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What You Believe Affects What You Achieve

428 points by pykello 11y ago

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dev1n 11y ago
Gates speaking about the "fixed mindset" vs. "growth mindset" reminds me of this [1] article by Aaron Swartz. [1]: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dweck http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dweck
- blakesmith 11y ago
  Carol Dweck (the first name mentioned in that article) is the author of the book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FCKPHG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FCKPHG/ref=dp-kindle-re...
- illumen 11y ago
  This is a much better article than the one from Gates. Thanks. The "Growth mindset!" safe word part at the end was quite apt. However, it's possible to get a LOT done when you're not growing. For example in basketball, if you know how to do a play which beats other teams all the time, then running that play can be a great idea. Of course, perhaps another team finally figures out your plays and they become useless. Then you might wish you'd spent some of that time growing and developing more plays. Like how Gates is successful, and is able to spend more of his time growing and trying different things. Because he doesn't need to spend a lot of his time executing successful plays so he can pay rent.
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- lopatin 11y ago
  Thanks for the link. As someone who's never heard of Dweck, I learned a lot from Aaron's point of view on the topic. Also Gates is totally right when he says that this isn't black and white. I'm growth mindset about some parts of my life and embarrassingly fixed mindset about others.
karmacondon 11y ago
Love this idea, but I do not recommend the book. It's clearly a science article that has been stretched into 250 pages. Same idea, repeated repeated repeated. I highly recommend a summary, unless you think you'll benefit from reading twenty examples of the same concept. It's one of the few books that I started but didn't finish this year.
- blakesmith 11y ago
  Absolutely agree. I'm reading the book now, and it feels like hundreds of examples to reinforce the same idea over and over again. Granted, she varies the topics (business, parenting, sports, academics, etc..) - but the takeaways are exactly the same, and in each case the data draws the same conclusions repeatedly. Still, an interesting topic and not bad for light commute reading.
xyzzy4 11y ago
Well the problem with the growth mindset is that ultimately you die, so your growth does a nosedive eventually. If something excites or intrigues you, then do it. But don't delude yourself that your personal growth really matters.
- nostrademons 11y ago
  That's sorta the ultimate in fixed mindsets, right? That eventually we'll all be dead, and so none of it matters. It's true, but also irrelevant. Focus on what you can do & experience while you're alive, because who cares what happens once we're dead? The scale of granularity that you use to look at life is as arbitrary as the emotional tenor of it, so why not focus in on a timescale that'll actually be interesting?
  - xyzzy4 11y ago
    Well what makes growing more interesting than not growing?
    - Profan 11y ago
      Surely the opportunity to experience more is more interesting than the one which has you firmly planted where you are?
      - xyzzy4 11y ago
        I guess so but as a human you will naturally seek new experiences. I don't see why you need to adopt a growth mindset to try to expedite what already happens. Even if a growth mindset leads you to double the amount of experiences, on a logarithmic scale that is inconsequential.
        meric 11y ago
        I agree, a "grow mindset" cannot be coerced. You can't believe you can grow when you really believe you are fixed. Perhaps all you can do is add "at this point in time" at the end of all your sentences, and hope for the best. I’m one of the people who’s not good at math at this point in time.
gesman 11y ago
Well, if you read title, then you can safely skip the rest of it. It's a good summary of an essence :)
jgord 11y ago
The central idea seems so important, with so much benefit to education if it were true, that it would justify a large scale rigorous experiment [ just as a new kind of promising medicine would be trialed over a wide sample ] Maybe schooling is stuck in a local maximum, because we don't do things like this, because its not socially acceptable to 'experiment with our childrens education' ?
- zardo 11y ago
  >Maybe schooling is stuck in a local maximum If only! We're camped out on the slopes. A hill climbing algorithm would be a great start.
hcarvalhoalves 11y ago
Is this maybe a western cultural bias, that somehow God blesses you with talent and that's it? Some residue from aristocracy? When you look at things like Japanese martial arts, it's all about learning from someone more experienced and lots of hard work. The limiting factor is your endurance, and the general sentiment is that "if someone learned before me, I can too".
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- NhanH 11y ago
  I'm not sure about that specific instance of Japanese culture, but for East Asia I'd say fixed mindset was much more relevant. I grew up being told that I will never do anything great with my life (not in a mean you-are-stupid way, but just a seemingly "rational"/"realistic" world view that only a few very smart people can do great thing, and I'm not one of them).
choxi 11y ago
I believe everyone should have a growth mindset, but the paper from Dweck is popularized and interpreted a little too loosely. The stricter interpretation is less compelling: In the Bloody Obvious Position, someone can believe success is 90% innate ability and 10% effort. They might also be an Olympian who realizes that at her level, pretty much everyone is at a innate ability ceiling, and a 10% difference is the difference between a gold medal and a last-place finish. So she practices very hard and does just as well as anyone else. According to the Controversial Position, this athlete will still do worse than someone who believes success is 80% ability and 20% effort, who will in turn do worse than someone who believes success is 70% ability and 30% effort, all the way down to the person who believes success is 0% ability and 100% effort, who will do best of all and take the gold medal. It might seem pedantic, but I worry that propagating this loose interpretation will lead to many people believing their positive "growth" attitude, and not years of concentrated practice, is enough to grow. From: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/10/i-will-never-have-the-ability-to-clearly-explain-my-beliefs-about-growth-mindset/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/10/i-will-never-have-the-a...
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jqm 11y ago
Ya, but... are some people more genetically predisposed to have growth mindset? :)
- jqm 11y ago
  The inescapable question of free choice always seems to come back into these things. It's easy to say "just think like this" when you already do think like that. It's much more difficult when (for whatever reason) you don't. How much control do we really have over our feelings, our attitudes and our emotions? How much is the result of environment, genetics and circumstance? My personal opinion is a bit of both. But it's really hard to say in what proportion. Do we really choose when we choose or are we just acting a predetermined role? I have noticed people who do well tend to believe the former. But I'm not convinced this belief is necessarily what caused them to do well and somewhat suspicious that it is partially an attempt to frame their achievements in their own mind as the result of "their" free will and goes back to their need to "prove" themselves superior which may well be the cause of much of their success in the first place. I've met more than a few people who have this need very intently and it seems pretty mechanical and not generally the result of meditative conscious choice. Not to bash the concept. Sometimes the faulty, but useful belief holds more value than a more truthful belief which leaves one powerless. At least in the short term. Long term and on a societal level the side effects of faulty beliefs become much more prominent. For you and I however, here and now, we are almost certainly better off thinking we can do it (imhop). But the question is very deep and certainly a lot more complex than just clicking a switch and deciding to "think" a certain way which to be frank, is a bit of juvenile and superficial way to think about the topic.
  - resu_nimda 11y ago
    I see free will as an illusion. Things may be predetermined or there may be true randomness, either way our conscious decisions can be reduced to the laws of physics. But it is an illusion that I am still subject to, and it is useful to believe that I can choose, insofar that anything is useful. If we can't choose then there's really nothing to be said about anything. Isn't it somewhat ironic to comment on someone's behavior while calling free will into question?
matthewbauer 11y ago
This is interesting in the context of American History. Basically, a majority of settlers were Calvinists. A big part of Calvinist belief was "predestination" which basically holds that a person's destiny (heaven or hell) is determined by God before they are born. This would seem to me to reinforce a "fixed mindset". Paradoxically, out of that same belief system came the "Protestant work ethic" which depending on who you ask made America the greatest country on Earth. I think that one could argue that the "fixed mindset" enabled a sort of wishful thinking attitude: believers though they were predestined so they focused on growth and self improvement over the usual Catholic traditions (which focused on a growth mindset in religious observance while having a more fixed mindset in practical work ethics).
- xCathedra 11y ago
  I think your basically right, but the paradox actually makes more sense when you understand a few nuances of Protestantism: 0) Reformed (i.e. Calvinist) theologians made significant efforts to argue their understanding of predestination was not deterministic because humans are moral agents and responsible for their actions. They were aware and quite comfortable that God predestining morally responsible people is a paradox (technically referred to as an antinomy). 1) Reformed theologians also taught the predestined are 'born-again', meaning they are given a new spiritual life that changes that person's perspective and attitudes towards everything. The predestined evidence their salvation by good works. Here's where the growth mindset would apply. Reformed theologians taught predestination as a motivating belief, rather than a fatalistic one. Grace, or salvation, in Reformed theology doesn't comes through religious observance but comes from faith, which demonstrates itself in how a person lives.
- zitterbewegung 11y ago
  I think it's a combination of work ethic and also relative freedom to do something different . As Americans we seem to want to innovate or do something different.
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known 11y ago
There is no intrinsic motivation. http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/inmotiv.htm http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/inmotiv.htm
jondubois 11y ago
I think this is an inversion of cause and effect. The reality is much less inspiring; It's "What you achieve affects what you believe" not so much the other way around. I know this for a fact because as I become more sceptical/pessimistic over time, my achievements increase. If I was a blind optimist, I would probably fail as soon as reality reared its ugly head. If someone is really lucky throughout their lives, they will have an optimistic view about the world and the people around them. Unfortunate people might find a statement like this offensive because they know for a fact (based on their own experiences) that this isn't true - It's almost like saying "It's your fault for being poor; it's all in your head!".
- hayksaakian 11y ago
  I don't think it's anyone's fault for starting out poor, or becoming poor from outside factors (war, medical condition, etc.) But barring all those factors, if you don't make a deliberate choice to change something, the world around you will keep you down.
  - jondubois 11y ago
    Yes, but you might try very hard and still not move up. It's debatable whether it's better to "Fail never having tried at all" versus "Fail having tried as hard as you could".
    - Swizec 11y ago
      Trying hard does not guarantee success. But not trying at all does guarantee not-success.
      - isolate 11y ago
        Some kinds of success are achieved through not doing things. And then we get into the question of "to do" vs. "not to do".
        11y ago
tcannon 11y ago
Interesting contrast, stories like this compared to the stories about how everyone who is successful feels like they are a fraud. Maybe my study will be of note: If you believe headlines, you should read more.
_navaneethan 11y ago
The same thing [Derek Sivers] explains with amusement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYTN7yVYbeg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYTN7yVYbeg Fortunately, yesterday night I was listening it. [Derek Sivers](https://sivers.org/ https://sivers.org/)
shardinator 11y ago
There's an important idea I feel is being missed. Something can be true "in distribution" but not true in a "pathwise" sense. That means, over the long run, for most people, on average x is true. But for specific individual and/or specific time frame it can be very untrue. Point being I can say to you "adopt a growth mindset", you do it, but it doesn't work and life throws you 'a curve ball' again and again. Doesn't mean my hypothesis was wrong, and doesn't mean you didn't follow through properly. We can both be right in this case. All it means is, we should act as if our actions/thoughts count, but accept it as a fundamental property of the universe that they may not 'bear fruit'. All we can do is embrace the chaos^ ^ as in chaotic systems
- jib 11y ago
  I think that most people would be a lot happier if they saw life as a series of low probability events rather than trying to create a story of accumulation. Life does not accumulate things (luck, good fortune, bad fortune, karma, any other crap that feeds the story of continuity). Life is about maximizing your exposure to positive low probability events, or the probability of them, and minimizing your exposure to negative low probability events, or the probability of them. You're not working hard in work to get a reward, you're working hard to be exposed to more chances of possible rewards. You're not exercise to avoid bad health, you're doing it to lower the chances of a series of low probability diseases. I think this is the same thing you were saying. I think realising that life is a series of low probability discreet events, not a continuum that accumulates based on past events is a real life changer. All you can work on is the process of finding the right events to be exposed to - having feelings about the outcome of those events is irrational and leads to unhappiness.
- dingbat 11y ago
  hi lord krishna i am a fan > To action alone hast thou a right and never at all to its fruits; let not the fruits of action be thy motive; neither let there be in thee any attachment to inaction
huuu 11y ago
I did not read the book, but I think the book is not about becomming succesful but about getting to know your potential. Success and potential are related/connected but there is a huge difference. Being able to help out your neighbor isn't connected to success in our society. I think a lot of posters in this thread don't realize the destinction between potential and success.
dmichulke 11y ago
If you don't fail 90% of the time, you're not aiming high enough Alan Kay
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- marklgr 11y ago
  Growth mindset does not imply you can achieve anything, just "you definitely can get better". Perhaps overconfidence can become a risk, but it seems a much lesser evil versus the cost of believing the opposite: "Here is your definitive level, for ever (don't bother)".
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  - cJ0th 11y ago
    > Perhaps overconfidence can become a risk, but it seems a much lesser evil versus the cost of believing the opposite: "Here is your definitive level, for ever (don't bother)". I think it depends on the individual (situation) which mindset causes higher costs.
metafunctor 11y ago
Also, take this to the second derivative. You can learn to learn faster and more efficiently. You can set yourself up for success. You can start small, and gain momentum from there. You can learn to hack your motivation. Will this guarantee success and a happy life? Of course not. But it will greatly increase your chances.
shin_lao 11y ago
Another way to view it is that the biggest limits in your life are the ones you set. I'm perfectly aware that some people start with huge disadvantages in life, but whatever your starting point, you can end up much higher. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.
- cJ0th 11y ago
  What about that guy who clearly can't sing yet applies for every casting show there is? Maybe by the day he will die he's got performing Rihanna's Umbrella down to a fine art. But what's the point?
  - shin_lao 11y ago
    You must discover what you are good at. It requires brutal honesty with oneself. Also, why should there be a point? Life is a journey.
    - cJ0th 11y ago
      > You must discover what you are good at. It requires brutal honesty with oneself. But isn't that circular reasoning? "I am not a math person" -> [discover growth mindeset] -> "Math is fun" -> [weeks/months/years later] "Shit I am still not significantly better at math" -> "I am not a math person"
      - shin_lao 11y ago
        That's the hard part being able to see yourself with some objectivity. The other trap is : "I sing so well I am talented" (and in fact you are at best average). For any activity there is always better than you, what matters, I think, is where you want to go. But starting with "I'm not a math person" will close many doors for you.
NumberCruncher 11y ago
I think it is easy to praise growth mindset if you are the one who wants to learn and wants to get better through failing. But what about the other side of the coin? Just imagine you are a teamlead and one guy in your team tells you "hey, I have found 2 new ways how not to impelent Feature X. May I work on feature Y and use the knowledge I gained fucking up feature X?" Or you have a project team and the profect manager tells you "Hey, I found one new way how not to manage a project, how not to deliver on time and how not to motivate people. May I manage your next project and maybe waste an other million dollars?" In my experience situations like these end badly...
- jwdunne 11y ago
  I don't think these are cases against a growth mindset but rather cases against overconfidence and biting off more than you can chew. I don't think the point is to say "wow I can get better at anything so I'll take on this big project that's way out of my league". It's more about thinking "wow I can get better at this so I'll ask my manager for tips and maybe a small project in which to grow my skills". I've read the book twice and its helped me tremendously. I used to say to myself I'm not a maths person but now I say that I can get better if I work on it. I've made more progress than I ever did believing that people are simply born with or without a mind for maths.
buro9 11y ago
I think the same about the language we use. Or rather, I think... "What we hear affects us, and we hear ourselves.". This is an extension of the "surround yourself with positive people" thing, in that I believe it's important to be positive, kind, generous, as the language and tone that we use to express we hear constantly and those words, that tone, shapes our thoughts, mood, aspirations. It's important to be mindful and to be the person you want to be. By doing so, we frequently are that person.
hv23 11y ago
There was a good episode on the podcast "Invisibilia" discussing this topic of expectations influencing/shaping reality: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/544/batman http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/544/b.... Some pretty fascinating stories in this one; well worth a listen! I believe Dweck is referenced/interviewed early on in the episode.
codeshaman 11y ago
I have the book, started reading it about a year ago and stopped halfway, because my bullshit cup got full. The reason I think this book is nicely packaged bullshit is because it presents exceptions as rules and then tries to build a theory out of it. I wish it were as easy as Dr. Dweck describes it, but there are gotchas. I can agree with the distinction of 'fixed' versus 'growth' mindsets (although... .. how do you measure that?), but that success is guaranteed if you believe and try... Not necessarily. Ask 9 startup founders out of 10. Not achieving "success" (failing) is rarely free: it leaves emotional and physical scars.. Repeat it a couple of times and you're either dead or on your way there. No, success is not guaranteed even if you try many many times times, even if you train a lot and believe a lot. In fact, the rule is this: No matter how hard you try, you might still lose. Sorry about that. And the reason for this is not mindset - the reason is your definition of success. If you try to win at the wrong game, you will probably lose at it. So pick your game wisely. Of course, a fixed mindset will only land you some semi-boring job, a family, a couple of kids and a lot of mainstream entertainment.. I guess that's the definition of "failure" these days... But is it ? * By the way, if you want useful advice about how to be successful in life, Bill Gates is a very bad choice. It might be counterintuitive at first, but think about it ... As a bird, is it smart to fly around with your mouth wide open in order to catch food... because that's what the whale does ?
- MawNicker 11y ago
  > No matter how hard you try, you might still lose. This is true and inspires tremendous fear. It prevents many would-be successes. I suspect far more than enough to offset the would-be failures. We could recapture this lost value with a universal basic income. We're just too busy chasing down all the "lazy" people while simultaneously declaring their uselessness. It would be funny if it weren't so sad. Why are they useless anyway?
  - vdaniuk 11y ago
    >We could recapture this lost value with a universal basic income In absolute agreement. UBI may unlock extreme growth of efficiency by enabling risk taking without risk of total defeat.
Simp 11y ago
>When I was visiting with community college students in Arizona, one young man said to me, “I’m one of the people who’s not good at math.” It kills me when I hear that kind of thing. I think about how different things might have been if he had been told consistently “you’re very capable of learning this stuff.” Couldn't agree more with this specific example. But you shouldn't ignore reality either. A man with no legs is not going to win the 100 meters at the Olympics. Understanding where your potential lies is important for deciding where to invest your effort. That doesn't mean he can't improve at all though. Especially in things like math, there is a popular belief that you need some kind of 'math gene' to be decent at it. There is little evidence that there are math specific genes beyond general learning ability. [Same genes 'drive maths and reading ability'] http://www.bbc.com/news/health-28211676 http://www.bbc.com/news/health-28211676 Sadly, in a lot of cases this will lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy where you will stop trying to improve your math skills because you weren't "made for it". But that's really more a problem of a false belief that these things are set from birth. A blind belief in 'I can do anything i want despite the situation or environment i am in!' isn't going to help anyone. I would advise the runner with no legs to invest his precious time and resources in something other than trying to win the 100 meters at the Olympics.
- chippy 11y ago
  Interesting, the "reality" described are examples of fixed beliefs - who decides what someone's potential is? Who decides what someone's precious time and resources are? In other words "the reality" is singular, fixed, immovable. Examples: "Face facts, you cannot win the 100 meters" "Don't ignore reality, you have no ability to win races". The article seems to imply that people with low fixed beliefs have been told by others what their potential is, and what is precious. Having more flexible beliefs would mean that one does not limit the scope of ones potential. I imagine that one should therefore encourage others in having more fluid beliefs and one should guard against others when they say reality is fixed. For example: a man with no legs can win the 100 meters race in the Paralympics.
  - logicchains 11y ago
    A man with no legs can even reach 8th place in the semifinals of the 400m race in the actual Olympics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Pistorius#2012_Summer_Olympics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Pistorius#2012_Summer_Ol....
personlurking 11y ago
"Energy flows where attention goes" Above is another line, like the one in the title. On one hand, it's obvious because if you focus your attention, for example, on building a computer, of course your energy goes in that direction. On the other hand, if you don't realize your attention (ie, thoughts) is on certain matters, you may be expending energy on that unknowingly. Of course, if you're a generalist and your attention goes everywhere, your energy is following suit.
popee 11y ago
I only know that if you have strong Will you can achieve many things. Personally, the difference between Wish and Will is when you decide to achieve what you wish.
god_bless_texas 11y ago
Takeaway from this: I'm imagining Bill Gates practicing his fadeaway jumpers.
thewarrior 11y ago
This is a bit late but this should be noted : "Bill Gates: No. I think after the first three or four years, it's pretty cast in concrete whether you're a good programmer or not. After a few more years, you may know more about managing large projects and personalities, but after three or four years, it's clear what you're going to be. There's no one at Microsoft who was just kind of mediocre for a couple of years, and then just out of the blue started optimizing everything in sight. I can talk to somebody about a program that he's written and know right away whether he's really a good programmer." http://blog.codinghorror.com/how-to-become-a-better-programmer-by-not-programming/ http://blog.codinghorror.com/how-to-become-a-better-programm... So Does Bill still believe this or is he a hypocrite in hiding ?
- yesco 11y ago
  God he used to be such an ass. Sometimes I forget he's even the same person.
  - Apocryphon 11y ago
    Perhaps that's the growth mindset in action.
  - dennisgorelik 11y ago
    > he used to be such an ass Gates became successful back then, not now when he became mellow.
- kevinchen 11y ago
  The interview you quote is from 1986, nearly 30 years ago. People change their viewpoints over 3 decades - it would be stupid if Gates always thought the same things even after learning from others or having new experiences. So he's not being a "hypocrite," he's just learning. Just because he is famous and has a lot of interviews doesn't mean he isn't allowed to change his mind.
  - kyllo 11y ago
    1986 was 29 years ago dude. Almost three decades.
jasey 11y ago
Mindset is everything (at-least extremely important for any level of success in entrepreneurship and most other things) Most entrepreneurs solving ambitious problems look crazy to outsiders. Hence the famous Steve Jobs quote "The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do." Look at what the Gates, Jobs and Musks of this world have achieved with their 'anything-is-possible' mindsets.. Btw, for those who are interested in this stuff I've created an app to help people develop a growth/positive mindset at http://positivethinking.net http://positivethinking.net
devinhelton 11y ago
Can someone explain to me what claim Dr. Dweck has demonstrated that is both novel and true? I have read a bunch of articles about her work, but it all seems to me like she has framed "growth mindset" against a strawman. It seems blindingly obvious to me that ability in most fields is a function of both genes and effort. Genes shape how fast you improve with effort, and where you plateau. Genes shape the curve of the achievement-to-effort graph. Effort determines where you are on that curve. Effort determines how much of your potential you actualize. This dynamic is true in basketball, math, golf, painting, speech-making, guitar playing and virtually every other complicated human endeavor. Some people need to be told, "You have are naturally gifted in this field, stop being so hard on people who are not as good as you, they are doing the best they can." Some people need to be told, "You are naturally gifted in this area. You have a responsibility to work extra hard in order to maximize your gifts. If you work your butt off, you have the potential to be truly special." Some people need to be told, "This stuff might not come as naturally to you. You're going to have to work extra hard to keep up." Some people need to be told, "Look you have been practicing harder than anyone, and honestly, I just don't think you have the raw talent to be a professional in this field. You can do it for fun, but be realistic about your career choices." Some people need to be told, "Look you can't say you are bad at painting/writing/music/math/etc. You haven't even tried to learn it. This stuff is not natural for most people, there are books and youtube videos that can show you how to do it. You need to build step-by-step. Practice one technique until it is in mental memory and then add more complexity. Unless you're mozart, you don't just start from day one being able to produce great stuff." It seems that as a culture, there are mistakes in messaging going both ways. For example, the premise of the "No Child Left Behind" education law was silly. There is in fact a bell curve with regards to natural academic aptitude. For instance, if you are in the bottom ~20% of that curve, it is nearly impossible to learn algebra. ( for some articles from a real teacher who is trying to teach algebra in the field, read: https://educationrealist.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/algebra-and-the-pointlessness-of-the-whole-damn-thing/ https://educationrealist.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/algebra-an... and https://educationrealist.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/noahpinion-on-iq-or-maybe-just-no-knowledge/ https://educationrealist.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/noahpinion... ). Someone in the middle of the bell curve can learn algebra, but if they try to go into a career that involves advanced quantitative or logical skills, they will be competing against those who both have a natural aptitude and an economic incentive to try hard. The person with normal aptitude will likely lose that competition. So it might not be good advice to tell that person to double-down on math, even if they could make themselves better. On the other hand, I hear a lot of smart friends say stuff like, "I'm just bad at math" or "I'm just bad at painting." In many cases, they never had good teaching, or they never tackled the problem aggressively. They never tried to learn incrementally, by building muscle memory on a simple technique and then adding more complications. They started with the hard stuff, and when it did not work, they just assumed they were bad at it. For people like that, a "growth mindset" can be helpful. All of this should be pretty darn obvious. I don't really gather what new, credible information Dweck is adding to our understanding of how learning, motivation, and achievement works.
devonkim 11y ago
You know what's worse than thinking you're not capable? Others telling you you're capable and despite your best efforts you fail to meet these expectations whether those reasons are within your control or not. This is putting a carrot on a stick in front of a lot of kids potentially and saying "you just need to believe you can do this and try real hard, gosh anyone can do it!" Expecting a person with severe learning disabilities that they can go work at a top HFT shop or a paraplegic that they'll be able to beat the world record for a 100 meter dash is the kind of goalpost that is being set for many children that are born disadvantaged. Bill Gates may have been studying what keeps the world's poor the way they are for a long time but there are a lot more factors that keep people down than just simply motivation. Part of why I haven't started a company yet is out of fear of kind of literally destroying my life and others around me. The sheer amount of work that you put into a company is one thing, and not having the closest people you know be supportive of the work you do puts you into a position where you must either be so secure that failure is not a problem or that you must succeed on a first try. Reid Hoffman's tips on when you DON'T want to start a company come to mind. Some of those criteria include "if you cannot get another job" or "you will put yourself in harm's way by doing so" (paraphrased, can't find the slides he had). So for the poor, despite having not much to lose in theory, they do have everything to lose in that their lives are all they can give up in the absence of capital or remarkable domain knowledge / skill advantages. Risk tolerance for the poor is actually very low thusly.

428 points by pykello 11y ago

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dev1n 11y ago

Gates speaking about the "fixed mindset" vs. "growth mindset" reminds me of this [1] article by Aaron Swartz. [1]: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dweck http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/dweck

blakesmith 11y ago
Carol Dweck (the first name mentioned in that article) is the author of the book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FCKPHG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FCKPHG/ref=dp-kindle-re...
illumen 11y ago
This is a much better article than the one from Gates. Thanks. The "Growth mindset!" safe word part at the end was quite apt. However, it's possible to get a LOT done when you're not growing. For example in basketball, if you know how to do a play which beats other teams all the time, then running that play can be a great idea. Of course, perhaps another team finally figures out your plays and they become useless. Then you might wish you'd spent some of that time growing and developing more plays. Like how Gates is successful, and is able to spend more of his time growing and trying different things. Because he doesn't need to spend a lot of his time executing successful plays so he can pay rent.
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lopatin 11y ago
Thanks for the link. As someone who's never heard of Dweck, I learned a lot from Aaron's point of view on the topic. Also Gates is totally right when he says that this isn't black and white. I'm growth mindset about some parts of my life and embarrassingly fixed mindset about others.

karmacondon 11y ago

Love this idea, but I do not recommend the book. It's clearly a science article that has been stretched into 250 pages. Same idea, repeated repeated repeated. I highly recommend a summary, unless you think you'll benefit from reading twenty examples of the same concept. It's one of the few books that I started but didn't finish this year.

blakesmith 11y ago
Absolutely agree. I'm reading the book now, and it feels like hundreds of examples to reinforce the same idea over and over again. Granted, she varies the topics (business, parenting, sports, academics, etc..) - but the takeaways are exactly the same, and in each case the data draws the same conclusions repeatedly. Still, an interesting topic and not bad for light commute reading.

xyzzy4 11y ago

Well the problem with the growth mindset is that ultimately you die, so your growth does a nosedive eventually. If something excites or intrigues you, then do it. But don't delude yourself that your personal growth really matters.

nostrademons 11y ago
That's sorta the ultimate in fixed mindsets, right? That eventually we'll all be dead, and so none of it matters. It's true, but also irrelevant. Focus on what you can do & experience while you're alive, because who cares what happens once we're dead? The scale of granularity that you use to look at life is as arbitrary as the emotional tenor of it, so why not focus in on a timescale that'll actually be interesting?
- xyzzy4 11y ago
  Well what makes growing more interesting than not growing?
  - Profan 11y ago
    Surely the opportunity to experience more is more interesting than the one which has you firmly planted where you are?
    - xyzzy4 11y ago
      I guess so but as a human you will naturally seek new experiences. I don't see why you need to adopt a growth mindset to try to expedite what already happens. Even if a growth mindset leads you to double the amount of experiences, on a logarithmic scale that is inconsequential.
      - meric 11y ago
        I agree, a "grow mindset" cannot be coerced. You can't believe you can grow when you really believe you are fixed. Perhaps all you can do is add "at this point in time" at the end of all your sentences, and hope for the best. I’m one of the people who’s not good at math at this point in time.

gesman 11y ago

Well, if you read title, then you can safely skip the rest of it. It's a good summary of an essence :)

jgord 11y ago

The central idea seems so important, with so much benefit to education if it were true, that it would justify a large scale rigorous experiment [ just as a new kind of promising medicine would be trialed over a wide sample ] Maybe schooling is stuck in a local maximum, because we don't do things like this, because its not socially acceptable to 'experiment with our childrens education' ?

zardo 11y ago
>Maybe schooling is stuck in a local maximum If only! We're camped out on the slopes. A hill climbing algorithm would be a great start.

hcarvalhoalves 11y ago

Is this maybe a western cultural bias, that somehow God blesses you with talent and that's it? Some residue from aristocracy? When you look at things like Japanese martial arts, it's all about learning from someone more experienced and lots of hard work. The limiting factor is your endurance, and the general sentiment is that "if someone learned before me, I can too".

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NhanH 11y ago
I'm not sure about that specific instance of Japanese culture, but for East Asia I'd say fixed mindset was much more relevant. I grew up being told that I will never do anything great with my life (not in a mean you-are-stupid way, but just a seemingly "rational"/"realistic" world view that only a few very smart people can do great thing, and I'm not one of them).

choxi 11y ago

I believe everyone should have a growth mindset, but the paper from Dweck is popularized and interpreted a little too loosely. The stricter interpretation is less compelling: In the Bloody Obvious Position, someone can believe success is 90% innate ability and 10% effort. They might also be an Olympian who realizes that at her level, pretty much everyone is at a innate ability ceiling, and a 10% difference is the difference between a gold medal and a last-place finish. So she practices very hard and does just as well as anyone else. According to the Controversial Position, this athlete will still do worse than someone who believes success is 80% ability and 20% effort, who will in turn do worse than someone who believes success is 70% ability and 30% effort, all the way down to the person who believes success is 0% ability and 100% effort, who will do best of all and take the gold medal. It might seem pedantic, but I worry that propagating this loose interpretation will lead to many people believing their positive "growth" attitude, and not years of concentrated practice, is enough to grow. From: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/10/i-will-never-have-the-ability-to-clearly-explain-my-beliefs-about-growth-mindset/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/10/i-will-never-have-the-a...

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jqm 11y ago

Ya, but... are some people more genetically predisposed to have growth mindset? :)

jqm 11y ago
The inescapable question of free choice always seems to come back into these things. It's easy to say "just think like this" when you already do think like that. It's much more difficult when (for whatever reason) you don't. How much control do we really have over our feelings, our attitudes and our emotions? How much is the result of environment, genetics and circumstance? My personal opinion is a bit of both. But it's really hard to say in what proportion. Do we really choose when we choose or are we just acting a predetermined role? I have noticed people who do well tend to believe the former. But I'm not convinced this belief is necessarily what caused them to do well and somewhat suspicious that it is partially an attempt to frame their achievements in their own mind as the result of "their" free will and goes back to their need to "prove" themselves superior which may well be the cause of much of their success in the first place. I've met more than a few people who have this need very intently and it seems pretty mechanical and not generally the result of meditative conscious choice. Not to bash the concept. Sometimes the faulty, but useful belief holds more value than a more truthful belief which leaves one powerless. At least in the short term. Long term and on a societal level the side effects of faulty beliefs become much more prominent. For you and I however, here and now, we are almost certainly better off thinking we can do it (imhop). But the question is very deep and certainly a lot more complex than just clicking a switch and deciding to "think" a certain way which to be frank, is a bit of juvenile and superficial way to think about the topic.
- resu_nimda 11y ago
  I see free will as an illusion. Things may be predetermined or there may be true randomness, either way our conscious decisions can be reduced to the laws of physics. But it is an illusion that I am still subject to, and it is useful to believe that I can choose, insofar that anything is useful. If we can't choose then there's really nothing to be said about anything. Isn't it somewhat ironic to comment on someone's behavior while calling free will into question?

matthewbauer 11y ago

This is interesting in the context of American History. Basically, a majority of settlers were Calvinists. A big part of Calvinist belief was "predestination" which basically holds that a person's destiny (heaven or hell) is determined by God before they are born. This would seem to me to reinforce a "fixed mindset". Paradoxically, out of that same belief system came the "Protestant work ethic" which depending on who you ask made America the greatest country on Earth. I think that one could argue that the "fixed mindset" enabled a sort of wishful thinking attitude: believers though they were predestined so they focused on growth and self improvement over the usual Catholic traditions (which focused on a growth mindset in religious observance while having a more fixed mindset in practical work ethics).

xCathedra 11y ago
I think your basically right, but the paradox actually makes more sense when you understand a few nuances of Protestantism: 0) Reformed (i.e. Calvinist) theologians made significant efforts to argue their understanding of predestination was not deterministic because humans are moral agents and responsible for their actions. They were aware and quite comfortable that God predestining morally responsible people is a paradox (technically referred to as an antinomy). 1) Reformed theologians also taught the predestined are 'born-again', meaning they are given a new spiritual life that changes that person's perspective and attitudes towards everything. The predestined evidence their salvation by good works. Here's where the growth mindset would apply. Reformed theologians taught predestination as a motivating belief, rather than a fatalistic one. Grace, or salvation, in Reformed theology doesn't comes through religious observance but comes from faith, which demonstrates itself in how a person lives.
zitterbewegung 11y ago
I think it's a combination of work ethic and also relative freedom to do something different . As Americans we seem to want to innovate or do something different.

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known 11y ago

There is no intrinsic motivation. http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/inmotiv.htm http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/inmotiv.htm

jondubois 11y ago

I think this is an inversion of cause and effect. The reality is much less inspiring; It's "What you achieve affects what you believe" not so much the other way around. I know this for a fact because as I become more sceptical/pessimistic over time, my achievements increase. If I was a blind optimist, I would probably fail as soon as reality reared its ugly head. If someone is really lucky throughout their lives, they will have an optimistic view about the world and the people around them. Unfortunate people might find a statement like this offensive because they know for a fact (based on their own experiences) that this isn't true - It's almost like saying "It's your fault for being poor; it's all in your head!".

hayksaakian 11y ago
I don't think it's anyone's fault for starting out poor, or becoming poor from outside factors (war, medical condition, etc.) But barring all those factors, if you don't make a deliberate choice to change something, the world around you will keep you down.
- jondubois 11y ago
  Yes, but you might try very hard and still not move up. It's debatable whether it's better to "Fail never having tried at all" versus "Fail having tried as hard as you could".
  - Swizec 11y ago
    Trying hard does not guarantee success. But not trying at all does guarantee not-success.
    - isolate 11y ago
      Some kinds of success are achieved through not doing things. And then we get into the question of "to do" vs. "not to do".
      - 11y ago

tcannon 11y ago

Interesting contrast, stories like this compared to the stories about how everyone who is successful feels like they are a fraud. Maybe my study will be of note: If you believe headlines, you should read more.

_navaneethan 11y ago

The same thing [Derek Sivers] explains with amusement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYTN7yVYbeg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYTN7yVYbeg Fortunately, yesterday night I was listening it. [Derek Sivers](https://sivers.org/ https://sivers.org/)

shardinator 11y ago

There's an important idea I feel is being missed. Something can be true "in distribution" but not true in a "pathwise" sense. That means, over the long run, for most people, on average x is true. But for specific individual and/or specific time frame it can be very untrue. Point being I can say to you "adopt a growth mindset", you do it, but it doesn't work and life throws you 'a curve ball' again and again. Doesn't mean my hypothesis was wrong, and doesn't mean you didn't follow through properly. We can both be right in this case. All it means is, we should act as if our actions/thoughts count, but accept it as a fundamental property of the universe that they may not 'bear fruit'. All we can do is embrace the chaos^ ^ as in chaotic systems

jib 11y ago
I think that most people would be a lot happier if they saw life as a series of low probability events rather than trying to create a story of accumulation. Life does not accumulate things (luck, good fortune, bad fortune, karma, any other crap that feeds the story of continuity). Life is about maximizing your exposure to positive low probability events, or the probability of them, and minimizing your exposure to negative low probability events, or the probability of them. You're not working hard in work to get a reward, you're working hard to be exposed to more chances of possible rewards. You're not exercise to avoid bad health, you're doing it to lower the chances of a series of low probability diseases. I think this is the same thing you were saying. I think realising that life is a series of low probability discreet events, not a continuum that accumulates based on past events is a real life changer. All you can work on is the process of finding the right events to be exposed to - having feelings about the outcome of those events is irrational and leads to unhappiness.
dingbat 11y ago
hi lord krishna i am a fan > To action alone hast thou a right and never at all to its fruits; let not the fruits of action be thy motive; neither let there be in thee any attachment to inaction

huuu 11y ago

I did not read the book, but I think the book is not about becomming succesful but about getting to know your potential. Success and potential are related/connected but there is a huge difference. Being able to help out your neighbor isn't connected to success in our society. I think a lot of posters in this thread don't realize the destinction between potential and success.

dmichulke 11y ago

If you don't fail 90% of the time, you're not aiming high enough Alan Kay

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marklgr 11y ago
Growth mindset does not imply you can achieve anything, just "you definitely can get better". Perhaps overconfidence can become a risk, but it seems a much lesser evil versus the cost of believing the opposite: "Here is your definitive level, for ever (don't bother)".
- deleted 11y ago
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- cJ0th 11y ago
  > Perhaps overconfidence can become a risk, but it seems a much lesser evil versus the cost of believing the opposite: "Here is your definitive level, for ever (don't bother)". I think it depends on the individual (situation) which mindset causes higher costs.

metafunctor 11y ago

Also, take this to the second derivative. You can learn to learn faster and more efficiently. You can set yourself up for success. You can start small, and gain momentum from there. You can learn to hack your motivation. Will this guarantee success and a happy life? Of course not. But it will greatly increase your chances.

shin_lao 11y ago

Another way to view it is that the biggest limits in your life are the ones you set. I'm perfectly aware that some people start with huge disadvantages in life, but whatever your starting point, you can end up much higher. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.

cJ0th 11y ago
What about that guy who clearly can't sing yet applies for every casting show there is? Maybe by the day he will die he's got performing Rihanna's Umbrella down to a fine art. But what's the point?
- shin_lao 11y ago
  You must discover what you are good at. It requires brutal honesty with oneself. Also, why should there be a point? Life is a journey.
  - cJ0th 11y ago
    > You must discover what you are good at. It requires brutal honesty with oneself. But isn't that circular reasoning? "I am not a math person" -> [discover growth mindeset] -> "Math is fun" -> [weeks/months/years later] "Shit I am still not significantly better at math" -> "I am not a math person"
    - shin_lao 11y ago
      That's the hard part being able to see yourself with some objectivity. The other trap is : "I sing so well I am talented" (and in fact you are at best average). For any activity there is always better than you, what matters, I think, is where you want to go. But starting with "I'm not a math person" will close many doors for you.

NumberCruncher 11y ago

I think it is easy to praise growth mindset if you are the one who wants to learn and wants to get better through failing. But what about the other side of the coin? Just imagine you are a teamlead and one guy in your team tells you "hey, I have found 2 new ways how not to impelent Feature X. May I work on feature Y and use the knowledge I gained fucking up feature X?" Or you have a project team and the profect manager tells you "Hey, I found one new way how not to manage a project, how not to deliver on time and how not to motivate people. May I manage your next project and maybe waste an other million dollars?" In my experience situations like these end badly...

jwdunne 11y ago
I don't think these are cases against a growth mindset but rather cases against overconfidence and biting off more than you can chew. I don't think the point is to say "wow I can get better at anything so I'll take on this big project that's way out of my league". It's more about thinking "wow I can get better at this so I'll ask my manager for tips and maybe a small project in which to grow my skills". I've read the book twice and its helped me tremendously. I used to say to myself I'm not a maths person but now I say that I can get better if I work on it. I've made more progress than I ever did believing that people are simply born with or without a mind for maths.

buro9 11y ago

I think the same about the language we use. Or rather, I think... "What we hear affects us, and we hear ourselves.". This is an extension of the "surround yourself with positive people" thing, in that I believe it's important to be positive, kind, generous, as the language and tone that we use to express we hear constantly and those words, that tone, shapes our thoughts, mood, aspirations. It's important to be mindful and to be the person you want to be. By doing so, we frequently are that person.

hv23 11y ago

There was a good episode on the podcast "Invisibilia" discussing this topic of expectations influencing/shaping reality: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/544/batman http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/544/b.... Some pretty fascinating stories in this one; well worth a listen! I believe Dweck is referenced/interviewed early on in the episode.

codeshaman 11y ago

I have the book, started reading it about a year ago and stopped halfway, because my bullshit cup got full. The reason I think this book is nicely packaged bullshit is because it presents exceptions as rules and then tries to build a theory out of it. I wish it were as easy as Dr. Dweck describes it, but there are gotchas. I can agree with the distinction of 'fixed' versus 'growth' mindsets (although... .. how do you measure that?), but that success is guaranteed if you believe and try... Not necessarily. Ask 9 startup founders out of 10. Not achieving "success" (failing) is rarely free: it leaves emotional and physical scars.. Repeat it a couple of times and you're either dead or on your way there. No, success is not guaranteed even if you try many many times times, even if you train a lot and believe a lot. In fact, the rule is this: No matter how hard you try, you might still lose. Sorry about that. And the reason for this is not mindset - the reason is your definition of success. If you try to win at the wrong game, you will probably lose at it. So pick your game wisely. Of course, a fixed mindset will only land you some semi-boring job, a family, a couple of kids and a lot of mainstream entertainment.. I guess that's the definition of "failure" these days... But is it ? * By the way, if you want useful advice about how to be successful in life, Bill Gates is a very bad choice. It might be counterintuitive at first, but think about it ... As a bird, is it smart to fly around with your mouth wide open in order to catch food... because that's what the whale does ?

MawNicker 11y ago
> No matter how hard you try, you might still lose. This is true and inspires tremendous fear. It prevents many would-be successes. I suspect far more than enough to offset the would-be failures. We could recapture this lost value with a universal basic income. We're just too busy chasing down all the "lazy" people while simultaneously declaring their uselessness. It would be funny if it weren't so sad. Why are they useless anyway?
- vdaniuk 11y ago
  >We could recapture this lost value with a universal basic income In absolute agreement. UBI may unlock extreme growth of efficiency by enabling risk taking without risk of total defeat.

Simp 11y ago

>When I was visiting with community college students in Arizona, one young man said to me, “I’m one of the people who’s not good at math.” It kills me when I hear that kind of thing. I think about how different things might have been if he had been told consistently “you’re very capable of learning this stuff.” Couldn't agree more with this specific example. But you shouldn't ignore reality either. A man with no legs is not going to win the 100 meters at the Olympics. Understanding where your potential lies is important for deciding where to invest your effort. That doesn't mean he can't improve at all though. Especially in things like math, there is a popular belief that you need some kind of 'math gene' to be decent at it. There is little evidence that there are math specific genes beyond general learning ability. [Same genes 'drive maths and reading ability'] http://www.bbc.com/news/health-28211676 http://www.bbc.com/news/health-28211676 Sadly, in a lot of cases this will lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy where you will stop trying to improve your math skills because you weren't "made for it". But that's really more a problem of a false belief that these things are set from birth. A blind belief in 'I can do anything i want despite the situation or environment i am in!' isn't going to help anyone. I would advise the runner with no legs to invest his precious time and resources in something other than trying to win the 100 meters at the Olympics.

chippy 11y ago
Interesting, the "reality" described are examples of fixed beliefs - who decides what someone's potential is? Who decides what someone's precious time and resources are? In other words "the reality" is singular, fixed, immovable. Examples: "Face facts, you cannot win the 100 meters" "Don't ignore reality, you have no ability to win races". The article seems to imply that people with low fixed beliefs have been told by others what their potential is, and what is precious. Having more flexible beliefs would mean that one does not limit the scope of ones potential. I imagine that one should therefore encourage others in having more fluid beliefs and one should guard against others when they say reality is fixed. For example: a man with no legs can win the 100 meters race in the Paralympics.
- logicchains 11y ago
  A man with no legs can even reach 8th place in the semifinals of the 400m race in the actual Olympics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Pistorius#2012_Summer_Olympics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Pistorius#2012_Summer_Ol....

personlurking 11y ago

"Energy flows where attention goes" Above is another line, like the one in the title. On one hand, it's obvious because if you focus your attention, for example, on building a computer, of course your energy goes in that direction. On the other hand, if you don't realize your attention (ie, thoughts) is on certain matters, you may be expending energy on that unknowingly. Of course, if you're a generalist and your attention goes everywhere, your energy is following suit.

popee 11y ago

I only know that if you have strong Will you can achieve many things. Personally, the difference between Wish and Will is when you decide to achieve what you wish.

god_bless_texas 11y ago

Takeaway from this: I'm imagining Bill Gates practicing his fadeaway jumpers.

thewarrior 11y ago

This is a bit late but this should be noted : "Bill Gates: No. I think after the first three or four years, it's pretty cast in concrete whether you're a good programmer or not. After a few more years, you may know more about managing large projects and personalities, but after three or four years, it's clear what you're going to be. There's no one at Microsoft who was just kind of mediocre for a couple of years, and then just out of the blue started optimizing everything in sight. I can talk to somebody about a program that he's written and know right away whether he's really a good programmer." http://blog.codinghorror.com/how-to-become-a-better-programmer-by-not-programming/ http://blog.codinghorror.com/how-to-become-a-better-programm... So Does Bill still believe this or is he a hypocrite in hiding ?

yesco 11y ago
God he used to be such an ass. Sometimes I forget he's even the same person.
- Apocryphon 11y ago
  Perhaps that's the growth mindset in action.
- dennisgorelik 11y ago
  > he used to be such an ass Gates became successful back then, not now when he became mellow.
kevinchen 11y ago
The interview you quote is from 1986, nearly 30 years ago. People change their viewpoints over 3 decades - it would be stupid if Gates always thought the same things even after learning from others or having new experiences. So he's not being a "hypocrite," he's just learning. Just because he is famous and has a lot of interviews doesn't mean he isn't allowed to change his mind.
- kyllo 11y ago
  1986 was 29 years ago dude. Almost three decades.

jasey 11y ago

Mindset is everything (at-least extremely important for any level of success in entrepreneurship and most other things) Most entrepreneurs solving ambitious problems look crazy to outsiders. Hence the famous Steve Jobs quote "The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do." Look at what the Gates, Jobs and Musks of this world have achieved with their 'anything-is-possible' mindsets.. Btw, for those who are interested in this stuff I've created an app to help people develop a growth/positive mindset at http://positivethinking.net http://positivethinking.net

devinhelton 11y ago

Can someone explain to me what claim Dr. Dweck has demonstrated that is both novel and true? I have read a bunch of articles about her work, but it all seems to me like she has framed "growth mindset" against a strawman. It seems blindingly obvious to me that ability in most fields is a function of both genes and effort. Genes shape how fast you improve with effort, and where you plateau. Genes shape the curve of the achievement-to-effort graph. Effort determines where you are on that curve. Effort determines how much of your potential you actualize. This dynamic is true in basketball, math, golf, painting, speech-making, guitar playing and virtually every other complicated human endeavor. Some people need to be told, "You have are naturally gifted in this field, stop being so hard on people who are not as good as you, they are doing the best they can." Some people need to be told, "You are naturally gifted in this area. You have a responsibility to work extra hard in order to maximize your gifts. If you work your butt off, you have the potential to be truly special." Some people need to be told, "This stuff might not come as naturally to you. You're going to have to work extra hard to keep up." Some people need to be told, "Look you have been practicing harder than anyone, and honestly, I just don't think you have the raw talent to be a professional in this field. You can do it for fun, but be realistic about your career choices." Some people need to be told, "Look you can't say you are bad at painting/writing/music/math/etc. You haven't even tried to learn it. This stuff is not natural for most people, there are books and youtube videos that can show you how to do it. You need to build step-by-step. Practice one technique until it is in mental memory and then add more complexity. Unless you're mozart, you don't just start from day one being able to produce great stuff." It seems that as a culture, there are mistakes in messaging going both ways. For example, the premise of the "No Child Left Behind" education law was silly. There is in fact a bell curve with regards to natural academic aptitude. For instance, if you are in the bottom ~20% of that curve, it is nearly impossible to learn algebra. ( for some articles from a real teacher who is trying to teach algebra in the field, read: https://educationrealist.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/algebra-and-the-pointlessness-of-the-whole-damn-thing/ https://educationrealist.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/algebra-an... and https://educationrealist.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/noahpinion-on-iq-or-maybe-just-no-knowledge/ https://educationrealist.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/noahpinion... ). Someone in the middle of the bell curve can learn algebra, but if they try to go into a career that involves advanced quantitative or logical skills, they will be competing against those who both have a natural aptitude and an economic incentive to try hard. The person with normal aptitude will likely lose that competition. So it might not be good advice to tell that person to double-down on math, even if they could make themselves better. On the other hand, I hear a lot of smart friends say stuff like, "I'm just bad at math" or "I'm just bad at painting." In many cases, they never had good teaching, or they never tackled the problem aggressively. They never tried to learn incrementally, by building muscle memory on a simple technique and then adding more complications. They started with the hard stuff, and when it did not work, they just assumed they were bad at it. For people like that, a "growth mindset" can be helpful. All of this should be pretty darn obvious. I don't really gather what new, credible information Dweck is adding to our understanding of how learning, motivation, and achievement works.

devonkim 11y ago

You know what's worse than thinking you're not capable? Others telling you you're capable and despite your best efforts you fail to meet these expectations whether those reasons are within your control or not. This is putting a carrot on a stick in front of a lot of kids potentially and saying "you just need to believe you can do this and try real hard, gosh anyone can do it!" Expecting a person with severe learning disabilities that they can go work at a top HFT shop or a paraplegic that they'll be able to beat the world record for a 100 meter dash is the kind of goalpost that is being set for many children that are born disadvantaged. Bill Gates may have been studying what keeps the world's poor the way they are for a long time but there are a lot more factors that keep people down than just simply motivation. Part of why I haven't started a company yet is out of fear of kind of literally destroying my life and others around me. The sheer amount of work that you put into a company is one thing, and not having the closest people you know be supportive of the work you do puts you into a position where you must either be so secure that failure is not a problem or that you must succeed on a first try. Reid Hoffman's tips on when you DON'T want to start a company come to mind. Some of those criteria include "if you cannot get another job" or "you will put yourself in harm's way by doing so" (paraphrased, can't find the slides he had). So for the poor, despite having not much to lose in theory, they do have everything to lose in that their lives are all they can give up in the absence of capital or remarkable domain knowledge / skill advantages. Risk tolerance for the poor is actually very low thusly.