Grit and Perseverance — with Angela Duckworth

24:48I think that's something which continues to develop. But you can see it. It's often in sports, honestly. There are other ways in which you can develop and express this quality, but I can't tell you how biased I am toward varsity athletes. It's like, give me a four-year varsity athlete. Let's go. So you can see that at 17 or 16. So that's perseverance. And again, we can unpack that. I do think the elements of a really persevering young person or older person, I think to some extent you can reverse engineer those qualities. You're like, wow, they're such optimists. Where does that come from? What are their beliefs and so forth?

25:33But let me also say that there's another half of grit that is not as obvious from the word grit, and that is passion. And when I say passion, I really do mean a kind of intrinsic desire, an intrinsic interest in what you're doing. And the reason I like bringing up the hypothetical high school student is there's a paradox for passion, which is this. I think at your age, my age, this specialization that we have, everything connects in some way to what we are interested in. So we are hyper-specialized. We might cross-fertilize, but there's a center of gravity. That's what we look like when we're all grown up.

26:15But when you're 16 or 15 or 14, you know, you're in an entirely different developmental stage. I don't think it's healthy or even on the road to grit to be obsessively narrowly focused on one thing when you're a teenager. I think actually the data would suggest, and this is actually research from other scientists, not mine, that paradoxically what leads to specialization is sampling. It's the opposite. It's kind of, you know, Rowdy Gaines doing like a half dozen sports before he decides to become a swimmer, right? And sports, which we were just talking about, is one of the fields in which this has been best documented, that athletes who become world-class are more likely to have sampled broadly in their youth than prematurely specializing.

27:04So I'm always careful, or I try to be, when I talk about grit with young people because I don't want them to think that butterflies started out like little butterflies. You know, butterflies started out as caterpillars. So we should have disclosed at the beginning of the show that this podcast is basically a vehicle for me just to talk about myself. So be forewarned. But I'm going to give you three examples. My mother said that when anyone's talking to anyone, they're always talking to themselves. And I think she was right. A hundred percent. Yeah. But I think a lot about grit. And I just think it's hard to argue with.

27:32And what's interesting is I think the most insightful books and work is people state the obvious, but they hadn't thought about it. And your book was sort of, everyone said, well, of course it is, but no one really kind of explored it. My life was gritless growing up. I was an underachiever, lazy, just kind of sleepwalking through life. Oh, yeah, just totally sleepwalking through life. And there were three things that I think gave me what I believe is a great deal of grit. The first is my mom got very sick, and it was very shocking at a young age to be faced with that kind of illness. and I remember thinking, I don't know how to handle this.

28:10I can never get through this. And you do. Oh, I was in graduate school, so it wasn't like it happened when I was a kid. That actually happened last, but just emotional fortitude, realizing that life is tough and you get through it. Just that confidence gave me a little bit more, I don't know, courage or resilience, whatever the term is. But the two other things were in college, I rode crew and you would, I was, uh, I was a varsity athlete. And at one point in a race, you wouldn't be able to feel your legs. It'd be like fire, go down your esophagus. You would have these mental tricks to try and not pass out.

28:51And that was at 800 meters and you would go 2000. And it gave you this sense of when you think you're at your limit emotionally, physically, psychologically, when you really think you're at your limit, you think I can never, I just can't take anymore, that means you're about a third of the way there. And most people never are in a position to really push their limits. They never develop that. They never really test the boundaries of their limits. And then the other - They assume the boundaries, right? That's right. And they think they're much tighter than they actually are. And then the other thing was at Morgan Stanley, there was such an intolerance for mediocrity.

29:30You could be fired if there was a typo in the memo you sent out, 18 hours a day, abusive work culture, given a clean white shirt if you did an all-nighter, so there was all this kind of cultural pressure to work around the clock, a massive amount of pressure on perfection, and an intense borderline abusive work environment gave me those kind of three legs of a stool of grit. Do you see those as common or common attributes in people who develop a certain level or common shared experiences in people who demonstrate grit? Well, I have a hypothesis, and I think you named half of it. I think grit is forged in a crucible, half of which is challenge.

30:21I mean, what is challenge? Challenge is being asked to do something you cannot yet do, right? you know, 2 ,000 meters instead of 800, like whatever it is, right? I can't do it. The challenges exceed my resources or my abilities. So I think that is half of it. But, you know, when Nietzsche said, what doesn't kill me makes me stronger, I mean, it does make you wonder, like, well, you look around and it does actually kill or seriously wound, you know, a lot of people. And I think that's because the other half of the crucible, and you can agree or disagree with me, is some kind of support. Like, where does that inner self-talk come from that says, you know, I'll show you, right?

31:03Because I think if there was one phrase that I have heard over and over again in interviews of the grittiest people, it's that when they describe confronting a major challenge, especially when they're doubted, right and and someone else tells them like well you can't do this you know there is this rage this like voice that says i'll show you and my theory is that being in one challenging situation after another is not enough to give you the voice that says i'll show you somewhere there has to be support somewhere there has to be a you know like i can't remember rocky's coach like the guy with Or just Meredith.

31:44Exactly. Right. Like the sailor, you know, like the beanie on or like, I think I've seen it too often, you know, that people who are in challenging situations without support, you know, are not the ones to get up again, dust themselves off, like learn something, you know, come back stronger than they were before. So how do you like that hypothesis that the crucible grit is a challenge plus support? And you could argue that people aren't getting them in the right doses or neither, but, you know, I think those are elemental. I love that. One of my favorite sayings is that always stuck with me in one of my venture capitalists.

32:21Again, I'm Larry Bond from General Catalyst. I always said, greatness is in the agency of others. And hearing you speak, I'm like, grit is in the agency of others. I love that notion. Can you tell me more about that expression, which I've only heard for the first time from your lips? Well, greatness is in the agency of others. I mean, think about the platform you're at, at Penn, right? Would you have nearly the impact you're having with our great research associates, great colleagues, all the people who've come before you at Penn, your publisher, probably not your publisher. I've found they almost do fucking nothing.

32:53But anyways, but my husband, how about that? Whatever you're caught, you know, your colleagues that support you, the person proofreading your book, the person doing the research that the people generally I find greatness or people, they have to have their own grit. They have to demonstrate grit. But what that does is it inspires the people around them to do great work for them. You can't people think Malcolm Gladwell is in his kitchen, like doing these videos and everything. He's got a team of like dozens of really talented people. Editors, producers. 100%. You know, Scott, I only learned very recently from friends who are authors who shall remain nameless because I didn't know this.

33:36And I don't know that they'd be wanting to keep it a secret, but it was a secret for me that writers that I really respected have, you know, like a cadre of people like, oh, I don't just have like this editor. who was signed to me by my publisher. Like, I send it out to this person and that person and, you know, like conceptual stuff. And, you know, what's on my mind, you know, recently is, you know, how that feels like anti-heroic in a way. Like there's something about DIY that is like, that's the way to go. Like you're supposed to be a solo performer. And if you need anybody else's assistance, then like, you know, there's like 100 grit points.

34:17And like, if they get 20, you only get 80, right? And now when I'm interviewing people who are really successful and gritty, I'm hearing, and maybe it's because I'm looking for it, Scott. So maybe I'm hunting for what I'm looking for. But what I'm hearing are people who are virtuoso at actually getting their environments to be their ally and not their opponents. So they will take anything, you know? It's like any edge. It's not cheating for them. to use their situations to their own advantage. We'll be right back.

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36:43so no one forgets mom's 60th. And never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end-to-end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp. Message privately with everyone. Learn more at whatsapp.com. Professor, do you have children? I have two. They are 23 and 21. How did this work impact your approach to raising kids? When I started graduate school, I was pregnant with Lucy, and I think I was still nursing Amanda. so I was becoming a mom at the same time as I was becoming a psychologist and because I really didn't know anything about psychology I really was starting from scratch right I wasn't a psychology major I majored in neurobiology I had a master's in neuroscience but it was really a very different thing so I was learning about everything Piaget for the first I mean everything and then I would come home and turn the key in the lock and then I would walk over the threshold and I would be a mom and not a psychology student.

37:40But of course, it was all the same me. And so I feel like my study of self-control and of grit and of effort and, you know, the foil for those things, which are, you know, whatever it is to be innately talented or naturally intelligent. I mean, it was just all in my head. And I think how it influenced my parenting, and I should say our parenting, because my husband Jason and I were, you know, talking every night about like what we were, what I was learning as a researcher. I mean, I did raise them to believe that excellence comes from, you know, pick your favorite quote, but let's take John Wooden, the UCLA basketball coach, right, who said there are eight laws of learning, explanation, demonstration, imitation, repetition uh how to get the repetition oh and then the last ones are easy repetition repetition repetition repetition so five of the eight right are the same so so i did raise them to not think of excellence as a magic trick you know they're 23 and 21 so they're still sampling but i will say i think i think they you know drank the kool-aid so to speak do you think i'll start with the thesis.

39:01I coach a lot of young men. My general, and there is some research here that while physically stronger, boys are emotionally and psychologically weaker than girls. If they're raised in a single-parent household, they're much less likely, their outcomes are worse when they lose a male role model. Whereas when girls are in, go from dual parent to single-parent homes, they have similar outcomes. They're more resilient. Have you found any research that finds that young women are more resilient or demonstrate more grit than young men? I had a female neurosurgeon approach me, and it's been a few years, so I can't remember much about the interaction except for that she had a hypothesis.

39:42She said, you know, there aren't many of us, meaning female neurosurgeons. In fact, apparently, if I recall correctly, which I may not because it's been a few years, like they have a number because there's so few that like, you know, it's like a deli, you know, you get the next number. I don't know what number she was, 125 or whatever she was. And she said, I just can't believe that there's equal grit among the female and the male neurosurgeons, in part just because of selection, right? It's like a fine mesh sieve, and we're still here. So we did do a little study. We, or she, I should say, you know, I just gave her the grit scale.

40:16The grit scale is a 12-item questionnaire and has very obvious items, you know, setbacks don't discourage me. I finish whenever I begin. It's got passion items about having consistency in a goal for very long periods of time. And when the data came back, I'll tell you, you know, she did not find a statistically significant gender difference, I think, favoring either side, honestly. Now, that doesn't mean there aren't any. There are lots of, you know, boring aspects of self-report questionnaires that we can talk about. One of them, though, that's very relevant to looking at gender differences is something I study.

40:53It's called reference bias. So, Scott, if you take a questionnaire and I take a questionnaire and we read the same item, I am a hard worker, you first conjure up an image of a hard worker and then you measure yourself to that standard. One of the things that I think may obscure gender differences is that if that person has higher standards, then you have two forces that are working in opposition. On one hand, they may really be grittier. On the other hand, their higher standard is going to yield a lower score. And this has absolutely been documented in cross-cultural research. So in one study, there are over, I think, 60 countries, and it wasn't a grit scale, but it was a measure of overall conscientiousness, right?

41:39Big five conscientiousness, you know, being orderly and responsible. and I, you know, imagine like, you know, detail-oriented. But also, by the way, this is the family that includes grit and self-control, so that family. And they gave it to people in all these different countries. And then the very simple question was like, what are the most conscientious countries in the world? And when the data came in, it was fairly shocking because whereas the, you know, leaders were not especially clear, but what I remember from the paper was that the losers were. So the lowest conscientious countries were, I think, Japan, like South Korea, like maybe China.

42:17I mean, these countries that stereotypically you're like, really? Like, really? And what I believe, and I think what the authors of this research report also believe, is that what you're really revealing there are standards, right? It's probably that, you know, the same words are on the paper, but they're essentially answering different questionnaires. So on gender, I have not found reliable gender differences in grit. I don't know, you know, I don't know whether there really are. But I will say this, I think I have to be careful because I think I'm actually biased towards women. So I'm aware of that.

42:55But, you know, I will say there is a gender difference that we haven't talked about that goes against your hypothesis. And I'll say these are data that come from like giving women tasks like an IQ test and men the same IQ test. There are differences in confidence. There are differences in, you know, like, okay, you just took this test. Scott, what do you think you did? Like, how do you think, oh, I think I did great, right? Women with the same score will be like, oh, you know, terribly, right? So I think there are differences in confidence that are not necessarily justified, but also would work against your hypothesis.

43:32So you have a new book you've been writing on the power of the situation. You say that the entire book can be summarized with this sentence. Achieving your goals is easier when you make your situation your ally. That feels very obvious, putting yourself in the right room, the right context, the right platform. Say more about that. Do some people not recognize the importance of the context or the situation? I think there are two reasons why people do not recognize the power of the situation. One is, you know, Viktor Frankl's, you know, the message that people heard from Man's Search for Meaning that some people heard is that, well, unfortunately, you cannot change your circumstances, but you can change how you respond to them.

44:15You know, I don't think that's actually what Viktor Frankl meant. I mean, I don't think Viktor Frankl was like, so what? There are concentration camps and Nazis and, you know, our entire people are being extinguished. What really matters is our attitude because we have to control the controllables. So I think there's a kind of misunderstanding. I think many circumstances are given, but not all. And I think that impediment, that kind of like, oh, you got to control the controllables, meaning yourself. and you know this list of things that you can't control gets rounded up to be everything right so so i think i think people do overlook the situation in part because they assume it's a given uh and the second reason is that even when you can control your story let's take ozempic as as one very controversial example right um i think there are people who would consider taking ozempic for weight loss to be a form of weakness um you know a sort of um you know kind of, well, if you were stronger, if you were just more disciplined, if you dot, dot, dot, well, then you wouldn't need to rely on this crutch, right?

45:18People think using ChatGPT is cheating, right? And I know you can actually cheat with ChatGPT, but these are just two features of your situation that you could use to your advantage or not use to your advantage. So the second reason I think we overlook the power of the situation is that it feels like cheating when the situation is helping us. And the very cover of Grit, which I don't even know if I have back here, but anyway, on this bookshelf, there might be a copy of Grit. And if I pulled it out, you know, it's this one big arrow going to the right against these little arrows that go to the left.

45:50And the idea of Grit, I think, is about overcoming, you know, overcoming aspects of your situation, for sure. But I think what that leaves out, it's not that this book is a correction, but I do think it's a completion of the idea, is that it's great to have a big arrow pointing to the right. It's great to work hard. It's great to pick yourself up and be resilient. But why not do that in a river that's flowing in your direction? Last question here. Two or three pieces of advice to parents who recognize the importance of grit and want to do what they can to try and instill a sense of grit, putting their kids in the right context or situation to be successful.

46:31if you try to distill it down. And every book on parenting I read just kind of says to me, no one has any idea. Every book I read seems to contradict the one before it. But could you, are there two or three things that you would say are kind of tried and true in terms of helping your kids establish this fantastic competence? You know, I think every kid benefits from having a kind of surrogate parent at a certain point, often in their teen years, sometimes younger. And what I mean by that is you know, their track coach, you know, their violin teacher, you know, the AP history teacher who really pushed them.

47:08And why are these surrogate parents so, like, I don't know, essential even is one word that comes to mind. To listen to them. Well, exactly, because we are rejecting the actual parents that we have. And these, you know, I watched it with my own kids, like, you know, you got to outsource some of these parents because, you know, there's almost nothing you can do. One day, my daughter comes home from, like, track practice. And she was like, oh, you got to get up to bed early. I need to drink water. Like, you know, I can't be eating all this crap. And I was like, wait, like, well, I've been saying all these things, especially on the sleep.

47:39And, and it's like, oh, because her track coach told her, right? So I think one thing is outsourcing some of the modeling. And I think that does come through extracurricular activities almost always, right? And I guess the, you know, the second thing is, you know, we talked a little bit about sampling versus specializing. I remember vividly, I think it was like the headmaster of one of these elite schools. It may or may not have been where Bill Gates went to school, and it may or may not have been the, you know, principal or head of the school that he attended while he was attending it. But I remember what he said, which is that when he looked at the parents of the kids who ended up being very successful, you know, the parents were watching their kids like hawks for what sparked their kids' interest.

48:24And I know it sounds like a like kind of like a, you know, soft or hooking thing. But like, you know what, if your kid's not interested in something, they're not going to be great at it. And so looking for those, I think looking for flickers of interest is more important than looking at flickers of talent, right? Not just like what seems to come easily to your kid, but what holds their attention. You know, those are the seeds of passion. So I lied. One final, final question. What can kill grit? What do you need to avoid? What can get you stuck or reduce the levels of grit? Well, we talked about the situation.

49:00We don't have a whole conversation on burnout, but I do think there's a nuance here. If you just look at correlations between grit and burnout, the grittier people are less burned out. That's honestly not shocking. But I think really gritty people are in some ways at the highest risk of burnout because slackers don't get burnt out. And gritty people work so hard and they are so tenacious. So what imperils grit? I think when you asked about, you know, what are the environments, the crucible, I said, like, I'm listening to your story. I hear a lot of challenge. I'm guessing that there's another through line of support somewhere in there or Scott wouldn't become Scott.

49:40So I think burnout is what happens when you try really, really hard in a very gritty way, probably. And somehow things are just not working for you. And when that happens, I think looking outside of yourself instead of inside yourself, looking at what could make it easier to accomplish your goals as opposed to berating yourself for not trying harder. Honestly, Scott, that's what I'm trying to do. Yeah, forgive yourself. Angela Duckworth is a psychologist, the co-founder of Character Lab, and a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She's also the author of the number one New York Times bestseller, Grit, The Power of Passion and Perseverance.

50:20She joined us from her office at the great educational institution, the University of Pennsylvania. Professor, you own, you literally own a character attribute. That is such good for you. Well done. Oh, it's not patented. You know, when the Flyers named their, the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team, when they named their mascot Gritty, no royalties were exchanged, nor should they have been. Yeah, but more importantly, when people say to your kids, who was your mom? My mom was the Grit woman. There's just a lot worse things you could say about people. Congratulations on your success. Thank you, Scott.

51:08Algebra of happiness. I've been thinking a lot about masculinity. I'm writing a book on it. And some younger people said masculinity is an outdated word. So it might be notes I'm becoming a man. And I'm trying to write a book. It not only talks about, I'm not trying to position myself as an expert because I'm not, but talking about where I failed as a man and what I've learned and where I've done okay. and I think I've been thinking a lot about the election and some of the swing voters still up for grabs are young men. And the Democratic Party has done a terrible job of making young men feel seen.

51:40And what does that mean? Programs acknowledging that young men are struggling, but they are, I believe the election might be won by young men and that is, or loss, if you will, or decided, I should say. And that is this election was supposed to be seen as a referendum on women's rights. And I think that's largely the case. But I think people who feel strongly about bodily autonomy one way or the other have already decided. It's young men that are up for grabs. And I'd like to think that everyone should have a code. And I'd like to think that masculinity or an aspirational modern form of masculinity could be a great code.

52:14And this is why I am supporting or one of the reasons I am supporting, and we always get shit for being political on the show. I get it. That's not why you invited me here, but I want to be transparent. I think the economy is doing really well and or better than most people want to acknowledge. It's not evenly distributed, but we have the least bad economy in the world right now. And when I think about your code of being a man or becoming a man, I think of three legs of the stool. I think provider, protector, and procreator. So provider, it is much easier to be a provider in a strong economy. And this is lowest unemployment rate, highest GDP growth, lowest inflation.

52:56I think you're more likely to be able to be a provider in this economy, a protector. I think men's first instinct should be to protection. Real men break up fights. They don't start them. Real men defend their country. They don't shitpost it. Real men, immediately their default setting is protection. And then this is the one that's a little harder or a little more controversial, procreator. The most wonderful thing in my life, hands down, is raising boys with a competent partner. And how did it start? Sex. I didn't see my partner at the pool at the Raleigh Hotel and think, wow, she'd be great.

53:35I bet she's really good with a 401k or at some point is going to buy apartments and fix them up and generate cash flow for us. I thought I'd really like to have sex with that woman. And I think sex is a wonderful thing. And I think desiring sex and wanting to be physical with women, I think that is how most relationships start. And then you have sex or you're physical, you really enjoy it, you start hanging out together and you find you like each other and you find you miss that person and you decide to build a life together and maybe have kids. That's the whole shooting match. AI, GDP growth, Trump versus Harris.

54:06That is all a means to the ends. And the ends is deep and meaningful relationships. Specifically, the most important one will be who you have kids with and see above sex. I think it's good for men to be, I don't want to say aggressive, but to initiate contact, to approach strange women or strange men and express romantic interests while making them feel safe. If you approach somebody at a bar, ask them out for a coffee, whatever it is, and they're not interested, you're both going to be fine. You are a provider, a protector, and a procreator.

54:59every Monday and Thursday.