Global Atlantic Financial Group - Leaders Insights Spring 2020 | Page 11

I HAVE found that “grit” is the common denominator of high achievers in
every domain that I've studied—in art and music, but also industry, law, and
politics.
What is “Grit”?
When I talk to top performers about their experience and who they most
admired, the same phrases would come out over and over again in totally
different fields. Artists and CEOs talk about the importance of struggle,
overcoming adversity, and constantly asking yourself, “What can I do better?”
There was an emphasis on always looking to improve and be the opposite of
complacent.
IN OTHER WORDS, GRIT IS NOT JUST
PERSEVERANCE OVER THE LONG TERM, IT’S
ALSO PASSION. IT’S LOVING WHAT YOU DO, AND
FEELING LIKE IT IS MEANINGFUL. IT KEEPS YOU
LEARNING EVERY DAY.
The Danger of “Talent”
Grit is not the same thing as having ability in a domain. It’s about having
passion and perseverance to stay in that domain. This makes grit distinct
from talent—especially if you define “talent” as the ability to learn quickly
and easily.
For a long time, I have been trying to get people to use the word “talent”
with more specificity. We throw it around all the time. I was at an award
ceremony for my teenage daughter, and “talent” was used at least 10 times
in different contexts to describe this student or that teacher. Sometimes it
was about mastery or achievement, but it was also used to describe ability,
the potential to achieve, or the facility to learn—like the phrase “gifted and
talented.”
This confusion is destructive because we’re using the term “talent” in the
same way that we use “skill.” It sets up people to think that they should be
automatically gifted and highly skilled at something, otherwise it’s not meant
to be.
A Proper Place for Both
Actor and musician Will Smith would tell you it's the hours and hours and
hours of effort that takes whatever talent you have and translates that into
skill. “No matter how talented you are,” Smith once told an interviewer, “your
talent is going to fail you if you’re not skilled—if you don’t study, if you don’t
work really hard and dedicate yourself to being better every single day.”
This is where grit is relevant to whatever you choose to do. Even if you’re
the most “talented” person in the world, if you give up on something in the
first month or the first year, you're never going to be great at it. Of course,
no matter how much grit you have, if you have zero talent in a domain, you’re
not going to excel. The lesson for all of us is to take an honest account of our
talents, then choose one to work on over the long term, with passion and
perseverance.
Talent multiplied by sustained effort yields world-class skill and eventually
achievement.
* This article was adapted from an interview with Amazon Marketplace. - amazon.com/b?node=17395092011
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Angela Duckworth
Angela Duckworth is the Founder and CEO of Character
Lab, a nonprofit whose mission is to advance the
science and practice of character development. She
is also the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished
Professor of Psychology at the University of
Pennsylvania, faculty co-director of the Penn-
Wharton Behavior Change For Good Initiative, and
faculty co-director of Wharton People Analytics.
A 2013 MacArthur Fellow, Angela has advised the White
House, the World Bank, NBA and NFL teams,
and Fortune 500 CEOs.
Prior to her career in research, Angela founded a summer
school for low-income children that was profiled as
a Harvard Kennedy School case study and, in 2018,
celebrated its 25th anniversary. She has also been a
McKinsey management consultant and a math and science
teacher in the public schools of New York City,
San Francisco, and Philadelphia.
Angela completed her undergraduate degree in
Advanced Studies Neurobiology at Harvard, graduating
magna cum laude. With the support of a Marshall
Scholarship, she completed an MSc with Distinction in
Neuroscience from Oxford University. She completed
her PhD in Psychology as a National Science Foundation
Graduate Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania.
Angela has received numerous awards for her
contributions to K–12 education, including a Beyond
Z Award from the KIPP Foundation. Angela's TED
talk is among the most-viewed of all time. Her first
book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance,
is a No. 1 New York Times best seller.
AngelaDuckworth.com