The wrong kind of praise creates self-defeating behavior. The right kind motivates students to learn.

More and more research is suggesting that, far from being simply encoded in the genes, much of personality is a flexible and dynamic thing that changes over the life span and is shaped by experience.

Choosing a partner is choosing a set of problems. There are no problem-free candidates.

It is not always people who start out the smartest who end up the smartest.

No matter what your current ability is, effort is what ignites that ability and turns it into accomplishment.

I don’t mind losing as long as I see improvement or I feel I’ve done as well as I possibly could.

Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better? Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them? Why look for friends or partners who will just shore up your self-esteem instead of ones who will also challenge you to grow? And why seek out the tried and true, instead of experiences that will stretch you? The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.