Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 272: The Secrets of Gritty People | Angela Duckworth

Episode Date: August 10, 2020

This week on the show, we’re exploring the interrelated themes of grit and resilience -- both massively resonant and relevant issues in the era of Covid and BLM. Today, my guest is Angela Duckworth. She’s a psychologist who was deemed a “genius” by the MacArthur Foundation, and she is perhaps best known for popularizing the term “grit,” which she defines as “a combination of passion and perseverance for a singularly important goal.” She’s written a bestselling book called Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, and has a new podcast called “No Stupid Questions.” In this episode, we talk about the secrets of gritty people, how to cultivate grit when it seems like the world is falling apart, and the possible downsides of grit. She’s quite candid about a number of sensitive issues, including the recent passing of her dad, and the sharp criticisms her work on grit has received in light of America’s racial reckoning. Where to find Angela Duckworth online:  Website: https://angeladuckworth.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/angeladuckw Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/angeladuckworthgrit Book Mentioned: Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance - https://bookshop.org/books/grit-the-power-of-passion-and-perseverance/9781501111112 If you want help developing grit and resilience to cope with the fear, stress, and anxiety caused by the pandemic, try our free collection of meditations called Coronavirus Sanity in the Ten Percent Happier app: https://10percenthappier.app.link/CoronavirusSanity  Other Resources Mentioned: No Stupid Questions Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/no-stupid-questions/id1510056899 #215: What's Your Motivation? | Thubten Chodron: https://podcasts.apple.com/zw/podcast/215-whats-your-motivation-thubten-chodron/id1087147821?i=1000457992635 #230: Work Less, Get More Done | Alex Soojung Kim-Pang: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/230-work-less-get-more-done-alex-soojung-kim-pang/id1087147821?i=1000468074697  K. Anders Ericsson - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._Anders_Ericsson Catherine Cox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharine_Cox_Miles The Apples in Stereo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apples_in_Stereo  Additional Resources: Ten Percent Happier Live: https://tenpercent.com/live Coronavirus Sanity Guide: https://www.tenpercent.com/coronavirussanityguide Free App access for Frontline Workers: https://tenpercent.com/care Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/angela-duckworth-272 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Before we jump into today's show, many of us want to live healthier lives, but keep bumping our heads up against the same obstacles over and over again. But what if there was a different way to relate to this gap between what you want to do and what you actually do? What if you could find intrinsic motivation for habit change that will make you happier instead of sending you into a shame spiral? Learn how to form healthy habits without kicking your own ass unnecessarily by taking our healthy habits course over on the 10% happier app. It's taught by the Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonical and the Great Meditation Teacher Alexis

Santos to access the course. Just download the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps or by visiting 10% calm. All one word spelled out. Okay on with the show. to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. For MBC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, hey, this week on the show, we are going to explore the interrelated themes of grit and resilience, both massively resonant and relevant issues, obviously, in the air of COVID and BLM and more. Today, my guest is Angela Duckworth. She's a psychologist who was deemed a genius by the MacArthur Foundation and she is perhaps best known for popularizing the term grit, which she defines as, and I'm quoting here,

a combination of passion and perseverance for a singularly important goal. She's written a best-selling book called Grit and has a new podcast called No Stupid Questions. In this episode, we talk about the secrets of Gritty people, about how to cultivate Grit when it seems like everything's falling apart. And the possible downsides of Grid. She's also quite candid about a number of sensitive issues, including the recent passing of her dad and the sharp criticisms her work on Grid have received in light of America's racial reckoning.

So here we go, Angela Duckworth. Well, nice to meet you virtually. Nice to meet you too. Hello. Hi. So sorry to bring up something somber at the jump here, but I wanted to pass along my condolences to you. I understand you had a parent pass away during the pandemic. Yeah, I did. My father passed away from COVID and actually unrelated to COVID, but just in the spirit of remembrances this morning, I was an attendee at the Zoom service for August Erickson, who is the scientist behind the 10,000 hours of practice meme.

And, yeah, so it's been a time of pondering what life is all about. I wonder as you endure these losses, I would imagine the loss of your dad would be particularly difficult. Yeah, I'll be honest, I'm going to just, I'm just going to be totally honest. I'm saying to my daughter, so I have a daughter who's 18 and I saw her just after the Zoom service for Anders Erickson and I told her how beautiful it was and I told her I cried from the title slide to the end that like all the way through that she was surprised because she knows I don't cry that much and then she said you know that's a lot more than you cried for your dad which is an accurate statement and to say, I think that maybe one difference

is that, you know, my dad was dying for a long time. And I'm not saying it wasn't tragic that he died of COVID, but he was sort of dying for 10 or more years, depending on how you count. And it was a sort of short to sentence at the end of a long paragraph at the end of a long painful chapter. So I was probably more struck in a way by Anders' study in passing since it was you know, much earlier in his life. I was wondering whether it caused any... You mentioned that it made you think about life, and I wonder specifically whether it had caused you to think in a fresh way about the concept of grit that you've helped popularize. I think these pastings must make everyone reflect a little bit about, first of all, how brief it is that we all have. You know, it's so brief, so you could say, you know, Anders, you know, in his early 70s was like, do brief,

or you could say, oh my dad lived a long life, because he lived to 87, but it's all brief. I mean, we're really here for such a short time. And in terms of my work on grit and on tractor reverse engineer, I guess I would say the psychology of effort, motivation, and achievement, I have been reflecting, like I hope this is a good way to spend my brief time on the planet. But my hope has been that, figuring out

how it is that people do great things and demystifying that process of it would be one way to spend time in a worthwhile way. What's coming up in my mind right now is, you know, I've spent so much time obsessing often unhelpfully or unhealthily about doing great things or have achieving success. When evaluated in the light of the brevity of a human life, sometimes I question how much time I've spent thinking about these things. Is it because you feel like you are

accomplishing things and making progress, but do you feel like, oh, but maybe against the wrong goals or like something else all together? That and spending so much time working towards something and maybe not enough time actually being alive, being aware that I'm alive, being aware that the people around me are alive and could use some attention and love, etc. One of the questions I've sometimes asked to think about, and I think it's a good one, and I have actually been thinking about it, is, you know, what's the downside of being so gritty and maybe the helpful if I just specify what I mean by grading, which is having

this kind of really sustained and consistent passion for a long-term goal. There's something that might take years or decades or you might think, you know, in the case of Rondar Zarek's and like something that really motivates you. Like your whole life, for him, I think it was to do this to fight excellence, right? He was the world expert on world experts and I really think he must have woke up every day and thought, today I'm gonna try to make more progress toward this goal of understanding where a world class expertise comes from.

And I think this sustained passion and also a perseverance, like being incredibly hard worker, it could be that the downside of that is that you're not present in the moment because by definition, a goal is a future state. Like, that is what a goal is, a desired future state. So if you spend all of your life working toward desired future states,

are you not present in the moment? I mean, it was interesting being part of this service for Andres because it was not part of his family, and it wasn't his graduate student. So when all the pictures came up and all the remembrances of him as a brother and as an uncle and as a grandfather and as a dad, it was so clear to me, maybe for the first time because I only knew him in a professional context and as a friend,

that he was really able to be present in the moment and go and roller coasters and have a lot of fun. So I think it is possible to be gritty and not be absent in your lived life with your loved ones. But I agree with you, like you can imagine how like you have to be intentional about that or at least that you can trip maybe and accidentally end up entirely living in your future desired states and miss out on everything that's happening right now. This is such a rich subject. I know I'm ostensibly the interviewer here but I have a bunch of things to say. Do you mind if I hold forth? I'm gonna fall for you, fall for you. Okay.

Because there are two prior guests whose words are coming to mind as we're having this discussion. One is because I agree with what you just said that I think you can do both, but it takes work. And I think you have to be intentional about it. One is the guy named Alex Pang who wrote a book called Rest. He's written other books. I'm thinking about a book he wrote called Rest.

And his argument is that great people are very intentional about getting rest in their life. And by rest he defines not just as sitting around and looking at clouds passing, although that would be fine, but very challenging activity. So, could be woodworking, could be music, could be taking long walks, could be exercise, et cetera, et cetera, exploration of some sort hiking, and to him the rest and the worker,

two sides of the same coin. So that's one thing that's coming to mind, and the other is the idea of setting an intention or having a purpose in your life and being actually super explicit about what that is. And I'm thinking of this guy was not a guest on the show, but we've had many guests talking about the power of intention. But the person who's quote is coming to mind is the lead singer of a band called the apples and stereo. They were a great indie rock band. I was obsessed with indie rock when I was younger and not that young anymore. Anyway, Robert Schneider and I

interviewed him years ago and I remember him just offhandedly saying, yeah, well, what am I here on the planet to do to make awesome stuff and to be kind while doing it. And that strikes me as, in a way, the answer to the riddle that we're discussing, which is, yeah, can you have the goal to make awesome stuff do awesome things, but to be really kind and awake while you're doing it. The idea of having an intention that is explicit, not just imply, but conscious, right? Something that you could say out loud to somebody, you know, if someone said, so what would you like your Uruguay to be? What do you think your, at least your professional life will be all about?

What theme? What, what, you know, if company's admission statements, then individuals might have mission statements. What would yours be? I'm such a big fan of that. And I like that one in particular, which is like, make awesome stuff and be kind while you're doing it. What a great principle to make your whole life around.

And I often talk about a top level goal. That's because psychologists, I think, are pretty much consensual in the remand about the idea that these desired future states that we have, that I have, that you know they can be really short term trivial like I got about water to convene it store before we set down from this conversation. That was a goal is a desire future state like a bottle of water all human goals are kind of high archival in the sense that you ask me like why did you want a bottle of water like Okay, like, why did you have to go to get a bottle of water? I would say, because I have the goal to not be thirsty. And then you could say, like, why do you have that goal? And I'd say, well, because I want to have energy. And like, I want to be hydrated.

And every time you ask me another why question, you go up a level in the hierarchy. And I think for these top level goals, they are the kind of ultimate why. Like, they don't have anything that's above them. Like it is for you like something that you can only say, well like, well above that is just my core values or something, right? So I think that's very powerful. I in my experience, when I interview people myself, I only find that a small fraction of them, maybe 10 or 15

percent, could say out loud in a sentence with a period at the end. This is what my top level goal is, but I have found it to be really useful. I had a bit of a brain cramp when I was trying to remember the other podcast guest who's talked about this and it's come back to me, Thupton Chodron. I'll put a link in the show notes because she's an amazing person and she talked a lot about this and I've tried to integrate the idea that you've just described, which is spot on with what she was advocating. She's a Buddhist nun.

And her argument is that getting it explicitly, stating your motivation to yourself like first thing in the morning, and then trying to come back to it throughout the day is a really powerful thing to do. And I've been trying to do that. So I'm curious, you said it's important to you. How would you articulate what your purpose or intention is? Well, I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours. Sure. That's okay. So I can go first. So my top level goal, which I don't think is going to change, is to use psychological science to help kids thrive. And it took me a couple of weeks to verbalize it with that specificity of those words.

And then, of course, it took me a couple decades to figure out what that would be, you know, in a more general sense. But having articulated this, I think I wrote it down to the first time I was writing, well, I was writing the book. I was just like, oh, well, since I'm writing this chapter on higher goals, and how helpful it is to have one, maybe I should try to put pen to paper and really make sure I could stand by this for all the years that this book might be in print. And I have to say that even though I had a vague sense of this goal, of course, before writing it down, the sharpness of like singing, and I don't know that I begin every morning with it as a mantra,

but I do know that I pull it out, especially when I have a question like, should I try to be on the 10% happier podcast? Like, should I supervise this graduate student or not? Because time is limited and we all have to make choices about what to do and then what not to do. And I'm trying to really helpful in making those choices in a more intentional way. I agree. It's really useful as a yardstick. Everything that comes up, you can measure it against. This go toward what I'm all about. So mine, I think, is not, I haven't nailed the wording. So it's not Mollifluis. It is not pithy, but it is an attempt at encompassing both sides of the grid and the, but

being awake and attentive to relationships. So it's something like, I'm kind of ripping off Robert Schneider, but I think that's cool. He'd be cool with it. My goal is to make people healthier and happier and to be as awake and attentive to relationships in the process. I think anybody would be okay with that, right? I think it's actually, by the way, interesting, a lot of people that I've studied as paragons of great achievement would have just the first part of what you

said, like, you know, make people better or maybe they'll specify how, right? Like, through the built environment, that's my husband. He's a real state developer, like, make lives better through the built environment. I kind of like the comma, and then this very important specification of like how you're going to do it and what you're going to do is kind of like the comma and then this very important Specification of like how you're going to do it and what you're going to do It's kind of like I like the idea of trying to make sure you don't do collateral damage Like just right up front with the goal itself because it's so common isn't it like I mean history abounds with noble figures who apparently led personal lives that were

just, I don't know, not so great. So maybe the heroes of the 21st century won't be great and good. Right. Right. Grady and Awake to wherever's happening right now. And yeah, I made a lot of mistakes to get to this point. I've achieved a few things, but was kind of a jerk at many points along the way.

And so... To like random pedestrians on the sidewalk or more or less or... Not so much. Just, you know, stressed out and therefore not attentive to the people around me, but just could be better for sure. I've really tried to do better.

And by the way, I find that this is a virtuous cycle. After the comma stuff helps with the before the comma stuff, that when you're doing it all with more mindfulness, with more compassion, then your relationships get better. And since we're all interdependent, your work therefore gets better. And it becomes an upward spiral in my experience. So which is not intuitive, right? I mean, first of all, let me just say, I'm going to make this like keeping it honest where I am definitely not like fully present. It was to the time that I should be like when my girls

who are now 18 and 17 were little, I, nobody in my U.S. can say, it wasn't a grade that she played on the floor with you. You're like, no, that mom was actually on her lap job was the time that I heard her. So I have just a lot to learn here and need to practice more than learning. But the idea that it could be of work to a cycle is so non-intuitive, isn't it? I mean, there is this kind of like, well, if you're going to be fully focused, then like, I mean, because the 168 hours that are all given in a week is a zero-sum game. So we'll start that. But I suspect that you're right. I mean, is it because you're...

Why do you think that is? Like in what ways does it become a richness cycle for you? So one of the ways I was talking about is that you know, most of us, because there's been a sort of revolution in how we work in the modern world, most of us work in teams. I work a lot in teams. Television news is intensely collaborative, and the other half of my work at 10% happier is all in teams. We have a management team.

We have a team that produces this podcast. We have, even on the book that I'm writing right now, I have other people, including my editor and my wife, who's my closest advisor and my brother who is also an incredibly close advisor, my CEO and others. Everything is team based to one extent or another and you want the culture of those teams to be healthy because it has such powerful knock-on benefits to the end.

So the process is part of the end product. Inextricably, it's right in there. By the way, you will also be happier the better the process is. And that too, it down to the benefit of the product. So that's how it's worked for me. And I say this to somebody who's, I just turned 49.

I just spent, you know, 48 years and 11 months doing it wrong. And I'm still doing it wrong all the time, hence the need for the explicit motivation or intention because it's a reminder. Is that what you're new books about? Your book in progress? It's about love, but I'm defining the term down, I think, hopefully, helpful. It's about love for other people.

Love is omnidirectional, so it has to apply to you too. And it compasses things like kindness, compassion, relationships, attention. My thesis is not fully formed, but it is definitely related to what we're discussing, for sure. You know, when you meet people, I mean, I agree with all those cheesy quotes about how like everybody has some good in them, and you can, but in addition, there are sometimes people who you meet, maybe even once in your life,

maybe you don't even have a sustained relationship. They're so good. Like they really inspire you to be better. I mean, I have this experience, and you really feel when you're in their presence that they have a love that, like, just, you know, barely has no end, and they're long to be stingy with it, and they're so kind.

Anyway, I have a sense, maybe, of your books I've written, maybe your thesis is still evolving, but I really resonate with that, which, by the way, you know, I don't study as a scientist. Sometimes people think I only care about objective achievements, I try to point out that that's because I'm a scientist, so I need to measure things.

But as a human, I think you're right. Would now be a good time to steer you back to the two-sided coin of rest and work? Yeah, absolutely. Well one thing I want to say about the people that I study, you know when you study like a Lindsey Vaughn or I was just emailing yesterday morning So they were about Cody Coleman who's finishing up his PhD in computer science at Stanford and both of them have had lots of stepbacks and their journeys to be great at what they do are like long ones, right? And I think that's why I study

grid. I just don't think that it's easy to do a lot of good in the world or greatness in the world without just taking a while, just like the mechanics of achievement. So when you ask the question like what are these people like, you know, do they are they always on my general observation of these great achievers is that first of all they are actually unusually energetic. So it sometimes feels to other people like they're always on, right? They're like holy smokes like I'm tired just talking to them for 10 minutes because they have so much energy and it's also true that I think they're kind of obsessive so they are thinking about their work and everything they see

is actually related to their work because it's on their mind. But at the same time in terms of rest I mean any athlete will tell you even if it's hard for them to do but like they know like you have to take rest or you'll get injured right you have You have to at the most basic level, the human body. And it turns out, I think, also the human mind need rest in order to grow, right? And to improve. So that lesson is one that is kind of part and parcel of grit, right?

Because how are you going? And you can sprint without rest, but you can't marathon without rest. So I think that's something to emphasize. I don't want to say, like, I always get it right, or whatever, but you know, I, for example, don't pull all the nighters, like, I don't work when I'm tired. Like, I don't, like, it's like, oh, I'm tired.

It's mine. I'm going to go to bed, and read this book on surfing. And also, I don't wake up to an alarm. So I don't work when I'm tired. I go to bed when I'm book on surfing. And also, I don't wake up to an alarm. So I don't work on I'm tired. I go to bed when I'm tired and instead of working and I don't wake up to an alarm and I do like yoga on Zoom as much as I can, which is nearly every day. And I'm not saying that because like I'm perfect, what I'm just saying, like the person who studies for it for a living is doing a lot of resting.

Me too, but I've had to learn this. I've really had to get more systematic about it and I've found the benefits of, you know, just, I'll notice that I'm getting tired while I'm working and instead of doing my old thing of just push, push, push, I will step away for a second. Often I will literally lie down and just practice mindfulness for a while. And if I fall asleep, fine. Usually I don't fall asleep, but I'll do that or I'll go snuggle with a cat or go find my kids somewhere in the house and torture him for a second or whatever.

And I'm wearing a workout shirt because right before this I was working out a little bit. And so I really do try to be systematic about getting the rest in there and rest defined broadly because I've just found the older I've gotten that I just can't muscle through all the time. I just can't do it. So was that like a sudden change for you? Was there like an epiphany or some kind or was it more like a gradual? Both, mostly a gradual, but I've had epiphany along the way.

I've just noticing that I'm just banging my head against the wall, and this is what's making me unpleasant to other people and myself, and it's not helping to work. And also, it's just having this podcast where I get to interview incredibly smart people like you, where I just, I hear about what the research shows on these things and then I try it for myself and I'm like oh man why was I doing it wrong for so long? It's probably that youth run. The reason why you know I'm 50 by the way so I've got a year on you but the reason why maybe are like 19-year-old selves who weren't operating this way is I think this true reason. one is like you said

I mean It just so young You could abuse our bodies in ways that we like just the body's not as forgiving as we get older But then also I think you just hadn't learned yet right because if we could go back to our 19-year-old cells and say like hold on There's a better way. I think we could have even done it at 19 You know we didn't have to and I I really do think like, you know, our 19 ourselves would be better off and all the people who were around our 19-year-old selves,

you know, to your point would have also been better off. So I think maybe like you, I feel like there's something about conversation, about investigation, that I think the grand plan here is like, yeah, of course people discover some of these insights on their own, but could we maybe accelerate that a little bit, right? And like, so that it's not just like decades of life

experience that, you know, get you to understand that rest is important. Right, right. More of my conversation with Angela Duckworth, coming up after this. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just gonna end up on Page Six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellasai.

And I'm Sydney Battle, and we're the host of Wondery's new podcast, Dis and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud. From the buildup, why it happened, and the repercussions. What does our obsession with these feuds say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Britney's fans form the free Britney movement dedicated to fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support it angered some fans, a lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling parents,

but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Britney. Follow Dissentel wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or The Wondery App. So let's go back to grit for a second. You'll be defined it early on, but can you redefine it and then restate a little bit? You also made a faint in this direction,

but I wanna see if I can get you to say more about it. Why you're so interested in it. I define grit as the combination of passion and perseverance for really long-term goals. And I got interested in this characteristic or the sort of motivational stance because I was curious about what other than luck and other than talent in particular really could explain why some people really did you know just unbelievable astonishing things gold medals and the like in the Olympics or Academy Awards or Nobel prizes and I wondered whether these people were just lucky and talented or were they also something else. And I started interviewing high achievers

and I kind of discern these themes. And then I was at the same time reading really old stuff on outliers. And some of the oldest stuff came from this psychologist in Catherine Cox, who was at Stanford University. And she had access through, I guess the Stanford archives, thousands of pages of diaries and notes and correspondence, from what she called 301 geniuses, right?

Her terminology not mine, but people like Isaac Newton. And she said in her kind of summary of what she learned from studying their lives, from their own writings, et cetera, and biographical facts was that in addition to talent, which they had in her view, they had this combination, she caught a consistency of interest, and consistency of effort. And to me, that's what I mean by some people would say,

like I put some wrong words, but that's what I use passion and perseverance to me. And I have found in my scientific research that these are not at all related in a positive way anyway, to measure the talent like you're IQ. And I think this intuition that your ability, your cognitive ability, your physical ability, or other kinds of abilities are not the same

as sustaining motivation to do something with that ability. I think that's what I'm interested in. And I'm especially interested in where this comes from. And I believe that almost everything about us is malleable. And I want to know, you know, if you wanted to get a little ready, or like, how would you do it? Is there an inverse relationship between talent and grit? You know, I have found it sometimes in my data set where like the higher the IQ score,

for example, the lower the grit score, but it's not consistently negative. I think the thing I could say that is consistent is that it's not positive. So sometimes I find a data set and they're like going the opposite direction. Sometimes I find that they're not all related, but I think the most conservative thing to say is that they generally don't go hand in hand in a positive way. And so being smarter is definitely not a guarantee of being critter. What relationship does great have to resilience? My PhD advisor was a great psychologist who's now, you know, a colleague and that's Marty Seligman. And he is somebody who discovered, you know, some of the most basic findings there are about resilience.

And there's a lot of overlap with grit, but I'll say just to recap his work, that what he discovers that both animals like dogs, but also human beings, they display resilience when they're in a situation where others might give up, lose hope, feel helpless, but the resilient response is to keep fighting, to keep trying, to not lose some hope that you could do something about your situation. And that is part of, I think, perseverance. I say part of perseverance because when you study

somebody like Alunzi Vaan, absolutely, you can be a good point to these like, you know, presumably for other people, career ending injuries and and setbacks, but that's not all. So she has what Marty would have characterized as this kind of resilient response in the face of adversity, but she also has this kind of a lower case p perseverance, which is like just getting up every day in the morning and really going to work and really trying hard. And I think that's a little bit less what Marty was studying, stream of adversity and how you do,

but more like, hey, it's Tuesday, like are you gonna go to Netflix and chill or are you gonna actually work on your weaknesses? So it's part of the perseverance, it's not all perseverance, and it's absolutely not the same as passion. I think there are a lot of people who are extremely resilient, but they're desperate to find a direction in their life.

And that's why I think Catherine Cox is early observation that to do something great, you also have to have something which you stay interested in, that you stay guided by. Maybe not in its particular, maybe one project ends and another begins, but there's a theme of what you're trying to do in your life. How do you think about grit now in this pandemic and all of the other major issues that have either come along with it or come at the same time like the economic

issues, the racial issues, then of course the political issues layered on top of all that. It is an interesting time, is it not historically? And I have to say, a colleague of mine said very recently, like, I have never been as stressed as I am right now. She recognizes that she's very privileged in many ways. And I thought to myself, well, I'm also very privileged in many ways.

And I am also more stressed than I have been in recent memory, at least. So I will say that it's a historic time. The part of history that I find maybe, in a way, most relevant to great, or it's meaning we think the most, is actually the racial reckoning of this country. I've spent some time reading blog posts and essays about how grit is racist. And this notion that the work that I do

could actually be bad and also setting back groups of people in this country who don't deserve that. I mean, I'll just say I'm human, so I was like defensive and you know, when I'm defensive to whom, just like while I'm reading things on my computer, but reading things about how the notion of working hard and overcoming setbacks could be racist, after I got rid of the defensiveness,

I think actually requires some conversation. So I think what this perspective is saying is that when you're preaching the gospel of working hard and staying with goals and so forth, you are maybe obfuscating, nouring, neglecting, undermining, attention to structural inequality, racism. And I think I can appreciate that perspective. Like I understand why there could be frustration.

And I think the better angels of my nature would be to stand up and say, first of all, certainly not at all what my intention was. It's also not something I can say, well, it's not my problem. If you write a book on grip, then I think you have responsibilities to talk about what you mean and what you don't mean. If anything, what I would like to say is that when people achieve great things in life, it is because they've had support and opportunity, a fair shake, a helping hand, a benefit of the doubt.

And I agree personally, I think there is structural racism in this country, structural inequality, lack of opportunity, that's unfair. So after I got a proclinical defensiveness, I've been really trying to be a better person and not be small. You know, I often think like, what would Michelle Obama do? And then I'm like, okay, definitely something that would be better than what I would do.

And maybe I'll just do what she would have done. And I think Michelle Obama would listen and stand up and say, like, you're right. We certainly don't want to obscure the fact that, you know, people are very uneven around here and we should be doing something about it now. It's hard to take criticism. Yeah, right? I have a Twitter feed, so I take criticism. Who can I trust you? Look at me, Chris. I can imagine. I'm sure the people who listen to this show regularly know what I'm about to say, which is that I had a 360 review that I've talked about a lot on this show two years ago, and

it was devastating. Do you know what a 360 review is? I do, I do. Okay, so what happened? It was just 17 people giving hour long anonymous qualitative interviews to a really sensitive coaching firm. I got a 41 page report and it would be too long for me to list all of the deficiencies identified, but they included an impatience, dismissiveness, stubbornness, emotional

guardedness. Those are the biggies, if I recall. And so it's hard to take criticism and the criticism you've received that you're overlooking structural issues to hear that now. I imagine is really hard to hear. And so does it require a And so does it require a A rethinking of your argument? You know if I'm listening to this and I am somebody I'm I don't think I Think the structures of our society all work it to my advantage But if I'm somebody who does not fit the bill, you know, I just say a female or a trans woman or a black person or a Latinx person and I aspire

to grid and I aspire to greatness, but I do have evidence that the world is not working in my favor. How can I do what you're saying while also not denying the reality? It's something that I decided that I would do what I know how to do, which is to write something about. And I wrote an essay called, well, first I thought of the big picture, because I wanted to say that when you zero in with your psychological microscope on what

the motivations and mindsets, the values of a gritty person are you miss the bigger picture, which is like that person is located in a place in a society, in a culture, and if you only zone in on the person and what's going on between their ears, then you're missing the bigger picture. Then I retitle it both and because I want to say that a lot of times as human beings we naturally gravitate to either or explanations like either it's great or it's talent and either it's what the person does or it's societal structures and I wanted to say as a scientist not that I think what I said before

was wrong but it's incomplete if it certainly wasn't intended to say like this was everything but I should be more catching on say like both what an individual does in their life and the societal structures which are too some is said beyond their control like they both matter it got rejected, it got rejected from Atlanta, it got rejected from New York Times, I sent it a bunch of other places like you were like oh it's still long and well ever sometimes I just didn't get any reply and I should try harder and maybe I just, it's revise it, maybe it wasn't well written. But I think it is important and I it's been hanging out a little bit more with sociologists. Psychologists study, they really do study what happens between the ears. Like that's what a psychologist does. That's a craft, right? Like

that's what I'm trained to do. Sociologists study society as the unit of analysis or, you know, social groups. And so, I've been trying to learn a little bit more from my sociology friends. And they're very patient because, you know, it is probably frustrating to them sometimes to have their perspective like committed.

Just getting back into putting myself in the shoes of somebody for whom the structures are at least arguably working in ways that can inhibit your potential. Grid is still available to you, but I guess how to operationalize this, how to hold a gritty attitude and a point of view while also not blinding yourself to the societal structures. But then also, I would imagine, is it possible that if you got too fixated on the unfairness making to the society, it would hold you back from your goal? This seems tough to navigate. It's really tough, and I'm not going to pretend that I have the answers, but I'll tell you what I've been thinking about, right?

Like when I said that, then my goes to either more explanations, you know, like, either exists or it's that, right? It's a lot harder, frankly, to consider both and. It's a lot harder to say to your own children, like both things that are out there, you know how people immediately perceive you, right? Based on what you look like, is that both is real and consequential. And what you do matters.

Like it's very hard, right? So it's kind of easier to stay either or, right? So now we've got all this complexity and like, how do they both matter and do they interact with each other? So, I love the view that if you could try to hold in your mind that both matter, you know, both structural issues and individual actions, then you will both be more accurate, by the way. And I think you will do what I think I aspire to,

but I'm not saying that I do. We're like, which is there are people who are really great, they're hardworking, and they're compassionate, right? But it's actually kind of why I like the, you're topical goals and the things that you do try to actually understand, you know, other people's positions and not test judgment, right?

So like to be compassionate, it's a really cold both in mind. It's very hard because I too am kind of like lapsing into kind of like, well, just try harder. That's not right. If you can communicate both and if you can hold both in your own mind, I think you out just a little bit to talk about so many people, whether you're an marginalized group or not, are struggling right now because they may be sick, they may know somebody as you do who's been sick with really difficult outcomes in many cases, may have lost a job, may be worried about losing a job, may have lost a job, maybe worried about losing a job,

may have lost their business, people's dreams are crumbling. What are your thoughts about the application or development of grit in this context? Yeah, I know that this quote that I love was misattributed to Plato many times, and and Plato scholars say it doesn't sound at all like Plato But I just love this quote so whoever said it be kind to all you meet for each carries their own heavy burden It's a great thing to remember even if Plato didn't say it and When you walk by like a boarded up storefront or like a restaurant that clothes

I mean just you know and all the clothes, I mean, just, you know, and all the invisible tragedies, like you just don't know. I mean, you don't know. I really, really, I was struck by that quote the first time I heard it and I'm thinking about it like every day, this pandemic, that's compassion, right?

But in terms of grit, we were talking about our top level goals and I think they might be helpful if you are that person who has had a really serious setback, I'm kind of a food person. I was never a chef and I whatever, I don't even go out to eat that much, but I just, I don't know why I'm super interested in food. I've read like a million food memoirs, I read all those books that chefs write. So of course, I'm like reading the food section of the newspaper

and I'm reading these first-person stories of restaurant owners who's like, you know, they're just so hard and like, I can't imagine what it's like to board up your restaurant and then to declare bankruptcy. The reason I think that this top-level goal could be potentially helpful in these times is because if you ask a person who had a restaurant, why did you have a restaurant?

I don't think they would say, oh, it was just an end in itself. It was the whole top low goal. There's nothing above that. I think above that is probably something like, I want to help people, I feed his love, or I'm going to feed people's bodies and their souls or something.

And I do wonder whether, appealing to your higher level goals might help you be flexible and think, like, well, the thing that I've been working on for 10 years is not working out, probably not in my own missteps, but because of the coronavirus and economic circumstances. What else could I do when I was reading about this Hawaiian restaurant in my hometown of Zalda, it was called Poi Dog, and it closed its doors, and the article was so beautifully written. And then as I'm reading this article by the owner and chef, it mentioned that she was

now trying to do some community organizing around food, help the people who have been working at her restaurant, she's promoting them them and she was doing food writing, which she of course can do. So I know that sounds a little polyanna, but I do think it's right. I think that we should ask ourselves like, what are we trying to do? And is there another way? So if I'm hearing you having this top level goal, which is where we began early on in this discussion, is a way to develop grit. Are there other ways to develop grit given that you said that you believe that everything about us is malleable?

I'm trying. I won't say that I've made a lot of progress, but I decided last year, since I have tenure, and I have a little liberty to do what I think is really the right thing. Not just to crank on, push on with like one or two more studies, but to actually do something a little unusual, which is I tried to merge my teaching, my teacher undergraduates with my research ideas for building grit. So I developed this class called grit lab and it's 14 weeks because that's how long the semester is. And then every week, there's a topic,

like goal setting and planning, like the psychology of stress and failure, interest, where your interests come from, values. And I have an assignment every week, which is in a way what I would have done to run the assignment experiment on, except for in this case, there's no control group. So I taught it for the first time in the spring.

By the way, pandemic happened in the middle of our class so that was an interesting experiment, even of itself. And I'll teach you again this fall. And I think the general theme is this. I mean, I'll let you in on what I think, I don't know, secret formula. So I've been thinking, as I'm teaching this class and actually, honestly, this is all I think, that I'm not a secret formula. So I've been thinking, as I'm teaching this class and actually honestly, this is all I think about,

what does change us? What's the cocktail that is more likely to change us for good? And my hypothesis is that it's got four parts. One is that we change when we've had an emotional experience, not just reading a book, but really experiencing something. You know, like a good thing or a bad thing, but something which is like, as Walter Michelle

and we write psychologists to do along the way with us, we use it like a hot experience, right? Like something that's not a cold experience. So I've been trying to give my students actual experiences, like instead of just reading about failure, which we do, they have to go out and fail something. Like it's like the literally assignment is to go fail something and feel what failure is like. So one is an experience, the second one is the reading and the thinking, I actually think that like this conversation, which is in a way a cold conversation, right, because we're talking about life, we're talking about death,

we're not experiencing things that maybe viscerally, but I still think it's helpful because I think this level of like kind of menacognitive sort of like reflection is really important. And so I tell them like, okay, here's the science of failure, like here's what happens when we do random scientific experiments on failure, et cetera. So that's a second element. The third is writing. I think that reflection through writing and also conversation, because that's built into the course too.

I think that is a way of us processing. And maybe you felt this way about writing your books. I feel that way. I don't feel like I've ever thought about something until I've really written about it. So there's a writing component. So every week the students have to write about the experiment that they did that hopefully you know create an emotion in them or a real like this real feeling. They reflect also on the readings that they've been doing from scientific articles. And then the fourth

element is modeling. So you know, it's amazing how much you can learn on YouTube because it's like all you do is like you watch somebody change a gasket or like baking cake and like it's worth a million pages of text, right? So I think they need to be my students, like need to be showing a model like this, right? So if I say, you know, it's a wonderful thing to write a gratitude letter to somebody who's been a mentor to you. And I talked to them about it.

They read about it. They read about the signs of gratitude. It's important that they have a model for that. So I will like, video take myself doing it or have other ways to model. So that's the cocktail I've come up with. These are fifth element. It is one of the things I said wrong. I don't know, but I feel like that when I reflect on what I learned the most in my life,

it's because I've had all of those things. And you think playing around with those four elements would help us in this deeply sub-optimal time to develop our ability to stick with it? I do, I do. And I'm not saying that, you know, it's like a miracle happens, you know, like wake up and you are in Ziva on the next day, but I do think human beings are remarkable learners. There's never an age in life that you're not learning, and you can't say that for all animals, really. Like that's maybe something you can only say about people. So this does seem to me a way

to learn in a particularly effective way, especially when it comes to motivation, not just like learning calculus or something. So I think if people were given a little help in figuring out what experience is combined with knowledge, combined with self-reflection, combined with having very specific and inspiring role models, yeah, I think we could learn a lot faster than we would otherwise. One of the tricky parts here seems to be the passion piece. I feel really lucky that throughout my life, I've had one or two really overwhelming passions,

first journalism, and then mindfulness slash meditation, which I've combined with journalism. But a lot of people I know don't really have that. And I've had conversations with people where they feel at a loss in terms of finding that. So what do you say to those people? You know, that is actually half the course and teaching these 18 to 22 year olds,

I will tell you that almost all of them, maybe, you know, let me just say all of them, they're already very hard working and they're fairly resilient. They're lacking the passion part of grit. I wanted to just ask you very briefly, like journalism tell me like about how you became a journalist. I mean briefly, I guess like where did you figure out

that that would be a passion for you? I tried a bunch of stuff. I actually had journalism and the movies mixed up in my mind when I was in college. And so I did a bunch of internships at TV news stations and I also went to NYU Film School for a semester. And it was very obvious to me very quickly at NYU that I had no talent for filmmaking.

But I loved the documentary course I took. And I loved the TV news internships I had done. And so I think I wanted something kind of cool and public or flashy or exciting. And but I didn't have any aptitude for writing scripts or being a cinematographer or whatever, I did have some aptitude for the news. So it was a really taste testing that got me there. So that is exactly the metaphor I use.

I say to the students, how many of you have eaten the durian fruit, which is that really stinky Asian fruit that actually smells well. It smells like human feces, but very delicious. But you won't know whether you like the durian fruit or not until you really taste it, right? You can read about the durian fruit, you could Google the durian fruit,

you could watch YouTube, but you have to really try things. And so any taste testing is exactly right. So when you ask me, like what would I say, the paradox of grit is that it is about specialization, right? I mean, I don't believe people would come really great at things when they dabble, like, oh, I've done this for five hours. Nobody's a great chef in five hours. Nobody's a great anything in five hours. But the paradox is that at the beginning of your career and then the beginning of life, you have

to sample a lot. You just can't tell in advance of what you're going to enjoy and then the beginning of life, you have to sample a lot. You just can't tell in advance of what you're going to enjoy. And then even once you say, oh, broadcasting, right, like then there's even more titration, like am I going to be on the camera back? You know, right? Like as you know, so it is a very long and messy process. And I think that is something which people don't get when they go to commensurate speeches and they hear that Joseph Campbell quote like follow your list. It's a kind of a myth that it's just like a thing you discover it all in one moment in time and a half way ever after. I think it's a very long messy process of discovery. We've got a couple minutes left here before you need to

take one of your daughters to a pediatrician appointment, but you have a new podcast. Can you, it's called Doasted with Questions? That is correct. It is with, uh, you know Stephen Dubner, right? And I know he wrote his co-author Freakinomics, but I don't know if that I know him, but maybe I do. Maybe I'm not better. He thinks about you. Maybe that's why I thought you guys were pals, but yes, so Stephen Dubner and I became friends at some point. Maybe when he was interviewing me on about this happened, honestly, no idea. But we discovered that we liked to talk to each other and so then we decided to put Mike's on while we talked to each other. It's pretty much that. But you guys do take on very pointed and interesting questions in each episode.

That is correct. We try to have in each episode two questions, one I ask Steven and then one he asks me and then oftentimes, just the way my head works, I immediately go and think about social science findings that are relevant and then he has, you know, like you have journals and backgrounds so he often takes things in his direction.

Do you know the question's in advance so you can prep or do you ad lib? Yeah, we do a little bit, well, no, so first of all, yes, we, you know, we say to each other like, hey, we're gonna record on Thursday, I was gonna ask you this question just to get thinking about it, but it will say that the direction of the conversation like 90% of the time is not what I thought it would be.

That's great. So you're leaving room for serendipity. It's not all scripted. Yeah, I mean, you know, nobody can really have a scripted conversation that you think or they can't, that sounds terrible. Yeah, you can... You can tell me.

I mean, I don't know. This podcast is a mess. I. Not this episode. Generally speaking, the podcast we just taught, I mean, we completely, it's unscripted entirely. So. It's not scripted, right? Yeah. Because I mean, to your point about being present and in the moment, right? That's kind of being open to like what's going to happen. That's how I glorify and glamorize my lack of preparation. Yeah, that's a good. It's how I glorify and glamorize my lack of preparation. Yeah, that's a good, that's a good stuff. It's such a pleasure to meet you.

I really appreciate you taking time to do this. I really, really enjoyed it. I think I know what you mean about being present. I felt like you were very present and I was present myself. Big thanks again to Angela. As you may have noticed, we didn't talk much about mindfulness in this episode, but we're

going to take a deep dive on how meditation can fuel resilience in our Wednesday episode with George Mumford, who's a legendary meditation teacher, and who has overcome gigantic obstacles in his own life, including a heroin addiction, and then went on to work with star athletes, such as Michael Jordan and Coby Bryant. So that is coming up on Wednesday. As mentioned at the top of this episode we've got a themed week here, grit and resilience. If you are interested in developing these skills to cope with all of the fear stress anxiety and more caused by the pandemic you can check out some of our free meditations. We've put together some of our free meditations.

We've put together something called the Coronavirus Sanity Guide. It's on the 10% happier app. I'll put a link in the show notes. Before I go, big thanks to the team who work so hard on the show Samuel Johns, as our senior producer, Marissa Schneidermann as our producer. Our sound designers are Matt Boyn,

and on Yasheshik of Ultraviolet Audio, and Maria Wartel is our producer, our sound designers are Matt Boyn and on Yasheshik of Ultraviolet Audio and Maria Wartel is our production coordinator. We get a ton of input from our TPH colleagues such as GenPoyant, Atobib, Liz Levin, Ben Rubin and last but not least, big salute to my ABC comrades Ryan Kessler and Josh Cohen. We'll see you all on Wednesday with George Mumfer. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free with 1-3-plus in Apple Podcasts.

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