Short Summary Mindset argues that we have been wrong about intelligence and talent all along. Viewing everything through the lens of our innate abilities limits our growth. The only thing separating us from our favorite athletes, musicians and entrepreneurs is a false belief that our idols were born with something we don’t possess.
People with a fixed mindset believe their talents, intelligence and abilities are set in stone. As a result, they are constantly looking to prove that they are smart or successful.
School contributes to a fixed mindset because it makes us believe that there are people who are smarter and those who are less intelligent. The IQ test is a prime example of this. If you score high on an IQ test, you are considered smart. If you score low, you aren’t. As a result, everyone tries to look smart and not dumb.
The problem is that intelligence isn’t set in stone. We can become smarter through effort. By focusing on learning, we can change our qualities. But if we always want to prove ourselves and look smart, we can’t learn optimally. This is why a fixed mindset hinders our ability to learn.
As a thought experiment: What would happen if schools didn’t treat all children the same, but put more effort into helping those who need help, and awarded grades for effort and growth rather than knowledge?
Do you ever look at famous entrepreneurs and inventors as people who are born with extraordinary abilities? Even the most iconic historic figures were often considered ordinary. For example, Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb, wasn’t a genius. It took him a team, countless failed attempts, and lots of effort to invent the light bulb.
There are several YouTube channels that interview successful entrepreneurs. A common theme is that many of these self-made multi-millionaires were written off as dumb, dropped out of school, or faced tremendous failure and hardship in life.
Your favorite athletes weren’t born successful, either. Michael Jordan and pretty much all successful athletes have a growth mindset. They are obsessed with learning. It’s the character they built thanks to their growth mindset that propelled them to the top, not some special talent or quality they were born with.
The belief that some people are talented, or have qualities they didn’t earn through immense effort, seems to be so prevalent in our culture, it might be the number one thing holding people back.
There’s a misconception that if you have to work hard for something you are deficient. In a fixed mindset environment, people often try to take shortcuts. They don’t want to appear like they are making an effort, since it implies they aren’t as smart. For fixed-minded people, putting in effort is risky. What if they fail, despite all the effort they put in? Surely others will think they’re dumb and incapable.
People with a growth mindset, such as successful entrepreneurs, athletes, and artists, put in tremendous effort. For them, low effort is riskier. They have a dream and realize that if they don’t give it 100% they’ll regret it. The fear of regret is greater than the fear of making a big effort and failing.
When you adopt a growth mindset, you aren’t worried about making a fool of yourself. You understand that your intelligence, achievements and talents are the result of continuous effort and aren’t set in stone. Only when you make an effort, risk failure and make mistakes, can you improve.
Growth-minded people embrace failure. They aren’t scared of it. On the contrary, failure motivates them. Whenever a growth-minded person fails, they get excited because they learn something that brings them closer to success.
With the right mindset, failure is like fuel. The more often you fail, the more you want to succeed. Every setback makes you hungrier for success and more determined. It’s a self-optimizing feedback loop.
Businesses that create a fixed-mindset environment are more likely to fail. This is because everyone is judging everyone else. Am I smarter than them? Is my position more important? In this cut-throat environment, where job titles and looking smart are more important than effort, companies quickly become toxic and unprofitable.
Unfortunately, this type of toxic culture exists in many companies. How much more successful could these businesses be if they adopted a growth mindset?
Enron is an example of a company that went bankrupt because of a fixed mindset. The company focused on hiring the smartest and most talented people with the best degrees. This created a culture where people cared more about how they looked rather than helping each other and making an effort.
When companies focus on human potential and development, rather than talent and degrees, they tend to build better teams. A toxic, fixed-mindset culture hinders growth. When companies focus on helping people learn and make a collective effort to solve problems, they thrive.
This fixed mindset holds people back in relationships and marriages as well. Do you expect your partner to be perfect? This ignores the fact that relationships and marriages require effort.
In Outwitting the Devil, Napoleon Hill talks about how parents, teachers and religious leaders make children drifters from a young age. A drifter is someone who doesn’t think for himself and isn’t in control of their own mind.
As parents, we must be cautious about how we communicate with children. Are we making them feel like they have permanent traits like intelligence or talent? Do we use labels like this child is the “smart” one and the other one is the “quiet” one? This sends a message to children that their qualities are set in stone.
When children feel like their qualities can’t be changed, it makes them seek approval for the qualities they have. Their life becomes a game of praise and avoiding judgment, rather than a game of lifelong learning, self-improvement and personal growth.
To foster a growth mindset in children, we should avoid praising their talents or intelligence. Rather, we should praise their effort or the strategies they used to achieve a certain outcome. On top of this, we shouldn’t use fixed labels to describe them. The truth is that children are like sponges: Their personality, intelligence and talent change with the right learning process in place.
If you’re in the habit of praising your children for their intelligence or talents, stop doing this. Instead, praise them for learning something, or for the effort they have made.
Whenever you see an athlete, musician or successful entrepreneur, take a moment to remind yourself that they weren’t born with something you don’t possess. That’s a myth. They are where they are due to immense effort.
Mindset is a powerful book. Beyond reminding us that we should control our own mindset, it sheds light on why parents and educators need to be mindful about what they praise children for. Not all praise leads to self-esteem. All our words and actions communicate, even if they are positive.
What stands out is that we might be unintentionally instilling limiting beliefs in children. Apart from this, Mindset reminds us that we shouldn’t be afraid of failure. And we aren’t dumb for putting in tremendous effort.
Social media often makes it seem like people have successful lives, with little effort or sacrifice. This is a false facade. Anyone who has become successful, whether athletes or entrepreneurs, had to face hundreds of setbacks, deal with failure and put in a tremendous amount of effort. Making an effort isn’t risky. Not making an effort and regretting it is the real risk. This is one of the core messages we tool from Carol Dweck’s book.
We recommend this summary of Mindset to parents and educators. But even if you don’t fall into this category, you should read or listen to this summary of Mindset. We have all been “brainwashed” by the fixed mindset narrative. It’s time for a paradigm shift from intelligence and talent to learning and effort.
To some extent, the school system as a whole creates a fixed mindset environment. You go to school, get good grades so you can “prove” to potential employers that you are smart and talented.