But Dweck’s expertise-and her recent book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success-bear directly on the sort of problem facing the Rovers. Faulkner had identified the problem but to fix it, he needed Dweck’s help.Ī 60-year-old academic psychologist might seem an unlikely sports motivation guru.
If you buy into that view, and are told you’ve got immense talent, what’s the point of practice? If anything, training hard would tell you and others that you’re merely good, not great. On some level, Faulkner knew the source of the trouble: British soccer culture held that star players are born, not made. Ignoring the team’s century-old motto- arte et labore, or “skill and hard work”-the most talented individuals disdained serious training. The Rovers’ training academy is ranked in England’s top three, yet performance director Tony Faulkner had long suspected that many promising players weren’t reaching their potential. ONE DAY LAST NOVEMBER, psychology professor Carol Dweck welcomed a pair of visitors from the Blackburn Rovers, a soccer team in the United Kingdom’s Premier League.
