Carol Dweck: The Mother of the Growth Mindset Tells All

Guy Kawasaki:
I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People. We're on a mission to make you remarkable. Helping me in this episode, and I've waited a long time for this episode, is one of my idols, Carol Dweck. Her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, is one of the two most important books in my life, the other being Brenda Ueland's If You Want to Write.
Carol is a Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. This interview was conducted in her office at the Psychology Department of Stanford. She has her PhD from Yale and a BA from Barnard College. Her work spans developmental psychology, social psychology, and personality psychology. She has focused on self-conceptions and their impact on behavior, motivation, achievement, and interpersonal dynamics.
By the way, this is the first in-person interview since 2020. It took me two years to get on her calendar. Remarkable people like Carol are worth waiting for. I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is Remarkable People. Now, here's one of the guiding lights in my life, Carol Dweck.
I don't know if you realize what an impact you had on my life.
Carol Dweck:
I do.
Guy Kawasaki:
When I read Growth Mindset, it was life-changing for me. I would say that your book and If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland are the two biggest books in my life. Fundamentally changed my entire outlook and everything.
Carol Dweck:
I wanted people to know they had a choice. We're all a mixture of both, of course, both mindsets, believing we can grow and improve, but also worrying that maybe it's fixed and we don't have enough. I made a choice at one point because I realized through my research, but also in my life, my sixth grade teacher seated us around the room in IQ order. I felt like she was sealing everyone's fate. Although I fared well in terms of my seating, it really pounded a fixed mindset into my head.
So even though I had always loved learning and always loved taking on new things, suddenly all I wanted to do was be smart and look smart and not take risks. And ultimately, this became a focus of my research. The whole goal of my career has been to help people fulfill their potential. I wanted them to know they had a choice. They could unlock that potential or they could worry about it and protect it, and I wanted them to go for it.
Guy Kawasaki:
You discovered this at sixth?
Carol Dweck:
No. I didn't discover it, I lived it in sixth grade, but then I discovered it in my research and with my students spelled it out as clearly and exhaustively as possible.
Guy Kawasaki:
Maybe you could give us a quick little update. Have you had any refinements or changes?
Carol Dweck:
So let me just talk a little bit about it. In our research, we saw some people favored more of a fixed mindset, the idea you have a certain amount of intelligence or any attribute, and that's it, that's who you are. You're lucky or your unlucky. Case closed. Other people tend more toward the belief, "Hey, you have abilities, that they're capable of development." You can grow them and expand them through taking on challenges and sticking to them by trying the strategies, by getting lots of input and help and mentorship.
We found over time that it made a big difference. People who had more or endorsed more of a growth mindset, they took on those challenges. They wanted to grow those abilities, those in more of a fixed mindset. So challenge is threatening. Maybe I'll be unmasked as an imposter. Maybe I'll find out I'm no good.
They also gave up quick ... The fixed mindset, they also gave up quickly because they saw mistakes and setbacks as meaning they didn't have ability. In a growth mindset, welcome to learning. There are mistakes, there are setbacks, and you align them for what you can learn and how you can move forward more effectively. So that's the basic idea.
Again, in our research, we showed it predicted some long-term outcomes. We developed short programs for students to change their mindset and we saw it helped them do better in school, especially the lower achieving students, low income students, students from underrepresented groups that flourished more under the growth mindset.
Then the first big thing we learned was that it's not that you have one mindset or the other. We fluctuate. We can be mostly in a growth mindset but have a big setback, "Whoa," outcomes that fixed mindset or social comparison. Oh, my God, that is the scourge of our current civilization. Social media forces you to compare yourself to others, forces you to seek as many likes as possible.
Whatever you put out there, you're on the line. Is anyone going to like it? How many people are going to like it? So those kinds of experiences, even if we're mostly in a growth mindset a lot of the time, can trigger us into a fixed mindset, and we kind of have to find our way back.
We have to kind of talk to that fixed mindset, say, "Thank you very much. I assure you; I know you're trying to protect me, but I'd like you to hop on board with my growth mindset plan and over time make friends with it, harness its energy, bring it along with you. Don't try to squelch it, that won't work," but the other really big thing we found is mindsets are not a loan enterprise.
It's not like you have your gross mindset and you take it with you and you are challenge-seeking and resilient. The environment you're in matters hugely. This was brought to my attention by a former student, Mary Murphy, who's becoming a professor now, has done a lot of work on this and is about to come out with a book. So I recommend her for your show. She's fantastic.
Anyway, she marched into my office one day, we had an appointment, but she marched in, and she said, "You are treating mindsets as though they're just something inside someone's head and it's their responsibility to have a growth mindset." I realized, and she said, "What about the setting they're in? Can't the setting, the organization, the classroom, can't that have a mindset too?" and I said, "Whoa, you're right. Let's go for it. Let's do this research."
I also realized that teachers felt many people had the same misunderstanding. Teachers felt, "I'm going to give the students a growth mindset. I'll put a chart in front of the room and then they should act like growth mindset people," or organizations felt, "Tell our people to have a growth mindset. Teach them what it is, that it's their job to have the growth mindset." No. It has to be supported by the beliefs, the philosophies, the practices and policies in the culture.
So imagine a teacher teaches growth mindset, puts up a chart, wants students to have it, but that teacher's practices could embody a fixed mindset like my teacher, Mrs. Wilson, who seated us around the room in IQ order. What could convey more of a fixed mindset? She assigned all the responsible tasks based on IQ as fixed mindset, not just large, but huge.
So teachers needed practices where on the first day of school they say, "I believe all of you can learn to a high level, and here's what I'm going to do. I want everyone or anyone to raise their hand as soon as they're confused. Let's work it out. That's valuable for me too as a teacher to know what I'm not getting across. Every time you do homework, I will give you feedback and we will work through what you didn't understand. When you take a test, I'll allow you to take it again later and get some credit back because I know you can learn to a high level. I want students to work together and mentor each other until everyone gets to a high level."
So organizations too, the idea that everyone has something valuable to contribute and everyone is capable of growth. To see that in action is amazing, but again, the policies are about developing, not just choosing the high potential people and giving them the opportunities. It's about committing resources to everyone.
So I'll just give an example. I went to give a talk at a large, old financial organization. I expected it to be very buttoned up and stodgy. No, the opposite. I walk in, the man at the door waves my book, Mindset, at me, "Professor Dweck, we're so glad you're here." I go to sign in. The person at the sign up deck, "Professor Dweck, we can't wait for your talk." It wasn't just for the financial bigwig. There were sign-up sheets in the lobby for exciting projects. Anyone could sign up. You could be the person who fixes the boiler, and you were invited to sign up and be on any of these projects.
So the whole environment was about you can develop, you can be more, we don't label you based on your present job, we work with you to be the person that you can be. So that was the second big thing. First, you can get triggered into a different mindset, and then that the environment is big. It's not just growth mindset people, it's growth mindset environments that allow you to use that mindset effectively.
Guy Kawasaki:
Are you saying that the fixed mindset can occur chronologically or when you're young, you have a certain mindset, when you get older, it changes or you're saying that you could be fixed mindset about, let's say, academic subjects, but growth mindset about hobbies.
Carol Dweck:
I think I'm saying the latter. First, you can have different mindsets for different areas.
Guy Kawasaki:
At the same time?
Carol Dweck:
Yeah. I can think my intellectual ability could grow forever and I'm always working on it and again, I'm just making this up. My athletic abilities, it's fixed or my artistic ability is fixed. You can have a different mindset for each ability area or even about your personality. Some people think, "Hey, I am who I am. I don't like a lot of it, but I'm doomed," or, "Wait, I'm capable of growth. I'm capable of learning new ways of being."
By the way, researchers are now finding that teaching a growth mindset about personality is making a dent in depression and anxiety in adolescence. So you can have it for any area, fixed or growth mindset.
In addition, I'm saying, "Hey, situations, no matter what your favorite mindset is ..." Say, mine is a growth mindset. Some situations can flip me at least temporarily into a fixed mindset if they're super evaluative and I'm struggling, I feel judged, I have doubts about those abilities and whether they can develop.
Guy Kawasaki:
I think one of the points that maybe many people don't quite understand is that a fixed mindset is a negative, so the people who have it are losers, but you're also saying that you could be a MacArthur Award winner in Mathematics, and you have a fixed mindset at an extreme that would mean, "I'll never try surfing because I'm only good at Math. I'm going to maintain that self-image and I'm not going to try anything that's going to make me look like a jackass." So winners can have fixed mindsets too.
Carol Dweck:
They can. They can. If you think it's fixed and I have infinite amounts of it, I'm smarter than anyone else, that could serve you for a while. For a long time, you can win awards, you can be feverishly pursuing those awards and pursue them successfully, but I feel like, first of all, it's not as enjoyable because you're easily threatened, and you have to keep competing and beating everybody else as opposed to enjoying your own progress and learning.
Then at some point when the younger people are coming up and they’re the ace new mathematicians in these emerging and crazy new fields, you're threatened rather than saying, "Wow, let me find out about that," and just welcoming these new times of growth.
Just getting back to organizations, the opposite of a growth mindset organization is what Mary Murphy and I called Culture of Genius. It's a fixed mindset organization. Who's the genius? We found in our research that in these cultures of genius, people cheat, they steal each other's ideas, they cut corners. It's a dog-eats-dog, and that often is to the detriment of the organization.
Guy Kawasaki:
You think Apple under Steve Jobs was a culture of genius?
Carol Dweck:
Yeah, a little bit.
Guy Kawasaki:
You certainly can't fault Tim Cook for what he has done post Steve, right? I don't think there's a culture of genius there now.
Carol Dweck:
No, and it took a long time for me to believe that, but I do believe it, and they really got interested in growth mindset and its implications. Oh, I want to tell you something. Were you going to say something?
Guy Kawasaki:
No, go ahead.
Carol Dweck:
I just wanted to tell you, are you watching the NBA playoffs, the national basketball?
Guy Kawasaki:
No. Why?
Carol Dweck:
Three of the four final teams are growth mindset teams.
Guy Kawasaki:
Seriously? You've consulted to them.
Carol Dweck:
I haven't directly consulted, no, but they've talked publicly about adopting growth mindset principles and applying them.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do they understand you're the center of the universe for this?
Carol Dweck:
Oh, yeah. They even say my name.
Guy Kawasaki:
Really?
Carol Dweck:
Yeah, it's very exciting for me. I am a sports fan.
Guy Kawasaki:
Are the Warriors one of them?
Carol Dweck:
The Warriors were eliminated in the last round.
Guy Kawasaki:
I didn't even know, but-
Carol Dweck:
Yeah, sadly, sadly, sadly.
Guy Kawasaki:
Even though they're eliminated, were they a growth mindset team?
Carol Dweck:
Yes.
Guy Kawasaki:
Forget all the big corporations, that's ... So whether it's a basketball team or Apple, how ... I can understand a teacher, but how does a company ... I can't say the CEO of a company saying, "We just hired you. We believe you have potential growth mindset."
Carol Dweck:
So Microsoft underwent a big transformation when Satya Nadella took over as CEO. They formed all kinds of programs where people could get funding for a new idea, assemble a team, hackathons they call them. If the project looked promising, they'd get more funding to try, and that's where a lot of ideas have bubbled up from places you wouldn't have imagined, people who wouldn't have been seen as leaders.
Also, when he took over, he said that he was going to give big bucks and big teams to a few different projects and he expected at least half of them to fail, high risk, high payoff, but the ones that succeeded really brought the company back, put them in the forefront of cloud computing and other things that were new at the time.
Guy Kawasaki:
So how do I boil that down? So if you're talking to a CEO and he says, "Listen, we're stifled. We're not innovating anymore. Carol, how do I catalyze the growth mindset in my company?"
Carol Dweck:
Well, at first I would say read Mary Murphy's new book, which will be coming out. Then second, what are the programs? What are the ways of announcing your belief in everyone's potential, your beliefs that everyone can make a really good contribution to the company and maybe the world? What are your mechanisms for getting their ideas?
How is a manager's mentoring each and every one of their charges? And how are the employees coming back and mentoring the manager? How are the employees mentoring each other? What are projects people are offered that show faith in their potential to grow? Collaboration and teams get the credit, not individuals.
Guy Kawasaki:
So we talked about teachers, talked about CEOs. What about parents?
Carol Dweck:
Whoa. I'm really worried because now we hear so much about helicopter parents who do everything for their kids. These kids are suffering. They're doing more poorly in hard courses like STEM. They're having mental health problems.
So what are these parents communicating when they do everything for the child? They build the child's science project. They write the child's college essay or they employ a team to massage the child. Communicating to the child, you can't do it on your own. I don't trust you to be the person that I could be proud of, the person who will get into the top schools and become the top X, Y or Z.
So what a parent does to give that child confidence and the growth mindset that goes with it is to support the child in their learning. Keep it the child's job to learn. Kids love learning. They're born taking on challenges. Forget such a thrill from mastering something. Capitalize on that.
When they do get frustrated, we call it scaffolding. Build a scaffold to the next thing, "Hey, what do you think you should do now? Do you think you might try one of these?" and the child takes it over again and then tries it, "You think it could be the blue one or the red?" You're narrowing it down. You're helping them on that road to learning, but they own it. Let them try hard things. Help them master, but keep the learning their own. Similarly in school, you can be a resource, don't do it for them.
Guy Kawasaki:
So very tactical question, is there a role or what is the proper role for tutoring for a student?
Carol Dweck:
Sure, and there are great tutors. A tutor is also someone who supports the child's learning, helps them to understand and, like the parent I was just describing, focuses on the process of learning, the understanding, not just getting the right answer, not just rushing the child to the correct solution, but really enjoying. The expert tutors that had been studied in research like the research of my former colleague, Mark Leper, they didn't even look like they're teaching.
They're doing a lot of talking to the kid, they're joking around, they're making it fun. They're asking questions. They almost never give in. They're asking questions, and then the student is figuring it out based on support, based on this question asking, based on this fun situation. Yes, there's a role for tutors, but not the kind where a parent hires five tutors so the kid can get a hundred on every test and get into a top school even though they're now five years old. So no, not that kind of tutoring, but that kind of supportive tutoring that helps a child love a subject and learn a subject.
Guy Kawasaki:
For employees or for kids, do extrinsic awards, do extrinsic rewards positively reinforce the growth mindset or is it perverting it?
Carol Dweck:
Concrete or extrinsic rewards like paying for grades or giving someone a treat if they've done a puzzle, whatever, research suggests that it dampens the child's interest and enthusiasm for the task. Gee, as the story goes, if they have to pay me to do this, it must not be very interesting. In the classic research, they gave awards to kids for doing a puzzle, and then afterwards, they weren't that into puzzles as the other kids in this study.
So never say never but try to heighten the intrinsic. So maybe the extrinsic has a place if a kid hates a subject or hates doing something, but they should be weaned off that as you make it more enjoyable for them.
Guy Kawasaki:
Is there a sequence in the sense of you have a growth mindset, you're successful that reinforces the growth mindset or are you successful, you get a growth mindset so you get more success? Is there a chicken and egg question here?
Carol Dweck:
I think it could go either way. You can start with a growth mindset and feel rewarded by the progress and feel that your growth mindset is reinforced and you set the next big goal for yourself or you can do things that you didn't think you could do and you go, "Whoa, I didn't realize I could grow my abilities."
Guy Kawasaki:
What happens when there may be systemic issues that people try the growth mindset, but because of the rigidity of how scores are kept or whatever, they cannot succeed? Then what happens? The growth mindset failed it?
Carol Dweck:
I don't want to put ... You're so right. I don't want to put all the responsibility inside the person. There are structures, there are hurdles, there can be unfairness in hiring practices and admissions policies. You could be discriminated against, or you could be unlucky.
So it's a misinterpretation of a growth mindset to say that's all you need, and then there are no excuses for why you couldn't rise to the top, but a growth mindset also orients you toward looking for opportunities. People with more of a growth mindset take on mentors, seek out mentors, seek out learning opportunities, figure out where to be, where to go, and in that way enhance the likelihood that they can use their growth mindset successfully.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'll show you my bias before I ask you the question.
Carol Dweck:
Oh, good.
Guy Kawasaki:
So I think ChatGPT is an absolute game changer and will foster growth mindset because it is the ultimate patient, infinitely wise research assistant as opposed to, "Write the essay for me." I don't believe in that path. I do believe in the research assistant path. So I just want to know what your opinion is. Does ChatGPT cripple you or empower you?
Carol Dweck:
It could be both. ChatGPT we've only begun to see its enormous potential. So we could be frightened and maybe we should be by, "Write the paper for me," because they can write a great paper or it. I don't know. Is it an it or a they? It can write a great paper.
I saw a talk early this week where a professor asked ChatGPT to outline his talk and it outlined it just like the talk he gave. It was an amazing outline. He asked it to design an experiment on a certain topic. It designed a terrific experiment. I thought, "Wait a minute. That's the assignment I give to my class. I don't want them going to ChatGPT to have it design the experiment." So there's a lot of potential, and even the inventor is now asking for limits to be placed on it.
At the same time, we're doing a project with my former student, David Yeager, of using ChatGPT to do growth mindset tutoring and growth mindset advising. So right now or at least a few months ago, things change rapidly, students would go to a ChatGPT type advisor, an online advisor and say, "Oh, I don't know if I'm college material. I'm depressed. I'm not sure I shouldn't ..." and it might say, "Not everyone's college material. Do something else you're comfortable with."
I don't know. I don't think someone should be counseled out at that point. Whereas growth mindset inspired materials are being developed that say, "Hey, a lot of people feel this way. Tell me why you are feeling this way," and then it supports an exploration of different paths the student can take and encouragement to try to take a path of challenge and growth.
Also in tutoring, ChatGPT probably already understands the different kinds of mistakes students are making and exactly what they need to know to surmount those mistakes. That could be incredible that everyone will have this expert private tutor. So the possibilities, the upsides and downsides are really tremendous.
Guy Kawasaki:
Conceptually, is it possible that someone has too much of a growth mindset?
Carol Dweck:
It could be. I don't want to blame the growth mindset for it, but it could be that people feel they have to be learning everything all the time. A growth mindset also would make a person feel they should never give up, but I don't say that. Sometimes you're wasting your time because a growth mindset doesn't promise you that where you'll end up or how much ability you'll end up having.
It's just the idea that everyone can develop, and we never know where we're going to get with it. So a person always has to do a cost benefit analysis, "Am I making progress? If not, how can I enhance that progress? If I'm losing my job and my family is starving because I'm not giving this up, maybe I should put it on hold for a while." So you've got to be reasonable about it.
Guy Kawasaki:
Asking the flip question, are there times where a fixed mindset is a good thing?
Carol Dweck:
So you can give up on something saying, "It's not yielding to my efforts." Now, you don't have to, say, develop a fixed mindset that, "I can't ever develop these abilities," but you can decide to give up and apply your growth mindset somewhere else for the time being. Also, I give my students ... I teach a course every fall, a freshmen seminar. It is on the topic of mindsets. I ask them, "If a fixed mindset is a liability, why has it survived? Why is it so common?"
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah, and?
Carol Dweck:
Oh, they come up with a lot of good reasons. First, it gives you a sense of who you are, "I am good at this. I'm not good at that. I like this. I don't like that. I'm interested in this. I'm not interested in that."
Guy Kawasaki:
I grant you that.
Carol Dweck:
It tells you what to expect from other people, "That's a bad person. That's a smart person," blah, blah, blah. So it creates this false sense of certainty, this anchoring of who you are and what to expect in your world.
Guy Kawasaki:
Aren't you saying that those shortcuts or proxies can be useful?
Carol Dweck:
Not as a whole way of life, not as, "I can do this. I can't do that." Not that you've decided prematurely who you are and who you will always be or who someone else is and who they will always be.
Guy Kawasaki:
Because you're a sports fan, how does Carol Dweck interpret Michael Jordan trying to switch to baseball?
Carol Dweck:
I thought about that the other night when I watched the movie Air.
Guy Kawasaki:
I watched Air too. Yes, yes. I loved it.
Carol Dweck:
Oh, yeah. It really was something. Then when it came to the part where he was swinging the bat, I said, "What do I make of that?" First of all, I really celebrate that he went for it. That was brave. He was at the top of the pyramid in basketball and he said, "I also loved baseball. I could have gone either way.' I don't know what I make of the fact that he didn't make it even though he gave it his all.
Some people thought, "Oh, maybe he was older, and he didn't have the habits ingrained." I'm not sure how to understand that he couldn't advance very toward another point in his career, but I love that he came back to basketball and did amazing things despite his age.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yup. Do you know the Japanese concept ikigai?
Carol Dweck:
I have heard of it.
Guy Kawasaki:
Essentially, it's your reason for living, the reason why you wake up. Whenever they talk about ikigai, they always show some guy bent over a hot furnace making Samurai swords for the last fifty years and his whole life is making the best sword ever. My question is, do you think that the growth mindset should lead you to your ikigai, that finding your ikigai is the goal? Is ikigai the end of your growth mindset?
Carol Dweck:
That's the best question anyone has ever asked me.
Guy Kawasaki:
Can I quote you on this?
Carol Dweck:
I'll tell you why. Every year, I reread my book Mindset with my seminar, a chapter a week, and I still like it. I laugh in the right places, I cry in the right places. I still enjoy it, but in the last year or two, I have realized the book tells you to have a growth mindset and to succeed and inspires you in ways of succeeding.
Guy Kawasaki:
I believe.
Carol Dweck:
Then I said, "Succeeding in what?" I don't take a stand in mindset on what you should or could strive for. So I am now contemplating a book in which I do take the reader to the meaning of their life, to the thing that they, I don't know if I should say were meant to do, the thing that will give meaning to their lives and will be their contribution and integrated with growth mindset. I don't know how I'm going to do it. It feels really hard, but it's the only book that I want to write next.
Guy Kawasaki:
I cannot wait for that book. So you mean at the end of the growth mindset you find this ikigai or this iki-Carol and that's it?
Carol Dweck:
No, no. It's then you apply your growth mindset to what you love doing and you apply it to becoming the person you want to become and making the contribution you really value.
Guy Kawasaki:
You should do it, and you should use ChatGPT as your assistant. Okay. No bullshit. Okay, Carol? I'm an author, you're an author, so I can ... So I really believe in having a lot of examples in my books. One of the things I say about the Remarkable Mindset is that there's cases where people stick with something, Jane Goodall at age six to ninety-three.
There's also cases of people completely switching. At one point, I'm tired of writing about Jeff Bezos going from banker to bookseller and all the usual, especially because now he's with his $500 million yacht and his second wife, all that. I just can't relate to all that shit.
Carol Dweck:
I read about the yacht this morning.
Guy Kawasaki:
So I asked ChatGPT, "Give me examples of successful people who made big career changes," and it comes up with an example that is both known person. I never heard this story before and I consider myself quite-
Carol Dweck:
You're the expert on this.
Guy Kawasaki:
I don't know about that. So let me tell you a story. Julia Child, until she was in her mid-thirties, worked for the CIA. She was a spook. She married another spook. They moved to France. She got exposed to French cooking, and that's why Julia Child is Julia Child.
Carol Dweck:
Wow.
Guy Kawasaki:
You didn't know that?
Carol Dweck:
I knew she moved to France with her husband, but I didn't realize they were spies.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah, they were spies. So I would've never found that story without ChatGPT. Now, I will also tell you that I don't believe everything ChatGPT says.
Carol Dweck:
It could be repeating something someone said that was wrong.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah. So I had Madisun GPT make sure that that story is true, and it is, but I think that is an example of-
Carol Dweck:
I could use of it, of ChatGPT.
Guy Kawasaki:
Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
Carol Dweck:
Yes. Advice taken.
Guy Kawasaki:
Can I give you one more piece of advice?
Carol Dweck:
Oh, yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. So there's all kinds of things to help you write, and there's two kinds of writing. One is write me the essay, right? There's also you put your paragraph in and it checks for grammar, gives you ideas, gives you synonyms, et cetera, et cetera, changes passive voice to active voice. I don't consider that cheating. I consider that a very good editor would've done that too. So I use something called Quillbot, Q-U-I-L-L-B-O-T, and I put paragraphs in, and it gives me a choice of simple, long, short, strong, fluent, casual, and I get six choices.
Then I take one of them, I put it in, and then I alter it again to my taste, but when you have writer's luck ... I always have writer's block. I will write a recommendation, I'll write an example, I'll write how to do it, three, four techniques. Then the last part before the next section is where I struggle like, "How do I all that into two or three sentences?" So I take my best shot and I put it into Quillbot, and I swear to God, Carol, it just gives me great stuff.
Carol Dweck:
Wow.
Guy Kawasaki:
I think ChatGPT and Quillbot, in particular for me, definitely makes people better writers. There's no question in my mind. These people who are afraid of it, which I can understand, but there's also, you read every day, "I went to ChatGPT and I asked it if Steve Jobs graduated from college and it said he did and I know he didn't," those kinds of things, right?
Carol Dweck:
Got you, got you.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's like saying, "I got on the first car and it's nowhere near as good as my horse and buggy." Right now, thank God we're not in Florida or Texas, but can you just address, what's going to happen to teachers' mindsets because you are a teacher when all of a sudden politicians are telling you that these are the books you can and cannot use, these are the movies you can and cannot show, this is the restrictions? What's going to happen there?
Carol Dweck:
Ooh, I don't think I'm going to go there.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's an answer in itself. All right. Let's say that you are now the Dean of Admissions of Stanford. What criteria does Carol Dweck use to admit kids to Stanford?
Carol Dweck:
So I think I've already influenced them. In the old days, it was the grades and the test scores, and now it's more, "You went to Europe and wrote a poem and kayaked," or something, but it has really changed toward creating a really interesting student body of kids who want to make a contribution, kids who have taken on challenges, who have overcome adversity and a growth mindset leaning, students with a social awareness and a desire to participate in a diverse, challenging, and opportunity-filled environment.
Guy Kawasaki:
How does a junior in high school communicate a growth mindset to Stanford?
Carol Dweck:
In their essays and in the activities they've undertaken. I teach a seminar. I mentioned a freshman seminar every fall, sixteen students, sixteen freshmen. They meet me on their first day of school. I've done this for now seventeen years. The students have gotten more and more interesting, more and more different from each other, but they've all done great things in the school that they came from, in the town that they came from. They all want to do great things. It's really exciting. So you're not going to say, "Oh, they're just brilliant in a standard way." I always say, "They are so interesting."
Guy Kawasaki:
Does Carol Dweck, the teacher, give letter grades or do you just praise their effort?
Carol Dweck:
Praising effort has been overdone. I do praise progress, not just effort. I do praise progress, but I do take them on a journey. Over the course of the quarter, I have them do outrageously growth mindset things, things they'd never consider doing, but the person they want to be would do.
Guy Kawasaki:
Like what?
Carol Dweck:
So that's one of the assignments, "This week, I want you to do something outrageously growth mindset." As I said, they do amazing things. For example, a few years back, there was this young man, painfully shy, and he realized he was sitting in his room, letting all these opportunities go by and making no friends. For the assignment, he decided to run for president of his dorm and he won.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's great.
Carol Dweck:
Before he got up to give his winning speech, he said, "I could still sit down, nobody would know, but then what would I write for my paper?" because he has to write a paper about it to hand in on Monday. So he got up and gave the speech and he won, and he became the center of social life in the dorm and then started doing all kinds of other outrageous things.
Guy Kawasaki:
Carol, my head is exploding a little bit. When I was a freshman at Stanford, just luck of the draw, I get assigned Carol Dweck for my freshman seminar. I'm one of sixteen people. The arc of my life would've changed even earlier. I hope those kids realize how lucky ... To use a basketball analogy, it's like I showed up one day for this course and Michael Jordan was the coach.
Carol Dweck:
I have to tell you, I'm the lucky one because I have seen these students flourish like you wouldn't believe. I get letters from them for years about the unbelievable things they've accomplished. So I just feel so rewarded by that.
Guy Kawasaki:
Is there a Carol Dweck Hall of Fame of growth mindset where you say, "This person personifies the growth mindset. This is a role model”?
Carol Dweck:
I don't want to single out someone. I'm going to distort your question into the question I want to answer. The answer is yes. I think every single person has the capacity for a really meaningful contribution. I don't want to single out one person that people might or might not identify with. I just want to say you can be one of those people and I want to play a role in helping people get there.
Guy Kawasaki:
Specifically, I'm listening, not I, theoretical I in the web, on the web is listening to this and says, "Okay. So now what, Carol? Okay. I believe"
Carol Dweck:
My next book.
Guy Kawasaki:
Give us a little bit.
Carol Dweck:
No, no, I did tell you a little bit before. I'll leave it at that because it's still in formation.
Guy Kawasaki:
When is this book coming out?
Carol Dweck:
After it's written. As I said, Mindset tried to give people a growth mindset so they could pursue anything more effectively, and now I want to take them to their meaningful contribution.
Guy Kawasaki:
Does that mean you have to go on a limb and make value judgment?
Carol Dweck:
No, no. Those are things I have to work out, but it's up ... I'll stop there.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's a tricky question because then you're playing with content, you're playing with-
Carol Dweck:
No, I'm not telling them what's worthwhile. I'm helping them to find what's worthwhile to them.
Guy Kawasaki:
What if the CEO of Goldman Sachs says creating enormous wealth is worthwhile?
Carol Dweck:
I'll have to deal with that.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'm writing this book called Remarkable Mindset, which is a riff off of your word, mindset.
Carol Dweck:
Oh, you're welcome to it.
Guy Kawasaki:
The first chapter is an homage to you, basically.
Carol Dweck:
Oh, God.
Guy Kawasaki:
In fact, the first sentence of the first chapter is, "Carol Dweck dented my universe," because the subtitle of the book is Remarkable Mindset: How to Dent the Universe Using Growth, Grit, and Grace. So you're growth, and you may find it slightly weird, but I start my book with the story of seeing you at Chris Webster's funeral.
Carol Dweck:
Oh, why?
Guy Kawasaki:
We obviously shared this chauffeur and he took many, many rich, famous venture capitalists, captains of industry, moguls, whatever. On that Sunday afternoon, the only person I recognized was you, and I thought of the hundreds of people that he waited for hours at the airport, that he woke up at 4:00 AM, that he picked up at midnight. Only you were there. I was so impressed by that, Carol, that that stayed with me forever. So believe it or not, yes, that's how I opened my book. I hope you don't mind me using the M word.
Carol Dweck:
Not at all. The M word is fine.
Guy Kawasaki:
At a very tactical level, is it conceivable? Am I barking up the wrong tree? I think there is a pattern where you can have a remarkable mindset, which requires the growth mindset in it. So that's the premise of the book.
Carol Dweck:
Great.
Guy Kawasaki:
If you tell me I'm full of shit, then I need to know.
Carol Dweck:
No, I think it's exciting. I think it's exciting to see the growth mindset form a pattern with other things that help people become remarkable or express and grow their remarkableness.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's all I got. You got any more, Carol Dweck?
Carol Dweck:
No. It's been such a pleasure talking with you, and I can't wait to read your book.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'm so grateful to Carol for sharing her expertise and experiences with us in this episode. I hope it has inspired you to embrace the growth mindset, explore your own self-conceptions, and seek continuous improvement in your life. Remember, your potential is, well, I don't know if it's unlimited, but it's probably greater than you might think, but you have to believe in the power of growth and resilience.
I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is Remarkable People. I believe in the power of Peg Fitzpatrick, Jeff Sieh, Shannon Hernandez, Luis Magaña, Alexis Nishimura, and Madisun Nuismer. They are the Remarkable People team. Until next time, Mahalo and Aloha.