Day: 19 December 2020

This is the last book I read this week. I bought it after reading other book this Summer about focus. And to be honest, I was quite surprised. The main idea is if you believe your capabilities/skills are born with you or you can develop them. Dr Carol Dweck shows how is life when you think you can develop your skills. And that is useful for anything. As well, you can have a growing mindset for some things and a static mindset for others. My mindset for the book was that it was going to be all about career and hard work. But I was surprised that there were more subjects related to a growing mindset, like education (children), family and relationships. I was to narrow-minded initially to the idea of growing mindset but it makes sense to apply it for everything in life. Learn when you have static mindset and make the effort to grow. Drop by drop, the bucket gets filled, said my Golang instructor. I really liked the examples about teachers who went beyond anything to show their pupils they could learn, and they did. And reminded me to the Dangerous Minds movie. I have told myself millions times that some people are born smart and I am not. But I need to realize that I have been growing since I decided to study and advance in my life. So, keep applying it, keep growing. For study, for work, for sport and relationships…

I finished this book this week. My favourite part was the introduction as it gives a brief view of China’s history and the thought schools developed around 100-500 BCE. One of the main figures of that time is Confucius and his school of Confucianism. Other school developed in that time was Taosim. It looks back to an ideal time even before the origins of the first Chinese kingdoms, all based in a basic way of life: survive with the minimum and avoid problems. There are a lot mysticism and no much logic in the statements, but it seems that’s the goal. Follow life, it is not lead by logic (as we would like).

Some of my favourites:

Knowing others is intelligent.

Knowing yourself is enlightment.

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Conquering others takes force

Conquering yourself is true strenght

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Knowing what is enough is wealth

Forging ahead shows inner resolve.

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At the end, the book is small, but it can be tricky to understand. The philosophy is quite different from the Western one I am use to but I liked it. There are always small gems to take with you.