How to Win - Rob Yeung - E-Book

How to Win E-Book

Rob Yeung

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Beschreibung

NEVER COME SECOND PLACE AGAIN If you're not winning, you're losing. And you don't want to be a loser, do you? Life is full of opportunities to win or lose on a daily basis. Want to win arguments, negotiate better and get your way in more discussions? Want to pitch ideas that win support and plaudits? Want to get yourself noticed and come out on top in the job market? Discover how to triumph when it really counts. How can you gain the competitive advantage and come first more often? Learn how to avoid that frustration of not succeeding - when your point isn't heard in an argument, or your hard fought pitch is rejected - and to achieve the results you know you deserve. THE SCIENCE OF WINNING Drawing on the latest research and proven psychological principles, bestselling author and psychologist Dr Rob Yeung outlines practical success strategies and powerful scenarios that you can apply to all facets of your life. This is your strategy book for success at work and in life. Get the breaks, beat the others and take your life to a whole new level.

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Table of Contents

Endorsements

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Introduction

The appliance of science

The science of winning

Navigating through this book

1: Developing a Winning Outlook

It's all in the mind

Gifts versus growth

Here's the science bit

Your mind-set

Everything changes

The potential to grow in whatever we do

Growing your confidence and capabilities

Slipping back into gifts-oriented thinking

Keeping up with the world

Onwards and upwards

2: Winning the Argument

Winning arguments without arguing

What's your style of arguing?

Understanding what your interpersonal style says about you

Developing your influencing style

Improving your influence: Understanding what it means to be assertive

Improving your influence: Taking the time to prepare

Improving your influence: Applying the DEAR formula

Improving your influence: Engaging in counterfactual thinking

Improving your influence: Understanding the need for understanding

Improving your influence: Helping others to feel understood

Improving your influence: Adopting both/and thinking

Improving your influence: Changing the name of the game

Improving your influence: Keeping our emotions in check

Putting it all together

Onwards and upwards

3: Winning the Pitch

Allowing people to come to their own conclusions

Stories are timeless and everywhere

The science of storytelling

Understanding the irrational appeal of stories

What is a story?

“SOAR vividly”

Using vivid language

The science of the small stuff

Making money through stories

Focusing on the O and A

Adding in a little TLC

Matching backgrounds

Turning molehills back into mountains

Running your story through a final check

Onwards and upwards

4: Winning the Job

Impressing at interview

Answering tough interview questions

Telling stories that sell your skills

Beguiling interviewers with words

Using body language to best effect

Getting invited to more interviews

Getting help from a network

Tapping your own network

Building up your network

Asking for a bigger salary (and receiving it)

Onwards and upwards

5: Winning the Race

Getting to grips with organizational savvy

Honing your organizational savvy

Taking your organizational savvy to the next level

Playing to your strengths

The link between strengths and success

The role of hard work

What is a “strength” exactly?

Identifying your own strengths

Delving even further into your strengths

Choosing the right career path

Pursuing Option A: Reshaping your work to your strengths

Pursuing a different Option A route: Looking elsewhere

Taking Option B: Choosing to forge on in spite of your weaknesses

Bringing everything together to win the race

Onwards and upwards

Conclusions: Onwards, Upwards and Over to You

Lose by doing nothing

Lose by doing too much

Plan, Do, Review

Plan, Do, Review: Step 1 – Plan

Plan, Do, Review: Step 2 – Do

Plan, Do, Review: Step 3 – Review

The science of effective reviews

Plan, Do, Review – and do it all over again

Putting it all into practice

A final thought

Onwards and upwards

Index

“If you want to be the best you can be and find practical ways of improving yourself then this book will take you through some easy-to-follow steps and ideas to make the most out of the opportunities you have.”

Dame Sarah Storey, 11-times Paralympic Gold medallist

“How To Win is fun to read, strong on evidence and full of useful techniques – an ideal book for those wanting to get into 1st place.”

Dr. Sebastian Bailey, Co-Founder and President, Mind Gym

“We all want to be winners in life, but to win ethically and well would be the ideal. As with his previous books, Rob's advice is practical, to the point and above all effective. Another must read – and must do!”

Julian Ranger, Founder and Chairman, SocialSafe

“This book is a winner in every respect. Evidence-based advice in a well-constructed, highly-readable and easily-recalled format. What's stopping you being a winner? Perhaps it's the fact you've yet to read Rob Yeung's excellent book.”

Robert Kelsey, Author of What's Stopping You? and What's Stopping You Being More Confident?

“How to Win provides practical information to people on getting ahead in their career, the soft skills necessary to be successful at work, from networking to being more assertive to using political skills. This is a must-read for anyone wanting to succeed in their jobs and careers.”

Professor Cary L. Cooper, CBE, Distinguished Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University Management School

“Inspirational but with practical tips – a must-read whether you're starting out or an experienced professional.”

Carol-Ann White, Global Human Resources Director, branding consultancy FITCH

“How to Win is a great blend of compassion and practical experience. Dr Rob Yeung provides simple and logical steps to making a difference and wraps each one in stories and examples that speak to everyone. This book will make you rethink your approach to every situation and applying the ideas will change your life and performance at work in a very positive way. Highly recommended.”

Gary White, Chief Executive, sales technology company White Springs

“We would all like to win a bit more often and Dr Rob's book helps you do just that. The more you read this book, the greater the likelihood that you'll win.”

Marc Woods, 12-times Paralympic medallist, winner of 21 medals from European and World Championships and bestselling author of Personal Best

© 2014 Dr Rob Yeung

Registered office

John Wiley and Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom

For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com.

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Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with the respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services and neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-0-857-08429-3 (paperback) ISBN 978-0-857-08427-9 (ebk)

ISBN 978-0-857-08426-2 (ebk)

Cover design by Parent Design Ltd

To Steve Cuthbertson – I picked a winner that 20th July! To my parents – for loving me and supporting me so totally that I shall always feel like a winner. And to my board of directors Lou Stockden, Nichola Schwarz, Chie Miyadera, Lena Fedoruk, Chris Bailey and Dan Smith for keeping me chilled.

About the Author

Dr Rob Yeung is a highly regarded coach and the author of over 20 books, including bestseller Confidence. As a director at leadership consulting firm Talentspace, he helps organizations to identify highfliers; he also coaches and trains leaders and entrepreneurs to improve their performance.

Also an in-demand keynote speaker, he is known for giving en­­tertaining yet insightful speeches at conferences worldwide. He is frequently asked to speak on topics such as the psychology of leadership, sales success, change and high achievement. In both his consulting and speaking work, he distinguishes himself by basing his recommendations on scientific research.

In addition, he provides regular expert commentary on television, including for both CNN and the BBC. He has written for the Financial Times and the Guardian and been quoted in publications ranging from Men's Health and Glamour to the Wall Street Journal.

www.robyeung.com

www.twitter.com/robyeung

Acknowledgements

Thanks first of all to Holly Bennion and the Capstone publishing team for persuading me to write for you guys – it's been a smooth and enjoyable process so far! Thanks also to my Talentspace colleagues for giving me the time and space to write in peace. And, of course, thank you to those of my coaching and corporate clients for putting your trust in me and allowing me to share some of your stories.

Introduction

The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential … these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.

Confucius

Do you want to be a winner? Yes, of course you do. Silly question really. Because, by definition, if you're not winning, you're losing. And no one wants to be a loser.

In sports, there's always a clear victor. Whether it's in a tennis tournament, a football match, a 100-metre race or something else in track and field, it's easy to spot the winner: it's the person or team that scored the most points, ran fastest, threw furthest, lifted more weight or whatever.

But how exactly do you win in life?

If you think about it, life is full of opportunities to win or lose on a daily basis. Every time we have a discussion, negotiation or disagreement with a colleague or boss, family member or friend, we could win by persuading them to do things our way.

Then there are the breaks that make the biggest differences in our lives – those inflection points such as job interviews that could take our lives in amazing directions if we win. They don't come along very often, but beat the other candidates to win the job and you may get greater responsibility, more exciting work and a bigger salary. It could present you with fresh opportunities and take your career to a whole new level. Lose and you end up with nothing.

Or think about those presentations we have to deliver occasionally. Sell your product or service to a client and you could land a big account with perhaps a juicy bonus for yourself. Present a novel concept successfully to investors and you could find yourself a mogul in the making. Appeal to a group of potential donors about the merits of your charity and you could find them lavishing funds on your cause.

This book is about winning the argument, the pitch, the job and – ultimately – the race. So, come with me if you would like to win.

The appliance of science

Before we move on, let me pose a question and try to answer it too: Why should you do what this author – this Rob Yeung guy – is telling you? After all, you may have read other books telling you to do things this way or that but maybe not got the results you wanted.

Allow me to answer the question by telling you a bit about me. I started my career as an academic. After graduating with an undergraduate degree in psychology, I worked for a year as a research assistant before embarking upon a three-year PhD in psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, a five-star-rated research department and part of King's College London.

And what I primarily learnt in those seven years was the importance of evidence – of having scientific proof about what works and what doesn't.

Even though we may not think about it often, evidence matters in so many areas of our lives. Imagine if doctors prescribed drugs or recommended surgery on the hunch that it might help patients. Without quantifiable evidence that their techniques worked, they could end up harming rather than healing. No, clearly we want doctors to treat patients using only medicines and techniques that have been trialled and proven to work.

Or consider how you would feel if a team of engineers said that they had designed and built a brand-new kind of aeroplane that should be able to get from London to New York using less fuel than ever before. The only snag is that they haven't done any tests. They wholeheartedly believe that it will work. However, they have no proof that it will be able to make the journey across the Atlantic without falling apart or bursting into flames. Would you get on that plane!?

Make no mistake: evidence has a crucial role to play in ensuring that the things we do are safe and genuinely valuable in our everyday lives. So why should this not be the case in the realm of self-improvement too? Surely if we aspired to lift our game and boost our performance – either in our professional or personal lives – we should follow only recommendations that were supported by proof, right?

The science of winning

I completed my doctorate in psychology over 15 years ago. Since then, I've been working as a psychology consultant to companies ranging from perhaps the world's favourite airline to high street banks such as HSBC, accountancy firms including KPMG and media organizations such as the BBC.

I train managers in how to become better leaders – in how to inspire and engage employees to work more productively. I coach entrepreneurs and salespeople on how to win over investors and clients. I run workshops and give speeches on topics ranging from how to identify talent in the workplace to becoming more charismatic and confident. And in all of my work, I try as far as possible to recommend techniques and interventions that work (i.e. ones that are backed by scientific evidence).

The good news is that there is plenty of research into the science of career success and life satisfaction. There are professors at leading business schools – experts in marketing, economics, management and human communication – as well as psychologists and other scientists at top universities all over the world working tirelessly to figure out what helps certain individuals to get ahead.

My job is simple: I'm just presenting this stuff for you in one handy collection. If you want ways of getting ahead that are proven to work, this is the book for you.

As we move from chapter to chapter, I'll illustrate the various principles and techniques I recommend with case studies of folks I've met or worked with. In some cases, I've changed people's names and some personal information to protect their anonymity.

But hopefully these stories will allow you to see how the tools and tactics within this book may be able to help you too.

Navigating through this book

I've laid out the book into five chapters and a conclusion, as follows:

Chapter 1: Developing a Winning Outlook. A substantial body of research tells us that a critical factor that differentiates winners from losers isn't what you do – but how you think about yourself. So, before I get into how to win arguments or pitch ideas and so on, in this chapter I'll tell you how you can set yourself up with this winning perspective.Chapter 2: Winning the Argument. Psychologists know that most people aren't very good at getting their point across. Some individuals are too aggressive (which only makes others resent them), while many are too passive (which means they rarely get what they want). Thankfully, research tells us how to come across well: to be assertive, influential and persuasive while at the same time being respected and even liked. Want to know how? In this chapter, I'll present the tools and techniques that allow us to broach differences of opinion and get what we want.Chapter 3: Winning the Pitch. Pitching is the skill of influence, persuasion and selling anything. Of course, that's useful for selling actual products or services if you work in sales. More importantly though, pitching means being able to sell ideas and even ourselves – skills that we all need, no matter what we do for a living. Want to raise money for charity? You have to sell your cause. Want to get that promotion? You have to sell yourself. Want someone to go out on a date with you? Yes, even that is selling. But rather than trying to turn you into a pushy salesperson, I'll give you a scientifically proven weapon for influencing, persuading and pitching just about anything: storytelling.Chapter 4: Winning the Job. Job interviews are arguably the most significant inflection points in our careers. Get the right job and all sorts of opportunities could open up. But rather than tell you stuff you already know, I'll cover some counterintuitive but useful findings based on the science of job hunting. For instance, what does psychology say about lying during interviews and our chances of getting caught out? What eight interview questions have psychologists discovered you must know the answers to? And, if there's one thing you could do to improve your chances of finding a brilliant new job, what would it be? I'll reveal the answers to these questions – and more – in this chapter.Chapter 5: Winning the Race. Ever wondered what the secret, unspoken rules of success at work are? This chapter has some answers as researchers now know a surprising amount about the skills and behaviours that allow certain individuals to leap forwards in their careers while others languish behind. I'll talk about the importance of doing all of the stuff that isn't mentioned in your job description. I shall explain the ways in which managing your working relationships leads to better prospects and promotions. I'll also cover how modern careers require a novel kind of thinking about developing the right skills – and how you can find a niche that will propel you up the career ladder.Conclusions: Onwards, Upwards and Over to You. This book is packed, packed, packed with content and it would be easy to take on too much or feel overwhelmed by everything that you could be doing. Rather than leaving you to struggle with putting the principles into practice, I'll finish the book with easy-to-follow guidelines on how to set effective goals and keep your motivation high. All you need to do is put in the work and your success is pretty much guaranteed.
Over to you
I hope that this is a book you can apply rather than a book that you will simply read and then set aside. So throughout the book, I shall include boxes like this one to spell out how you could put certain principles or manoeuvres into practice to benefit not only your professional but perhaps also your personal life.

There are lots of books out there on how to get ahead in life. But I truly believe that this book is unique because the tools and techniques within it have been proven to work. Based on scientific evidence, we know that certain skill sets and mind-sets help people to succeed.

But this isn't a dry, technical manual about how to win in life. As well as being educational, I guarantee that the book will be entertaining too. Along the way, we shall discover how thinking about pies and baking can help us to become better negotiators. We'll learn what Harry Potter, Luke Skywalker and Jesus Christ all have in common. And we'll see how asking for a ridiculously massive salary can genuinely help you to extract more money from your boss.

Ready to get started? Let's begin in Chapter 1 by investigating how our beliefs can either trap us or empower us to change. Because it so happens that just a single sentence may be all it takes to alter your ability to achieve.

1

Developing a Winning Outlook

Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.

Vince Lombardi

This chapter is all about attitude. So let's kick off by exploring your views about yourself. Of course, I'll explain everything shortly.

Below are a set of rating scales for different qualities and characteristics. Take a couple of moments to weigh the extent you believe each one is either an innate talent or something that can be developed, taught and honed.

For example, if you think that intelligence comes down entirely to a natural endowment – to the gifts that you are born with – then you'd give it a score of 1 out of 10. If you believe that intelligence is 100 per cent determined by hard work and effort, then you'd give it a score of 10 out of 10. Or if you consider that it's 50/50, then you'd give it a score of 5.

Want to give it a try?

Intelligence:

Creativity:

Leadership:

The ability to tell jokes and make people laugh:

Charisma:

Athletic ability:

Public speaking:

Patience:

For as long as I can remember, I've been curious about human behaviour and what drives people. But training to become a psychologist has taken that inquisitiveness about folks to a whole new level. And now as a psychologist working mainly with businesses, it's my job to be able to size people up – to evaluate them and come to judgements about not only how good they are but also how far they'll progress in their careers.

Over the years, I've learnt that one of the biggest differentiators between winners and runners-up in life is their attitude. But to illustrate exactly how outlook can matter, let me tell you about a pair of managers I first met more than a half-decade ago, whom I'll call Anna and Matthew.

It's all in the mind

Organizations often ask me to rate the strengths and weaknesses of their managers. I've been working with one particular company, an international insurance company for quite some time now. The top bosses asked me to audit 45 of their most senior executives in the UK on a four-point scale of their potential. A “1” meant that the executive was a star with plenty of potential to take on bigger roles not just within the UK but also internationally; unfortunately, a “4” meant that the executive had probably been over-promoted and should be shuffled sideways into a less demanding role.

The assessment process began with all of the executives, including Anna and Matthew, filling out surveys asking them to rate their own strengths and failings across assorted categories of capabilities, such as “Inspiring people” and “Making business decisions”. Next, at least six colleagues also filled out similar surveys to rate each executive. Finally, I met with each executive individually to discuss their scores, interview them about their leadership successes and failures, and ultimately decide what rating – on that four-point scale – I would give them in terms of their continuing potential.

I spent two hours with each executive. Matthew stood out for his confidence, charisma and unerring certainty about himself. A lanky figure with a broad smile and a crushing handshake, he was clearly someone who was used to making headlines. He received mainly complimentary comments from his colleagues, who said that he was a strong leader that they could turn to for guidance when they weren't sure what to do.

Sure, he had a few shortcomings, but didn't everyone? I told him about some of the occasional discrepancies between how he rated himself and how his colleagues rated him. For example, they said that he could at times be absolutely certain he was right even when he was later proved to have been wrong. He also tended not to revise his opinions easily.

In response, Matthew shrugged his shoulders and agreed that no one was perfect. He smiled and said, “Well, I've always been like that – it's a bit too late to change now!” The implication: as a manager in his late 40s, he was simply too old and too set in his ways to change.

Anna was much less sure of herself. A slender woman who moved with the energy of a skittish doe, she had reached the same executive grade as Matthew and was perhaps a couple of years younger than him. However, she admitted privately that she still had so much to learn about how to lead her team effectively.

She received a mixture of comments from her colleagues and clearly wasn't happy with everything she heard. They admired a lot about her analytical mind and empathy but said that she could demonstrate more energy and enthusiasm in front of her team. They felt that she was sometimes reluctant to take decisions in the face of uncertainty too.

Anna puffed out her cheeks with disappointment at a few of the comments but listened and made careful notes. She asked sensible questions to understand the less flattering remarks that colleagues had made about her perceived failings.

She was eager for my input too. Whereas Matthew had demonstrated much greater certainty in his own ability to progress in his career, Anna sought much more guidance from me. She asked questions such as “In your experience, how have other managers addressed such issues?” and “What could I do to make the biggest difference to my leadership skills?”

So who would you think had the greater potential? Matthew or Anna?

Gifts versus growth

I first met Matthew and Anna nearly six years ago. And as I've continued working with the insurance company, I've seen how the two have progressed. Eighteen months after I first met him, Matthew was promoted into an even more senior role, looking after all of the human resources managers within the UK business. It was what Matthew and everyone else around him had expected. He was a formidable performer within the business and to this day remains a solid, dependable executive with a lot to contribute.

But what about Anna, who felt she still had so far to go?

She got promoted twice and now looks after all of the people – not just the sales team but also the finance managers, technology experts, human resources folk and so on – across all of northern Europe, including the UK. She skipped a grade ahead of Matthew and is now his boss too.

But when I met her only a few months ago, she said that she still doesn't have all the answers. She maintains that she has a great deal to learn. She believes that the world is changing so swiftly and she can only just keep up.

And so we come to the crux of the tale. An increasingly convincing tidal wave of research shows that one of the biggest predictors of how well we do in not just our careers but our lives in general is down to our attitude, our outlook on life.

Matthew has an example of what I call a “gifts mind-set”.1* He believes himself to have certain gifts or talents but also certain weak spots that he doesn't think he can change. His strengths are that he is confident, charismatic and decisive. At the same time, he accepts that he has flaws: he can be more certain of himself than situations sometimes warrant. And he doesn't always listen to what others have to say – he doesn't change his mind often.

He sees his strengths as well as his weaknesses as aptitudes that have been bestowed upon him – as traits that are pretty much fixed and difficult to modify. You might as well ask him to alter his eye colour or height. Take him or leave him. That's the way he is now.

Anna, on the other hand, possesses what's known as a “growth mind-set”. She tackles every new situation with the attitude that it's an opportunity for her to learn. In my very first meeting with her, she was almost greedy to learn all she could and find out how she could improve. Far from feeling confident about her abilities, she was almost painfully aware of how much more she could learn.

She felt that everything was amenable to change – her strengths as well as her failings. She saw herself as a work in progress rather than a finished product. Even today, she continues to feel that she has much to learn – that she is still a work in progress.

Of course, you may be thinking that other factors have determined Anna's and Matthew's careers. Perhaps Anna got lucky. Maybe Matthew had personal problems that distracted him. But actually, there is a huge body of scientific evidence confirming that our belief in our own capacity to change matters so, so much.

Here's the science bit

Broadly speaking, people with the gifts mind-set believe that their traits and psychological characteristics are fixed. Such individuals feel that their intelligence, creativity, empathy, ability to learn new languages and so on are gifts that they only have a certain amount of. What you get when you're born is all you get – and that's the end of the story. Whether you're good, great or below average at something is due to the endowments that were passed on to you. And when you falter at a task, it's down to an absence of that ability.

In contrast, those with the growth mind-set believe that their traits are much more malleable and amenable to change. They feel that, yes, even their most fundamental qualities such as their very creativity, or even morality, can be improved through education and effort. As a consequence, they look at failure as demonstrating not an insufficient ability but a lack of exposure, opportunity or hard work.

So what? How do these different ways of thinking help us?

It turns out that growth-oriented people tend to do better in all sorts of situations. They tend to tackle new challenges with relish because they believe that they will learn more from taking on fresh challenges than from sticking to tasks and issues that they're familiar with. They tend to stick with difficult problems for longer. They also bounce back from failures more swiftly as they see mistakes as a necessary part of the learning process. Ultimately, they are more open to learning because they believe that even their most essential qualities can be developed through training and effort.

On the other hand, the gifts-oriented crowd who believe in the fixed, unchangeable nature of their own traits and qualities are more likely to focus on assignments or projects that they feel comfortable with. They implicitly believe that if you have talent or ability in any area of your life, then everything should come naturally – without effort. When they make mistakes or fail at tasks, they are more likely to feel that it's a sign of lack of ability rather than lack of effort.

Gifts-focused thinkers tend to give up fairly quickly when things go wrong, which is only sensible. After all, if someone really believed that a skill or personal quality was an innate gift and couldn't be upgraded, it would be stupid to keep working at it, right?

As a result, people with more of a growth mind-set have been shown in dozens of studies to perform more strongly than those with a gifts mind-set in all sorts of domains. For example, a survey of business owners found that growth-focused entrepreneurs felt more resilient and were more confident about taking on challenges than their gifts-focused counterparts.2 In another study, managers who believed that human attributes could be cultivated and improved were more likely to coach the members of their teams than managers who believed that personal attributes are innate and unalterable.3

People with a growth mind-set perform more strongly than those with a gifts mind-set in all sorts of domains.

I can tell you about plenty of studies that have been conducted away from the workplace with similar results too. For instance, adolescent children with a growth mind-set worked harder and had better exam results at school than peers who believed more strongly in their fixed gifts.4 Women with a growth mind-set about their bodies (i.e. those who believed in the changeability of their bodies) lost weight more successfully than women with a gifts mind-set, who perhaps blamed their circumstances or genes.5 And students suffering from debilitating levels of shyness tended to become less shy over time if they viewed shyness as something that could be changed as opposed to a fixed trait that they were stuck with.6

I'm sure you can see that such results make sense. If any individual truly believed that some aspect of himself or herself could not be changed, then it obviously wouldn't be worth wasting any effort endeavouring to alter it.

Ultimately, the drawback of the gifts mind-set is that it traps people. Those who feel that they are no good at a skill or activity feel it's pointless to try to get better. So they stop trying. They give up, which only guarantees that they can never get better at it.

The gifts mind-set is equally pernicious even for those who've been told that they are a natural at something – that they are better than most people. They may be tempted to believe that they don't need to hunker down and work at it. After all, natural talent doesn't need coaching, training and practice; natural talent doesn't need to identify shortcomings or spot mistakes in order to lift performance even higher.

Those blessed – or should it be cursed? – with true natural talent often coast to early success. But if they get stuck in the rut of the gifts mind-set, they may not learn how to hone their skills further; they don't learn how to cope with setbacks or frustration. They may lose out on the chance to develop their grit and fighting spirit – the ability to dig deep and find the strength to battle on even when things are going wrong.

Reconceptualizing success and failure
Think back to times in your life when others seemed to outshine you. Perhaps they did better in exams, at sport, in dating and relationships, at work, anything. Back then, you may have thought that they were simply more intelligent or had more natural ability.
But now that you understand the gifts versus growth mind-sets, consider the following:
Did they work harder than you?In what ways may they have sought out more (or better) feedback, advice or coaching?What kind of different tactics or training strategies may they have used to make more progress?

Your mind-set

So what does all of this mean for you exactly?

Let's head back to those rating scales at the beginning of the chapter. What scores did you give each of those traits and characteristics? Essentially, the higher the scores you gave each attribute, the more you have a growth mind-set about that attribute. And the lower your scores, the more you are currently inclined towards a gifts mind-set.

Your views may have been shaped by the people around you in your upbringing. Perhaps teachers, parents or other adults helpfully encouraged you to work at things (fostering the growth mind-set) or less helpfully told you what you were good at or weren't so good at.