Your reactions to the research findings on brain plasticity…
Your reactions to the research findings on brain plasticity and the malleability of behavior in this book depend importantly on your own beliefs about how much people can really control and change what they become.
— from The Mind in the Cockpit
In the book
Confucius said it in seven words — the man who believes he can, and the man who believes he can't, are both right — and the most powerful single word you can add to "I can't do this" is the word yet. The old idea that willpower or ability is simply an inborn trait you either have or don't is, the research now shows, plainly false; the brain itself is plastic, and behavior is far more malleable than we were ever taught. But beliefs are tricky instruments, because you cannot simply will one into existence — you cannot decide to believe something the way you decide to raise your hand — and worse, anything you merely imagine often enough, left unchallenged, quietly hardens into a belief you mistake for fact. — The Mind in the Cockpit