Brian Johnsons

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Grit

THE BIG IDEAS

The Power of Passion and Perseverance

Beast + Science of Grit

BY ANGELA DUCKWORTH SCRIBNER 2016 352 PAGES

Intense passion + perseverance.

Effort Counts Twice

In pursuit of greatness + grit.

Gritty Passion

= Compass (vs. Fireworks).

How to Grow Grit

The four psychological assets.

Wise Parenting

vs. Not-so-wise parenting.

Youre a Gritty Genius

If you want to be.

Why were the highly accomplished so dogged in their pursuits? For most, there
was no realistic expectation of ever catching up to their ambitions. In their own
eyes, they were never good enough. They were the opposite of complacent. And
yet, in a very real sense, they were satisfied with being unsatisfied. Each was
chasing something of unparalleled interest and importance, and it was the chase
as much as the capturethat was gratifying. Even if some of the things they had to
do were boring, or frustrating, or even painful, they wouldnt dream of giving up.
Their passion was enduring.
In sum, no matter the domain, the highly successful had a kind of ferocious
determination that played out in two ways. First, these exemplars were unusually
resilient and hardworking. Second, they knew in a very, very deep way what it was
they wanted. They not only had determination, they had direction.
It was this combination of passion and perseverance that made high achievers
special. In a word, they had grit.
~ Angela Duckworth from Grit
Angela Duckworth is the worlds leading authority on the science of grit. In fact, she pioneered
the field and, as Daniel Gilbert says on the cover: Psychologists have spent decades searching

Grit depends on a different

kind of hope. It rests on
the expectation that our
own efforts can improve
our future. I have a feeling
tomorrow will be better is
different from I resolve to
make tomorrow better. The
hope that gritty people have
has nothing to do with luck
and everything to do with
getting up again.
~ Angela Duckworth

for the secret of success, but Duckworth is the one who found it.
What is grit?
In essence: Its the combination of intense passion + intense perseverance toward a long-term
goal that matters to you.
In this great book, Angela connects her research to a bunch of the other positive psychology
luminaries we featureranging from Martin Seligman (her mentor at Penn) and Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi to Anders Ericsson, Gabrielle Oettingen, Carol Dweck.
Plus, she shares a bunch of inspiring stories about grit paragons while walking us through the
key aspects of grit and teaching us how we can cultivate grit in our lives and in the lives of those
we love and lead.
This is one of those books that I think is a MUST READ if youre serious about optimizing +
actualizing while helping others do the same. Its my new favorite for 2016. I think youll really
love it. (Get a copy here.)
As you can imagine, the book is packed with a bunch of Big Ideas. Im excited to share a handful
of my favorites we can apply to our lives today so lets jump in!
P.S. You may have already seen Angelas TED Talk. If not, check it out here!

PhilosophersNotes | Grit

BEAST + THE SCIENCE OF GRIT

Theres an old Japanese
saying: Fall seven, rise eight.
If I were ever to get a
tattoo, Id get these four
simple words indelibly inked.
~ Angela Duckworth

By the last day of Beast, seventy-one cadets had dropped out.

Grit turned out to be an astoundingly reliable predictor of who made it through and who did not.
The next year, I returned to West Point to run the same study. This time, sixty-two cadets
dropped out of Beast, and again grit predicted who would stay.
In contrast, stayers and leavers had indistinguishable Whole Candidate Scores. I looked a little
closer at the individual components that make up the score. Again, no difference.
So, what matters for making it through Beast?
Not your SAT scores, not your high school rank, not your leadership experience, not your athletic
ability.
Not your Whole Candidate Score.
What matters is grit.
Angelas research on the power of grit begins at West Point where new cadets are put through a
grueling (!) summer welcome called Beast Barracks. Or, just Beast.
For two months, these cadets (who spent the better part of two years trying to get into West
Point) are put through a super challenging initiation designed to help them make the transition
from new cadet to Soldier.
A ton drop out during those grueling 7 weeks.
Military scientists had been trying to predict who would drop out for decades. They couldnt
figure it out.
Although their Whole Candidate Score (which measures things like GPA, SAT, and leadership
+ athletic experience) did predict who would do well over the course of the four years at West
Point, it DIDNT predict who would actually stick around long enough to graduate.
Enter Angela Duckworth and her Grit Scalea super simple 10 question test (take it here). This
simple test provided the most accurate prediction of who would make it through.

The bottom line on culture

and grit is: If you want
to be grittier, find a gritty
culture and join it. If youre
a leader, and you want the
people in your organization
to be grittier, create a gritty
culture.
~ Angela Duckworth

As Angela says: Half of the questions were about perseverance. They asked how much you
agree with statements like I have overcome setbacks to conquer an important challenge and I
finish whatever I begin.
The other half of the questions were about passion. They asked whether your interests change
from year to year and the extent to which you have been obsessed with a certain idea or
project for a short time but later lost interest.
Passion + Perseverance.
Grit.
If you want to make it through the Beast challenges in your life, youd be wise to cultivate it.
Lets explore how.

WANT GRIT? REMEMBER: EFFORT COUNTS TWICE

I have been working on a theory of the psychology of achievement since Marty scolded me for
not having one. I have pages and pages of diagrams, filling more than a dozen lab notebooks.
After more than a decade of thinking about it, sometimes alone, and sometimes in partnership
with close colleagues, I finally published an article in which I lay down two simple equations that
explain how you get from talent to achievement.

PhilosophersNotes | Grit

Here they are:

I came to a fundamental
insight that would guide my
future work: Our potential is
one thing. What we do with it
is quite another.
~ Angela Duckworth

talent x effort = skill

> skill x effort = achievement
Talent is how quickly your skills improve when you invest effort. Achievement is what happens
when you take your acquired skills and use them. Of course, your opportunitiesfor example,
having a great teachermatter tremendously, too, and maybe more than anything about the
individual. My theory doesnt address these outside forces, nor does it include luck. Its about the
psychology of achievement, but because psychology isnt all that maters, its incomplete.
Still, I think its useful. What this theory says is that when you consider individuals in identical
circumstances, what each achieves depends on just two things, talent and effort. Talenthow
fast we can improve a skillabsolutely matters. But effort factors into the calculations twice, not
once. Effort builds skill. At the very same time, effort makes skill productive.
As a good, conservative scientist, Angela is careful to point out that theres more to achieving
great things than just the psychology of achievement (great teachers, luck, etc.) BUT if you look
at individuals in the same situation, youll find two simple variables that will make the difference
in what each achieves:
Talent + Effort.
And, although talent (defined by Angela as how quickly you can improve your skills when you
put in the effort) *IS* important, EFFORT is counted twice. And, of course, we have control over
how much effort we put inwhich is exciting.
So, to recap the equation:
TALENT x EFFORT = SKILLS
> SKILLS x EFFORT = ACHIEVEMENT
The amount of effort we put into cultivating our talent = our skills. The amount of effort we put
into giving our skills to the world = our achievement. A simple equation that says a LOT about

Without effort, your talent

is nothing more than your
unmet potential. Without
effort, your skill is nothing
more than what you could
have done but didnt. With
effort, talent becomes
skill and, at the very same
time, effort makes skill
productive.
~ Angela Duckworth

the psychology of achievement.

Remember: Effort counts twice.
P.S. Angela quotes Will Smith a few times in this chapter. He says: Ive never really viewed
myself as particularly talented... Where I excel is ridiculous, sickening work ethic.
And: The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me is: Im not afraid to die on a
treadmill. I will not be outworked, period. You might have more talent than me, you might be
smarter than me, you might be sexier than me. You might be all of those things. You got it on
me in nine categories. But if we get on the treadmill together, theres two things: Youre getting
off first, or Im going to die. Its really that simple. (Watch video of that awesomeness here.)

GRITTY PASSION = COMPASS (VS. FIREWORKS)

What I mean by a 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.
Gritty people figure out what they are REALLY committed to and then they give themselves to it
for YEARS or DECADES or an entire LIFETIME.

PhilosophersNotes | Grit

Eventually, if you keep

practicing in the same time
and place, what once took
conscious thought to initiate
becomes automatic. There
is no more miserable human
being, observed William
James, than the one for
whom every beginning of every
bit of work must be decided
anew each day.
~ Angela Duckworth

As Angela says, their passion is less like fireworks that come intensely and then fade away and
more like a COMPASS that guides every moment of their entire lives.
They dont run around chasing one goal after another; they have an ultimate concerna top
level goal that drives all the other goals.
They have their ONE Thing that Gary Keller describes so powerfully and they are willing to be
seen as obsessed Grant Cardone 10x Rule-style.
Heres an example of a grit paragon that Angela shares: Tom Seaver. Tom is a Hall of Fame
pitcher who received the highest-ever percentage of votes: 98.8. (Wow.) He pitched for 20 years
and racked up some crazy stats: 311 wins, 3,640 strikeouts, 61 shutouts, a 2.86 lifetime ERA.
Heres how he approached his ultimate concern/ONE Thing goal to structure everything he did
in his life: Pitching . . . determines what I eat, when I go to bed, what I do when Im awake.
It determines how I spend my life when Im not pitching. If it means I have to come to Florida
and cant get tanned because I might get a burn that would keep me from throwing for a few
days, then I never go shirtless in the sun. . . . If it means I have to remind myself to pet dogs
with my left hand or throw logs on the fire with my left hand, then I do that, too. If it means
in the winter I eat cottage cheese instead of chocolate chip cookies in order to keep my weight
down, then I eat cottage cheese.
Reminds me of the Black Hole Focus Idea we talk about in Purpose 101.
And, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi shares the same wisdom in his study of the most eminent
Creators. See the Notes on Creativity where he tells us: After creative energy is awakened,
it is necessary to protect it. We must erect barriers against distractions, dig channels so that
energy can flow more freely, find ways to escape outside temptations and interruptions.
Spotlight on you: Do you jump from thing to thing to thing, following your passion fireworksstyle? Or, are you guided by a deep, abiding passionan ultimate concernthat serves as a
compass for all you do?
Lets get gritty with our passion. Lets find the thing thats worthy of us and give ourselves to it.
P.S. Angela makes the important point that she has one ultimate concern for her professional life
AND shes committed to being an extraordinary mother to her two daughters. Super inspiring:
... my top-level, life-organizing goal is, and will be until my last breath: Use psychological
science to help kids thrive.
P.P.S. In this section, Angela talks about Gabrielle Oettingens work on Rethinking Positive
Thinking. Check out the Notes + Interview and remember to WOOP! :)

HOW TO GROW YOUR GRIT (THE 4 PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSETS)

Interest is one source
of passion. Purposethe
intention to contribute to
the well-being of othersis
another. The mature passions
of gritty people depend on
both.
~ Angela Duckworth

In fact, when people drop out of things, they do so for a reason. Actually, they do so for different
reasons. Any of the following four thoughts might go through your head right before you quit
what youre doing:
Im bored.
The effort isnt worth it.
This isnt important to me.
I cant do this, so I might as well give up.
Theres nothing wrongmorally or otherwisewith thoughts like these. As I tried to show in
this chapter, paragons of grit quit goals, too. But the higher the level of the goal in question, the
more stubborn they are about seeing it through. Most important, paragons of grit dont swap
compasses: when it comes to the one, singularly important aim that guides almost everything
else they do, the very gritty tend not to utter the statements above. ...

PhilosophersNotes | Grit

In my grit lexicon,
therefore, purpose means
the intention to contribute
to the well-being of others.
~ Angela Duckworth

Together, the research reveals the psychological assets that mature paragons of grit have in
common. There are four. They counter each of the buzz-killers listed above, and they tend to
develop, over the years, in a particular order.
We all quit things. (And, as we discuss in Born for This, that is often the wise thing to do.) But...
The grittiest among us DONT quit the compass-driven top-level ultimate concern goals. Thats
what makes them gritty.
Angela tells us there are four psychological assets we can cultivate to get our grit on. Here they
are: Interest + Practice + Purpose + Hope.
Interest: If we want sustainable passion, we need to be intrinsically drawn to what we do. It
needs to fire us up. We need to love it. We all have facets of what we do that arent particularly
awesome, but were just not going to put in the effort over the long run unless we, like the grit
paragons, have an enduring fascination and childlike curiosity and practically shout, I love
what I do! (< Do you?)
Practice. Angela talks about Anders Ericssons research on deliberate practice (and juxtaposes
+ integrates it with Csikszentmihalyis work on Flow in a super cool way) and points out that one
key aspect of perseverance is the ability to discipline ourselves to show up every.single.day with
an attitude of Whatever it takes, I want to improve! (See the Notes on Peak for more!)
Purpose. Purpose is all about seeing that our work matters in the world. Its essential that we
love what we do, but were not going to sustain our interest over the long run if its just about us.
We need to make the connection to something bigger than ourselves. Angela tells us that fully
mature exemplars of grit invariably tell her: My work is importantboth to me and to others.
Hope. Hope defines every stage of grit. Its the rising-to-the-occasion kind of perseverance in
which we KNOW that we have the ability to achieve what we set out to do. If we stay down, grit
loses. If we get up, grit prevails. (Check out our Notes on Making Hope Happen for more on
the science of hope.)
Interest + Practice + Purpose + Hope.
How are you doing with each of those assets? Whatre you rockin? What can you optimize?

GRIT + WISE PARENTING (VS. NOT-SO-WISE PARENTING)

Author and activist James
Baldwin once put it this way:
Children have never been very
good at listening to their
elders, but they have never
failed to imitate them.
~ Angela Duckworth

Indeed, over the past forty years, study after carefully designed study has found that the
children of psychologically wise parents fare better than children raised in any other kind of
household.
In one of Larrys studies, for example, about ten thousand American teenagers completed
questionnaires about their parents behavior. Regardless of gender, ethnicity, social class, or
parents marital status, teens with warm, respectful, and demanding parents earned higher
grades in school, were more self-reliant, suffered from less anxiety and depression, and were less
likely to engage in delinquent behavior.
Thats from a chapter on Parenting for Grit in which Angela walks us through the virtue of Wise
Parenting (vis-a-vis Authoritarian Parenting, Permissive Parenting and Neglectful Parenting).
Heres the short story: Wise Parents are BOTH warm AND demanding. They have high
standards AND total support. On the other hand, Authoritarian Parents have high standards but
low warmth. Permissive Parents have high warmth but low standards. Neglectful have neither.
(See Micro for more.)
So, Wise Parenting is a good idea. But, if you really want to cultivate grit in your kids, YOU must
embody the qualities of grit. YOU need to have passion + perseverance for your own life goals.
... Do you? :)

PhilosophersNotes | Grit

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 goal. 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.
~ Angela Duckworth

P.S. Did you know the Latin root of the word parenting literally means to bring forth? To
bring forth potential. Thats our job. Not just as parents, but as teachers, coaches, and leaders.
P.P.S. As part of their Wise Parenting practice, Angela and her family have what she calls The
Hard Thing Rule. In short, everyone in the fam picks something challenging that theyre
committed to mastering. For Angela, its her psychological research. For her husband, its his
real estate development. For their daughters it includes things like ballet and piano.
Three rules: 1. You need to deliberately practice daily. 2. You can quit but not until the season
is overno quitting on a bad day mid-way thru. Gotta finish. 3. You pick your hard thingyou
need to be intrinsically interested in it! (Might be cool for your family? Definitely for ours! :)

YOURE A GRITTY GENIUS

Youre no genius, my dad used to say when I was just a little girl. I realize now that he was
talking to himself as much as he was talking to me.
If you define genius as being able to accomplish great things in life without effort, then he was
right: Im no genius, and neither is he.
But if, instead, you define genius as working toward excellence, ceaselessly, with every element
of your beingthen, in fact, my dad is a genius, and so am I, and... if youre willing, so are you.
Want to be a genius?
Lets discover our passion and give ourselves to it with a fierce commitment to excellence +
service over the rest of our lives. :)
To grit, my friend!!!

Brian Johnson,
Chief Philosopher

If you liked this Note,

youll probably like
Learned Optimism
Flow
Peak
Mindset
Rethinking Positive
Thinking
Win Forever
The ONE Thing
Mastery by Greene
Thanks!
The 10X Rule

About the Author of Grit

ANGELA DUCKWORTH

Angela Duckworth, PhD, is a 2013 MacArthur Fellow and professor of psychology

at the University of Pennsylvania. She has advised the White House, the World
Bank, NBA and NFL teams, and Fortune 500 CEOs. She is also the Founder and
Scientific Director of the Character Lab, a nonprofit whose mission is to advance
the science and practice of character development. She completed her BA in
neurobiology at Harvard, her MSc in neuroscience at Oxford, and her PhD in
psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Grit: The Power of Passion and
Perseverance is her first book. Connect: angeladuckworth.com.

About the Author of This Note

BRIAN JOHNSON

Brian Johnson loves helping people optimize their lives as he studies, embodies
and teaches the fundamentals of optimal livingintegrating ancient wisdom
+ modern science + common sense + virtue + mastery + fun. Learn more and
optimize your life at brianjohnson.me.

PhilosophersNotes | Grit