27A - Reading Reflection No. 3

Reading Reflection of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol Dweck

1)    Carol Dweck, a psychologist at Stanford University, organized and conducted a research study over decades to prove a relationship between mindset and success. The general theme of the book is to share the information that she gathered through her research and to share the correlation between a person’s mindset and the success that a person attains.

2)    The information that Dweck provides in her book is very valuable information for any person, but especially for young ambitious entrepreneurs. Carol discusses the differences between a Fixed Mindset vs. a Growth Mindset. Her research showed that individuals that possess the fixed mindset people truly struggle with failure and tend to relate their failure back to their overall self-worth. They usually do not look at failure as a learning lesson and it then serves as a deterrent rather than a motivator. The growth mindset individuals love a challenge and do not allow failure/success to determine self-worth. The growth minded individuals tend to move forward from failure much better than the fixed minded and it also assists the individual in their quest for success.

3)    I think that an interesting exercise for ENT 3003 based off this book would be to have the students sit down and try to pin-point what type of mindset they command. This is a self-awareness that exercise that would provide great value to the individuals in the class. It would allow the growth minded individuals to continue in their ways and the fixed minded to hopefully alter the way they perceive failure to set them up for future success.

4)    The biggest “aha” moment for me was when Dweck stated that it was possible to alter the already established mindset of an individual. I found this shocking because changing the way a person’s brain perceives matters seems to be very difficult. But Dweck claims that it is very doable and I was interested to know more about this.