GRIT
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
admire, the same phrases 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 people up to think that they should be
automatically gifted and highly skilled at something, otherwise it’s not
meant to be.
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.
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.” 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.
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. 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.
A PROPER PLACE FOR BOTH
Talent multiplied by sustained effort yields world-class skill and
eventually achievement. +
AngelaDuckworth.com
* This article was adapted from an interview with Amazon Marketplace. - amazon.com/b?node=17395092011
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