would eventually become boring to him, so he then changed his mindset to one with infinitely more possibilities. (Disclaimer, I did not actually watch this movie. Hope I didn’t mess up any details there :) ).
Chapter 3 - The Truth About Ability and Accomplishment
Here’s a comparison of two lines of thought that I found pretty interesting.
We praised some of the students for their ability. They were told: “Wow, you got [say] eight right. That’s a really good score. You must be smart at this.” They were in the Adam Guettel you’re so talented position.
pg. 71
and the other:
We praised other students for their effort: “Wow, you got [say] eight right. That’s a really good score. You must have worked really hard.” They were not made to feel that they had some special gift; they were praised for doing what it takes to succeed.
pg. 72
To give more context, a test was given to several students. In one group, praise was given to their “natural talent” as a cause for the high score that they got. In the other group, praise was given to the amount of effort the student put in to get their score.
This scenario was really interesting to me because I could really recall similar feelings. I can’t remember the specific examples of my life, but there were definitely times when I received praise for a skill I genuinely thought I didn’t have. Instead of correcting the person giving the compliment, I hid my inexperience away and tried my best to avoid all situations that would bring my small lie to light.
Thankfully, I can say I don’t carry that characteristic with me anymore. It’s dishonest to myself, and dishonest to others.
The other point that Dweck derived from this statement was that kids being praised for their “natural talent” eventually drove kids into a fixed mindset. Like myself, they did everything they could to protect their praise. Whether it’d be avoiding all future tests, or lying about some inability to perform as normal. Such behavior also drives the fixed mindset. Such students don’t want to put themselves in a position to expose their lack of knowledge, in feat that it would taint their praise.