Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (Updated Edition)

“When you’re lying on your deathbed, one of the cool things to say is, ‘I really explored myself.’

Robert Sternberg, the present-day guru of intelligence, writes that the major factor in whether people achieve expertise “is not some fixed prior ability, but purposeful engagement.” Or, as his forerunner Binet recognized, it’s not always the people who start out the smartest who end up the smartest.

I’ll never forget the first time I heard myself say, “This is hard. This is fun.” That’s the moment I knew I was changing mindsets.

“When you’re lying on your deathbed, one of the cool things to say is, ‘I really explored myself.’

“I think intelligence is something you have to work for . . . it isn’t just given to you.

“I don’t divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures. . . . I divide the world into the learners and nonlearners.”

Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better?

grunted, perspired, and toiled

that people are terrible at estimating their abilities

Everyone has a role model, someone who pointed the way at a critical moment in their lives.