“Our potential is one thing. What we do with it is quite another.” (14)

Since I was a child, Dad told me laziness is the kryptonite of all smart people. He would tell me that I am a smart kid, and that means I won’t have to work as hard as others to achieve the same thing. “But isn’t that a good thing?” I’d respond. “Not at all,” he would smile, with a stern, concerned look in his eyes. “You’re going to have to fight against yourself for the rest of your life. When it really matters, hard work beats talent.” As if I understood, I would nod and pinky-promise to always try my best. Of course, that didn’t happen.

During 6th or 7th grade, on pi day, March 14th, our math class hosted a competition in which students tried to memorize as many digits of pi as we could. I won 2nd place, with 500 digits. The kid who won 1st place memorized around 800. I took my winning of 50 pesos home with a smile on my face and told my parents of their son’s recent achievement. Mom was pretty happy. Dad had some questions. “Why did you choose to memorize 500 digits?” he asked. “I didn’t think anyone else would memorize more,” I answered. He smacked the side of my head with his knuckles, soft enough for me to know that it was friendly, but hard enough for me to know there was a lesson coming. “That’s what you get for overestimating yourself and underestimating others.” I replied, “it’s still second place, though!” I got smacked again.

I picked up Grit in reflection of my past and present struggles against my own lazy tendencies. Laziness is a personal demon of mine. I’ve accepted its existence and continue to battle it, even though I know that it won’t ever disappear. In reading about grit and the science behind it, I hoped to learn more about the significance behind continuing this fight. And through the accounts of various successful individuals and those who have supported their growth, I feel fortunate to have come upon this book, especially at this stage in life.

“Dan Chambliss, the sociologist who completed the study, observed: “Superlative performance is really a confluence of dozens of small skills or activities, each one learned or stumbled upon, which have been carefully drilled into habit and then are fitted together in a synthesized whole. There is nothing extraordinary or superhuman in any one of those actions; only the fact that they are done consistently and correctly, and all together, produce excellence.”” (36)

The concept of grit is introduced as a driving factor behind endurance, a personality trait that helps us move forward under the most difficult circumstances. The book frequently states that the excellence we witness in the individuals around us is mostly driven by grit, the effort we put into obtaining excellence, rather than natural talent. However, Duckworth notes that purely focusing on the talent behind excellence can be detrimental to our understanding of achievement.

“In my view, the biggest reason a preoccupation with talent can be harmful is simple: By shining our spotlight on talent, we risk leaving everything else in the shadows. We inadvertently send the message that these other factors— including grit— don’t matter as much as they really do.” (31)

Of course, understanding excellence from an outsider’s perspective is easier under the belief that people are innately different from one another. Otherwise, conflicts may arise. If the difference between you and another is not innate, then what excuse do you have for not achieving the same thing?

“Mythologizing natural talent lets us all off the hook. It lets us relax into the status quo.” (39)

As much as I see that taking on such a comfortable perspective overlaps with self-acceptance, there exists a threshold up to which one should be accepting of one self. Total acceptance implies stagnation, a level of satisfaction that neither motivates nor incentivizes personal growth. A complete lack of acceptance invites self-deprecation, in which putting effort into personal growth seems futile and unnecessary. To be gritty means to realize that you are between these two mindsets, where you are able to recognize the areas of potential, desirable growth, and put in the effort necessary to obtain it. The problem with effort is that motivation comes and goes. Question is, how do we maintain this passion for improvement perpetually?

“What I mean by passion is not just that you have something you care about. What I mean is that you care about the same ultimate goal in an abiding, loyal, steady way. You are not capricious. Each day, you wake up thinking of the questions you fell asleep thinking about. You are, in a sense, pointing in the same direction, ever eager to take even the smallest step forward than to take a step to the side, toward some other destination. At the extreme, one might call your focus obsessive. Most of your actions derive their significance from their allegiance to your ultimate concern, your life philosophy. You have your priorities in order.” (64)

As much as I wish to empathize with the quote above, I don’t think I’ve ever truly felt obsessively passionate about something. At least not in my twenties. I hold a form of blind-admiration for the passionate, but also wonder whether I would feel blessed or cursed in fervent pursuit of my supposed calling. I recognize my goals and aspirations, but the degree of passion is far from obsessive. Then again, perhaps I just haven’t invested enough time in fostering passion myself.

“In sum, the directive to follow your passion is not bad advice. But what may be even more useful is to understand how passions are fostered in the first place.” (116)

 Duckworth describes the fostering of passion as a lateral exploration that slowly narrows into a singular path. As we venture into various topics of interest and cultivate the ones we truly enjoy, passion can be developed. In other words, it is foolish to expect yourself to experience some sort of divine calling, especially at first exposure. Lionel Messi probably didn’t think he was born to play soccer the first time he kicked a ball. However, even if our interest digs deep enough, there are times when we just want to give up. At those times, Duckworth mentions the importance of parents, and their role in supporting their kids’ development of grit.

“First and foremost, there’s no either/or trade-off between supportive parenting and demanding parenting. It’s a common misunderstanding to think of “tough love” as a carefully struck balance between affection and respect on the one hand, and firmly enforced expectations on the other. In actuality, there’s no reason you can’t do both.” (211)

In the text, I was surprised to find so many accounts of successful individuals reporting about the significant roles their parents played in motivating them to not quit. The important distinction must be made. These parents did not force their kids to bend to their will. They communicated and made sure their child understood that their demands were in his or her best interest, that no matter how strict they seemed, the child felt loved and respected. Reading these bits reminded me of my own parents, and the similarities were quite striking.

Although Grit is not a book on how to properly raise children, Duckworth shows that the development of grit is both an internal and external experience. Yes, there are things you can do as an individual to become gritty, but there are also environmental factors that can support your journey towards grittiness. I would go as far as to say that the influence of parenting on the personality of their children cannot be overestimated. There are definitely times when I feel like a product of my parents design, and I am ultimately grateful for it.

“Whatever their parents’ education or income, all children really need the same thing: appropriately demanding challenges in combination with consistently warm and respectful support. I worry that some kids— especially those growing up in poverty— get too much challenge and not enough support. On the other hand, I worry that many kids— especially those with permissive parents— get a lot of “I love you, sweetie” without enough “I know you can do better. Let’s see what you can do tomorrow.” The realities of class and opportunity in society surely have an influence on the development of grit. The question is, what will we do as a society to ensure that all children grow up with daily opportunities to try, fail, learn, and grow?” (285)

Overall, I greatly enjoyed reading Grit and hope to continue looking into the science of conscious passion.

As always, my favorite bits and pieces of the book are below:

“Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.” (58)

“The “naturalness bias” is a hidden prejudice against those who’ve achieved what they have because they worked for it, and a hidden preference for those whom we think arrived at their place in life because they’re naturally talented. We may not admit to others this bias for naturals; we may not even admit it to ourselves. But the bias is evident in the choices we make.” (25)

“Many of us, it seems, quit what we start far too early and far too often. Even more than the effort a gritty person puts in on a single day, what matters is that they wake up the next day, and the next, ready to get on that treadmill and keep going.” (50)

“As for so many other grit paragons, the common metaphor of passion as fireworks doesn’t make sense when you think of what passion means to Jeff Gettleman. Fireworks erupt in a blaze of glory but quickly fizzle, leaving just wisps of smoke and a memory of what was once spectacular. What Jeff’s journey suggests instead is passion as a compass— that thing that takes you some time to build, tinker with, and finally get right, and that then guides you on your long and winding road to where, ultimately, you want to be.” (60)

“Lectures don’t have half the effect of consequences.” (89)

“So, parents, parents-to-be, and non-parents of all ages, I have a message for you: Before hard work comes play. Before those who’ve yet to fix on a passion are ready to spend hours a day diligently honing skills, they must goof around, triggering and retriggering interest. Of course, developing an interest requires time and energy, and yes, some discipline and sacrifice. But at this earliest stage, novices aren’t obsessed with getting better. They’re not thinking years and years in to the future. They don’t know what their top-level, life-orienting goal will be. More than anything else, they’re having fun.” (106-107)

“Nobody wants to show you the hours and hours of becoming. They’d rather show the highlight of what they’ve become.” (135)

“At its core the idea of purpose is the idea that what we do matters to people other than ourselves.” (145)

“Indeed, the concepts of grit and purpose might, in principle, seem to conflict. How is it possible to stay narrowly focused on your own top-level goal while also having the peripheral vision to worry about anyone else? If grit is about having pyramid of goals that all serve a single personal objective, how to other people fit into the picture?” (159)

“Adam’s research demonstrates that leaders and employees who keep both personal and prosocial interest in mind do better in the long run than those who are 100 percent selfishly motivated.” (160)

“[On parenting] But it’s a fine line between tough love and bullying, isn’t it? What’s the difference? “I knew the decision was mine,” Steve said. “And I knew my dad didn’t want me to be him. Number one, a parent needs to set a stage that proves to the child, ‘I’m not trying to just have you do what I say, control you, make you be like me, make you do what I did, ask you to make up for what I didn’t do.’ My dad showed me early that it wasn’t about him and what he needed. It truly was ‘I’m giving you all I got.’ “There was an underlying selflessness to the tough love,” Steve continued. “It think that’s vital. If any of the tough love is about the parent just trying to control you, well, kids smell it out. In every way possible, I knew my parents were saying, ‘We’re looking to see your success. We’ve left ourselves behind.’” (207)

“First and foremost, there’s no either/or trade-off between supportive parenting and demanding parenting. It’s a common misunderstanding to think of “tough love” as a carefully struck balance between affection and respect on the one hand, and firmly enforced expectations on the other. In actuality, there’s no reason you can’t do both.” (211)

“Just as Putnam would have predicted, there is a worrisome correlation between family income and Grit Grid scores. On average, Grit Grid scores for the high school seniors in our sample who qualified for federally subsidized meals were a full point lower than those for students who were more privileged.” (237) 

“In homage to the earlier work of Seligman and Maier on learned helplessness, where the inability to escape punishment led animals to give up on a second challenging task, Bob dubbed this phenomenon learned industriousness. His major conclusion was simply that the association between working hard and reward can be learned. Bob will go further and say that without directly experiencing the connection between effort and reward, animals, whether they’re rats or people, default to laziness. Calorie-burning effort is, after all, something evolution has shaped us to avoid whenever possible.” (240)

“The bottom line of culture and grit is: If you want to be grittier, find a gritty culture and join it. If you’re a leader, and you want people in your organization to be grittier, create a gritty culture.” (245)

 “The origin of great leadership begins with the respect of the commander for his subordinates.” (258)

“Supportive and demanding parenting is psychologically wise and encourages children to emulate their parents. It stands to reason that supportive and demanding leadership would do the same.” (266)

“On your own, you can grow your grit “from the inside out”: You can cultivate your interests. You can develop a habit of daily challenge-exceeding-skill practice. You can connect your work to a purpose beyond yourself. And you can learn to hope when all seems lost. You can also grow your grit “from the outside in.” Parents, coaches, teachers, bosses, mentors, friends— developing your personal grit depends critically on other people.” (269) 

“We all face limits— not just in talent, but in opportunity. But more often than we think, our limits are self-imposed. We try, fail, and conclude we’ve bumped our heads against the ceiling of possibility. Or maybe after taking just a few steps we change direction. In either case, we never venture as far as we might have. To be gritty is to keep putting one foot in front of the other. To be gritty is to hold fast to an interesting and purposeful goals. To be gritty is to invest, day after week after year, in challenging practice. To be gritty is to fall down seven times, and rise eight.” (275)

“So yes, grit involves a tradeoff. The root of the word passion is pati, Latin for “to suffer.” And it’s not only you, personally, who pays the cost. It’s also your family and friends. Must you work seventy hours per week to be gritty? No. But when you love what you do, you might find that you want to. You might feel, as I do, that nearly everything you see, hear, read, or experience is in some way relevant to your work. You might find that you don’t want to take a vacation from your calling.” (280)

“Intrigued by how people seem attached to modern technology, Tim gave young adults a simple task: sit in a quiet room with nothing to do for several minutes. Participants generally found the experience difficult— to the point that they found mundane tasks to be far more enjoyable than doing nothing. In fact, one in four young women and two out of three young men voluntarily administered electric shocks to themselves instead of sitting alone with their thoughts.” (288)

“The ultimate goal is to grow up to develop a calling— a fun thing that is also a hard thing.” (291)