WINTER 2 0 1 8 / 2 0 1 9
GRIT
9
GRIT WILL TAKE
YOU FARTHER
THAN TALENT
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.
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.
Previously, 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.
Angela completed her undergraduate degree
in Advanced Studies Neurobiology at Harvard,
an MSc in Neuroscience from Oxford University
and a PhD in Psychology at the University of
Pennsylvania.
Her first book, Grit: The Power of Passion and
Perseverance, is a No. 1 New York Times best
seller.
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
angeladuckworth.com