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Is this such a novel idea? We have lots of sayings that stress the importance of risk and the power of persistence, such as “Nothing ventured, nothing gained” and “If at first you don't succeed, try, try again” or “Rome wasn't built in a day.” (By the way, I was delighted to learn that the Italians have the same expression.) What is truly amazing is that people with the fixed mindset would not agree. For them, it's “Nothing ventured, nothing lost.” “If at first you don't succeed, you probably don't have the ability.” “If Rome wasn't built in a day, maybe it wasn't meant to be.” In other words, risk and effort are two things that might reveal your inadequacies and show that you were not up to the task. In fact, it's startling to see the degree to which people with the fixed mindset do not believe in putting in effort or getting help.
What's also new is that people's ideas about risk and effort grow out of their more basic mindset. It's not just that some people happen to recognize the value of challenging themselves and the importance of effort. Our research has shown that this comes directly from the growth mindset. When we teach people the growth mindset, with its focus on development, these ideas about challenge and effort follow. Similarly, it's not just that some people happen to dislike challenge and effort. When we (temporarily) put people in a fixed mindset, with its focus on permanent traits, they quickly fear challenge and devalue effort.
We often see books with titles like The Ten Secrets of the World's Most Successful People crowding the shelves of bookstores, and these books may give many useful tips. But they're usually a list of unconnected pointers, like “Take more risks!” or “Believe in yourself!” While you're left admiring people who can do that, it's never clear how these things fit together or how you could ever become that way. So you're inspired for a few days, but basically the world's most successful people still have their secrets.
Instead, as you begin to understand the fixed and growth mindsets, you will see exactly how one thing leads to another—how a belief that your qualities are carved in stone leads to a host of thoughts and actions, and how a belief that your qualities can be cultivated leads to a host of different thoughts and actions, taking you down an entirely different road. It's what we psychologists call an Aha! experience. Not only have I seen this in my research when we teach people a new mindset, but I get letters all the time from people who have read my work.
They recognize themselves: “As I read your article I literally found myself saying over and over again, ‘This is me, this is me!' ” They see the connections: “Your article completely blew me away. I felt I had discovered the secret of the universe!” They feel their mindsets reorienting: “I can certainly report a kind of personal revolution happening in my own thinking, and this is an exciting feeling.” And they can put this new thinking into practice for themselves and others: “Your work has allowed me to transform my work with children and see education through a different lens,” or “I just wanted to let you know what an impact—on a personal and practical level—your outstanding research has had for hundreds of students.” I get lots of these letters from coaches and business leaders, too.