Carol S. Dweck: Mindset, Ballantine Books 2008

Powerful book on the tremendous force of our belief system on the way our life ends up coming about.

The Stanford professor writes lucidly and astonisingly personally, yet throughout arguing her case against solid research and explicitly identified sources. I know very few research based books where a first-rate scholar would so boldly step beyond the conventions of the academic discouse, use her learning with an air of warm optimism, and exercise fair judgment and high standard of analysis in order to conceptualize accessibly matters that touch us all. A brilliant piece of applied research that aims to make, and manages to make, a significant contribution in the realm of the truly relevant.

Dweck operates with the seemingly simple distinction between what she calls "the fixed mindset" and "the growth mindset".  The former focuses upon individual traits as thing-like entities that are fixed, and the latter upon the incremental change toward improvement. In a fixed mindset, "success is about proving you're smart or talented" and about validating yourself, about labels, blame and judgment - in a growth mindset, it's all about change, improvement, learning, growth and effort.

Reading the book forces me to realize I have been more fixed-minded than I have thought, not only in my self-appraisals but also in the implicit thoughts I have of other people, colleagues, loved ones, famous sports heros, leading artists and generally of life itself.

Dweck empowers her reader to grow, by articulating with clarity and wealth of evidence how easily we slip into non-growth in our thinking habits and therefore, in actual conduct of life.

This is one of those precious books you want your son or daughter to read. With this gem of wisdom Dweck has become one of my intellectual heroes.

For the more academic writings of Professor Dweck, see her homepages. You might particularly want to download her article "Finding 'Meaning' in Psychology" (from American Psychologist 2006) or take a look at the powerful page 247 of "Implicit Theories of Intelligence Predict Achievement".