Lee
[00:00:00] I'm Lee C. Camp, and this is No Small Endeavor, exploring what it means to live a good life.
Angela
You know, when I got to graduate school, I didn't really know how to begin with this question of what is true of high achievers across these different domains.
Lee
That's Angela Duckworth, psychologist who has spent her career studying so-called 'high achievers' in various fields. As a consequence of her research, she has advised government officials, NFL teams, Olympic athletes, and Fortune 500 companies.
Today, she shares what she has found to be a secret to success.
Angela
A common denominator of people who achieve excellence is the combination of passion and perseverance for very long-term and personally meaningful goals. And to give it a name, grit.
Lee
All coming right up.[00:01:00]
I'm Lee C. Camp. This is No Small Endeavor, exploring what it means to live a good life.
When I was a child growing up in Alabama, my grandmother Camp would sit me on her knee and read me the children's book, the story of The Little Engine That Could, that personified little train engine that encountered a massive climb up a big hill, which struggled and struggled, and when the little train finally said to itself, "I think I can, I think I can," it succeeded with great celebration in the climb over the top of the hill.
My grandmother repeatedly reading me this tale formed my own sense of perseverance. Years later, I would learn that perseverance is considered a subspecies of the cardinal virtue of courage, which in the classic tradition is considered one of the most critical capacities for living any sort of life worth living.[00:02:00]
Then years later, again, as a professor, teaching my students various aspects of the virtue traditions, I came across the work of Angela Duckworth, who brought social science and psychology and neuroscience to bear upon such questions. I found myself fascinated with her findings regarding what she calls 'grit.'
That grit will make all the difference in a life. That grit is a key variable in failure or success in a given pursuit. Turns out that what she calls grit is significantly more nuanced and multifaceted than the simple practice of telling oneself, "I think I can, I think I can." And that it is nonetheless a highly practical skill and one which may be developed really at any age.
So I'm delighted to share our conversation with Angela Duckworth. Enjoy.
Angela Duckworth is a professor 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. [00:03:00] A 2013 MacArthur Fellow, also known as the MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, Angela has advised the US Department of Education, The World Bank, NBA and NFL teams, and Fortune 500 CEOs. She completed her undergraduate degree in advanced studies Neurobiology at Harvard, her master's with distinction in Neuroscience at Oxford, and her PhD in Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.
She's also the founder of CharacterLab, a nonprofit that advances scientific insights to help kids thrive. And today, at least initially, we're discussing her number one New York Times Bestseller Grit: The Power of Passion and Perserverance.
Welcome, Angela!
Angela
Lee, I'm very happy to be in conversation with you.
Lee
Yeah, same here. I've been looking forward to having this conversation with you for a long time. Known of your work for a long time, and, uh, grateful for the time to get to be with you today.
Uh, Har-- Harvard professor Daniel Gilbert has said, "Psychologists have spent decades searching for the secret of success, but Duckworth [00:04:00] is the one who found it." [Laughs] Quite an endorsement.
Angela
Dan, Dan is prone to colorful language. I just want you to know that. [Laughs]
Lee
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But... so that secret is...?
Angela
Well, I don't wanna overplay the significance of my work, but I do study the characteristics of high achievers, and I have found that a common denominator of people who achieve excellence, whether the excellence is in an athletic sport or something intellectual or artistic, that the common denominator that I've been studying is grit - the combination of passion and perseverance for very long term and personally meaningful goals.
Lee
You began, early in your career, doing a study, I remember reading about a study at West Point that kind of began to help you begin to formulate that.
Would you describe that for us?
Angela
You know, when I got to graduate school, I didn't really know how to begin with this question of, what is true of high achievers across these different domains? Um, so I [00:05:00] started interviewing, you know, people who had, you know, been decorated with honors and awards for their accomplishments.
But that led me to conceptualize grit, but to actually get a handle on what it did or didn't predict... uh, one of my earliest studies-- and I was, I think maybe a second year PhD student, I was introduced to the generals at West Point, that's the oldest military academy in the United States, and provides something on the order of like 1 in 4 or maybe 1 in 5 officers into the US Army.
So these generals have, for more than half a century, asked the question, why do some of these extraordinary young people who get admitted through an incredibly, like, fine mesh sieve, you know, it's, it's, it's so hard to get into West Point, top grades, top test scores. You know, why do so many of them drop out even before they've had a chance really to, to see what West Point is, um, meaning the very early days of training, and maybe even to see whether, like, they can make it there?
Um, and so when I was [00:06:00] introduced to these generals by my PhD advisor, Marty Seligman, who had himself done some research at West Point, we devised a very simple study, which is to give the grit scale.
These are questions that, uh, really... they kind of were the boiled down essence of what I had been learning in these interviews. You know, these descriptions of being a hard worker, of finishing what you begin. And then also this kind of sustained passion that's the, that's the maybe less obvious half of grit, you know, having a consistency in your goals and in your interests over time.
Well, we gave the grit scale the second day of their first summer, and then we just waited around to see what the data would tell us about who did well and who persisted. And the finding that really confirmed that I was, you know, on some kind of path to understanding something about high achievers, was that grit was a better predictor of staying at West Point during the highest attrition periods in particular - [00:07:00] but overall, it also predicts just graduating in four years, staying in the Army after that - it was a better predictor, especially during the high attrition periods, than measures of talent.
And West Point had two of those. So they had a measure of cognitive talent, you know, your standardized test scores, and then also your physical talent, um, a battery of physical tests like running and sit ups.
So, so I guess to summarize, you know, as a beginning academic with this intuition that there must be something that athletes and artists and civic activists who are very successful, that they, that they all have in common, to give it a name, grit. Um, and then the West Point study was one of the most definitive, but also the earliest study I had done trying to test the hypothesis that grit matters for high achievement, especially when those high achievements are really hard.
Lee
Yeah. Very briefly, any other kind of studies or case studies that really stand out to you in the intervening years hthatt that [00:08:00] point again, to the significance of this?
Angela
Yes, but - you know? So the yes part is, like, sure, we've studied grit in sales, grit in predicting graduating from large US urban school districts where dropouts are unfortunately very common in high school. You know, grit predicting, you know, who will win the spelling bee, the National Spelling Bee. Um, and there have been other studies. So that's the 'yes.' And you know, these other studies that I mentioned confirm the early study at West Point.
The 'but' is, you know, I think when a lot of scientists got interested in grit, they, they did easier studies, honestly. You know, like studying West Point over years and studying the National Spelling Bee and then waiting to see who wins and recruiting, like, samples of salespeople, it's actually really hard. The easier thing is just to give, um, students, like say college students, the grit scale and just see how it correlates with their grade point average.
Um, and I wanna say that those easier studies, to me, I think, are not really what I started studying grit for. I don't think grit [00:09:00] is the best predictor of like, you know, flossing your teeth or, you know, eating vegetables or like doing your homework when you don't feel like it, because those are not extremely challenging, long-term, personally meaningful goals.
So the 'yes' is, yeah, there have been other studies, not just by me, but, but I did mention some that, that I feel are important highlights, you know, since the West Point, uh, study was originally done. But the 'but' is that, I think, I think there's a, a boundary condition that I wanna point out. Like, uh, grit is, I think, a common denominator of, of elite achievers across fields.
But if you ask me, is it like, the very best predictor of like all goals, you know, doing your taxes, flossing your teeth, et cetera, I would say that the everyday self-control goals that I also study are-- you know, that, that's not so much about grit, but, but by, by other-- but you know, that's, that, maybe that's another conversation.
Lee
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, very helpful.
So I wanna go back to the contrast between grit and talent. Uh, and you of course talk [00:10:00] about talent and the significance of talent, but you suggest that effort is perhaps twice as important as talent. And, and you have this provocative phrase, helpful phrase, I think, "the mundanity of excellence."
So, to-- unpack some of that for us.
Angela
I wanna say that I love that phrase and it's not mine.
Lee
Angela
So that's the, um, that's the wordsmithing, that's the expression of Dan Chambliss, who's a sociologist, uh, whom I adore and recently retired from Hamilton College.
Dan grew up as a swimmer. Um, at least he, you know, swam a lot. He didn't go to the Olympics. Um, he was then, you know, later, a sociologist who decided that he would embed himself, you know, in this kind of like, you know, tradition in sociology that's kind of become a little passe, but I think is so beautiful and valuable. He, he just lived with these teams, you know, kind of like an anthropologist would, you know, live in another culture.
And he spent time with elite teams, you know, Olympic hopefuls, and also, you know, club [00:11:00] teams, like, you know, the kids who just are, live around the, the block and they happen to swim at the neighborhood pool. And what he came to observe about swimming in particular, but, you know, excellence in general, is that, you know, people think when they see somebody who's like a Katie Ledecky, right, that, you know, that they must have a gift. Like they must, they must have, I don't know, like super long arms and you know, like really flexible feet and you know, like a weird heart and you know, just, you know, all of these things that come together that make them qualitatively different than the rest of us.
The expression, "the mundanity of excellence" was his summary conclusion, which is that, you know what it is, you know, a lot of it, at least, you know, he's not saying that there are no genetics, there's nothing to say about talent, innate talent, but that the mundanity of excellence is like thousands of hours in the pool working on, you know, your technique again.
And, and by the way, um, you know, when I was researching the book, I, I had a conversation with Rowdy Gaines, who's, you know, gold medalist swimmer. He was like, "Do you know what it's like to [00:12:00] jump into a freezing cold pool, and the sun hasn't even come up and you're wearing a speedo and, you know, you're exhausted, and like-- and then just to swim, you know, hard enough that you wanna throw up. If you don't throw up, like it's like-- and then to do it again, and then to do it again, and now, now you gotta work on this elbow. Now you have to work on that."
And, and so I think "the mundanity of excellence" is a beautiful phrase that to me is beyond swimming.
And at the same time I wanna say like, it's, it's not drudgery, so that the mundanity there is also, I think, hiding a kind of love, you know, like there's, there's a real devotion in a voluntary sense. You know, it's, it's not a chore totally, but it is hard. So that's what the phrase means, "the mundanity of excellence" is this observation.
Lee
Angela
And in terms of talent, then, I think what's really remarkable about outliers is that they don't have the mentality of trying to reach a threshold. They're not like, 'Well, I can do it in two hours, why put in four?' You know, a Michael Jordan, a Lindsey Vonn, a Katie Ledecky, you know, [00:13:00] these are people who say, 'Wow, I'm pretty good at this, you know, look how far I can get in two hours. I wonder what would happen if I put in four.'
That, to me, is maybe the fundamental distinction, uh, between talent and effort. Talent is how easily things come to you. Effort is how long and how hard you're willing to work with it. And the data that have been collected, not by just my lab, but by many other labs around the world, using lots of different ways of getting at the question, um, measures of innate talent and measures of effort tend not to be at all the same thing. The correlation is zero, um, sometimes negative, but in, in the data that I'm familiar with, like never strongly positive.
Lee
So in this regard, Angela quotes the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who on this said, "Our vanity, our self-love promotes the cult of the genius. For if we think of genius as something magical, we are not [00:14:00] obliged to compare ourselves and find ourselves lacking. To call someone divine means, here there is no need to compete."
You're listening to No Small Endeavor and our conversation with Angela Duckworth on her New York Times Bestseller, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.
I love hearing from you. Tell us what you're reading, who you're paying attention to, or send us feedback about today's episode. You can reach me at lee@nosmallendeavor.com.
You can get show notes for this episode in your podcast app or wherever you listen. These notes include links to resources mentioned in the episode. You can also find there a PDF of my complete interview notes, which often has material not found in the episode. And there you can also get a link to a transcript.
Coming up, the importance of passion and good goals, and discussing [00:15:00] The Little Engine That Could with Angela Duckworth.
So let, let's talk a bit about, about passion then. I remember reading a piece in The New York Times, I went back and looked up the title 'cause it's so provocative. It says, "Why 'Find Your Passion' is Such Terrible Advice."
And that resonates with things I've heard from, for example, Nashville singer-songwriters, talking to young Nashville singer-songwriters when when they basically say, "Stop thinking in terms of, if you don't feel excited then you shouldn't work, but instead you go work and you put in the work." And your notion of passion clearly includes all of that.
So would you kind of unpack the way your sense of passion is quite different than this no-- this kind of willy-nilly notion of, 'I'm gonna feel excited about what it is that I'm doing'?
Angela
You know, 'passion' is both a great word - I mean, I chose it to be the, you [00:16:00] know, the compliment to perseverance when I talk about what grit is, it's passion and perseverance for long-term goals. It's also a terrifying word.
You know, I took a walk this morning - I don't think he'll mind my saying his name - with a, just a, just a lovely young man. He's still in high school. His name is David Gbe [sp?]. And we were walking around my neighborhood and, you know, we were talking about psychology, which is something he's interested in, and he asked me for advice and he said, you know, "Is your advice for me to follow my passion?"
And I said, "You know, David, this word, this word that I love, but sometimes hate. You know, I don't know how useful it is to talk to you, at your age, about, you know, following your passion. And frankly, even with people who are a lot older than you..."
You know, those who have a passion and can say it out loud, really don't need me or anyone else to tell them to follow it. Like, they're fine following it. They, they probably wouldn't not follow it if you told them not to follow it. So, so, so that's that group and that's a minority, a [00:17:00] tiny number of people. And those who are, are struggling to figure out, you know, what, they could wake up in the morning and feel that conviction in their heart about, like, well then if you say to those people, follow your passion, I mean, I think they could be paralyzed, in a way, by that, um, turn of phrase.
So I said, "Maybe a more helpful way of thinking about this, David, is the word 'interest' and maybe even more tactical would be, you know, what gives you energy?"
And this is how I explain it to the students in my own class, when I, when I teach undergraduates. You know, you could make a list of things. You know, two lists. On the left side of a piece of paper you could list all the things in your day that give you energy. You know, after you do them, you feel more excited, you know, more alive. Um, for me, that would be reading, whether it's scientific articles, like, poetry, anything by Anne Patchett.
Um, uh, you know, for other people it's other things. You know, music is on the left side of this piece of paper of like things that can be energy-- for some it's not, [00:18:00] for me.
On the right side of this piece of paper, you might think about the things that sap your energy, right? You, after you do them, you just, ugh, you're a little wilted. You're, you're kind of tired. You know? For me, uh, faculty meetings, uh--
Lee
Angela
Lee
Angela
Amen to you, Professor Camp.
And then, and then also like, you know, conflict, like conflict honestly of any kind. Like if someone tells me, you know, I'm standing in the wrong line at the bakery, I get all-- I'll ruminate about it for years. Um, that actually kind of happened to me.
So, so, so, you know, you've got these two lists. And, and the, the key here is that what's my list, you know, on the left and my list on the right is gonna be different for somebody else.
And those are clues, you know? And I said to this young man, David, I said, "When I was your age, I took a summer school course where I paid for it myself and I could choose anything I wanted. Um, and I had two choices actually, 'cause it was a summer session I was able to fit into. And I chose psychology and writing. Nonfiction writing. Just when I was your age, just as a teenager, because those things gave [00:19:00] me energy. So why not?"
And so anyway, passion is a loaded term. I love it and hate it. But the more useful term for those of us who don't feel like we know what our passion is, is either interest or energy.
Lee
The notion as you unpack this in your book, points to the necessity of having some ordered priorities or ordered goals of, of different tiers. Can you discuss how that works out in this notion of passion?
Angela
I just wanna name that the work I'm about to describe is, you know, largely the work of Arie Kruglanski, who is a world expert on goals, um, and why we have them and what they do for us.
But the point of this, uh, work on goal hierarchies, to me, and, and the most practical thing, I think, as it relates to grit, is that it is human to have goals. Goals are desired future states. States of the world or yourself that [00:20:00] don't yet exist, but you want to exist. That's what a goal is, full stop. And it is the nature of human beings to have hierarchically organized goals.
So if you ask me, you know, like, why did you do that podcast interview with Lee Camp, right? I would say, well, you know, I have an answer for that, right? Which is that I believe that, you know, a conversation like this might be helpful to, uh, some folks out there, especially parents, but, but other people who are adults in the lives of, of kids.
And then you could say, well, why is that important to you? And I'll say, oh, well glad you asked. I actually have this idea that a psychologically wise adult in the life of every child could make the world a better place.
Um, and then you could say like, why? Right? And, and when I run out of answers for you, I'm like, I don't know, just because. Right? Because the answer to that one is like, like, you know, I think psychological wisdom in general does make the world a better place. So my goal is to increase psychological literacy. Um, that's my top level goal. And then if you say why? And I kind of like, I, [00:21:00] I'm sputtering, I'm pausing--
Lee
Angela
It just is. That's a top level goal. And what Arie Kruglanski and others have discovered about goals is that they are organized in a hierarchical way, where every time you ask 'why?' you kind of go up a level in the hierarchy. That goal is more important. It's the master of the goal below it.
And the relevance to grit is this: that you can have a more organized, you know, coherent, harmonious hierarchy, or you could have one that's kind of jumbled up and like, you know, there's several top level goals and you're not really sure. And these goals come in conflict. And I don't know, I don't know even know where this goal is. It's kind of orphaned. And that's less hierarchically, you know, well organized.
And, and what strikes me about high achievers is the, the clarity and the, the harmony of, of their goal hierarchies.
And the homework assignment that I always give as an optional assignment to my students, because it can be a little intimidating, is to see if you can figure out a top level [00:22:00] goal that you can articulate in seven words or fewer, uh, that really is the one telos that gives meaning and direction and purpose to all the goals in your, in your life, professionally, let's say, 'cause let's bound it somehow.
And, and it's optional because, you know, if you're nowhere close to having that kind of clarity, it's an unuseful exercise. But I, I have found it useful and that's how I was able to say to you, Lee, you know, increase psychological literacy, which is even a refinement of what I would've told you five or six years ago.
Lee
Yeah. So this obviously implies, uh, lots of things, but two that immediately come to mind is, is it, one, it implies the capacity to say 'no' to a lot of things, or even to let certain goals go. And it also implies, when to quit trying certain things, it seems to [00:23:00] me.
Uh, I, as I was reading your book, I, I was reminded my, my grandmother Camp, a dear, beautiful woman, I remember sitting on her knee as a, as a young kid, as a, you know, five-year-old or whatever, and she would repeatedly read me the story, the children's story of The Little Engine That Could. The, the train going up the hill? "I think I can. I think I can. I think I can." And how that got so embedded in me and how grateful I am for that.
And then also as I grew older, realizing there was a certain nuance or wisdom about trying to appropriate that wisdom in my life and there were better and worse ways that I could practice, "I think I can, I think I can." And there were, you know, there were certain situations where saying, "I think I can, I think I can" actually was unhelpful.
But generally speaking, the disposition that she was pointing me to has been immensely helpful.
So any commentary on when to say no to a goal or when to quit trying on a particular goal?
Angela
You know, I don't have it at my fingertips, but Lee, I think there has been a random [00:24:00] assignment controlled experiment where young children are either reading The Little Train [sic] That Could, right, "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can," or another children's story and that the little kids in this experiment actually try harder on a difficult task. I'd have to--
Lee
Angela
I'd have to look that up for you. But, um--
Lee
Yeah, if you find that I would love to, I would love to see that.
Angela
I will do that as my homework. Um, so, so I actually do, uh, you know, believe in these-- I'm not saying, you know, like read that, that story to your child, they'll be a different child when you, when you see them the next morning. But there's a reason why we read stories like that to our children.
Lee
Angela
Um, as well as, you know, stories of kindness and honesty and so forth.
So, you know, this question of whether having some clarity about your own goals and your goal hierarchy, you know, does it matter. One correction that I, I have to say I'm the first, or this is the first time I'm, I'm saying it out loud, but I only recently discovered that a story that I said in my book, I was like, reportedly Warren Buffett, you know, makes a list, you know, and then [00:25:00] like, you know, uses the following technique to like eliminate the superfluous goals, right, the lower priority goals.
Lee
Angela
So, you know, "I think I can, I think I can" is great if you're working toward a realistic goal that, that is a priority. You know, one of the things that's harder and harder as you become older and more, you know, encumbered by responsibilities and commitments, is figuring out what to say no to. And I, I, I would say that this is a struggle of mine.
You know, I used to have a rule that if you sent me an email and you were a kid, um, meaning you were like 18 or below, that I would answer it - I mean, this is my personal rule - that I would answer it personally within 24 hours of receiving it.
Lee
Angela
I can't really keep up with that rule anymore. It's like, okay, I'm, I'm, I'm now conflicted. So what a goal hierarchy allows you to do is, at least in some principled way, make decisions. And, and, and I do think it helps me, you know, say, like, maybe this conversation with Lee Camp will do more towards this top level goal of, you know, [00:26:00] increasing psychological literacy in the world than, you know, doing some paid talk at a, you know, company that, that wants the same amount of time.
I mean, I think, I think it is a compass. And it doesn't mean that the compass is always gonna keep you from getting lost.
Lee
Angela
But, but I think it's been useful for me and for other people that I've studied.
Lee
We're going to take a short break, but coming right up, Angela and I discuss how one might grow their own grit, including the power of criticism and the value of hope in one's life.
So you spend a large chunk of your book discussing, uh, the fact that grit can grow, and the four psychological [00:27:00] traits - you've already talked about interest, and that that's, that's the number one that you point to. Uh, you also talk about practice, purpose and hope, and I was wondering if we could just maybe kind of briefly walk through those.
Uh, so first on practice. You talk about this kind of commitment to continuous improvement, this persistent desire to do better, which I always, I I, I tell my students when we do kind of virtue theory stuff, that one of my favorite virtues is that of magnanimity, which at least some people define as this persistent desire to do better in all aspects of one's life.
But even that, again, has to be bounded, right? Or you have to, you have to learn to be wise about how you're gonna practice magnanimity itself.
But talk to us then about practice. And you, you have Ericsson's deliberate practice as a central piece in all of this. So how, how's practice central to growing in grit?
Angela
One of the greatest scientists and one of the greatest people who ever lived was Anders Ericsson. You know, we used to joke with Anders Ericsson that he was the world expert on world [00:28:00] experts. Um, and it wasn't a joke 'cause he, he really was.
So, he was a cognitive scientist who studied the, the learning trajectories of people who became the best at what they did, in objectively measurable terms. And then those who became, you know, pretty darn good. And then, you know, like, not as good as them. I mean, that's, uh, what he spent his entire life doing.
And he coined this term "deliberate practice," which I think has been misunderstood. So I'm so glad to have the opportunity to clear up some of the misunderstanding of what's popularly called the 10,000 hour rule.
You know, the 10,000 hour rule refers to a study. You know, one of many, but a single study of musicians at a German music academy where Anders was looking at three groups of musicians, you know, the very, very best, you know, those who had had recording contracts and would become very successful professional musicians.
Then the next group, still pretty good. I mean, it's an elite music academy. And then the final group, still pretty good, but they were, uh, more likely to be, you know, uh, music teachers, you know, less, less performers and so forth.
And what he [00:29:00] identified was, yes, in the top group there was 10,000 hours of this kind of deliberate practice that he was at the time, I think, still formulating like what it really was. But what got lost in the, you know, translation of these findings for the popular audiences, who of course, you know, were starving for this kind of information, is that it was just a number. It was just like, oh, time on task. You know?
Lee
Angela
Quantity of practice. But I think the most important message of what Anders discovered in his work is that the quality of the practice is what really made those hours so important.
And in particular, what he found is that the most elite musicians did more of a certain kind of practice characterized by goals, right? Um, in his very last year, as he was very specific, he was like, these goals, like what Lee is gonna work on today, they were almost always, if not always, I think sometimes he-- say one, sometimes the other, were set by a coach or a mentor. In other words, you know, maybe you can't coach yourself.
Um, like reportedly Roger Bannister [00:30:00] by his own report, you know, coached himself to the four minute mile. But actually, you know, if you really look into the facts, I mean, he had a lot of people who were helpful to him, including, you know, coaches who, you know, came up with interval training and stuff like that.
So, so the first thing is goals. The second thing is complete focus or concentration, uh, or as close to it as you can get.
So typically done alone, not with, you know, distracting groups of people around you. Um, so musicians playing by themselves versus in a quartet, for example, for practice, is a meaningful distinction for Anders.
And the third element was feedback. Immediate and informative feedback. Uh, which as a musician, you, you don't need your coach in the room. You could just hear it, right? It's like, oh. That was not the way I wanted to do it. I'll do it again.
So in terms of grit, I have found that grit and this deliberate practice, this is joint work with Anders, are related. Gritty people do more deliberate practice. And I think the, the most important thing I can say about this high quality practice is that, [00:31:00] if you understand it, maybe you could do more of it.
You know, it's like, oh, you have to have goals. Gotta like, have concentration, gotta get feedback. Maybe I need a coach to help me do all these things. Like, yeah, I can, I can do more of that. And that's why I think grit can grow. Like we can reverse engineer the, the, the habits and mindsets of, of very gritty people.
Lee
You had a, on, in that chapter, a, a brief conversation about shame that I found fascinating. And I think, for my own self, one of the biggest, a very simple adjustment in myself, but very significant in growing and getting better at the stuff I do, was when I stopped thinking about feedback in terms of fear and shame and fear of judgment, out of my perfectionistic standards that I would put on myself, or my anxiety I would put on myself.
And then instead [00:32:00] shifted to start proactively seeking feedback. And that, that reframing was, I'm asking for this. I'm, you know, I have a sense of control about this. I'm asking for feedback. So it seems like, again, there's a lot of inner psychological work that we have to do as well with all this, right, to, to deal with our fears and anxieties. But commentary on that?
Angela
I have the same perfectionist tendencies that you do, Lee. And, uh, there's some words of wisdom from, uh, just a really great psychologist and his name is Mike Gervais. And he is a, like a high performance psychologist. He works with Olympic athletes and pro, uh, football teams, uh, including the Seattle Seahawks.
And he has this, um, you know what he calls like, the first rule of mastery, is to not worry about what other people think. Um, and he has this expression like, "It's 'fopo' - fear of other people's opinions." Ah, and, and I do think this, um, is liberating, if you can say, look, it is human nature to care about what other people think of us. That's not entirely a bad thing.
And by the way, shame is a moral emotion. I mean, moral emotions [00:33:00] are something you know more about than I do. But you know, you don't want to have a child grow up without the capacity for shame - that's called psychopathy. Like, you don't-- that's not good.
Um, but it--
Lee
Yeah, to call someone shameless is not a compliment, right?
Angela
It's not, right? "Do you have any shame?" I mean, you know, these are expressions that have real meaning. Um, so I don't wanna discard summarily, you know, self-conscious emotions is the way that, um, some psychologists call shame, embarrassment, guilt. There's a purpose for all of those.
But when it comes to improving, right, when it comes to, like, "Hey, Angela, like, maybe you could have been a little more succinct in that, in that Q and A with Lee Camp, like, you know, maybe a couple more stories would've been more helpful." You know, I don't know that the self-conscious emotions of like, shame, or frankly, you know, guilt or embarrassment are all that helpful.
And if there's one metaphor that I have found helpful, um, Lee, is that, you know, when you are looking at a piece of artwork, and, you know, when you go through art school-- so my mom's an an artist and, and something is familiar to students who go through, you know, art training is what, what's [00:34:00] called a crit, right?
So like, you know, the class or the teacher, you know, stands and looks at your painting or your sculpture and they just have at it, right?
Lee
Angela
And, and one of the things, I think just metaphorically, it's like, but you are standing next to your teacher looking at the art, right? So you're both looking at your painting.
And I think if you can look at feedback in that way, that you know, um, oh, in that conversation, Angela, you know, you could have been a little more succinct. It's like, okay, I'm gonna stand shoulder to shoulder with Lee. We're gonna look at the conversation and Lee's gonna say, I think you could have been a little more succinct there. And I'm like, yeah, that's a good point. And, and over here I could have put in another story.
So I think if you can imagine yourself as separate from your performance--
Lee
Angela
Your performance is in the middle of the room. You can walk around it, other people can walk around it with you--
Lee
Angela
And you can separate your ego and your identity from the performance or the action, and that to me has been, you know, very helpful.
Lee
Yeah.
Third area, third psychological trait you suggest that can help us grow in grit is purpose. And you, you described [00:35:00] this not as any purpose, but a specific sort of purpose that is an intention to contribute to the wellbeing of others.
You wanna describe that a bit more for us?
Angela
Yeah. And you know, uh, I won't apologize for footnoting all the, you know, the, the scholars here. So, Bill Damon at Stanford, uh, among others, has been, um, a pioneer in this motivation to serve others who are not you, right? And sometimes it's called beyond the self purpose.
So indeed, I'm talking about purpose that is not like, hey I wanna make more money. Like I wanna be more famous. You know, I wanna be more beautiful.
Lee
Angela
But more like, hmm, you know, I wonder how I can help my neighbor, or like, you know, be part of a team and the team is gonna do something which is beyond me.
So this beyond the self purpose is something that I've studied in the context of grit. I find that it's highly correlated with being someone who is passionate and persevering for long-term goals. I think there's, uh, a, a deep, deep causal relationship there.
I mean, why would you get up, you know, at 4:30 in the [00:36:00] morning, you know, like day after day, um, you know, to do something, you know, even performers in individual sports, right? You know, you're not talking about a basketball team, but you're talking about an individual track star or swimmer. You know, even when you talk to, um, those individual performers and it looks from the outside to be a totally self-interested personal goal. You know, what really gets to the, the, the core of their motivation, very often, at its deepest level, is some sense that what they're doing is beyond the self.
Now, you could say they're delusional, but it's, it's certainly their own, uh, sincere account, right? So I think this desire is, you know, part and parcel of, you know, frankly the human, um, experience. I think it's something that we all recognize and a lot of people who don't like their work, who feel burnt out, who feel aimless, you know, what they're missing, I think, is, you know, a sense of being part of something larger than themselves and in service to, to something larger than themselves.
Lee
Yeah.[00:37:00]
Another thing you point out in this chapter on purpose is the way in which different people can have the same occupation, yet their subjective experience of that work differ drastically, and thus contribute or not to their sense of purpose and thus to their grit.
Des-- that, that, I just find that so helpful. Describe that to us.
Angela
You know, you can be the brick layer, you know, the, you know, the parable, the brick layer, the, who, who's laying bricks. You know, you could be the bricklayer who's building a church. And you could be the bricklayer who's building the house of God. And, and I think those are, you know, three ways that you can think about any work.
I'm now thinking about the work of Amy Wrzesniewski, who's, um, at Yale. And she, you know, was studying callings, you know, from her earliest days as a researcher, and finding, you know, to her surprise that it wasn't like some professions are callings and [00:38:00] other professions are merely careers and still other professions are just jobs, right, because these are the kind of the three ways of thinking about work.
But really the same profession, say for example, being a, an aide in a hospital. For, for one person, it could be a job. Makes money, pays the bills. Another, it's a career. You know, if I progress, like I would get promoted, I can see the, you know, the, the sort of trajectory. And the last is the calling, right, uh, this is, this is, uh, you know, beyond my own personal gain. I'm part of something larger than myself.
And I find the word 'calling,' and again, I'm, you know, really referring to other scholars' work here, but, but it's so interesting because it is the, it is the phrase that comes to mind. And of course it has very religious connotations, um, uh, whether you're religious or not. It has a kind of spiritual dimension. You feel like someone or something is calling you to do so-- you've been chosen to do this.
Lee
Some, some sort of transcendent purpose--
Angela
It's self-transcendent. Yeah. [00:39:00] And I think that's the key to beyond the self purpose, right?
It's, it's self-transcendent.
So, so I guess the, um, most important insight, at least in my mind o-- of this, is that it's not a feature of the job itself. It's how you bring yourself to it and how you think of it.
Lee
Angela
Um, and I think if I could summarize a very large number of conversations with leaders, what, what their constant task is, is to make the purpose more salient on an everyday basis, because it is easy to get separated from the larger purpose of your work--
Lee
Angela
--as you, you know, grind through your to-do list and you manage all the problems that come up. And, and I think this, you know, reminding of the beyond the self purpose is, you know, a task for leaders. And of course it's a, a task for each of us. Um, and--
Lee
Angela
--people have different practices for doing that, but I think that is, that is important.
Lee
Yeah. Let's mention briefly the, the final, uh, psychological trait. You point to hope, and again, you, you point to different kinds of, [00:40:00] possibilities of hope there.
Angela
Yeah. My, my PhD advisor was, I should say, is, 'cause he's still alive, but anyway, Marty Seligman. And his work on optimism was really world-changing. I-- you know, he's, uh, somebody who started out studying animals and then, you know, depressed individuals.
And what he found is that, you know, when you are confronted with adversity that is beyond your control, you know, in these, um, animal experiments, these, you know, dogs, say, would be subjected to mild but painful and scary electric shock that they had no control over. It just happens, you know, randomly. Um, and those dogs would soon basically look like depressed people look, you know, it's like no energy, not getting up, you know? And given the opportunity to actually remove themself from shock by like just walking across the cage, like they would just sit and, you know, be despondent.
And what Marty came to discover is that optimism, um, is really the, the, the photo negative of that, right? And some of the dogs in these experiments actually never gave up. You know, [00:41:00] just, you know, adversity would happen, they couldn't control it, but then when given the opportunity, they would, you know, spring into action.
Lee
Angela
And I think what Marty might say about, you know, what underlies that hope, and this is very consistent with what Carol Dweck at Stanford, um, has studied in, in terms of growth mindset, it, it is a way of seeing the world where you, you're fundamentally assuming that there's something you can do. You know, there, there's gotta be-- I can't change everything, you know, I can't change what my mother did, I can't change what my father did, I can't change my zip code maybe right now, but, you know, you could change, you know, something.
Um, when I, when I talk about this in my classes with my undergraduates, I say to them, I remember teaching during the pandemic and, of course it was a dark time for a lot of us, and I said, you know, there's so much you can't change. You know, you can't, you know, yourself personally, decide when the vaccines are gonna come out and you know, what the, you know, schedule is gonna be for classes, and you know, what, what your neighbors are gonna do.
But you know what you can do? You could, like, text your mom [00:42:00] right now and tell her like, that you love her. Like, can you do that? Like, you have the power to do that. Like, you could smile, like in the next co-- like, I, is that under your control ?You could do that. Like, you could do a five minute favor. Like, everybody do a five minute favor, you know?
And like, at first students were like, oh, I, I can't think of anything. But you know, it takes less than five minutes to then think of something. You're like, oh wait, I could wash the, I guess I could wash the dishes for my roommate. Like, yeah, you can do that.
So I think this idea of hope and optimism and a mindset that assumes that, you know, things can be changed. At least some things can be changed--
Lee
Angela
--um, in some ways. I think that is something, frankly, Lee, I, I, I have to sometimes remind myself of, 'cause I think when you're not in that place, it's, it's hard sometimes to get there, but I do think it's possible to get there.
Lee
Yeah. Yeah. I find two phrases helpful from Marty's work.
Uh, learned helplessness versus learned optimism. And that we can, we can practice and work on these things as well--
Angela
Lee
--of how, how we frame things.
Very, uh, in [00:43:00] 60 seconds, uh, I, it seems that you already answered this in what you just said last, but as I was reading your book, I, it occurred to me that I wondered if some people would say, well, what do you do with the serenity prayer, right? Which, which is saying, 'God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change and the courage to change the things I can.'
Now, I think, would what you just said kind of be one way you would point to an answer in that regard?
Angela
Well, I know we're toward the end of our conversation, Lee, but I'm smiling because, um, that is the book I'm supposed to be writing right now.
Um, in other words, uh, when I stopped, you know-- well, when I stopped... when I finished writing Grit, I swore up and down that I would never write another book. And then I changed my mind a few years ago because I thought, well, somebody has to write a book about the power of your circumstances, right? Because you can't--
Lee
Angela
--you know, always change them. Sometimes you can. So, and um, I looked into the Serenity Prayer, which of course is from, uh, Reinhold Niebuhr, you know, the great theologian, and, you know, has become now adopted and, and paraphrased, actually, frankly, in Alcoholics Anonymous, uh, groups.
But I think that, I, I will [00:44:00] say this. I think it is worth stating that some circumstances are actually beyond people's control. I think that should give us compassion. We don't even know about their circumstances. You know, there's a, an expression misattributed to Plato, but I think beautiful. "Each is carrying their own heavy burden, so be kind to all you meet." Right?
Lee
Angela
And, and that is, you know, words of wisdom to live by because some circumstances that are invisible to us are not changeable by the individual.
And then the second line of the Serenity Prayer is like the, you know, the courage to change the things-- actually in the original, it's that, 'that need to be changed.' I think that's the original wording.
Lee
Angela
Uh, but in the Alcoholics Anonymous version, it's like 'the courage to change the things I can.' But that to me was also worth a book. Like, you know, there's some circumstances that we can change and we don't think of circumstances in that way. We usually think of circumstances as beyond our control. But maybe we should look for those that are within our control. And then of course, the wisdom to know the difference.
So, so absolutely - more to say on that. But that would be a whole book, Lee. And so, um, since [00:45:00] I haven't yet, uh, figured out how to write such a book, we'll, we'll have to schedule another conversation.
Lee
But we look forward, we look forward to that.
So la-- last question in the last two minutes that we have. What would you point to as some successes and failures you've experienced yourself in living out what you prescribe in, uh, your book Grit?
Angela
Well, I'm, I'm, I'm more inclined to speak about the, the failures. So, you know, in terms of successes, I think figuring out eventually that I wanted to be a psychologist who writes a lot, you know, like the teenager who went to summer school and studied psychology and writing grew up to be a psychologist who writes a lot.
You know, that's been, you know, incredibly gratifying for me. 'Cause I am really not the smartest person in the room, I will, I will tell you with, you know, not false modesty like, 'Oh yeah, I'm definitely not--' Um, uh, I had to take an IQ test, like, on the air with Steve Levitt and Stephen Dubner once, and I was like--
Lee
Angela
I was like the bronze medalist among the three of us, I'll just say.
Um, but, but that, uh, but that has been successful for me, you know, [00:46:00] doing something that I really do love.
The failure is what I just wanna end with. You know, this has been a really hard year for me 'cause I did try to write this second book and I've been struggling to figure out how to write it and it's, it's been just very, like, confidence testing. And, um, and, and so I guess I wanna say this, like, I think if I could say one thing, it's like, even if you study, you know, these things and you know, you're, you're on a path, like, don't expect it to be, you know, linear. I mean, even Angela Duckworth wakes up some days and thinks, like, 'ah, to hell with it.'
Like, I just--
Lee
Angela
I can't do it. It's too hard.
Um, but, um, but I, I do wanna say that I've, I've tried to remind myself of all the things we've talked about in this conversation, and, you know, I haven't given up yet.
Lee
Yeah.
I've been talking to Angela Duckworth, professor at the University of Pennsylvania, on her number one New York Times Bestseller, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.
Thank you, Angela. It's been a delightful conversation.
Angela
Lee, I look forward to our next one.
Lee
Thank you.[00:47:00]
You've been listening to No Small Endeavor and our interview with Angela Duckworth, author of The New York Times Bestseller, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of Lilly Endowment Incorporated, a private philanthropic foundation supporting the causes of community development, education, and religion, and the support of the John Templeton Foundation, whose vision is to become a global catalyst for discoveries that contribute to human flourishing.
Thanks to all the stellar team that makes this show possible. Christie Bragg, Jakob Lewis, Sophie Byard, Tom Anderson, Kate Hays, Mary Eveleen Brown, Cariad Harmon, Jason Sheesley, Ellis Osburn, and Tim Lauer.
Thanks for [00:48:00] listening, and let's keep exploring what it means to live a good life together.
No Small Endeavor is a production of PRX, Tokens Media, LLC, and Great Feeling Studios.