Thing to Know to Be Successful

     The book that I chose to read is the Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Before I picked this book up I thought that it would reveal some secrets on how to be really successful in life. It does. Like I never knew that doing an activity for 10,000 hours or more results in you being an expert in it. However Gladwell mentioned a lot of other factors that also contribute to one's success. For example there is the year one is born, the surrounding they grew up in, and the opportunities that they are given. He writes it in a way that makes you think that you can not be successful unless you are born in the right time period or you live in the right community. Did anyone else feel that way while they were reading? 

Reaching For The Stars

     Having the right mindset and determination is the key to success. Mindset by Carol S. Dweck states that there are two different mindsets that people have: fixed or growth. Dweck uses many scenarios that emphasize the difference among these two. One example Dweck states is that people with a fixed mindset believes that they are better than others when they are successful. However, people with a growth mindset takes their success and stays humble with it. People with the fixed mindset would ask themselves: "If you're somebody when you're successful, what are you when you're unsuccessful".
     Although Mindset is all about having the growing mindset, I believe that we need a balance of having both a fixed and growing one. If all we have is a growth mindset, where would our limitations be? If we just have a fixed mindset, would we try to reach above and beyond our comfort standards?Where do you stand on this argument?

The importance of age

Something that Malcolm Gladwell goes into depth into in the beginning of his book is age and the month you were born in. He explains how the month you were born on affects you in so many ways. For example, if the cut off for a youth sports league is January 1st, anyone born in the beginning of the year will have a huge developmental advantages than those born at the end of the year. At a young age months makes a huge difference in maturity and because of that the older kids can become much better players than the younger ones. Then, Gladwell goes into saying how that leads to even more adavantages for them. The better players will be scouted for a more advanced team in which they will practice more and much more intensely making them much better players. Like this they leave behind the younger kids who did not get that opportunity because of their maturity and creates a huge gap between the two. As they get older the older kids will increasingly become better and better and will have a much better chance at becoming professional players. As Gladwell was saying all this he makes it sound as though the younger kids have very little chance at ever becoming professional players like the older ones.

Reading all this made me think about myself, because I am born at the end of the year and for almost everything I have always been one of the younger people. So does everything that goal say apply in the longer run?

Development and Twins

David Shenk challenges everything we have been taught about talent/intelligence and its relationship with genetics and our environment in his book The Genius in All of Us.  He claims "talent is not a thing, it's a process" and it has little to do with genetics only; instead it has to do with genetics, practice and our environment.  Shenk encourages the reader to get rid of that negative mindset that discourages us from taking risks and trying, which is the idea that people are born talented or smarter than others. Shenk also claims "children develop only as the environment demands development", which I agree with based on my own experience.  In a trip i took to Mexico two summers ago, I noticed that almost everyone had given up education (especially the men) because there were not a lot of resources and jobs that required education (and the jobs that did, only required basic knowledge).  Their lives are limited and they don't have as much opportunities as there are here. (Also, it made me think of how each individual has their own knowledge on different things based on their environment and likes/dislikes).

I found chapter four, "The Similarities and Dissimilarities of Twins", was the most interesting chapter for me.  The chapter is exactly about what the title says.  I finished reading this chapter and had one question still in my mind.  If our environments contribute to who we are, then why are siblings often so different from each other? (They don't necessarily have to be twins). Obviously they share similarities but where do the extreme differences come from?

Overall, the book was easy to follow because of the simple words he chose to use and his inclusion of the epilogue which was full of sources and helpful information.  I finished reading feeling empowered and with the determination to improve myself.

Mindset, not Mindsets

Hey guys! So I've been reading Mindset and while discussing it in class, a lot of people in my group were complaining that the author had a bias towards one of the two mindsets that she described in her book. But as I read the book, I got the feeling that it wasn't really a bias. Well I mean, it is, but not like in a bad way. During the book she talks about two types of mindsets, a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. A fixed mindset believes, among other things, that you are born with certain capacities and you can never exceed those limits no matter how hard you try. While a growth mindset believes just the opposite. A growth mindset views challenges as times where you can learn and become stronger. The author obviously prefers the growth mindset. The people in my group were saying that the author was being unfair to the other mindset and not giving equal positive and negative things about both mindsets. But that's not the point. The point is that she's trying to convince you to have a growth mindset because that's obviously better. It's like saying the guy from The Happiness Advantage (sorry I'm too lazy to look up his name) is biased about being happy. Like yeah, yeah he is. That's the point of his book is to try to convince to be happy, not to give you all the pros and cons about being happy and being sad. Or something, I haven't actually read that book but I'm pretty sure that's what he talks about. And like, if that doesn't convince you, then like, the book is called Mindset not Mindsets.

Ten thousand Hours of Dedication

The book I chose for Book Club was Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. I enjoyed reading the book because it talked about being successful and what makes people successful. In chapter two he begins talking about how to become an expert in everything and anything. To reach this level, one must spend up to ten thousand hours studying and practicing their special skill. I think it is absolutely crazy that someone would have to spend that much time on just to be successful however, it shows dedication. Gladwell says, "Achievement is talent plus preparation." I couldn't agree with this statement any more. I believe that you should put forth all your effort in something you love therefore, your time and dedication will pay off in the future. For example, I have been performing ever since the third grade and never have given up because I know that I would like to continue performing in the future. Eventually, my hard work, ten thousand hours, and dedication will pay off. Focus on the things that interest you and challenge you for the better.

Can We Really Become Happier With the Happiness Advantage?

     When we all watched the video Ms. Fletcher showed us, the author of The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor, talked about his studies on positive psychology I was curious if it could actually work. My skepticism helped me decided to pick this book for book club. Honestly, when I first started reading the book, I didn't believe anything he said. He made it seem like if I follow each principle he talked about, then I would become happy. He would talk about all his experiences trying to teach people his seven principles of positive psychology and I just couldn't accept all the facts. It seemed too easy. In addition, he stated that being positive would fuel success and help with performance at work or school. I was already a negative person and I was doing fine. In my mind, being positive just hurt me because I would get my hopes up,but then something bad would happen and I would be disappointed.
     However, during one of the weeks we were reading our books I became very depressed and unhappy. So I decided to read the book to see if it could help. As I was reading, the things Achor was talking about made more sense to me. The people he was describing as negative, I could totally relate to. After that realization I decided to see if some of his principles and techniques worked. For example, one of his principles was The Tetris Effect. He stated that people needed to train their minds to think how they wanted to and eventually our brains will adapt. One technique he talked about that would help make someone more positive was every day write three good things that happened. I decided to try it out and it actually helped me. Eventually I saw positive things around me without trying to look for them and I felt happier. I was surprised that it actually worked. When I finished the book, I decided that I would try and follow every principle. I'm not sure if it is going to work, but it's worth a try.
     The only problem I see and have already experienced is the effort to try and change how I look at myself and at the world. It's hard to think of the positive when there is so much negative surrounding me. To think positive and truly be happy, we have to really try. Achor changed the way I thought about the Happiness Advantage and I believe if that if someone really tries and follow each principle then it is possible they can become truly happy.