Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

She’s frustrated that people have high expectations for her and want her to play better. “I feel like I have to come out and have a triple-double [double digits in points scored, rebounds, and assists], dunk the ball over-the-head 360 [leave your feet, turn completely around in the air, and slam the ball into the basket] and maybe people will be like, ‘Oh, she not that bad.’ ”

I don’this tk people want the impossible. I think they just want to see her use her wonderful talent to the utmost. I think they want her to develop the skills she needs to reach her goals.

Worrying about being a nobody is not the mindset that motivates and sustains champions. (Hard as it is, perhaps Tillis should admire the fact that her father went for it, instead of being contemptuous that he didn’t quite make it.) Somebodies are not determined by whether they won or lost. Somebodies are people who go for it with all they have. If you go for it with all you have, Iciss Tillis—not just in the games, but in practice too—you will already be a somebody.

Here’s the other mindset. It’s six-foot-three Candace Parker, then a seventeen-year-old senior at Naperville Central High near Chicago, who was going to Tennessee to play for the Lady Vols and their great coach, Pat Summitt.

Candace has a very different father from Iciss, a dad who is teaching her a different lesson: “If you work hard at something, you get out what you put in.”

Several years before, when he was coach of her team, her dad lost his cool with her during a tournament game. She was not going for the rebounds, she was shooting lazy shots from the outside instead of using her height near the basket, and she was not exerting herself on defense. “Now let’s go out and try harder!” So what happened? She went out and scored twenty points in the second half, and had ten rebounds. They blew the other team away. “He lit a fire under me. And I knew he was right.”

Candace lights the same fire under herself now. Rather than being content to be a star, she looks to improve all the time. When she returned from knee surgery, she knew what she needed to work on—her timing, nerves, and wind. When her three-point shot went bad, she asked her father to come to the gym to work on it with her. “Whether it be in basketball or everyday life,” she says, “nothing is promised.”

Only weeks later, the mindset prophecies were already coming true. Two things happened. One, sadly, is that Tillis’s team was knocked out of the championship. The other was that Candace Parker became the first woman ever to win the basketball dunking championship—against five men.

Character, heart, the mind of a champion. It’s what makes great athletes and it’s what comes from the growth mindset with its focus on self-development, self-motivation, and responsibility.

Even though the finest athletes are wildly competitive and want to be the best, greatness does not come from the ego of the fixed mindset, with its somebody–nobody syndrome. Many athletes with the fixed mindset may have been “naturals”—but you know what? As John Wooden says, we can’t remember most of them.

Grow Your Mindset

• Are there sports you always assumed you’re bad at? Well, maybe you are, but then maybe you aren’t. It’s not something you can know until you’ve put in a lot of effort. Some of the world’s best athletes didn’t start out being that hot. If you have a passion for a sport, put in the effort and see.

• Sometimes being exceptionally endowed is a curse. These athletes may stay in a fixed mindset and not cope well with adversity. Is there a sport that came easily to you until you hit a wall? Try on the growth mindset and go for it again.

• “Character” is an important cept in the sports world, and it comes out of a growth mindset. Think about times you’ve needed to reach deep down inside in difficult sports matches. Think about the growth-mindset champions from this chapter and how they do it. What could you do next time to make sure you’re in a growth mindset in the pinch?

• Athletes with a growth mindset find success in learning and improving, not just winning. The more you can do this, the more rewarding sports will be for you—and for those who play them with you!

Chapter 5

BUSINESS: MINDSET AND LEADERSHIP

ENRON AND THE TALENT MINDSET

In 2001 came the announcement that shocked the corporate world. Enron—the corporate poster child, the company of the future—had gone belly-up. What happened? How did such spectacular promise turn into such a spectacular disaster? Was it incompetence? Was it corruption?