He Said, She Said: Gladwell vs. Dweck

Today I’m going to discuss two well known authors, Malcolm Gladwell and Carol Dweck.  Specifically I will be comparing Gladwell’s book Outliers:  A Story of Success and Dweck’s Mindset:  The New Psychology of Success.  Considering both of these are books on success, you would think that they would have similar view points, right?  Wrong.  Gladwell and Dweck have very different ideas on success.

Gladwell’s Belief

Gladwell views becoming successful as getting a high ranked job and being wealthy.  Those who are successful are those who are given the right opportunities, such as being born at a certain time (Gladwell 15-34, 65-68).  Those who don’t succeed were just the unlucky ones who were given a bad hand.  They weren’t given the same opportunities as the successful ones, so they cannot become successful.  Gladwell never acknowledges failure.  A good example of this is Chris Langan.  Langan was incredibly smart and is known to be the most intelligent person in the world (Gladwell 70-71).  However, even though Langan attended college, he never got a degree.  Here is Gladwell’s reasoning for it:  he grew up in a poor family in a small town (strike one), his mother did not mail in his scholarship renewal form (strike two), the academic advisor and dean refused to grant him a schedule change (strike three) (Gladwell 91-95).  Not once does Gladwell fault Langan.  He states that it is just Langan meeting a series of bad opportunities.  So since Langan wasn’t given the “right” opportunities he can’t be successful, despite how intelligent he is.

Dweck’s Perspective

Dweck’s perspective on success is totally different from Gladwell’s.  She believes it all depends on our mindset.  If we have a growth mindset and allow ourselves to learn from our failures then we can become successful.  We need to recognize our failures and take it as a challenge to try harder.  Having a fixed mindset and playing the blame game, like Gladwell did for Langan, does not achieve anything.  By not accepting responsibility for our errors, we would remain at the same level and not grow to our full potential.  In Mindset, Dweck discussed the study habits and the reactions of two groups of college students after taking a chemistry exam, one with the fixed mindset and one with the growth mindset (Dweck 60-61).  The students with the fixed mindset tended to memorize the information needed for the test and that was all and if they ended up doing poorly on the test they just accepted that they weren’t good at chemistry and didn’t try to do better (Dweck 61).  In other words, like Langan, they didn’t accept responsibility for their errors and didn’t try to improve.  However, the students with the growth mindset studied to learn (Dweck 61).  They would look for themes in the information or look over their mistakes until they understood what they did wrong (Dweck 61).  When those with the growth mindset didn’t do well, they tried harder the next time and continued to keep themselves motivated in the material (Dweck 61).  They didn’t give up.  The students with the growth mindset fit Dweck’s definition of success because they were constantly learning from their mistakes and realizing that they can always improve if they just continue to put forth the effort.  Unlike Gladwell, Dweck believes that no matter what hand you happen to draw if you’re willing to try and work at it then you can succeed at anything, just like the chemistry students who continued to try.

My View

As you can see, people can have completely different views of what success is, even famous authors.  My own view of success varies from these and most likely varies from your own view too.  To me, success is trying your hardest and living your life to your full potential.  But I also believe you aren’t truly successful until you are happy with your life just the way it is.  Whether it be having the career of your dreams or having a family, success is when your life is exactly how you want it.  So do you believe you’re successful?