Book Summary: Mindset

Book-Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
Author-Carol Dweck
ISBN-9780345472328
Pages: 449 [pdf]
Chapters: 8

Chapter 1-The Mindsets
Chapter 2-Inside the Mindsets
Chapter 3-The Truth about ability and accomplishments
Chapter 4-Sports:The Mindset of a Champion
Chapter 5-Business Mindset and Leadership
Chapter 6-Relationships: Mindsets in Love (or Not)
Chapter 7-Parents, Teachers and Coaches
Chapter 8-Changing Mindsets

NOTES/REFERENCES:
What is Mindset?
Mindset Diagram
Understanding Mindset
More Dweck’s Articles

PARENTING MINDSET
Parent: “You learned that so quickly! You’re so smart!”
Child: If I don’t learn something quickly, I’m not smart.

Parent: “Look at that drawing. Martha, is he the next Picasso or what?”
Child: I shouldn’t try drawing anything hard or they’ll see I’m no Picasso.

Parent: “You’re so brilliant, you got an A without even studying!”
Child: I’d better quit studying or they won’t think I’m
brilliant.

ALTERNATIVE TO PRAISING WHEN A CHILD IS DOING GREAT
“You really studied for your test and your improvement shows it. You read the material over
several times, you outlined it, and you tested yourself on it. It really worked!”

“I like the way you tried all kinds of strategies on that math problem until you finally got it. You thought of a lot of different ways to do it and found the one that worked!”

“I like that you took on that challenging project for your science class. It will take a lot of work—doing
the research, designing the apparatus, buying the parts, and building it. Boy, you’re going to learn a lot
of great things.”

“I know school used to be easy for you and you used to feel like the smart kid all the time. But the truth is
that you weren’t using your brain to the fullest. I’m really excited about how you’re stretching yourself
now and working to learn hard things.”

“That homework was so long and involved. I really admire the way you concentrated and finished it.”

“That picture has so many beautiful colors. Tell me about them.”

“You put so much thought into this essay. It really makes me understand Shakespeare in a new way.”

“The passion you put into that piano piece gives me a real feeling of joy. How do you feel when you play it?”

WHEN A CHILD FAILED OR STRUGGLING
“I liked 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 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.”

“Everyone learns in a different way. Let’s keep trying to find the way that works for you.”

NOTE TO PARENTS:
Parents think they can hand children permanent confidence—like a gift—by praising their brains and
talent. It doesn’t work, and in fact has the opposite effect. It makes children doubt themselves as soon as
anything is hard or anything goes wrong. If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they
can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and
keep on learning. That way, their children don’t have to be slaves of praise

Every word and action from parent to child sends a message. Tomorrow, listen to what you
say to your kids and tune in to the messages you’re sending. Are they messages that say:
You have permanent traits and I’m judging them? Or are they messages that say You’re a
developing person and I’m interested in your development?

How do you use praise? Remember that praising children’s intelligence or talent,
tempting as it is, sends a fixed-mindset message. It makes their confidence and
motivation more fragile. Instead, try to focus on the processes they used—their strategies,
effort, or choices. Practice working the process  praise into your interactions with your
children.

Watch and listen to yourself carefully when your child messes up. Remember that
constructive criticism is feedback that helps the child understand how to fix something. It’s
not feedback that labels or simply excuses the child. At the end of each day, write down the
constructive criticism (and the process praise) you’ve given your kids.

Parents often set goals their children can work toward. Remember that having innate talent is
not a goal. Expanding skills and knowledge is. Pay careful attention to the goals you set for your children.

If you’re a teacher, remember that lowering standards doesn’t raise students’ self-esteem.
But neither does raising standards without giving students ways of reaching them. The
growth mindset gives you a way to set high standards and have students reach them. Try
presenting topics in a growth framework and giving students process feedback. I think you’ll
like what happens.

Do you think of your slower students as kids who will never be able to learn well? Do they
think of themselves as permanently dumb? Instead, try to figure out what they don’t
understand and what learning strategies they don’t have. Remember that great teachers
believe in the growth of talent and intellect,

NASA’s Strategies of Selecting Candidates
-they rejected people with pure histories of success  and instead selected people who had had significant failures and bounced back from them

Yesterday, my wife told me that my 17 years old son scored >1900 on his first SAT test and his preparation are the following:
1. Watching MariaS, Novak and Rafael at Tennis Channel
2. Watching Minecraft in YouTube
3. Playing video Games ie. Minecraft and something else
4. The Book-Cracking The SAT 2013
5. Playing Tennis

I don’t exactly know how my son’s study habits are but based on my perception, he did not crank up to the maximum effort he can ever unleash on the SAT preparation.  I am motivated to write a summary of this book because I know that he is a perfect candidate of a would-be fixed mindset person. 

To Brent,
Please find time to process the contents of this book.  I told you to read it but you refuse.  Here’s the summary instead.

Dad