What Grit Really Teaches Us About Happiness with Professor Angela Duckworth

20:06Angela Duckworth:Well, let me ask you this business question because I am a professor at a business school. I don't have decades of experience myself as a leader. So let me just ask you this. If you have a large company and you are at the head or in the executive leadership, how does this work? right? Because you're taking us back to the time where there were like 150 people living in a group. It's more clear to me what I do to show you in word and in deed that I do care about you, even though you are a lower ranking person in the hierarchy. So what does this mean when you have like a global conglomerate of like five or 10 ,000 people or more?

20:49So super simple. We see it all the time, unfortunately, at the end of every financial year, especially in the public markets, but not exclusively. We're seeing it in the private markets too, because the amount of VC in business today basically is making lots of private companies operate like private companies, which is they care more about their investors and their shareholders than they do about their employees or their customers, right?

21:08Angela Duckworth:And their quarterly performance. The whole idea that you're better off as a private company is not necessarily even true anymore. But we see it all the time, which is the company missed its projections. These projections were arbitrary. They made up numbers of what goals we could hit and they missed them. They're still profitable. They're just not as profitable as they promised. And so to make the numbers work, they send you home and you can tell your spouse you no longer have a job because the company missed its arbitrary projections. Because if I hit the projections, I get my bonus because my bonus is based on the price of the equity, right?

21:38So we see it all the time versus a company saying we missed our numbers and that's it. We missed our numbers. And so the shareholders will be pissed off, but that's okay. Don't worry about it. Let's learn our lessons and figure it out next time and protect the people. I saw it happen even in one of my favorite examples, Barry Waymiller, Bob Chapman, the CEO of Barry Waymiller. And in 2008, they lost 30 % of their orders and their company was, I mean, like if they, the expenses that they had, that if they continued down that path, it would have been very, very, very damaging to the company. And the board was like, we need layoffs.

22:12We have to do layoffs. That is the prudent thing to do. And Bob absolutely refused. And what they ended up doing was implementing a furlough program that every employee had to take. I can't remember what it was, two weeks or three weeks. I can't remember what it was, four weeks vacation. They didn't have to take it consecutively. They could take it whenever they wanted. But Bob announced the program and he said, better we should all suffer a little than anyone should have to suffer a lot. And no one lost their jobs. And something that was not a part of the program, but happened organically, which is the team started looking after each other.

22:43So people who could afford to take off more time would do so so that people who couldn't afford to take off any time didn't have to take off any. And this is the point, which is when leadership expressed care about the people, the people took care of each other as opposed to stabbing each other back because I got to protect numero uno. I got to protect myself.

23:03Angela Duckworth:Right. Right. Right. Like you turn it from a zero sum game into, right, like a collective. And all these years later, people still talk about that and talk about their love and loyalty to the company from that time. You know, I think there's another company. I don't know that they had the same crisis, but like one of my favorite companies is Wegmans. You know, the supermarket chain. Do you have a Wegmans near you? I don't, but I've been. Going to Wegmans, don't you think it's like a magical experience? I just think it's so fun. It's like people are nice. They'll like help you. Trader Joe's is like that too.

23:38Angela Duckworth:And Trader Joe's, yes. Wegmans and Trader Joe's. I knew an executive in the food industry. And he was like, by the way, if you want to talk about like cold chain management and these things that like nobody really thinks about, but actually you should know that like it influences the quality of your foods. Like they were like Wegmans and Trader Joe's, like best in the business. But on culture, I think they have a policy. I mean, they're very successful supermarket. And so I don't think they have a lot of closures, but you know, like every company, they take risks, you know, like whatever, they're going to start a cafe and like maybe the cafe idea takes off, maybe they shouldn't have cafes.

24:11Angela Duckworth:I think they have a general corporate policy that if a store doesn't work out or if an idea doesn't work out, that you have a job, you've been able to open invitation and maybe you don't have like infinite latitude about what those choices are. But I think it builds tremendous loyalty. But when I learned about its culture, it made me think of, do you know this anthropologist, since you like anthropology, named Alan Fisk at UCLA. I don't know. Like, this is very Simon Sinek. I think you'll appreciate this theory that he developed for understanding human relationships. So he said, you know, we have different kinds of relationships with other people and they're categorically different and they have like different math to it, like different logic.

24:54Angela Duckworth:So one kind you already mentioned, which is hierarchy, right? We are a primate species. And so I know what it means to be a follower. I know what it means to be a leader. I know what it means to be a manager. I know it means to be a subordinate. And those have rules, you know, like, for example, when the manager says to do something, the employee tends to do it. There's another kind of relationship, which is like a contractual relationship or matching relationship. So it's like, I agree by the rules of the society to give you$10 for the stated price of this pizza, and you are going to give me a pizza in return.

25:26Angela Duckworth:And it's tip for tat. And, you know, we agree on prices and you know, that's it. And the third kind of relationship is a communal relationship where you're, you're sort of part of the same organism. So now instead of like taking orders from you because you are my manager or because, um, you know, you paid me a certain amount and in return, I promised you a certain service in return, a communal relationship, which it's almost like, you know, the elbow to the wrist of the hand, to the foot, like you're part of an organism. And the analogy I think he has used is like, if you come down in the morning to the kitchen and you open the refrigerator and you pour a glass of milk, you're not recording on a little pad that you like took eight ounces of milk and you owe the family eight ounces and you'll try not to drink too much milk in the next week to balance it out.

26:12Angela Duckworth:Nobody thinks about that, right? Because you're in a family and the milk when it's gone, somebody has to go buy the milk, but that's pretty much it. And I think that that bears on like what we're talking about, because yes, we are hierarchical and we're primates. But I think the best leaders understand, at least at some tacit level, that in some ways you're in all three relationships with the people who work for you, right? Yes, you're the boss. Also, you have made contractual obligations that you will honor and are explicit. But thirdly, I do think that that's the best feeling in the world, to feel that you are part of an organism and you're going to do your part and then other people are going to do other parts, but you're not really individuals like first and foremost.

26:54Look, you've had contracts with people and everybody knows that the best contracts are when you sign it and then you never refer back to it.

27:01Angela Duckworth:Yeah. You probably don't even know what it says. And everybody just gets the work done and nobody's actually checking if you're doing more or less and nobody's actually worried because it's working fine. I don't know what my contract says with my employer, right? Like University of Pennsylvania. Did I even sign one? A relationship has gone sour when you pull out the contract and you start referring to the terms. When you're reviewing the prenup, it's not a good relationship. And so even though the contract, like an employment agreement or minimum standards or whatever it is, it's really important for mutual protections at the beginning.

27:31But once that deal is signed and you shake hands and say, we both agree to these broad terms, it gets put aside. And this is why one's like, well, you're contracted to work 40 hours a week, you know, but we're in a group project. I mean, Like, for example, I'll tell you what we do, right? So, and it's not because it's written down. It's not a company policy. It's not a promise. It's just what we do. If somebody works on a Saturday, like we have a huge project and somebody, whether they're asked to or not, but they work on a Saturday, somebody will say to them, hey, listen, thanks so much for working this Saturday.

28:07Why don't you take any day off your week? Use your responsible freedom to pick the right day. You know, we advise you about Friday or Monday because it'll work out better for you. but like take off, we owe you a day. Like we took one of your personal days. So we owe you one of our days.

28:22Angela Duckworth:Yeah, yeah. Again, it's not written down. It's not a corporate policy. It's just like, that's the right thing to do. And so the point is, is we don't pull out the contract and say, well, we're entitled to six weekends a year. You know, nobody cares. We're just thinking about each other. And I actually just, you know, pivot real quick. I, you know, if you go back to your family analogy, you know, mom and dad are the leaders. of that company. And when the milk has run out, it's mom, dad, we need more milk. There's no milk. And so there's the expectation that the leaders will provide and we're not counting all the things, but let's just get the work done.

29:04And there's the expectation that the kids will support. And you know the data better than I do, which is kids who are raised with chores tend to be happier as adults.

29:17Angela Duckworth:Yeah, I totally wanted to do a chores random assignment study. Like when my daughters who are now 24 and 22, like we looked up when is it legal to work in Philadelphia and the state of Pennsylvania. And my husband and I were like, the day you get your working papers, like you're getting a job. Yeah. We were like of mixed success and get, yes, they had chores. I think we were, you know, not as, but we knew that having a boss was like a good thing but i wonder if you know the malaise slash on we of gen z which which is really documented i mean two french words there in the same sentence you know because it's the language of feeling i love i love my word on we but those are like uh just let's be clear just so that people who know what we're talking about like because i on we and i always forget the definition but on we is kind of like meh okay i think on we has a sort of like existential um vibe and i recently did a google scholar search because you know in addition to google i use google scholar to look up anything and there are you know remarkably few articles written on the psychology uh or any other aspect of on we but i think it's a great word again no direct english but it's kind of like spiritually restless you're feeling a little empty i mean i think like what's it all for What's it all for?

30:37Angela Duckworth:And what am I doing? From a philosophical, like an essential standpoint, not life. All of the above, I think. All of the above. I think it's also something that people feel about themselves. It's not necessarily just a comment on the state of the world. And as you can tell from this description, it's not something that people like feeling. And I've been thinking about these, say, 18 to 28-year-olds, which is, as you know, the lower and upper bound of being a Gen Z adult. Um, and when I look at the data on how unhappy they are, it is really, I mean, I have to say as a social scientist, it is rare to be shocked by data.

31:15Angela Duckworth:When you look at the data on Gen Z adults and how they're feeling, how lonely they are, how depressed they are, how anxious they are, the number of days out of the last 30 where they would say like every day was a bad day. It's really amazing how unwell they are in that sense. And I mean, everyone points to phones and to social media. I don't think it's a complete explanation, I think. I mean, Viktor Frankl pointed out the existential crisis that he both saw and predicted for the United States when he came to visit in the mid-20th century. So I think it's not uniquely a social media phenomenon because that predates social media.

31:54Angela Duckworth:And I'm not saying that phones and screens don't have anything to do with it. But I just wondered, you know, Simon, as somebody who thinks about these things, like, what the heck do you think is going on? Yeah, I think there's two very, very simple answers. And social media and cell phones are not the cause, but they do absolutely exaggerate the problem. And it's not feeling a part of a community, not feeling a part of something bigger myself, no sense of belonging. and few, if any, deep, meaningful relationships. And those are not the same thing. You're saying like - Not the same thing. Not the same thing.

32:27Angela Duckworth:Not the same thing. Yeah, elaborate. A deep, meaningful relationship is a friendship with someone with whom I confide in, that I share my hard days, I celebrate my good days, I want to be there and sit in the mud with them on their bad days, And I want to cheer them on on their good days. Right. Yeah. Fully relaxed. And even young people will admit to me, you know, that they wouldn't be surprised if their friends canceled on them because they got better plans. I've heard people tell me that they like their friends. They have fun with their friends. They enjoy the company with their friends, but they don't deeply trust their friends and wouldn't turn to them in a time of desperate need.

33:13Yeah. So you go to the chat GPTs for advice in hard times and that business model, I was like, oh, we got another live one, you know?

33:22Angela Duckworth:Yeah, yeah. We keep using like drugs and alcohol to talk about the addiction of phones and social media, which is unfair because when you are addicted to drugs or alcohol, the way you can solve that addiction is abstinence. You cease the use of drugs and alcohol. You can't cease the use of social media and your cell phone entirely. And so it's more like an eating disorder, which is you can't stop food to get over your bulimia. You can't stop eating, but you have to learn to have a healthy relationship with food. I would argue that we have to learn to have healthy relationships with the devices, but the priority is the friend.

33:58And how do I have a healthy relationship with the device in order to prioritize my friend? And the act of service, which is it's not about me. And so if I'm struggling with deep, meaningful relationships, instead of worrying about me and how do I get friends, it's how do I help my friends get friends and how do I be the friend that people want? And that actually helps solve the problem. So that's friendship is one problem. The other one is belonging. It's a deep psychological need to feel a part of something bigger than ourselves. I am both me and I am a member of a group every moment of every day.

34:29But the problem is, where's the group? You know, there's no bowling leagues. There's a decline in membership to churches. And where work could provide that sense of belonging and meaning, and just what we just talked about, the problem is, is all the incentive structures at work are not about belonging and meaning. The purpose is a statement on a website, but we don't actually use it to make decisions. It's all about individual performance and money. And there's nothing to do with serving the greater good, using our products or services or our culture to give people a sense that they're contributing to something larger.

35:00You go back to that company, Barry Waymiller, and you walk around their factory. In fact, I did an episode with Bob Chapman and Barry Waymiller where we visited their factory. You can see that these magical human beings feel a part of something bigger than themselves. They work in a factory. And so if that company is able to give people that feeling, then the glamorous products and the glamorous industries have no excuse. And even in America, like as a nation, we've lost that sense of feeling part of something bigger than ourselves. And I will blame every president that has served since the collapse of the Berlin Wall because we got to cheat.

35:38Because when there was an existential threat outside of our own borders, it's like no matter how much our political divisions were, at the end of the day, the threat outside our borders is worse than the threat inside our borders. So it gave us a collective feeling of we're in this together. You know, we saw it after September 11th. You know, Osama bin Laden thought it would divide us. our country, it did the opposite. It brought us together because the existential threat was scarier outside of our borders than inside our borders. And it brings us together. And so I think every president since the collapse of the Berlin Wall has failed to bring, to give us a sense of -

36:11Angela Duckworth:Of unity, of unity and belonging. And that only contributes to, well, if I can't get it at a national level, and I'm not getting it - At my work. I'm not getting it at my work, and I'm not getting it from my church, and I'm not getting - By the way, amongst young people, we're seeing a rise of church membership. Like religious. I just heard that. I just heard that like very recently, right? College students are attending church and worshiping. They're becoming more religious and God-fearing. And you can see it. And if you look on the left or the right side of the aisle, you can see people desperate, especially young people, desperately looking for anything that will help them feel like they're a part of something bigger than themselves.

36:50So on the left, it might be Palestine, Israel, that kind of that thing. On the right, it might be Vax or masks or whatever it was, you know. And those things have all of the feelings of movement and a part of something bigger. And I'm contributing. It has the community and has all of it. But for the fact that all of those things are reactive and temporary, and they aren't something that you would commit your entire life to, and then your kids will pick up the torch where you left off. And you can see one thing will phase out and something else will phase in. But what's interesting to me is not what they're latching onto.

37:25It's that everybody's trying to latch onto something. How do you rally a people to come together around a common cause without waiting for fear to galvanize us? yeah and the this is this is what distinguishes the reactive cause finding that we see uh versus real cause yeah you still need unfortunately you still need a threat and i i'm very uncomfortable with this point of view and i've struggled with it for over a decade which is it is much easier to know what you stand for when you can see the thing that stands in the way of what you stand for, right? Because standing for something is ethereal.

38:08It lives in our imagination where the thing that is against is real and tangible. And the difference between the reactive versus the true cause relationship is this threat that stands in the way of you achieving what you're trying to get is temporary. It is simply an obstacle in the way. And true cause is being able to know what is on the other side of that obstacle that will outlast, it'll have another obstacle and another obstacle, but we are driven by what is on the other side of the wall. We are not driven by breaking down the wall, although we recognize that the wall is an obstacle. And so the Soviet Union stood in the way of us achieving democracy and peace in the world.

38:50And it's not that we were inherently waiting for them to fail. It's just that if they did go away, we still believe in democracy and peace. I believe in a world in which people wake up in the morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do. I see current leadership models left over from the 80s and 90s and the lack of good leadership education as the obstacle standing in the way from me achieving my vision. So I am anti the way Wall Street tells us to run companies. I'm anti the way private investors and venture capitalists tell good CEOs how to run their companies.

39:23I'm anti-ranking yank. I'm anti-mass layoffs. I'm anti those things. But if I got rid of those things, I still have something to believe in.

39:32Angela Duckworth:Right. Right. And so it's not that I'm just anti-corporate. That's too convenient. That's not true. Yeah. But I'm driven by the vision of where to go to. So like you can take a look at both the left and the right and you can play the mental exercise, which is, okay, what if you achieve what you're looking for? Then what? There's no answer. There's no answer because Because it's against something. It's not for something. But not for something. Do you think that's true? I mean, obviously you think it's true. You just said that. I don't know if they would agree that it's true. Ask for any of them to articulate the vision and explain what this is standing in the way of.

40:11Because they talk about the obstacle more than they talk about where they're going. And at the end of the day, true cause, true vision is not exclusively about standing against.

40:26Angela Duckworth:Yeah, it's not about negation of X. It's about the affirmation of Y. It is a service to building something. And the question is, what are you in service to building? Who's your favorite leader? Who are your favorite leaders? Who are the leaders that you think, well, okay, let me give you a counterexample to what I just described. I mean, it's the greatest hits. Give it to me. You know, I think Winston Churchill was pretty great. I think Marshall was... George Marshall? George Marshall. Like the Marshall Plan? Marshall Plan. Yeah. What a remarkable, remarkable vision. Marshall Plan was good. Marshall Plan is pretty good.

40:59I mean, he was Secretary of Defense. He was Secretary of State. And he developed the Marshall Plan after the end of the war. His thinking was like, okay, we've completely flattened Japan. so how do we prevent Japan from rising up again and threatening us again in the future right so we can suppress them and we can overbear them with force and might which probably won't work in the long term it'll work in the short term what if we spend our money rebuild that nation and make them a great trading partner you know I'm a Marshall scholar so I have George Marshall

41:36Angela Duckworth:to thank. Oh, well, there you go. And what a brilliant long-term idea to spend our own money to rebuild our enemies, to turn them into allies. And that's exactly what happened. What about like living today, like 2025, 2026? Yeah. So I told you about Bob Chapman from Barry Wayne Miller. Yeah, he sounds great. Who is absolutely remarkable. And by the way, wasn't born that way. He had to have come to Jesus and recognize that the way he was leading was not the way to lead. And so leaders, the good ones, have conversions, you know? And so it's never too late. So Bob was converted. He used to view people as items on a spreadsheet until he didn't.

42:23I told you about John Burke from Trek Bicycles. I think he's absolutely remarkable.

42:30Angela Duckworth:Yeah. Gary Ridge, who left WD-40 just recently, I think he was one of the good guys. You know, you talk, I mean, if you just look at the companies we love to do business with, you're going to get some clues because people who love to work for their companies, we love to work with them. People who are happy. Yeah. So like, sure, Wegmans, that's on the list. How can it not be? You know, Trader Joe's, how can it not be? Just go and interact with their employees and you'll get a very clear sense of what the leadership environment is like. That's the litmus test. You're like, when I go there, is everybody happy?

43:02Angela Duckworth:Like, you know, wanting to be helpful. And there are companies that I will keep their names out of this who I used to love going to their stores. And now it's just a retail experience. Or worse. Or worse. Or worse. Or worse. Something less than a retail experience. I went to a store recently and I sort of like said semi-jokingly to the guy, like as I was buying something, I was like, any sales today? Yeah. He's like, I'll give you 50 % off. I'm like, say more. You know why he gave me 50 % off? Because he hates his job. Oh, and he's like, I would rather you have the money. He couldn't give a shit.

43:37He's like, screw this place. You can have 50 % off. It wasn't done like, oh my God, here, here, let me give you. It wasn't done like this. Like, you know what? Screw this place. I'll give you 50 % off. It was done out of anger.

43:48Angela Duckworth:Yeah. So much work to be done, Simon Sinek. I know. So much work to be done. Can I ask you one other question? Sure. Because I'm curious about this with your work. So your work and my work has both been on the market for 10 years. And both your language and my language have now been integrated into the vernacular, which is, you know, grit is now a much talked about thing. And people talk about their why, which is a great honor for both of us, right? What about your work has either been completely misinterpreted and or is outdated? Oh, right. Like what have I changed my mind about or what is a misconception?

44:28Because grit is one of those very dangerous things. I'll tell you where the root of the question comes from. Right? Yeah. I see people who are unhappy. I see people who are grinding.

44:39Angela Duckworth:And they're like, I have to grit it out. I've got to grit it out. And like it is either used to force myself to do something I don't want to do and I've lost any joy or it is used as a feedback. Like you need more grit, you know? Yeah. You're hitting on what I think the misconception is. Yeah. So I'm going to answer both these questions. The first is, I mean, I recently reread grit. I give it to my undergraduates to read and I wouldn't give them anything to read that I don't read the same time they do. Yeah. I agree with my past self, Simon. And yeah, growth mindset, check, deliberate practice, check, like, you know, getting to the flow state and being interested in what you do, check.

45:19Angela Duckworth:Like, I stand by what I said. Now to answer your other question, I think it's a huge misconception to think that what gritty people really are, are people who have iron willpower. Yeah. Something about the monosyllabic word grit that makes you think that it's, you know, they're like white knuckling their way to excellence. But as you know, better than most. Yeah. And I think myself included, not just because of what we study for a living, but also because who we are, that nobody becomes great at what they do because they're forcing themselves against their against their will. I mean, there are four things that I think run through the mind of a person who has grit.

45:58Angela Duckworth:This is interesting. This is important. I can do this. I know what to try next. When you have those four sentences, like nobody has to like shove you out of bed in the morning, you know, force you to stay late. You want to. And so the monosyllabic, you know, grit, you know, should I grit or should I quit? I mean, it's not the Nike slogan. I will tell you that. It's not just do it. And look, the great thing is the concept has spread. And I think the part that I try and instill in people is, is the sacrifice worth it? Like, you should lean into your grit if it feels like it's worth it. Which, by the way, is a rational decision.

46:44Angela Duckworth:I know people think that what greedy people do is they do irrational things. No, they do rational things, but the way they tally up the costs and benefits may be different than the way you do. But nobody does irrational things. Nobody does things where the costs outweigh the benefits to them, right? I think some people, to your point, which is when they get it wrong, is they feel they need to prove to themselves or somebody else. I hereby give everybody license and endorsement and even encouragement to quit the things that you hate. There we go. You know, like don't spend another day doing things that you don't really want to do.

47:19Angela Duckworth:And I think everybody, if they introspect and they look in the mirror and they say, like, do I really want to do this? Like, don't worry about like, you know, being a wimp. Like, you probably have a voice in you that does. And if the answer is no, go do something else. Life is short. Yeah. Love. Thank you for that. Thank you for that. That's a great question. I love that question. It speaks to something slightly aside to what we're talking about, but related. And when it goes right back to what we're talking about, about grading, which is I've always believed that grades should be given as ratios, which is the level of accomplishment, your grade, over how many hours you studied.

47:57Right? So you got to - Oh, that's interesting.

47:59Angela Duckworth:So it's like an efficiency rating? So you get an A over a 50 or a B plus over a three. So because what it does is it demonstrates that an A is not necessarily a better grade than a B plus. It depends the kind of person you're looking for. So if you need somebody to hit perfection and you're willing to give them the time to hit it, you hire the A over a 50. But if you need somebody who can grind, if you need somebody who can grind and do pretty well with a lot of pressure, you hire the B plus over the three because the A over the 50 is going to flail in your company. Right? I like this because you're like, not only am I going to radically change the way you think about it, like even the scale, it's not like more is always better.

48:37And it's not that a higher level of accomplishment is better. It tells you different skills and different personalities, right? So I, my whole life, was a B plus over a three guy, right? And I literally would have people be like, I'm smarter than you. I got an A. I'm like, yeah, but your life sucks. You studied 50 hours.

48:57Angela Duckworth:What was your return on investment? like I studied three and I I'm okay with a B plus. Right. Right. Well, I like the ratio. I'm not sure I'm going to change all my grading to it. And I'm not sure I would categorize myself as the same person you were, but you know, there is something about hard workers. Like they have a heuristic, they have a rule, which is like pain is good. You know, like suffering is good. Being tired is good. Not getting enough sleep is good. And all those rules are stupid. Like, no, that's not true. Efficiency is good. Sleep is great. If you can get this task done in five minutes that I thought was going to take you an hour, that's amazing.

49:34Angela Duckworth:But I think there is a kind of masochistic, self-flagellating, like, oh, I know that tired is good. And I've spent a lot of my life that way. I was like, oh, the more tired I go to bed, the better I am doing. And now at the age of 55, I'm like, no, exactly the opposite. it. But I think it took me longer than I would have liked to figure out that efficiency is a thing. And I think it's like, I know that there's always somebody who's going to sell more books, make more money, be better looking, be more charming. So like, I'm not competing against them. Right? I'm competing against me. Do I want the A to make myself feel better?

50:16Sometimes depends what the thing is. And sometimes B plus is great, because I want to go live my life. It comes right It sums up so perfectly the whole conversation we've had and the loneliness, unhappiness of a young generation who has been raised in an environment that overemphasizes individual performance, has been raised in an environment where good leadership is not the norm and they're all one degree away from either their parents having been laid off or their friends' parents having been laid off through no fault of their own. it was not a meritocracy. They've been raised in a world in which they've seen only bad leadership in jobs, you know, where the company would sooner sacrifice the people than its own money, or the CEO's executive pay package over the people's pay packages, right?

51:04We see this over and over again, and it's no wonder why they're cynical, they don't trust companies, they offer no loyalty, and they're unhappy. I would be too. And the solution that we're asking is be the friend you wish you had. Be the leader you wish you had. Because in every example that you and I have been talking about, about the highest performing teams, the happiest people, the healthiest people, it's not about grit. It's not about individual performance. It's not about me before we. In every single circumstance, it's a commitment to the greater good. It's a commitment to serve. It's a commitment to the people to the left of me and the people to the right of me.

51:38And the great irony is, when we do that, we're happier, we're healthier, we feel more connected, and the performance of the organization, regardless of which organization we're working for, thrives.

51:52Angela Duckworth:I literally could not agree more, and I couldn't agree more that that is not the general direction of where society is going. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. You think that society is Yes, it is. And I can prove it. Of like selflessness, of belonging. I have empirical evidence. You and I have careers. You and I should not have careers. There should be no demand for our work. We talk about trust. We talk about cooperation. And there should be no demand for our work. But the fact that people are interested in the things that we're putting in the world, that are some of the guidance that we can help offer towards getting to that ideal that we imagine, proves that people are hungry for this.

52:37I would not have a career in the 80s or 90s. They would have left.

52:40Angela Duckworth:Okay, but it also proves that they have a yearning. So let's see. Okay, in five years, right? That's the optimist in me, which is if people want it. Yeah. I agree. People want it and then maybe we'll get it. I agree. The fact that there's demand is the embarrassing part, but the fact that it exists. All right. I got to ask you a couple more questions here. Five years from now, we'll revisit the conversation. We'll see how it went. And in the meanwhile, we'll try to like, you know, tilt the odds in the direction we want. I promise to have you back on the old pod in five years. Okay. If you could teach every child or young person one thing about grit and building character, what would it be and why?

53:17Angela Duckworth:I would say that character is everything you do, not just for yourself, but for other people. That is my definition of character. And if that's only one thing, I'll leave it at that. It's like what you do, not just for yourself, but for others. if you ever ask like, what is my character? Like, what do people mean by good character? What do they mean by bad character? It's all in the definition. That is brilliant. And I think it challenges a traditional definition of character, which is it's how you are when nobody's looking. When nobody's looking. I think that is not enough. And I think this is better.

53:50It's how, it's the pro-social component. It's how you treat others.

53:54Angela Duckworth:It's what we've been talking about. Amen to that. I completely agree with you. Do you ever struggle with losing motivation? And if so, what are your tricks to getting it back? Yes, I have struggled even with burnout, which I used to talk about as an academic subject in the abstract, but have personally experienced in the last couple of years. And, you know, it turns out like I can experience that emotion. I will just say that when you are really struggling with your motivation, I think the first thing to do is to like really listen to that. Because whenever you feel anything, it's like spraining your ankle.

54:29Angela Duckworth:The first thing you should do is ask like, what's wrong? And not blame yourself and not try to like fast forward to not feeling burned out and to, you know, suddenly wake up the next day and have a lot of energy. But to really ask with seriousness, what's wrong? I did finally learn to ask what was wrong. And then I fixed it. And it took a long time. And now I don't feel that way. The thing that I really like about what you said there about the loss of motivation or the feeling of demotivation or unmotivation, I don't know what the grammar is. But that is – what you said is it's a feeling. It's a feeling.

55:00It's an emotion.

55:01Angela Duckworth:I think burnout is best characterized as an emotional state. And like all emotions, they're signals. But burnout is an emotion and you have to allow yourself to feel, right? So we don't want everybody to go through the world being happy all the time. That's not healthy. But a good – a healthy human being has a range of emotions. And burnout is one of those emotions including happy, sad, angry, and all of the rest. Jealousy, anger. Jealousy. And so the question is, if you have that feeling, like any of those feelings, investigate where that feeling is coming from. Exactly. Great advice. Angela, thank you so much.

55:33It's so fun talking to you because we just go and time disappears. So awesome. Thanks so much for coming on. I so appreciate it.

55:41Angela Duckworth:Thank you. Thank you. I'll see you soon, Simon. A Bit of Optimism is a production of The Optimism Company. Lovingly produced by our team, Lindsay Garbenius, Phoebe Bradford, and Devin Johnson. subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts and if you want even more cool stuff visit simonsynic.com thanks for listening take care of yourself take care of each other