Asher's Blog

Someone asked me to review a book that changed my life, and the question immediately created a small problem: I cannot honestly identify only one.

Christian literature was among the earliest writing that changed how I understood God, faith, purpose and the life available to me. Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad series changed how I thought about money, assets, ownership and work, and it contributed to the path that led me into business. Kenneth E. Hagin’s Following God’s Plan for Your Life remains deeply important to me because it helped me think about purpose and spiritual guidance.

However, if I must choose the book that formed the bedrock of my belief that I could keep becoming better, I would choose Carol S. Dweck’s Mindset.

That book did not give me a business idea or a formula for success. It gave me something more fundamental: a way to interpret ability, effort, feedback and failure. It helped shape my doggedness, discipline and refusal to quit. It taught me that failing at something does not mean I am a failure, and that present ability is not a final verdict on future capacity.

It is one of my treasures.

The idea at the heart of Mindset

Carol Dweck’s central distinction is between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. A person operating from a fixed mindset tends to see intelligence, talent or ability as traits that are largely settled. Success therefore proves that they possess the trait, while difficulty and failure threaten their identity.

A person operating from a growth mindset believes that abilities can be developed through learning, effective effort, strategy, feedback, support and experience. Difficulty may still be uncomfortable, and failure may still be painful, but neither has to become a permanent description of the person.

This sounds simple when summarised, which is partly why the phrase “growth mindset” has become so common that people can repeat it without allowing it to change anything. The power of the book is not in saying that optimism is good. It is in showing how our private theory of ability influences the challenges we choose, the feedback we accept, the effort we sustain and the meaning we assign to setbacks.

If I believe intelligence is fixed, asking for help may expose me. If I believe it can be developed, asking for help becomes part of becoming more capable. If I believe a talented person should succeed easily, difficulty becomes evidence that I do not belong. If I understand mastery as a process, difficulty becomes evidence that I have reached the edge of what I currently know.

That change in interpretation can alter an entire life.

It changed what failure meant to me

Before reading Mindset, the habit of responding to failure with disciplined learning was not native to me. I could dream, work and believe, but the book gave me a framework for what to do when effort did not produce the outcome I wanted.

Failure stopped being only a painful event and became information. It could reveal that the strategy was weak, the preparation was inadequate, the skill had not yet been developed or the environment required a different approach. The important question became not simply, “Did I win?” but, “What is this result teaching me, and what will I do next?”

This is one reason the book contributed so strongly to my entrepreneurial life. Building a company creates repeated encounters with the limits of your present knowledge. A product does not work as expected. A person you trusted disappoints you. A customer refuses to buy. Capital takes longer to raise. A promising strategy stops working because the market changes. If every setback becomes a verdict on your ability, the founder’s identity eventually collapses under the weight of the business.

A growth mindset allows the founder to separate the event from the final conclusion. This product failed, but we can understand why. This hire did not work, but we can improve the role, process and judgement. This market did not respond, but we can change the segment, timing or proposition. This fundraising attempt failed, but we can strengthen the business and try another route.

The word yet becomes important. We have not solved it yet. We have not developed that capability yet. The word does not guarantee that every ambition will be achieved, but it protects the possibility of learning before the evidence is complete.

The book helped me believe before there was proof

There are things I have pursued with a strong internal conviction before the external evidence became obvious. I believed I could get into Y Combinator. I believed our business would eventually gain momentum and become successful. I have believed during difficult periods that I would find a way forward, even when the route was not yet visible.

That belief is connected first to my faith, but Mindset helped me understand the human responsibility inside belief. Faith is not an excuse to remain the same while expecting a different future. If I believe a better outcome is possible, I have to become capable of producing it. I have to learn, listen, practise, change strategy, accept correction and continue working.

The book gave me confidence that development itself is real. I did not need to possess every quality required for the final destination on the first day. I could become more disciplined, more strategic, more financially intelligent and more capable of leading people. I could cultivate habits that were not native to me.

This is not confidence based on pretending I am already excellent at everything. It is confidence based on knowing that present limitations can be worked on.

Why I connect mindset with science

One reason I love Mindset is that its argument grew from psychological research rather than merely a collection of motivational slogans. I love science because it gives us disciplined ways to ask questions, test assumptions and revise conclusions in response to evidence.

Science itself requires a growth posture. A hypothesis is not protected because the researcher loves it. It must face observation, replication and criticism. When evidence contradicts an explanation, the explanation has to improve. That is similar to what a founder must do: hold a conviction strongly enough to work, but loosely enough to learn.

At the same time, loving science means avoiding exaggerated claims about the book. A growth mindset is not magic, and research on mindset interventions has produced varying effects across populations and contexts. Telling someone to “have a growth mindset” cannot compensate for poor teaching, discrimination, lack of resources, illness, a broken organisation or an economy that restricts opportunity.

Dweck herself has warned against a false growth mindset—the idea that praising effort alone is enough, even when the strategy is ineffective and no learning occurs. Effective effort matters. Feedback matters. Resources, teaching, opportunity and the willingness to change approach matter.

That nuance makes the concept stronger rather than weaker. The lesson is not that anybody can become anything merely by believing. The lesson is that human capacity is more developable than a fixed judgement allows, and people are more likely to improve when they engage in the behaviours through which development occurs.

Effort is not valuable merely because it is difficult

One of the easiest ways to misunderstand Mindset is to glorify effort. A person can work extremely hard in the wrong direction, repeat the same mistake and call the exhaustion perseverance. That is not growth.

The effort that matters is connected to learning. It examines the result, seeks feedback, changes the strategy and practises the weak skill deliberately. If a business has tried the same sales message for a year without improvement, repeating it more loudly is not evidence of a winning mindset. The founder must ask what customers are saying, what alternatives they use, whether the problem is urgent and what a better approach could be.

This is why I connect growth mindset with the pace of intelligent retries. When something does not work, I want to learn fast enough to try something meaningfully different before the company loses the cash or energy required for another attempt.

Doggedness without reflection can become stubbornness. Reflection without another attempt can become sophisticated avoidance. Growth requires both.

Feedback stops being an insult

A fixed mindset makes feedback feel dangerous because criticism appears to expose an unchangeable defect. The natural response is to defend, explain or attack the person delivering it. A growth mindset makes feedback potentially useful because identifying a weakness creates the opportunity to develop it.

This does not mean every criticism is correct, well-intentioned or competently expressed. Leaders still need judgement. However, dismissing uncomfortable feedback before examining it protects the ego at the expense of progress.

In business, this matters enormously. Customers tell us where the product confuses them. Employees reveal where leadership communication is weak. Financial results expose decisions that did not create the expected value. Investors and advisers may see risks the founder has normalised. A company cannot become excellent if its leaders require every message to preserve their image.

I have learned to ask what is true inside the feedback, even when I dislike the delivery. Sometimes the appropriate response is to reject the conclusion, but it should be rejected after thought rather than because it disturbed me.

The ability to receive tough feedback is also one of the qualities I look for in people I work with. A capable person who cannot be corrected eventually becomes difficult to build with, because the organisation must protect their feelings instead of improving its performance.

I see the principle in great competitors

When I watch elite sport, I often recognise the ideas in Mindset. Lionel Messi is already one of the greatest footballers in history, but even extraordinary ability has to respond to the game in front of it. A team can be losing, the original plan can fail and the opposition can create problems nobody expected. Great competitors raise their standard, adjust and remain engaged until the match is over.

The lesson is not that a growth mindset guarantees a comeback in every game. Sport is valuable precisely because two prepared sides compete and only one can win. The lesson is that champions do not treat the current score as a complete description of what remains possible.

They continue to read the game, create chances, communicate, make runs and respond to pressure. Years of disciplined training allow them to produce something extraordinary when the moment demands it.

That is the winning attitude I have tried to cultivate over time. It was not fully native to me, but habits do not have to be native to become part of our character. Repeatedly choosing to learn, recover and raise the standard gradually changes what we do under pressure.

Mindset does not remove brutal reality

There is a version of positive thinking that refuses to look at facts. It calls every warning negativity and assumes belief will eventually rescue a bad plan. That is not what I learned from Dweck, and it is not how I want to lead.

A growth mindset should make us more willing to confront reality because a weakness does not have to be a permanent identity. If the numbers are poor, we can look at them honestly. If a team member is not performing, we can address it. If the product is weak, we can rebuild it. If the market is not ready, we can pivot, wait or enter another market.

Jim Collins’s discussion of the Stockdale Paradox in Good to Great complements Mindset: retain faith in the eventual outcome while confronting the brutal facts of the present. Conviction and truth belong together.

The fixed mindset sometimes hides failure because it fears what the failure says about the person. The growth mindset can examine failure because it sees the result as information about what must change.

Faith and mindset are not the same thing

My confidence does not rest entirely on psychology. My greatest advantage is my faith in God and the presence of the Holy Spirit. I believe God gives wisdom, direction and strength that exceed my natural ability. However, faith and mindset interact because what the mind refuses to receive cannot easily be stewarded.

The Bible says that God gave Solomon wisdom and exceedingly great understanding, and largeness of heart—or breadth of mind, as some translations express it. Wisdom was given, but there was also capacity to carry and apply it.

A person can receive opportunity, inheritance, relationships or capital and still waste them through a destructive mindset. It is like pouring water into a basket: the supply may be real, but the container cannot retain it. A child can come from a wealthy family and lose everything through entitlement, indiscipline and prodigality. A talented founder can destroy a promising company because they cannot receive feedback or delay gratification.

This is why I do not see mindset as a substitute for God. I see a renewed and teachable mind as part of becoming able to receive wisdom and act on it.

Prayer should not make me passive. If I ask God for wisdom and receive an instruction, insight or conviction, I must act. If the outcome reveals that I misunderstood something, I return humbly, ask better questions and continue learning.

What the book changed in my leadership

Mindset changed more than how I thought about myself; it changed how I evaluate and develop other people. A leader should not permanently label an employee from one mistake, but neither should they use “potential” to avoid accountability.

I want people who can learn quickly, receive feedback, change their approach and take responsibility for results. When someone is progressing, even if the final outcome has not yet arrived, that progress can justify more support and time. When someone repeats the same mistake, resists feedback and produces no evidence of development, the language of growth should not be used to keep them indefinitely in the wrong role.

A growth culture combines high standards with genuine opportunities to improve. Managers explain what good performance means, provide useful feedback and allow people to develop through meaningful work. Employees are expected to respond with effort, learning and results. Both sides have a responsibility.

The concept also affects innovation. Teams should be able to test ideas without treating every unsuccessful experiment as a career-ending event. But experiments must be designed to learn, risks must be proportionate and findings must be shared honestly. Psychological safety is not freedom from standards; it is freedom to speak truth and learn in pursuit of them.

The danger of turning mindset into identity

There is a subtle irony in reading a book about growth and then becoming proud of being “a growth-mindset person.” The moment the label becomes proof of superiority, we have recreated the fixed mindset in another form.

All of us move between fixed and growth responses depending on the area. A founder may welcome product feedback and become defensive about leadership. A student may work patiently in mathematics and avoid sport because they believe they are naturally unathletic. A successful executive may have developed many skills but become frightened of appearing inexperienced in a new field.

The practical question is not, “Do I have a growth mindset?” as though it were a permanent badge. The better question is, “Where am I behaving as though my present ability or image must be protected?”

That question keeps the book alive. It allows the principle to continue challenging us rather than becoming something we claim to have mastered.

The other books in my treasure chest

Although Mindset is the book I would choose for this review, it belongs within a larger reading life. The Rich Dad Poor Dad series expanded my imagination about ownership, assets and business, even though its specific financial claims should still be evaluated thoughtfully rather than treated as personal financial advice. Ray Dalio’s Principles gave me a structured way to think about truth, decision-making and organisational learning. Kenneth E. Hagin’s Following God’s Plan for Your Life strengthened my attention to spiritual purpose and direction.

More recently, I have enjoyed Brad Jacobs’s How to Make a Few Billion Dollars and its sequel, How to Make a Few More Billion Dollars. I am drawn to books that enlarge the scale of what I can imagine while still offering an operator’s view of people, capital, acquisitions and execution.

Different books change different rooms in the mind. One creates ambition, another gives language to faith, another improves decisions, and another teaches the reader how to endure the distance between present reality and a large vision.

Mindset changed the foundation beneath those rooms. It taught me to believe that I could develop the capacity required for what I had begun to imagine.

Why I continue to recommend it

I recommend Mindset not because it promises that everybody will achieve every goal, but because it changes the question people ask when they meet the boundary of their present ability.

Instead of asking, “Does this prove I am not good enough?” the reader can ask, “What do I need to learn?” Instead of protecting an image of intelligence, they can build competence. Instead of treating feedback as humiliation, they can search it for information. Instead of allowing one failure to define the journey, they can improve the strategy and try again.

That orientation has carried me through entrepreneurship, leadership and periods when the outcome I believed in took much longer than expected. It helped me know that I could fail without becoming a failure and that success was not reserved for people who appeared naturally gifted on the first day.

The book did not make me fearless. It taught me that fear, difficulty and mistakes do not have to make the final decision.

My faith tells me I am loved by God, guided by the Holy Spirit and never without help. Mindset helped me see the responsibility that comes with that advantage: remain teachable, cultivate the mind, develop the gift, act on wisdom and refuse to make today’s limitation a prophecy over tomorrow.

That is why the book is more than a recommendation to me. It is part of the architecture of how I live. It helped build my believability, discipline, resilience and expectation that when something does not work, I can learn, raise my standard and continue.

Some books give you information. A few give you a new interpretation of yourself. Mindset did that for me.

Further reading

• Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.
• Mary C. Murphy, Cultures of Growth, on how growth and fixed mindsets can become properties of teams and organisations.
• Angela Duckworth, Grit, on sustained passion and perseverance towards long-term goals.
• Annie Duke, Thinking in Bets, on learning from outcomes without confusing luck with the quality of a decision.