欧宝娱乐

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A very useful book about the growth mindset. Essentially, the book makes a case that those people who look at everything they do in life as a learning opportunity are much more successful.

I think where this comes into play most often is when we face a setback, or a failure. Whether thats getting rejected from something (a job, a team, etc), messing up at work, having your boss yell at you, losing at something, getting laid off, making a bad bet, etc - most of us have many setbacks in our lives. How we deal with those is incredibly important. If we let the setback define us, we might think we aren't talented after all, and lose confidence. If on the other hand, we look at it as something we can learn from, we improve as a person.

I came at the book as it was recommended to me as being good for parents. My daughter is only 1.6 years, but already she is learning fast. The book recommends praising our children's efforts, instead of their results. Telling them they are "amazing", and "smart" is so easy to do, but if you do that their whole lives they won't succeed when they get to the real world. What you want is to encourage a learning attitude. This quote sums it up:

"So what should we say when children complete a task鈥攕ay, math problems鈥攓uickly and perfectly? Should we deny them the praise they have earned? Yes. When this happens, I say, 鈥淲hoops. I guess that was too easy. I apologize for wasting your time. Let鈥檚 do something you can really learn from!"

Looking at life as a constant challenge is fun. And you can't fail at a personal challenge! Here is a great mental imagery technique the book mentioned when you are doing something you are bad at:

"Picture your brain forming new connections as you meet the challenge and learn. Keep on going."

Another interesting bit was how people at the top of their game can get caught up in a fixed mindset. You see this in sports all the team - the champion team from last year thinks they can cruise through this year, doesn't work hard, and suddenly they are losing a lot. It's so hard to maintain the edge. John Wooden puts it best:

"I believe ability can get you to the top,鈥� says coach John Wooden, 鈥渂ut it takes character to keep you there.鈥� It鈥檚 so easy to 鈥� begin thinking you can just 鈥榯urn it on鈥� automatically, without proper preparation. It takes real character to keep working as hard or even harder once you鈥檙e there. When you read about an athlete or team that wins over and over and over, remind yourself, 鈥楳ore than ability, they have character.'"