Chapter 1

THE MINDSETS

When I was a young researcher, just starting out, something happened that

changed my life. I was obsessed with understanding how people cope with

failures, and I decided to study it by watching how students grapple with

hard

problems. So I brought children one at a time to a room in their school,

made

them comfortable, and then gave them a series of puzzles to solve. The first

ones

were fairly easy, but the next ones were hard. As the students grunted,

perspired,

and toiled, I watched their strategies and probed what they were thinking

and

feeling.