Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
Tags: #psychology #self-help #success #achievement #motivation #education #parenting
Authors: Angela Duckworth
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Overview
In “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance,” I, Angela Duckworth, make the case that talent alone is not enough to achieve success in life. Drawing upon years of research in psychology, including my work with cadets at West Point, salespeople, National Spelling Bee finalists, and many others, I reveal that grit – a combination of passion and perseverance for long-term goals – is a much stronger predictor of success than talent, IQ, or any other commonly measured metric. I explain how grit develops, and through real-life examples and insights from top performers across various domains, I offer practical strategies for cultivating grit in ourselves, our children, and the organizations we lead. This book is for anyone seeking to understand what truly drives achievement and how to develop the resilience and determination needed to reach their full potential. In a world obsessed with the myth of natural talent, I offer a powerful message of hope: grit can be learned, and anyone, regardless of their background or abilities, can cultivate the grit needed to succeed.
Book Outline
1. SHOWING UP
Through my research at West Point, in sales, and with National Spelling Bee participants, I discovered that talent alone doesn’t guarantee achievement. Instead, grit – a combination of passion and perseverance for long-term goals – is a much stronger predictor of success. This is because effort not only builds skill, but it also makes skill productive.
Key concept: “Our potential is one thing. What we do with it is quite another.”
2. DISTRACTED BY TALENT
We have a natural bias towards those who demonstrate “natural talent.” However, this often leads us to overlook the importance of effort and hard work. Overemphasizing talent can obscure the critical role of perseverance in achieving long-term goals. We need to celebrate “strivers” just as much as “naturals.”
Key concept: Naturalness Bias
3. EFFORT COUNTS TWICE
Effort counts twice: not only is it needed to develop skill from talent, but it’s also required to make that skill productive and lead to real-world achievement. Talent without effort is unrealized potential. Skill without effort is unrealized achievement.
Key concept: Talent x Effort = Skill Skill x Effort = Achievement
4. HOW GRITTY ARE YOU?
It’s important to be able to measure grit, and I’ve developed a scale to assess an individual’s level of passion and perseverance for long-term goals. Use the provided scale to self-assess and reflect upon your own level of grit.
Key concept: Grit Scale
5. GRIT GROWS
While talent is often seen as innate, grit is a quality that can be developed over time. Just as societal changes have led to increases in IQ scores over generations (the Flynn Effect), there’s evidence to suggest that grit may be influenced by cultural factors and personal development, meaning that grit can grow as we mature and learn from experiences.
Key concept: Reverse Flynn Effect
6. INTEREST
Discovering your passion is rarely a sudden epiphany, it’s more like finding and calibrating a compass. It takes time and exploration to figure out your interests, and even longer to develop them. Introspection alone is not enough, you need to actively experiment and engage with the world to find what truly captures your attention and what you want to contribute to.
Key concept: Passion is a compass.
7. PRACTICE
Once you’ve discovered an interest, developing it requires deliberate practice. This means setting stretch goals, focusing with full concentration, seeking immediate and informative feedback, and then reflecting, refining, and repeating this process again and again. Deliberate practice is hard work, and it might not always feel enjoyable, but it is the most effective path to mastery.
Key concept: Deliberate Practice
8. PURPOSE
Purpose is essential for turning passion into a lifelong commitment. While some people are intrinsically drawn to helping others, for most, a sense of purpose emerges later, after years of developing interest and skill. The key is to see your work as both personally satisfying and as making a meaningful contribution to the world beyond yourself.
Key concept: Purpose means “the intention to contribute to the well-being of others.”
9. HOPE
Hope, in the context of grit, is about the expectation that our own efforts can improve our future. It’s about getting up again and again after setbacks, believing that you have the power to make things better. This is distinct from the more passive hope that simply wishes for a better tomorrow without taking action.
Key concept: Fall seven, rise eight.
10. PARENTING FOR GRIT
Parents can foster grit in their children by encouraging them to pursue “hard things” - activities that require deliberate practice, stretch their abilities, and foster a sense of purpose. It’s important to let children choose their own “hard thing” based on their interests, provide support and guidance, and instill the value of perseverance.
Key concept: Hard Thing Rule
11. THE PLAYING FIELDS OF GRIT
Extracurricular activities provide ideal “playing fields” for grit. They offer a structured environment with supportive and demanding adults, allowing kids to develop interests, practice skills, experience flow, and learn that hard work leads to reward, a concept I call “learned industriousness.”
Key concept: Learned Industriousness
12. A CULTURE OF GRIT
Cultures, whether they exist within organizations or societies, shape individual grit. Gritty cultures emphasize effort, improvement, and purpose. Leaders, like coaches or CEOs, can cultivate a culture of grit by modeling those values, celebrating those who exemplify them, and setting clear expectations and standards.
Key concept: Culture
13. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, talent alone is not enough. While there are limits to what each of us can achieve, we often self-impose those limits by giving up too early or changing directions too frequently. Grit allows us to push those boundaries, to persist through hardship, and to ultimately live up to our full potential. In essence, grit is the key to becoming the best version of ourselves.
Key concept: Genius as working toward excellence, ceaselessly, with every element of your being…
Essential Questions
1. What is grit and why is it important for success?
Grit is a combination of passion and perseverance for long-term goals. It is the sustained and focused effort we apply towards things that matter to us over extended periods. Grit is about having a compass that guides our actions towards a top-level goal and the stamina to stay the course despite setbacks and distractions.
2. What is the relationship between talent, effort, skill, and achievement?
Talent is often mistaken for achievement. While talent is the rate at which our skills improve with effort, achievement is what happens when we use those skills productively. Effort counts twice: once to develop skill from talent and again to turn that skill into real-world accomplishment.
3. How can we discover and develop a passion that fuels our grit?
Passion can be fostered by actively exploring different interests and allowing yourself to become captivated by a particular area or domain. It’s a process of discovery and development, not a sudden epiphany. As interests deepen, they can become more nuanced and provide a lifetime of learning and engagement.
4. How does purpose contribute to the development of grit?
Purpose, the intention to contribute to the well-being of others, is a powerful source of grit. It adds meaning to our efforts and connects our work to something larger than ourselves. While it might seem like pursuing our own goals is inherently selfish, I’ve found that, in fact, gritty people are often deeply driven by a desire to make the world a better place.
5. How does hope, the ability to bounce back from adversity, play a role in grit?
Hope, in the context of grit, is about having the expectation that our own efforts can improve our future. It’s about getting up again and again after setbacks, believing that we have the power to make things better. By cultivating a growth mindset, practicing optimistic self-talk, and asking for support when we need it, we can learn to be more hopeful.
Key Takeaways
1. Talent is not enough, effort counts twice.
This takeaway highlights the importance of focusing on the long-term development of skills and applying those skills to produce meaningful results. Talent is the starting point, but effort is the engine that drives achievement.
Practical Application:
In AI, talent alone won’t lead to groundbreaking innovations. It’s the consistent effort, the ability to iterate on algorithms, learn from failures, and persevere through challenging problems that leads to significant breakthroughs. As AI product engineers, we need to champion the “strivers” who demonstrate grit and create cultures that value and reward perseverance.
2. Passion is not a sudden discovery, but a process of development.
This takeaway emphasizes the importance of active engagement and continuous improvement in developing a passion. It highlights that passion is not a fixed state but a dynamic process of exploration and growth.
Practical Application:
In AI product design, it’s crucial to involve users early and often in the development process. This allows for continuous feedback and iterative improvements based on user needs and preferences. Rather than relying solely on theoretical models, prioritize real-world testing and user feedback to refine and improve AI products.
3. Purpose fuels grit by connecting our efforts to the well-being of others.
This takeaway emphasizes the importance of connecting our work to something larger than ourselves. It suggests that by finding meaning and purpose in our efforts, we are more likely to persevere and make a lasting impact.
Practical Application:
AI product engineers can cultivate a sense of purpose by focusing on developing AI solutions that address real-world problems and improve people’s lives. By highlighting the positive impact of their work on individuals, communities, or society as a whole, AI engineers can feel a greater sense of meaning and motivation.
4. Hope, in the context of grit, is the expectation that our efforts can improve our future.
This takeaway emphasizes that setbacks and failures are inevitable, but how we interpret them determines whether they defeat us or make us stronger. A growth mindset, combined with optimistic self-talk, empowers us to bounce back from adversity.
Practical Application:
In the face of setbacks, AI product engineers with a growth mindset will see them as opportunities for learning and improvement. Instead of giving up or becoming discouraged, they will analyze what went wrong, adjust their approach, and try again, knowing that failure is a necessary part of the learning process.
5. Gritty cultures amplify the grit of individuals.
This takeaway emphasizes the power of culture in shaping individual behavior. It suggests that surrounding ourselves with gritty people and building environments that value effort and perseverance can positively influence our own grit.
Practical Application:
Companies developing AI can foster a culture of grit by promoting continuous learning, encouraging deliberate practice, celebrating those who exemplify grit, and rewarding perseverance and long-term commitment to challenging projects. This can be achieved through mentorship programs, internal knowledge sharing, recognition for sustained effort, and tolerance for productive failure.
Suggested Deep Dive
Chapter: Chapter 7: PRACTICE
This chapter provides the most practical guidance on how to develop grit through deliberate practice, a concept that could be valuable for AI product engineers aiming to improve their skills and achieve mastery in their field.
Memorable Quotes
Chapter 1. 14
“Our potential is one thing. What we do with it is quite another.”
Chapter 2. 30
“In the most general sense, talent is the sum of a person’s abilities—his or her intrinsic gifts, skills, knowledge, experience, intelligence, judgment, attitude, character, and drive. It also includes his or her ability to learn and grow.”
Chapter 3. 42
“With everything perfect, we do not ask how it came to be. Instead, “we rejoice in the present fact as though it came out of the ground by magic.”
Chapter 6. 62
“Pitching . . . determines what I eat, when I go to bed, what I do when I’m awake. It determines how I spend my life when I’m not pitching.”
Chapter 12. 245
“If you want to create a great culture, you have to have a collection of core values that everyone lives.”
Comparative Analysis
While “Grit” shares common ground with other books on success and achievement, it offers a unique perspective by emphasizing the importance of passion and perseverance over innate talent. Unlike books that focus solely on talent or mindset, like “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell or “Mindset” by Carol Dweck, “Grit” delves deeply into the development and cultivation of grit, providing a more actionable framework for personal growth. It also distinguishes itself from works like “Drive” by Daniel Pink, which focuses on motivation, by highlighting the sustained, long-term effort required to achieve mastery in any field. In essence, “Grit” offers a more nuanced and practical approach to understanding and achieving success, emphasizing the power of deliberate practice and purposeful effort.
Reflection
While “Grit” presents a compelling argument for the importance of passion and perseverance, it’s important to acknowledge its limitations. The book primarily focuses on individual achievement, leaving less room for discussion on the role of societal factors, systemic inequalities, or sheer luck in shaping life outcomes. Further, while I present evidence that grit can be cultivated, more research is needed to understand the long-term effectiveness of the strategies I propose. Skeptics might argue that passion and perseverance are merely byproducts of privilege or that grit alone cannot overcome systemic barriers to success. However, despite these limitations, “Grit” offers a valuable and timely contribution to our understanding of achievement, providing a practical and optimistic framework for individual growth and empowerment. In an increasingly complex and demanding world, I believe that cultivating grit is more important than ever. By embracing the power of passion and perseverance, we can not only achieve greater success but also lead more meaningful and fulfilling lives.
Flashcards
What is grit?
A combination of passion and perseverance for long-term goals.
Why does “effort count twice?”
Effort is needed to develop skill from talent, and effort is needed to make that skill productive.
What are the four components of deliberate practice?
Setting a stretch goal, full concentration, immediate and informative feedback, and repetition with reflection and refinement.
What is a growth mindset?
The belief that our abilities are not fixed, but can be developed through effort and learning.
How is purpose defined in “Grit”?
The intention to contribute to the well-being of others.
What are mastery experiences and why are they important?
Experiences in which individuals face challenges and, through their own efforts, successfully overcome them. This helps to build resilience and a sense of control.
What are the “playing fields of grit”?
Extracurricular activities can provide a fertile ground for grit development as they offer structure, challenge, support, and purpose. They are a good way for kids to practice grit.
What are gritty cultures?
Cultures that emphasize effort, improvement, and purpose. They provide role models, support, and expectations that encourage grit.