Mindset: The New Psychology Of Success

Colin Powell, first African American appointed as the U.S. Secretary of State, says “There are no secrets to success, It is a result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” From this quotation, it explains that success is not given to someone in the spur of the moment or gained in a second. It is gained by working hard and not being afraid to fail because one learns from their failures. “Chapter 3: The Truth About Ability and Accomplishment” from Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck argues to a broad audience that a growth mindset leads to success. A growth mindset focuses on trying harder than they did before and views any struggle as an obstacle, thus making them motivated to work harder. They continue to try

She supports her argument with a study on pre-med students on taking their first college chemistry course. Her study revealed that students with a growth mindset received higher better grades due to their study habits. Dweck quotes a student, “I went over mistakes until I was certain I understood them" then the author notes "they were studying to learn” (61). She shows the students ' study habits to illustrate her point that growth mindset is learning oriented. The author notes how the students go over any content they did not understand and go over it again until they did understand it in contrast to memorization. By analyzing how the students studied, this proves that growth mindset students focus on learning instead of mindlessly remembering information for their next test. This supports her claim that growth mindset students gear themselves to learn and understand not to focus on achieving a high grade. This study connects with an audience of students. The connection the author forms with the readers is similar to a student taking advice from an upperclassman. With this form of connection, this makes it easy to relay her argument that a growth mindset is set on learning. This study as evidence was effective in proving her general claim that the growth mindset is learning oriented but it was not specific enough which makes this evidence not entirely valid. There are a few vague details from

She introduces another claim that individuals can do something with the right training. The author incorporates her personal experience when she read Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards as evidence. From the book it illustrates people with little artistic ability tried a short drawing course from Edwards and within five days, Dweck acknowledges that “everybody could really draw” (68). The author shows how much progress people can achieve through the right training by using the results from the book. From the books, the author also presents pictures of the participants’ drawings one before the courses and another one after they took the course. By showing the readers the pictures also prove what the right training can do. The before pictures showed how little artistic ability the participants had to show that not everyone has to have some talent to draw in order to draw well. Dweck also states that it only took the participants five days to improve dramatically. This supports her argument that it does not need to take a long time to attain a new skill with the correct training. Her evidence is credible because she evidence comes from a book written by an artist. Her evidence is relevant because of the reader’s desire to learn a new skill. It connects with the readers to show them that they can learn anything as long as they get the right training. The artist is a credible source