Howard Gardner, in his book Extraordinary Minds, concluded that exceptional individuals have “a special talent for identifying their own strengths and weaknesses.” It’s interesting that those with the growth mindset seem to have that talent.

Not long ago I was interested to read about Marina Semyonova, a great Russian dancer and teacher, who devised a novel way of selecting her students. It was a clever test for mindset. As a former student tells it, “Her students first have to survive a trial period while she watches to see how you react to praise and to correction. Those more responsive to the correction are deemed worthy.”

In other words, she separates the ones who get their thrill from what’s easy - what they’ve already mastered - from those who get their thrill from what’s hard.

So telling children they’re smart, in the end, made them feel dumber and act dumber, but claim they were smarter. I don’t think this is what we’re aiming for when we put positive labels - “gifted,” “talented,” “brilliant” - on people. We don’t mean to rob them of their zest for challenge and their recipes for success. But that’s the danger.

These traits—insatiable curiosity, a driving need for speed, the ability to read people, and the ability to anticipate problems before they arise—led others to view me as a rising star, a wunderkind. Quite a transition for a guy who, only a few years before, had been a psych patient in a locked ward.

And yet, even as I progressed in my career, the beads-of-sweat years continued.

I’ve learned that once children gain a sense of real possession, they share very naturally, freely, and spontaneously.