Grit
Table of contents
Chapter 1: Showing Up
grit
- combination of perseverance and passion
- opposite of complacent
- grittier means more likely to have higher education, more likely to be successful
Chapter 2: Distracted by Talent
talent is not all there is to achievement
talent vs achievement
aptitude does not guarantee achievement (17)
- talent is not destiny
francis galton
- half cousin to Charles Darwin
- studied why people succeed and others fail
- was a wunderkind, at 4 could read and write, at 6 knew Latin and could recite passages from Shakespeare from memory
- thought successful were remarkable in three ways: demonstrate unusual “ability” in combination with exceptional “zeal” and “the capacity for hard labor”
naturalness bias
- which is more important to success, talent or effort? many people report effort, but history belies that: we love the natural.
a hidden prejudice against those who’ve achieved what they have because they worked for it, and a hidden preference for those whom we think arrived at their place in life because they’re naturally talented (25)
- manifests in the natural vs. striver phenomenon
william james
- Harvard psychologist, wrote The Energies of Men about how people differ in their pursuit of goals
- declared there is a gap between potential and its actualization
- “The plain fact remains that men the world over possess amounts of resource, which only very exceptional individuals push to their extremes of use”
the war for talent
- older book, basic premise that companies in the modern enconomy rise and fall depending on their ability to attract and retain “A players”
- companies that excel aggressively promote the most talented employees and get rid of the least talented
- this “talent mindset” led directly to Enron and Jeff Skilling
the biggest reason a preoccupation with talent can be harmful is simple: By shining a spotlight on talent, we risk leaving everything else in the shadows. We inadvertently send the message that these other factors – including grit, don’t matter as much as they really do (31)
Chapter 3: Effort Counts Twice
the mundanity of excellence
- the most dazzling human achievements are the aggregate of countless individual elements, each of which are ordinary
[…] when we can’t easily see how experience and training got someone to a level of excellence that is so clearly beyond the norm, we default to labeling that person “a natural”. (37)
Greatness is many, many individual feats, and each of them is doable. (38)
mythologizing of talent
- we prefer our excellence fully formed, mystery to mundanity
- Nietzsche has plenty to say on the topic: “For if we think of genius as something magical, we are not obliged to compare ourselves and find ourselves lacking … To call someone ‘divine’ means: ‘here there is no need to compete’”
theory of achievement
talent * effort = skillskill * effort = achievement- theory is incomplete since it is missing luck, but is still useful
- effort counts twice
treadmill test
- 1940s Harvard test to gauge “stamina and strength of will” and extent which “a subject is willing to push himself or has a tendency to quite before the punishment becomes too severe”
- researchers followed up every two years, and run time was reliable indicator of psychological adjustment through life, even after accounting for physical fitness
- treadmill is apt metaphor for grit, although Duckworth might add another parameter to test, which is to invite subject back next day to see if they could beat their previous score. Those returning would be grittier.
consistency of effort over the long run is everything. (50)
Chapter 4: How Gritty Are You?
grit is more about stamina than intensity
grit scale
- invented by Duckworth to test how passionately you pursue goals and how much you persevere
- passion here isn’t emotional, it is consistency over time
- scale from 1.0 to 5.0, 5.0 being most gritty
Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare. (58)
- sample statements:
- I am a hard worker
- Setbacks don’t discourage me. I don’t give up easily.
- My interests change from year to year.
goal hierarchy
- life philosophy
- lower level goals lead to mid level goals, which all leads to a top level goal which is the abiding goal in your life
The top-level goal is not a means to any other end. It is, instead, an end in itself. (63)
- good not to have too many top level goals, probably best to have one professional one
- positive fantasizing, or indulging in positive visions of a future without thinking about how to get there has long-term ramifications but feels good in the moment
- handling goal conflicts is an important part of goal hierarchies – how do you juggle lower level goals that conflict with two separate high-level goals?
warren buffet career goal prioritization
- buffet has a task for career goal prioritization
- write a list of 25 career goals
- circle the 5 highest-priority
- avoid the 20 goals at all costs
- while this is absolutist, it highlights the fact that time and energy is limited, so what we decide not to do is as important as what we decide to do
Chapter 5: Grit Grows
genes vs experience
First, grit, talent, and all other psychological traits relevant to success in life are influenced by genes and also by experience. Second: there’s no single gene for grit, or indeed any other psychological trait. (82)
flynn effect
- startling gains in IQ over the past century – over 15 points in average gains over the last 50 years
- means that IQs change, both over time and individually
- the social multiplier effect - virtuous cycle of skill improvement from being surrounded by those who are just a little better (think NBA and TV, kids mimicking their favorite stars on the television)
grit growth: the maturity principle
- maturity principle - we develop the capacity for long-term passion and perseverance as we get older. Most of us become more conscientious, confident, caring, and calm with life experience. We also change as we need to.
Over time, we learn life lessons we don’t forget, and we adapt in response to the growing demands of our circumstances. Eventually, new ways of thinking and acting become habitual. There comes a day when we can hardly remember our immature former selves. We’ve adapted, those adaptations have become durable, and, finally, our identity – the sort of person we see ourselves to be – has evolved. We’ve matured. (89)
psychological aspects of grit
- interest - passion begins with enjoying what you do
- practice - to be gritty is to resist complacency, to work daily at mastery
- purpose - conviction that your work matters
- hope - rising-to-the-occasion type of perseverance
Chapter 6: Interest
following your passion
- people are more satisfied with their jobs when it fits their personal interest
- people perform better when what they do interests them
- there are, however very real constraints on choices we have to earn a living, so we should foster our passion instead
psychology of interest
- there is a unrealistic mythology that falling in love with career should be sudden and swift
- there is a lot we don’t know about psychology of interest, but it is typically made up of discovery, followed by development, then deepening.
- childhood is far too early to know what we want to be when we grow up
- interests are not discovered through introspection but by doing
- what follows a period of discovery is a much lengthier and increasingly proactive period of interest development
- all experts start as unserious beginners
For the beginner, novelty is anything that hasn’t been encountered before. For the expert, novelty is nuance. (114)
Chapter 7: Practice
Some people get twenty years experience, while others get one year of experience twenty times in a row.
continuous improvement
- Japanese concept of kaizen or continuous improvement, a way to resist the plateau of arrested development
- important to spend not just more time on a task, but better time on a task
- Anders Ericsson and his studies on the concept of deliberate practice – where we get this 10,000 hours idea for mastery
- experts hungrily seek feedback, concentrating on what they did wrong and reflecting on that, until conscious incompetence becomes unconscious competence
- deliberate practice is more effortful and less enjoyable
flow
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (cheeks-sent-me-high) and his state of flow, which is signature state of experts
- unthinking mastery, working right at the edge of skill level
flow vs practice
Gritty people do more deliberate practice and experience more flow. First, deliberate practice is a behavior, and experience more flow. […] Second, you don’t have to be doing deliberate practice and experiencing flow at the same time. (131)
- deliberate practice is for preparation, flow is for performance.
getting the most out of deliberate practice
- know the science - clearly defined stretch goal, full concentration and effort, immediate and informative feedback, repetition with reflection and refinement
- make it a habit - schedule it at same time every day, and stick to it
- change the way you experience it - no pain, no gain
Chapter 8: Purpose
direction of purpose
- efforts pay dividends to other people, other-directed
ways to be happy
- Aristotle - two ways of being happy:
- eudaimonic - in harmony with one’s good (eu) inner spirit (daemon)
- hedonic - aimed at positive, in the moment, selfish experiences (pleasure principle)
- humans are fundamentally social, and people who cooperate are more likely to survive than loners, so we’ve built all this apparatus on being part of the group
most gritty people see their ultimate aims as deeply connected to the world beyond themselves (148)
story of the bricklayers
- 3 bricklayers building a church, when asked what they were doing, first one says laying bricks, second says building a building, third says building a cathedral for God.
cultivating purpose
- recommendations for cultivating purpose:
- reflecting on how the work you’re already doing can make a positive contribution to society
- thinking about how, in small but meaningful ways, you can change you current work to enhance its connection to your core values (job crafting)
- finding inspiration in a purposeful role model
Chapter 9: Hope
Fall seven, rise eight
learned helplessness
- study of dogs and shocks, and whether or not the dogs could do something to stop the shocks affected a later experiment on whether they tried to do something to resist the shocks in a different context
- its the suffering you think you can’t control that builds learned helplessness
- relatively new idea that people have thoughts that influence their behavior
- analog is learned optimism
- interesting for children in poverty, not getting enough mastery experiences
optimism vs pessimism
optimists habitually search for temporary and specific causes of their suffering, whereas pessimists assume permanent and pervasive causes are to blame (174)
- how we think about reasons for poor performance (I mismanaged my time vs I am awful at my job)
cognitive behavioral therapy
- the same objective event can lead to very different subjective interpretations
- therapy aims to treat depression and other psychological maladies by helping patients think more objectively and behave in healthier ways
When you keep searching for ways to change your situation for the better, you stand a chance of finding them. (178)
growth vs fixed mindset
- growth mindset - it’s possible to get smarter if you’re given the right opportunities and support and if you try hard enough and believe you can do it
- fixed mindset - you can learn new skills, but your capacity to learn skills (your talent) can’t be trained
Most people have an inner fixed-mindset pessimist in them right alongside their inner growth-mindset optimist. Recognizing this is important because it’s easy to make the mistake of changing what we say without changing our body language, facial expressions, and behavior. (184)
cultivating hope
- update your beliefs about talent and intelligence - for example, IQs might not be entirely fixed
- practice optimistic self-talk
- ask for a helping hand
Chapter 10: Parenting for Grit
[t]here’s no either/or trade-off between supportive parenting and demanding parenting.
parenting styles
Chapter 11: The Playing Fields of Grit
corresponsive principle
- coined by Brent Roberts
the situations to which people gravitate tend to enhance the very characteristics that brought them there in the first place. (233)
Book Notes
Why I read this book
I heard Angela Duckworth on a podcast about goal hierarchies with Stephen Dubner, and she was fantastically clever and well-spoken.
One key takeaway
Grit is a huge component of success and is comprised of passion and perseverance.
How was the book
There’s a lot to this book that you might have read before. 10,000 hours to mastery, deliberate practice, passion/drive for what you do, flow, etc. – these are at this point the bread and butter of the intersection of business and self-help. What carries the book, however, is Duckworth’s approachable style and her clearly lived experience of the precepts of this book. She practices what she preaches. If you’ve heard Duckworth’s 6 minute TED talk on grit, there might not be anything else you might glean from this book other than the author has an abiding and compassionate view of her subject matter, an almost exhaustive scientific approach to all things in her life, but that is selling this book generally short. Duckworth has compellingly fresh takes on old ideas – for instance, the way she employs her research and ideas in the parenting of her children, is honest and open. She describes a household rule she has called “The Hard Thing Rule”, where 1) everyone has to do a hard thing 2) you can quit, but only at a natural stopping point 3) you get to pick your hard thing, and while Duckworth uses it with her children as a way to cultivate grit, you could easily apply it to your own life to build mastery.
The book isn’t heavy reading, and you could put it away in a few days. If those concepts I mentioned earlier are new to you, or you generally like a Gladwellian romp through psychology by a real honest to goodness psychologist, this is well worth your time. Duckworth is infectiously smart and crafts a wonderful narrative.
Any other reading
- Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, by _Mason Currey, 2019.