Mindset

My children’s school recommended that we read Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. The book has a lot of great information that is as applicable to managers at high growth companies as it is to parents. The key takeaway for me is that highly capable people tend to be risk-avoiders because they are afraid of failure. They get so used to being praised for their achievements that they end up not pushing themselves to their full potential for fear of looking dumb. As a parent (or a manager), the book recommends praising effort, not accomplishment, and creating an environment that encourages risk-taking and celebrates failure. This is a concept that really resonates with me, not only as a part of my parenting style, but in the way I lead at Zillow Group. Our core values as a company encourage employees to take big swings, with the understanding that they won’t all work out. It’s how we’ve achieved our current success, and it’s what motivates our employees.

One of the reasons I loved Mindset is because it’s solutions-oriented. In the book’s final chapter, Dweck describes the workshop she and her colleagues have developed to shift students from a fixed to a growth mindset. These workshops demonstrate that ‘just learning about the growth mindset can cause a big shift in the way people think about themselves and their lives.

Written by a Stanford psychology professor, this book offers advice on retaining an appreciation for the things you don’t yet know and first resonated with Nadella as a father. As Microsoft’s new CEO, he aspired to steer the company toward “a culture that allowed us to constantly refresh and renew,” and incorporated Dweck’s perspective into his blueprint for change. “Now three years into it, I recognize its power a lot more than I did,” he says.

At a January executive retreat, he handed out copies of the book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, which includes motivational, if vague, lines like “Becoming is better than being.” The right mind-set, according to Mindset, is a “growth mindset.”

Again, I am fascinated by the field of mastery.

Not self-improvement (eat well, sleep well, etc) but on how can you continue a path of improvement so that you can really enjoy the subtleties at a very deep level of whatever it is you love.

Carol Dweck, through massive research and storytelling, shows the reader how to continue on the path of improvement and why so many people fall off that path.

So much of being happy and productive is not about what's happening externally, but what's going on in our own heads. I loved this book for so clearly illustrating that.

Recommended by Bill Gates, teaches the importance of genuinely believing that you can work to improve your skills.

Tony Robbins recommended this book on page 215 in the book "Tools of Titans".

I also think every young person should read Mindset by Carol Dweck. Adopting a growth mindset - an attitude that you can develop any skill if you practice enough and choose the right strategies - has helped me embrace challenges and build confidence, an important foundation of success.

Mindset by Carol Dweck has been a book I have constantly referred to. The whole book is build on the duality of Fixed vs Growth mindset and the choice we have in picking which way we go. While it has obvious professional links, it has also been very relevant in my role as father – a role for which one is probably least prepared. In dialogues with my young boys, who are inherently very competitive, I have played back a lot of the insights – digesting with them what brought a certain success (work vs native, for example), and equally reconciling failure.

Once you understand the difference between the Growth mindset and a Fixed mindset, you’ll start to catch your negative self-talk and doubt more often. This book helped me to understand that our potential can far exceed our expectations.

If you manage people or are a parent (which is a form of managing people), drop everything and read Mindset.

In this book, the author introduced me to the idea of a growth mindset vs. a fixed mindset. I truly believe that having a growth mindset is a prerequisite to doing well in any field.

The author talks about two types of mindsets: a “fixed mindset” and a “growth mindset”. A “fixed mindset” means that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are static, therefore we cannot change them in any meaningful way. The “fixed mindset” encourages striving for success and avoiding failure at all costs. A “growth mindset,” on the other hand, thrives on challenges and sees failure not as evidence of unintelligence but as an opportunity for growth and broadening our existing abilities. While we were growing up, we were encouraged to always look for the right answer and to avoid failure. This book helped me realize that failures are actually opportunities for learning. It gave me courage to take on new projects and be more open to admitting when I make mistakes.

By learning the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset, I was able to reflect more consciously when I approached situations with a fixed mindset and change my perspective for both myself and others. I’m far away from approaching everything with a growth mindset, but the book made me much more aware and drove positive change.

Mindset by Carol Dweck, helps you understand that your mindset is up to you and how you think drives your behaviors.

In fact, when I became a father one of the first books I read (and have since recommended to every parent I know and even my daughter’s kindergarten teacher) is a book by Dr. Dweck, Mindset.