21A - Reading Reflection No.2

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck

1) What was the general theme or argument of the book?

• The general theme of the book surrounded failure and how people cope with failure depending on the differing mindsets they may adopt.
• There's the fixed mindset and the growth mindset.
• Fixed mindset: Those in this mindset reacted to a 'failure' or setback by putting themselves, down, thinking they are worth less, and assuming this failure constitutes the end of their life.
• Growth mindset: Those in this mindset, saw a set back less as a failure and more of a challenge and actually took it as something to learn from and grow.

2) How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT3003?

• While reading this book, I thought alot about personal challenges in my life that I always thought as failures. I admit, I have been the 'fixed minded' person before in my life and sometimes I still am, and other times I try to look at my setbacks through a different lens. This book made me want to do that more and adopt the growth mindset more often in my life. 
• In this class, there have been times I was not sure or lacked confidence in my idea or an assignment. I am someone who tends to second guess myself very often in stressful moments and I feel like that takes a toll on both my emotional and physical health.
• Being that this is a business-related class, entrepreneurship is a great place to implement the new growth mindset, especially since we are dealing with coming up with new ventures and formulating a product/service that may need a lot of support, and sometimes, we need to be that support for ourselves. Adopting the growth mindset, I think is a great way to learn to face the challenges being an entrepreneur brings. 

3) If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?

• For this class, I'd design an exercise implementing what I learned from the book but also tying it to entrepreneurship. I would have the class come up with an actual prototype of their product/service and record how they cope with any setbacks they may come across throughout the process, if their prototype is not what they expected it to be, if it was difficult to get it done or if something goes wrong. 
• Keeping record of how each person reacts to the challenges of this project would tell me the kind of mindset they most likely lean towards when dealing with difficult scenarios.
  

4) What was your biggest surprise or "aha" moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?

• I didn't think that I would feel very different after reading this book but I did, actually still do. I thought I knew about the different mindsets we have and differentiating the "risk takers" versus the guys taking the "safe side" but I realized so much more goes into it. 
• There was one quote in the book that really resonated with me and that was when the children faced with the challenging puzzle, did not react the way it was expected to failure. "Not only weren't they discouraged by failure, they didn't even think they were failing. They thought they were learning." And I think that is something we can all take and learn from.