I just finished listening to a lecture by Carol Dweck at IT Conversations, Dweck, a Stanford psychologist, is the author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.

Dweck’s idea is straightforward, though widely applicable.  She starts with the premise that there are two kinds of people, those with “fixed mindsets” and others with “growth mindsets.”  Those with fixed mindsets see their lives as being about proving themselves and not making mistakes.  It is important to them that they look smart at all times.  Those with “growth mindsets” have deep-seated beliefs in cultivating and developing their own qualities.  Their lives are about stretching and growing, a process that is not thwarted (and is sometimes actually enhanced) by making mistakes.

How do you tell which mindset you have?  During the interview, Dweck offered this simple test: “True or false, you can’t change how smart you are.”  If you think this is true, you probably have a fixed mindset.

This distinction important because there are adverse consequences to having a fixed mindset.  If you have a fixed mindset, failures label you as a failure for the rest of your life.  People with fixed mindsets develop inaccurate views of themselves.  They block out negative information for the sake of their egos.  Compare this to growth mindsets, where failures are not self defining, but merely bumps along the way.  Failures are, indeed, opportunities for growth.   Those with growth mindsets actually crave negative information.  They stay in touch with their own liabilities in order to …