Grit

I recently read Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth (2018). This book has been the subject of much chatter in recent years.

 

My top takeaways:

·       Showing up………is a large part of the battle. (Dr. Mike Moses taught that it’s at least 90% of the outcome.)

·       Talent x Effort = Skill _ Skill x Effort = Achievement

·       Enthusiasm is quite common. Endurance is the rarity.

·       The genesis of passion is authentically enjoying what you do (or are doing).

·       Purpose ripens passion.

·       Experts don’t just practice, they practice deliberately.

·       Almost any occupation can be a job, or a career, or a calling.

·       Purpose…..is our WHY?

·       A bad day is a terrible time to quit.

·       Grit can be an element of culture.

 

My favorite quotes:

 

“Talent is how quickly your skills improve when you invest effort. Achievement is what happens when you take your acquired skills and use them.” (p. 42)

 

“Grit is about holding the same top-level goal for a very long time.” (p. 64)

 

“One form of perseverance is the daily discipline of trying to do things better than we did yesterday.” (p. 91)

 

“For the beginner, novelty is anything that hasn’t been encountered before. For the expert, novelty is nuance.” (p. 114)

 

“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.’” (p. 183)

 

“My husband Jason and I are raising our girls according to the Hard Thing Rule: Do something that requires deliberate practice, don’t quit in the middle of the season or the semester, and pick the hard thing yourself.” (p. 278)

 

 

This book was every bit as good as the chatter it has generated would suggest.