Fixed or growth mindset — which do you have?

    We live in an uncertain world with all the technological advances we are experiencing， which meanse is a requirement for a change in midset (思维模式）. In order to be on top of our game both personally and organizationally, we need to develop a growth mindset.

    A fixed mindset supposes that you have native abilities and are naturally clever or skilled in certain areas of life. When you receive infonnation about how you have performed in a test or set of tasks t you may worry about how you are judged. Our parents probably said to us when we were young,"Since you scored really well in the test, you must  be clever." However, by being repeatedly told “You are clever” or “You are really good at your job”，a person's self—respect is actually dainagcd.

    The  growth—mindset  person a view life as a series of exciting challenges and  want  to constantly  learn. Brain activity occurs in this mindset when they receive information about what they could do belter or improve. They do not view their abilities as fixed or us failure. Learning is king and the more they practice , the more they know they will succeed.

    What is important is giving praise around process and not around ability. For example , instead of saying"Since you got a great score, you must be clever" f say " You got a great score, and you must have tried really hard". This creates challenge in individuals and the meaning of mindsets is massive for business. Fixed-mindset managers are not fans of giving feedback (反馈）. They do not want to stretch themselves or others because they fear failure. Therefore their business may stand still because there is no risk or innovation (创新） occurring.

    Listen from your own fixed mindset — for example ," I can't  do that” — and answer with a growth-mindset response — “I can't do that yet!" Remember  there is no such thing as failure and there is s only learning. If you don't fail occasionally ，you will never learn to change and grow.

    Renaissance is a French word. It means “rebirth”. It's a strange name for a period of history. What was exactly “ reborn” during the Renaissance?

    To answer this question, we need to look back at the time of the Roman Empire. At this time Roman artists, scientists and writers influenced by Greek ideas were the world's most advanced. They had become skilled observers of the natural world around them, and had become experts in studying animals, plants, the human body or the stars and planets. They wrote down their ideas about what they saw, and based their theories about the world on their observations.

    During the fourth and fifth centuries the Roman Empire slowly broke down. Many of the Romans' art and sculptures were destroyed and some manuscripts（原稿）were lost as well. But most importantly, some of the ancient attitudes were lost. A questioning approach to the world was replaced by an unquestioning one.

    Why did this happen? One reason was to do with the influence of the Christian Church. Through the thousand years following the fall of the Roman Empire, the Church controlled many aspects of life including education and learning. The Church ran all the universities and thought that the aim of a university should be to teach old ideas more clearly, not to introduce new ones. The scholars in the universities were expected to study God and heaven from the Bible and ancient books, rather than the world around them.

Take medicine for example. The main textbook for doctors had been written by a Greek doctor called Galen more than a thousand years earlier. But when Roger Bacon, a thirteenth-century priest（牧师）, said that a new approach to medicine was needed — doctors should do their own original research instead of reading writers from the past such as Galen-the Church put him in prison.

    By the time of the fourteenth century, however, some parts of the Christian Church were becoming less strict about their ideas and there was a new state of mind among artists, doctors and scientist. People wanted to find out more about the world by studying it. This attitude of investigation had been common in classical scholars, and it was ‘reborn' during the Renaissance.

    In Asia, there are special competitions where kites have complex designs and are fitted with instruments that make musical sounds as the wind blows through them. Although all kites have a similar structure （结构）, they are widely different in size and shape. Kite-fighting competitions are also held, in which competitions us their kites to attack and bring down their opponents'（对手）kites or cut their strings（线）.

    For more than 15 years, the Big Wind Kite Factory has been giving kite-making and kite flying classes for the children on an island in Hawaii. In its kite-making lessons, students can make kites in as little as 20 minutes! Children as young as four years old can learn how to fly a kite. Jonathan Socher and his wife Daphne started the kite factory in 1980. Their kites are made of nylon（尼龙）.Their designs are Hawaiian themes created by Daphne. The designs are cut out of the nylon with a hot knife that seals the edges and then fastened directly onto the kite. 

    The kite that is used to give lessons is a regular diamond kite with a rainbow pattern. The difference between this kite and the ones they make during the lessons is that it is a two-string controllable kite. Big Wind employees fly the kite and for a few minutes show students how pulling on one line and then on the other controls the direction the kite goes in. Then the controls are given to the students.

    Jonathan insists that it is not necessary to make a huge impressive kite to have fun making and flying kites. Even the simplest structure can work, and can give hours of fun. Go on, give it a try!

    An Israeli law banning too skinny models went into effect with the start of 2013. The law, approved last March in Israel, requires models to prove they have maintained a Body Mass Index (BMI) of at least 18.5 for three months before a fashion show. That means a woman who is 68 inches tall can weigh no less than 119 pounds.

    "This law is another step in the war against eating disorders," said physician Adatto. "Underweight models," he explained, "can no longer serve as role models for innocent young people who copy their false image of being skinny."

    But some critics in this country say it is misguided, focusing on weight instead of health. They also say the Israeli ban is bound to fail because of the strong power of the fashion industry. "I think it's an approach that isn't going to work." said eating disorder expert Susan Ice, who worked with an organization which creates a healthy working environment for models.

    But Adatto told the reporter that he began to concern the issue after meeting an ambitious model who looked like she needed to be hospitalized. He said. "I realized that only legislation(立法) can change the situation. There was no time to waste; so many girls were dieting to death."

    However, the efforts to regulate models' weight in Spain and Italy have not resulted in significant changes in part because of difficulties in determining reliable methods of measuring weight and health.

    Still, folks including Ice say there's no denying that images from Hollywood and the fashion industry can be difficult for young women to deal with. "Certainly I don't believe the modeling industry has caused the rise in eating disorders, but it makes it harder," she says. "It's a difficult recovery environment, worshiping thinness as the beauty ideal."

    From the first use of the rocket to carry satellites into space to the setting up of space stations, human beings have been putting great effort into space research. And so far, we have achieved many successes. But there are still numerous tasks in front of us and we should not stop trying to progress.

    The international space station （ISS） is an important step we should take in space exploration. It is not only helpful but also essential. It provides a proper space environment for many experiments that we have wanted to do for a long time. It is also a base for the observations of the earth and the universe. It could also be an important base for later travel to the moon and Mars. In a word, if we want to explore space more, the first thing we should do is to set up a space station.

    As the space station costs a lot of money, it is hard for one country alone to establish one. The USA seem to be the only country that has the ability to build a space station alone, and it has tried to do so, but not very successful. So it aggregated many other countries to work on it together. Though it is still extremely expensive, it is much cheaper than doing it alone. It is really a job that needs everyone's effort and will benefit everyone.

    Led by the U. S. and Russia, the ISS is a joint project between six space agencies involving 16countries. Called the greatest achievement in human cooperation, the ISS has come to the end of a ten﹣year's hard work in construction. China has applied for participation in （taking part in） the project many times. Unfortunately all the applications were rejected, which drove China onto the path of independent development. As the Long March Ⅱ﹣F/T1 carrier rocket blasted off （leave the ground） and successfully carried the Tiangong﹣1into space on September 29, 2011, China takes a big step toward its Space Station Era.

    Some West media suggested that the successful launch of Tiangong﹣1 would disturb the balance of global space power, raising concerns about "China threat". China's space project is not designed for military purpose but for developing space technology to explore space resources and make use of them for mankind's well﹣being.

    When I got home after dropping out of college in my junior year because of depression, I didn't want to get out of bed. But my parents wanted me to, so I just transferred myself to the couch in the living room. Sometimes I would turn on the TV and watch marathons of Chopped, but mostly I just sat there, lost in thought.

    One day when I was lying on the couch, not knowing what to do, I wondered since I had been out of school for a long time, I might as well do something productive with my life. I looked at my options. I could attend some kind of online college class, go to in-person events just to get out of the house, or take up a hobby. But none of these things made me happy, and my depression seemed to keep me drowning under the waves.

    There was something that was my thing—entrepreneurship. No matter what kind of day I'm having now, the mere mention of start-ups still perks me up. I have been starting business in some kinds of forms ever since I was a kid, and despite everything, this passion has never changed.

    So I started thinking of ideas, seeing which one could become practical business. I spent my days glued to a wide purple notebook, a pen in hand, sometimes moving from the couch to the table on our back porch in the mornings. If I got up early enough, I'd watch the sun come up. It was there, in the still mornings, that I learned about life and started to look back on mine.

    With time going on, the depression started to lift. I was making more progress in my recovery, and the good days were more frequent than the bad. I started a couple of different businesses, eventually settling on a web design business, and did a lot of experiments and changed my ideas, and after a while, things started to work.