The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Grit and Perseverance — with Angela Duckworth

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

Angela Duckworth, a psychologist, the co-founder of Character Lab, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, and the author of the New York Times bestseller, “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance,” joins Scott to discuss the attributes of gritty people, how to create environments for success, and ways to raise resilient kids.  Follow Angela, @angeladuckw.  Scott opens with his thoughts on Disney’s succession plan and Chick-fil-A going into the content game. Algebra of happiness: the three rules of masculinity. Subscribe to No Mercy / No Malice Buy "The Algebra of Wealth," out now. Follow the podcast across socials @profgpod: Instagram Threads X Reddit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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How is America allowed to feed us certain products that are harmful and banned in other countries? Like, don't y'all care about us? This week on Explain It To Me, we unwrap some FDA policy and a little Halloween candy and search for some simple answers. This is where things get a little bit complicated. And I just, I feel a mom blog coming for me for even saying that because it's not complicated. It's straightforward. New episodes every Wednesday. Follow wherever you get your podcasts. Episode 322, Route 322 is a U.S. highway traversing Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. In 1922,

the first 3D movie was screened. I do an imitation of a 3D printer, and then my son tells me to close the bathroom when I'm taking a dump. Go! Go! Go! I'm taking a dump. Go, go, go! Welcome to the 322nd episode of The Prop G-Pod.

In today's episode, we speak with Angela Duckworth, a psychologist, co-founder of the Character Lab, and a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also the author of the number one New York Times bestseller, Grit, The Power of Passion and Perseverance. We discussed with Angela grit and perseverance. That makes sense. How to create environments for success and advice for raising resilient kids. Okay, what's happening? Daddy went to the WNBA finals. That's right. I get floor seats. That's what happens when you know Kara Swisher. The first WNBA game I go to, talk about a privileged lifestyle, is I go to the last game of the finals at home for the New York Liberty. It goes into

overtime and they win. And by the way, these women are an absolute inspiration. Anyways, in New York, headed doing my son's or one of my son's college tours, which is both inspiring and exceptionally anxious. My son is in New York. Does he see me? No. My two sons are less impressed with me than anyone I know. Anyone I know. And that's like a fairly high bar to be not impressed by me. There are a lot of people who are exceptionally unimpressed. Anyways, ask your parents. You'll figure it out when you're a parent. What's happening? We have exciting news to share. Oh, my God. This is exciting. The Raging Moderates podcast now has its own feed. Whoa. Alert the media. This is, oh my goodness. All this excitement. In case you missed it, Raging Moderates is a Prop G podcast co-hosted with our favorite political gangster, Jessica Tarloff. For those of you who don't know Jessica, she's a rising star. Maybe she's risen. She's on the most popular cable news network show, The Five, Fox's weeknight news program, and plays a key role in special coverage

for the network. Every Tuesday on Raging Moderates, Jess and I will have an in-depth conversation on life's political news through a centrist lens. So with that, we hope you enjoy Raging Moderates, a weekly podcast from the Profiteer Universe. Episodes will be on the new feed every Tuesday, and we'll link the new feed in the description of this episode to resist this feudal. I'm AOL in the 90s. I'm fucking everywhere. Just give up. Surrender to the dog.

Surrender to the dog. Okay, moving on. Disney announced that it will name Bob Iger's successor in early 2026. So this is sort of the long goodbye. I think it was a mistake for Bob to come back. I do think it's good that we have churn. I think there are too many old white guys in media who don't understand the new technologies and just basically understand how to pay themselves a shit ton of money while destroying shareholder value.

So essentially, this kind of succession strategy is an elegant way to say, it's time for you to leave. He probably wants out. I don't know what the situation is, but they've identified people from four different areas as their likely successors. So now it's the Hunger Games. And most likely, the person who gets selected has had more time in the boardroom and for whatever reason has a good impression or the board has a good impression of him or her. It's very random who you choose as CEO. Is that true? Is it random?

A little bit. Disney has put former Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman in charge of its succession committee, and he's set to take over as board chairman on January 2nd, 2025. My guess is it'll probably be the person who ever sitting on the business that is the least bad in the Disney portfolio right now. Gorman is a very impressive guy. He successfully navigated Morgan Stanley's CEO transition, and he's replacing former Nike CEO Mark Parker from the Disney board who has been in the world for just two years. I think this is good corporate governance. I'm happy for it. It seems like Doesn't that sound like a guy you could, I don't know, have a beer with? Dana Walden, who co-leads Disney's entertainment unit. I'm entirely sure what that means. Isn't it all entertainment? ESPN, Jimmy Pataro. Alan Bergman, who also co-chairs Disney Entertainment. I imagine there's also opportunity for an outside person.

We'll see. Be fun to bet on who it is. The big picture, with Disney shares trading under $100 most of the year and the company facing challenges in both streaming and its theme park business, can the new CEO, whoever it may be, steer the company in the right direction? I just think this company, this was one of my stock picks for 2024. This company has such incredible assets. We do this brand identity audit in brand strategy. And one of the things we talk about is leveraging your brand assembles, which are assets. And brand assemble here, what, Mickey, the Matterhorn, the Castle, Walt Disney himself, Goofy, Star Wars characters, which they now own, Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader. I mean, they just have so many assets. And I do think that Disney Plus is a survivor in what has become the Hunger Games of business. That's the streaming networks because its positioning is so clean and clear around family.

If you have kids, you have to go, you have to have Disney Plus and you have to go to Disneyland. I always thought the opportunity for them was a membership offering where for 50 bucks a month, you get Disney Plus and you get access to the parks on specific days where it's not a fucking shit show and you don't

have to wait three hours to go on the Avatar ride. That literally rattled the shit out of me, was seeing all these families who had clearly saved all year, paying 3,000 bucks to stay in a shitty hotel with shitty food and then wait three hours in a line as their six-year-old falls asleep in their arms. I just, at some point that becomes abuse. I literally think that's abusive. Your kids are addicted to these programs and then you make them wait three hours at Avatar. Anyways, Disney Plus, 50 bucks a month, recurring revenue. And what doesn't sound like that much, you got Disney, and then you get special access to the park on days where it's not too crowded, whatever. Your daughter gets a princess outfit that she can wear to the Disney parks.

I just think they need to do a better job of CRM in saying, all right, are you a Disney family? Yeah, you're a family, which means you need to be a Disney family. We're going to send you. You get access to Frozen two weeks before anyone else, whatever they're on, Frozen 11. I have absolutely no desire to see Frozen. None. None whatsoever. There are few things less appealing to me than Frozen. Is that wrong? Is that wrong? That's like not liking Taylor Swift. That probably triggers about a billion people. Anyways, the stock is up 7% year to date, but over the last 10 years, it's kind of been flat. And when you think about this as the icon, this is sort of

what Ford was to Detroit, Disney is to Los Angeles. Supposedly, production is down 40% in Los Angeles. I did a call yesterday with a super impressive guy who's had a storied career in film production, and he was very honest. He said, my career here has kind of hit a wall. Do you have any thoughts or ideas for me? By the way, I typically coach young men. I find there's an enormous number of men my age who are trying to figure out their second act. That the ground has shifted underneath them.

They typically don't have the same level of mental health problems that I perceive among young kids who had their brains wired during puberty by this fucking dopa bag called their smartphone and meta. But I'm really struck at how many men are out there trying to find the next thing, if you will. I don't know what brought that up. Anyways, let's talk about something more inspiring. I know three words. First word, chick. Second word, fill. Third word, a. Chick-fil-A. I love Chick-fil-A. I don't know if you know this, but I've been on several corporate boards. And the thing we used to talk about on the board of Panera was how Chick-fil-A had NPS scores that were like 30% higher than every other industry. And why is that? Not because the chicken's that much better,

but because of their compensation schematic and culture. And that is every Chick-fil-A has an owner. They get thousands of applications for someone to be a franchisee. They loan them the money and they literally are an owner. I mean, everything, there's all these studies. When the owner isn't there, the amount of time it takes you to get your meal, the level of shrinkage, which is theft, how clean the bathrooms are, everything goes down when the owner's not there. So basically Chick-fil-A has figured out a way to have an owner there in every restaurant. They do an amazing job. The company plans to launch a new app, Chick-fil-A Play, on November 18th, featuring original content, including family-friendly shows, podcast games, and even recipes. I love this company. They got a bad rap for being too conservative because of their homophobic

policies which was the old owner or the former owner whatever fine they deserve shit they got it next it's a good company actually it's probably more progressive than a lot of firms and they do an amazing job and if you do the drive-through the the handhelds they clearly invest in a lot of innovation i i think the world of this company, if they were public, which I don't believe they are. No, they're not. That's a stock I would own. Anyways, but they're basically moving into media. Why are they moving into media? According to Dustin Britt, Chick-fil-A's executive director of brand strategy, the company noticed a link between content consumption and mealtimes, particularly for families with children. Jesus Christ. I hadn't thought about that, but now it makes all the sense in the world.

But my kids always consuming media, even when he's consuming food, that's a big point of contention for us. Phones down, screens off. We just want to have dinner with you, which is torture for them. Anyways, that makes a lot of sense. So the idea that they would in fact try and convert media consumption or games into mealtime. It's kind of interesting. Do I think it's going to work? Probably not. Do I think they should do it? Yes, because I think you take swings like that and see what happens. That's part of innovation. And we're talking about it, which kind of signals innovation around their brand. So Chick-fil-A, well done. Let's talk about kids. Children's engagement with certain types of digital devices varies widely by age.

Get this. Kids 9 to 11, two-thirds of them are on some sort of gaming device. Three-quarters of them engage with a desktop or a laptop computer. I'm talking about 9 to 11-year-olds. Get this. Almost two-thirds of 5 to 8-year-olds have some sort of gaming device. This is the shit that's really scary is two-thirds of 9 to 11-year-olds have a smartphone. Jesus, 9 to 11. Really? Really? Percentage of US parents of a child age 11 or younger who say that as far as I know, their child ever uses or interacts with it.

Oh my God, that is just nuts. Oh, you know what else is really big? Tablets. About four fifths of kids between the ages of five and eleven are on tablets um i essentially think i used to i think tim cook has just done such a great job managing his brand and so is so is a cinder pichai but effectively they're sitting outside a junior high school selling heroin uh they're basically trade training our kids to be total fucking addicts just as their brain is being wired. I think we're going to punch into the ecosystem or into our culture a ton of kids that are going to be massively hungry for DOPA and they're going to find a lot of unusual ways to get it. There's no reason why anyone should have a smartphone under the age of 16.

Is it entirely their fault? No, but they're happy to be there and lie and obfuscate while a feckless, ineffective government does nothing about it. Anyways, this is, in my opinion, one of the things, and I'm worried about a lot, but one of the things I'm really worried about is just as your kid's brain is coming online, you're training it to need constant mini hits of DOPA all the time. We put a casino, an IMAX, an IPIC, an arcade all into their pockets such that at any moment in time, they can pull it up if they need a little bit of dopa. And what's our role as parents? I think my role as a dad is slopa. I like that, slow dopa. And that is to try and instill a sense of success over time. Practice, working out, strength, slow progress that results in more enduring

and satisfying rewards. Slow dopa. That's me. Call me dad. Call me slopa. We'll be right back for our conversation with Angela Duckworth. Candidate Trump, as you've likely heard, jimmied the Overton window up a few inches at a rally in Madison Square Garden on Sunday with racist, sexist, vulgar, wasn't even a particularly good joke, and et cetera, commentary from speakers. But did you hear the really weird part? The Speaker of the House Mike Johnson part? Look at him, such a nice looking guy, just that little beautiful face with the glasses. Got the little glasses. Yeah, that was also weird.

But that's not actually what I'm talking about. Just a little later, Trump turned to Speaker Johnson and he said this. We can take the Senate pretty easily. And I think with our little secret, we're going to do really well with the House, right? Our little secret is having a big impact. He and I have a secret. We'll tell you what it is when the race is over. That comment is making people nervous because Trump does have a secret. We'll tell you what it is when the race is over.

That comment is making people nervous because Trump does have a plan for if he loses this election. A reporter did some digging into it. We're going to talk to him. Today explained little secrets every weekday, wherever and whenever you get your podcasts. Support for Prop G comes from NerdWallet. If you're a listener of the show, you know business. Thank you. financial products, but they have the tools you need to make smarter decisions. Looking for a credit card? At NerdWallet, you can go beyond the basic comparisons, filter for the features that matter to you, and read in-depth reviews.

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Ever wonder why we like being scared. I would read a Stephen King novel or watch a slasher movie and then feel compelled to sleep with the lights on for several nights. And found myself asking, what the hell? What's going on when people voluntarily seek out things that frighten them? This week on Unexplainable. Why fear can be fun. Follow Unexplainable for new episodes every Wednesday. Welcome back. Here's our conversation with Angela Duckworth, a psychologist, co-founder of the Character Lab, and author of the number one New York Times bestseller, Grit, The Power of Passion and Perseverance.

Professor Duckworth, where does this podcast find you? It finds me at my office at the University of Pennsylvania. Okay, so let's bust right into it. Your research focuses on two traits that predict achievement, grit and self-control. Can you break these down for us? I think self-control and grit are members of the same family. Call them cousins if you want, maybe even siblings. But they're not the same thing. So the family is really the psychology of effort. I mean, these are two traits that describe people who put forth effort toward goals. Grit, which I'm probably a little better known for, is about expending effort toward very distant goals. So goals that might take years or even

a lifetime to accomplish. Self-control is also about effort, but these are goals that are kind of everyday goals. Like I have to floss my teeth. I should go to bed instead of scrolling through Twitter. You know, I should really get my taxes filed before April 15th. So self-control and grit are related because they're both about effort toward your goals. But I think grit is actually driven by having a kind of passion and resilience. And self-control, we could talk more about it, but it's like delay of gratification, ability to resist temptations in the moment. So I just had a question from a guy

who's a former Green Beret. And when I think of grit, I think that the armed services are very good at instilling grit in people. One, do you agree with that? Or two, how do you reverse engineer to the fundamentals of building grit? I think the military is good at developing

and probably also, you know, when you talk about the Green Berets or the SEALs or the Rangers, special forces, also for selecting for grit. I don't want to say anything that you or I ever talk about is without genetic influence, but I also can't think of anything you or I ever talk about is without genetic influence,

but I also can't think of anything you and I talk about that is entirely fixed. And if it's not just, you know, genetic destiny, then the question is, you know, what are the environmental influences? And Scott, you've got me now exactly what I'm thinking about these days. And I'm not going to tell you that I have it all figured out, but I've been obsessed would be one way to think about it. It's like, what are the environments that enable people to A, express the grit they already have, and B, develop more grit than they had before? So I just want to answer succinctly and say, like, absolutely, I think it's possible. Then, you know, you and I can, you you know talk about um you know my ideas your ideas

about about what specific environments those are i think i'm curious if you literally just thought of this but i'll throw this thesis at you that would would help to understand or be a different dimension on grid or helping to understand it is what is the opposite of it and i think the opposite of it is being entitlement a belief that things are going to come to you easier you give up easily or you get frustrated when your problems aren't solved thoughts you know when you said um thinking about the opposite well the first word that came to my mind was not entitlement it was dilettante um and and by the way if tolstoy is right that, you know, every family, happy family is alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in their own way, then, you know, maybe gritty people are alike, but to not have grit takes different forms. I've thought about that quote a lot, maybe not necessarily in the context of grit. And I do think Tolstoy was right. And I would answer your question this way. I don't think there's one opposite of grit. I think entitlement might be one way to not be gritty. I think being a dilettante is not the same, and I think that's

another way. So the useful answer is, like, what is it that makes gritty people gritty? And then the absence of those things, if there are a plurality of assets that make gritty, then all of those are ways not to be gritty. And I absolutely have thoughts on that. I mean, just to give you an elaboration of my example about dilettante, I know that word has negative connotations, but I will say this, to be gritty is to be obsessive about something. You wake up and you're thinking about it again, and you wake up and you think about it again. And to you, it's exhilarating. To other people, it's exhausting. And so one asset that you have to have to be passionate about something for your whole, well, for your whole life in the extreme, but for years, is a kind of, you know, like a kind of devotion, right? And that's why I think one of the first

things that leaps to my mind as not being gritty is to be somebody who, you know, as soon as the learning curve starts to plateau a bit, right? It's not, you know, pure novelty. You know, you're sort of like wandering off to a different learning curve. So again, I, you know, forgive me the pejorative connotations. I think it's actually a completely legitimate way to lead your life. I know people I like a lot who are the opposite of obsessive. They don't want to get deep. And I think that's actually morally just as good as somebody who has this tendency to want to get deeper and deeper and deeper and more and more nuanced. But generally speaking, they're not as successful, right? I mean, what I like about your work is it's not, when I first read your book, it felt to me like, I'm not going to talk about the way the world the criticism, but I will stand firm, at least for myself, on this. I think people who are world-class achievers, I think to a one, they have grit. And I think this last element that we're talking about, this like obsessiveness, oh my gosh, you know, call it confirmation bias, but holy smokes, I see it all the time. I interview somebody who, you know, they're making their way in the stand-up comedy world. I mean, I'll just give you my last conversational example is talking to this guy named Gary Simons, and he's a stand-up comic.

He's 25, graduated from Georgetown. He's, you know, he's making it, right? And just this conversation, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's great. Like, you know, his, oh, here are the Google Docs from the people that I interviewed. You know, how'd you find them? Well, I went to the Georgetown Fellowships office and I looked up alumni who might have something to do with this, you know, crazy career that I want to do. And here are all the times I DM'd Mike Birbiglia. And, you know, he finally brought me back. It's so funny. I was just thinking of Mike.

He's on open mic night all the time. He just texted me. The guy will text me individually, A, because I like the thing he likes me, but he wants to spread. He is literally hand-to-hand combat, and I think that's what people miss is to get. I would say after working my ass off for 30 years, I'm an overnight success. I don't think young people appreciate. Beyonce has Einstein. They all had amazing.

Every one, right? Beyonce, Einstein, Mike Birbiglia, you know, Mike Birbiglia's protege. I think I'm right about that, right? And then the question is like, what are the multiple assets? Because your question is very revealing. What is the opposite of grit? I think there are multiple opposites. And say you are that person

with kind of a tendency to get obsessively interested in something and to stay loyal to it and to want to want to come back to it. That's only one thing like, you know, that's not the same thing as resilience in the face of setbacks. Okay, well, that's another way to not be gritty, right? Because if you don't have that, we can unpack the psychology of that. But I think one of my advisors in my undergraduate years is a very famous professor, now past, named Jerry Kagan. And I remember that when I kind of grew up and became a psychologist like him, you know, we had a very brief conversation about grit. And he was like, ah, it's too many things. Like, it's unwieldy because it's too many

things. But I think when you look at very successful people, they do have this like composite quality of passion and perseverance and the elements of those two as well. I agree. I know a lot of talented people. Talent is sort of, you know, table stakes. But the thing that sends you into outer space or puts you in the top 10 or 1% is, you know table stakes but the thing that that sends you into outer space or puts you in the top 10 or 1 is you know the willingness to break through hard things going you know i'm i'm fond of saying success is in the last 10 the people who just go the extra mile what do you see in high school students in terms of background or any observations anything that you can reverse engineer to someone who's likely going to develop

grit and other components and be a quote-unquote super achiever. So let's break grit down into its two facets. So there's passion and perseverance, because when you talk about young people, I think it's important to distinguish those. I mean, it's important for all of us, but let's take perseverance first. So, yeah, I mean, there are high school students who are, you know, clearly much harder working and much, you know, much more resilient than others. I think that's something which continues to develop, but you can see it. It's often in sports, honestly. It's, you know, there are other ways in which you can develop and express this quality, but I can't tell you how biased I am toward varsity athletes. 100%.

Give me a four-year varsity athlete. Let's go. So you can see that at 17 or 16. So that's perseverance. And again, we can unpack that. I do think the elements of a really persevering young person or older person, I think to some extent you can reverse engineer those qualities. You're like, wow, they're such optimists. Where does that come from? What are their beliefs and so forth? But let me also say that there's another half of grit that is not as obvious from the word grit, and that is

passion. And when I say passion, I really do mean a kind of intrinsic desire and intrinsic interest in what you're doing. And the reason I like bringing up the, you know, hypothetical high school student is there's a paradox for passion, which is this. I think at your age, my age, you know, this specialization that we have, you know, everything connects in some way to what we are interested in. So we are hyper-specialized. We might cross-fertilize, but there's a center of gravity. That's what we look like when we're all grown up. But when you're 16 or 15 or 14, you know, you're in an entirely different developmental stage. I don't think it's healthy or even on the road to grit to be obsessively narrowly focused on one thing when you're a teenager. I think actually the data would suggest,

and this is actually research from other scientists, not mine, that paradoxically, what leads to specialization is sampling. It's the opposite. It's kind of, you know, Rowdy Gaines doing like a half dozen sports before he decides to become a swimmer, right? And sports, which we were just talking about, is one of the fields in which this has been best documented, that athletes who become world-class are more likely to have sampled broadly in their youth than prematurely specializing. So I'm most careful, or I try to be, when I talk about grit with young people because I don't want them to think that butterflies started out like little butterflies. You know, butterflies started out as caterpillars. So we should have disclosed at the beginning of the show that this podcast is basically a vehicle for me just to talk about myself.

So be forewarned. But I'm going to give you three examples. My mother said that when anyone's talking to anyone, they're always talking to themselves. And I think she was right. But I think a lot about grit. And I just think it's hard to argue with. And what's interesting is I think the most insightful books and work is people state the obvious, but they hadn't thought about it. And your book was sort of, everyone said, well, of course it is, but no one really kind of explored

it. My life was gritless growing up. I was an underachiever, lazy, just kind of sleepwalking. Oh yeah, just totally sleepwalking through life. And there were three things that I think gave me what I believe is a great deal of grit. The first is my mom got very sick, and it was very shocking at a young age to be faced with that kind of illness. And I remember thinking, I don't know how to handle this. I can never get through this. And you do. Oh, I was in graduate school, so it wasn't like it happened when I was a kid.

That actually happened last, but just emotional fortitude, realizing that life is tough and you get through it. Just that confidence gave me a little bit more, I don't know, courage or resilience, whatever the term is. But the two other things were in college, I rode crew. And you would, I was a varsity athlete. And at one point in a race, you wouldn't be able to feel your legs. It'd be like fire going down your esophagus. You would have these mental tricks to try and not pass out. And that was at 800 meters, and you would go 2,000. And it gave you this sense of when you think you're at your limit emotionally, physically, psychologically, and when you really think you're at your limit, you think I can never, I just can't take anymore.

That means you're about a third of the way there. And most people never are in a position to really push their limits. They never develop that. They never really test the boundaries of their limits. And then the other. They assume the boundaries, right? That's right. And they think they're much tighter than they actually are.

And then the other thing was at Morgan Stanley, there was such an intolerance for mediocrity. You could be fired if there was a typo in the memo you sent out. 18 hours a day, abusive work culture, given a clean white shirt if you did an all-nighter, so there was all this kind of cultural pressure to work around the clock, a massive amount of pressure on perfection, and an intense borderline abusive work environment gave me those kind of three legs of a stool of grit. Do you see those as common or common attributes in people who develop a certain level or common shared experiences in people who demonstrate grit? Well, I have a hypothesis, and I think you named half of it. I think grit is forged in a crucible, half of which is challenge. I mean, what is challenge? Challenge is being asked to do something you cannot yet do, right? You know, 2,000 meters instead of 800, like, whatever it is, right? I can't do it. The challenges exceed my resources or my abilities. So I think that is half of it. But, you know, when Nietzsche said, what doesn't kill me makes me stronger, I mean, it does make you wonder, like, when you look around and it does actually kill or seriously wound, you know, a lot of people. And I think that's because the other half of the

crucible, and you can agree or disagree with me, is some kind of support. Like, where does that inner self-talk come from that says, you know, I'll show you, right? Because I think if there was one phrase that I have heard over and over again in interviews of the grittiest people, it's that when they describe confronting a major challenge, especially when they're doubted, right? And someone else tells them like, well, you can't do this. You know, there is this rage, this like voice that says, I'll show you. And my theory is that being in one challenging situation after another is not enough to give you the voice that says, I'll show you. Somewhere there has to be support. Somewhere there has to be a,

you know, like, I can't remember Rocky's coach, the guy with the... Burgess Meredith. Exactly. The sailor, the beanie on. I think I've seen it too often that people who are in challenging situations without support are not the ones to get up again, dust themselves off, like learn something, you know, come back stronger than they were before. So how do you like that hypothesis that the crucible of grit is challenge plus support? And you could argue that people aren't getting them in the right doses or neither, but, you know, I think those are elemental. I love that. One of my favorite sayings is that always stuck with me. And one of my venture capitalists, again, I'm Larry Bond from General Catalyst. So I said, greatness is in the agency of others. And hearing you speak, I'm like, grit is in the agency of others. I love that notion. Can you tell me more about that expression, which I've only heard for the first time from your lips? Well, greatness is in the agency of others. I mean, think about the platform you're at, at Penn, right?

Would you have nearly the impact you're having with our great research associates, great colleagues, all the people who've come before you at Penn, your publisher? Probably not your publisher. I've found they almost do fucking nothing. But anyways. My husband, how about that? Whatever. My husband, how about that? Whatever, your colleagues that support you, the person proofreading your book, the person doing the research, that the people, generally I find greatness or people, they have to have their own grit, they have to demonstrate grit. But what that does is it inspires the people around them to do great work for them. You can't, people think Malcolm Gladwell is in his kitchen, like doing these videos and everything. He's got a team of like dozens of really talented people. Editors, producers.

A hundred percent. made Nameless because I didn't know this and I don't know that they'd be wanting to keep it a secret, but it was a secret for me that writers that I really respected have, you know, like a cadre of people like, oh, I don't just have like this editor who was signed to me by my publisher. Like I send it out to this person and that person and, you know, like conceptual stuff. And, you know, what's on my mind, you know, recently is, you know, how that feels like anti-heroic in a way, like there's something about DIY that is like, that's the way to go. Like you're supposed to be a solo performer. And if you need anybody else's assistance, then like, you know, there's like a hundred grit points. And like, if they get 20, you only get 80. Right. And now when I'm interviewing people who are really successful and gritty, I'm hearing and maybe it's because I'm looking for it, Scott, like, so maybe I'm,

you know, hunting for what I'm looking for. But what I'm hearing are people who are virtuoso at actually getting like their environments to be their ally and not their opponent. So they will take anything, you know? It's like any edge. It's not cheating for them to use their situations to their own advantage. We'll be right back. Professor, do you have children? I have two. They are 23 and 21.

How did this work impact your approach to raising kids? When I started graduate school, I was pregnant with Lucy, and I think I was still nursing Amanda. So I was becoming a mom at the same time as I was becoming a psychologist. And because I really didn't know anything about psychology, I really was starting from scratch, right? I wasn't a psychology major. I majored in neurobiology. I had a master's in neuroscience, but it was really a very different thing. So I was learning about everything, Piaget for the first, I mean, everything. And then I would come home and turn the key in the lock, and then I would walk over the threshold, and I would be a mom and not a psychology student. But of course, it was all the same me. And so I feel like my study of self-control and of grit and of effort and, you know, the foil for those things, which are, you know, whatever it is to be innately talented or naturally intelligent. I mean, it was just all in my head. And I think how it influenced

my parenting, and I should say our parenting, because my husband Jason and I were, you know, talking every night about like what we were, what I was learning as a researcher, I mean, I did raise them to believe that excellence comes from, you know, pick your favorite quote, but let's take John Wooden, the UCLA basketball coach, right, who said there are eight laws of learning, explanation, demonstration, imitation, repetition, and then the last ones are easy, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition. And then the last ones are easy. Repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition. So five of the eight are the same.

So I did raise them to not think of excellence as a magic trick. You know, they're 23 and 21, so they're still sampling. But I will say, I think they drank the Kool-Aid, so to speak. I'll start with a thesis. I coach a lot of young men. There is some research here that while physically stronger, boys are emotionally and psychologically weaker than girls. If they're raised in a single-parent household, they're much less likely, their outcomes are worse when they lose a male role model. Whereas when girls go from dual-parent to single-parent homes, they have similar outcomes. They're more resilient. Have you found any research that finds that young women are more resilient or demonstrate more grit than young men? I had a female neurosurgeon approach me, and it's been a few years, so I can't remember much about the interaction except for that she had a hypothesis.

She said, you know, there aren't many of us, meaning female neurosurgeons. In fact, apparently, if I recall correctly, which I may not because it's been a few years, they have a number because there are so few that it's like a deli. You get the next number, and I don't know what number she was, 125 or whatever she was. And she said, I just can't believe that there's equal grit among the female and the male neurosurgeons, in part just because of selection, right? It's like a fine mesh sieve, and we're still here. So we did do a little study. Or she, I should say. You know, I just gave her the grit scale. The grit scale is a 12-item questionnaire and has very obvious items, you know, setbacks don't discourage me. difference, I think, favoring either side, honestly. Now, that doesn't mean there aren't any. There are lots of, you know, boring aspects of self-report questionnaires that we can talk about. One of them, though, that's very relevant to looking at gender differences is something I studied. It's called reference bias. So, Scott, if you take a questionnaire and I take a questionnaire and we read the same item, I am a hard worker, you first conjure up an image of a

hard worker, and then you measure yourself to that standard. One of the things that I think may obscure gender differences is that if that person has higher standards, then you have two forces that are working in opposition. On one hand, they may really be grittier. On the other hand, their higher standard is going to yield a lower score. And this has absolutely been documented in cross-cultural research. So in one study, there are over, I think, 60 countries, and it wasn't a grit scale, but it was a measure of overall conscientiousness, right? Big five conscientiousness, you know, being orderly and responsible. And I, you know, imagine like, you know, detail-oriented. But also, by the way, this is the family that includes grit and self-control.

So that family. And they gave it to people in all these different countries. And then the very simple question was like, what are the most conscientious countries in the world? And when the data came in, it was fairly shocking because whereas the, you know, leaders were not especially clear, but what I remember from the paper was that the losers were. So the lowest conscientious countries were, I think, Japan, like South Korea, like maybe China. I mean, these countries that stereotypically you're like, really? Like, really? And what I believe, and I think what the authors of this research report also believe, is that what you're really

revealing there are standards, right? It's probably that, you know, the same words are on the paper, but they're essentially answering different questionnaires. So on gender, I have not found reliable gender differences in grit. I don't know. You know, I don't know whether there really are. But I will say this. I think I have to be careful because I think I'm actually biased towards women. So I'm aware of that.

You know, I will say there is a gender difference that we haven't talked about that goes against your hypothesis. And I'll say these are data that come from like giving women tasks like an IQ test and men the same IQ test. There are differences in confidence. There are differences in, you know, like, okay, you just took this test. Scott, what do you think you did? Like, how do you think, oh, I think I did great, right? say that the entire book can be summarized with this sentence. Achieving your goals is easier when you make your situation your ally. That feels very obvious, putting yourself in the right room, the right context, the right platform. Say more about that.

Do some people not recognize the importance of the context or the situation? I think there are two reasons why people do not recognize the power of the context or the situation? I think there are, you know, two reasons why people do not recognize the power of the situation. One is, you know, Viktor Frankl's, you know, the message that people heard from Man's Search for Meaning that some people heard is that, well, unfortunately, you cannot change your circumstances, but you can change how you respond to them. You know, I don't think that's actually what Viktor Frankl meant. I mean, I don't think that's actually what Viktor Frankl meant. I mean, I don't think Viktor Frankl was like, so what, there are concentration camps and Nazis and, you know,

our entire people are being extinguished. What really matters is our attitude because we have to control the controllables. So I think there's a kind of misunderstanding. I think many circumstances are given, but not all. And I think that impediment, that kind of like, oh, you got to control the controllables, meaning yourself. And, you know, this list of things that you can't control gets rounded up to be everything, right? So I think people do overlook the situation in part because they assume it's a given. And the second reason is that even when you can control your stool,

let's take Ozempic as one very controversial example, right? I think there are people who would consider taking Ozempic for weight loss to be a form of weakness, you know, a sort of, you know, kind of, well, if you were stronger, if you, you know, were just more disciplined, if you dot, dot, dot, well, then you wouldn't need to rely on this crutch, right? People think like using chat GPT is cheating, right? And I know you can actually cheat with chat GPT, but these are just two features of your situation that you could use to your advantage or not use to your advantage. So the second reason I think we overlook the power of the situation is that it feels like cheating when the situation is helping us. And the very cover of Grit, which I don't even know if I have back here, but anyway,

on this bookshelf, there might be a copy of Grit. And if I pulled it out, you know, it's this one big arrow going to the right against these little arrows that go to the left. And the idea of Grit, I think, is about overcoming, you know, overcoming aspects of your situation, for sure. But I think what that leaves out, it's not that this book is a overcoming, you know, overcoming aspects of your situation for sure. But I think what that leaves out, it's not that this book is a correction, but I do think it's a completion of the idea, is that it's great to have a big arrow pointing to the right. It's great to work hard. It's great to pick yourself up and be resilient. But why not do that in a river that's flowing in your direction. Last question here.

Two or three pieces of advice to parents who recognize the importance of grit and want to do what they can to try and instill a sense of grit, putting their kids in the right context or situation to be successful. If you try to distill it down, and every book on parenting I read just kind of says to me, no one has any idea. Every book I read seems to contradict the one before it. But could you,

are there two or three things that you would say are kind of tried and true in terms of helping your kids establish this fantastic competence? You know, I think every kid benefits from having a kind of surrogate parent at a certain point, often in their teen years, sometimes younger. And what I mean by that is, you know, their track coach, you know, their violin teacher, you know, the AP history teacher who really pushed them. And why are these surrogate parents so, like, I don't know, essential even is one word that comes to mind. To listen to them. Well, exactly, because we are rejecting

the actual parents that we have. And these, you know, I watched it with my own kids. Like, you know, you got to outsource some of these parents because, you know, there's almost nothing you can do. This one day, my daughter comes home from, like, track practice and she was like, oh, you got to get up in bed early. I need to drink water. Like, you know, I can't be eating all this crap.

And I was like, wait, like, I've been saying all these things, especially on the sleep. And it's like, oh, because our track coach told her, right? So I think one thing is outsourcing some of the modeling. And I think that does come through extracurricular activities almost always, right? And I guess the, you know, the second thing is, you know, we talked a little bit about sampling versus specializing. I remember vividly, I think it was like the headmaster of one of these elite schools. It may or may not have been where Bill Gates went to school. And it may or may not have been the, you know, principal or head of the school that he attended while he was attending it. But I remember what he said, which is that when he looked at the parents of the kids who ended up being very successful, you know, the parents were watching their kids like hawks for what sparked their kids' interest. And I know it sounds like kind of like a, you know, soft or hooky thing, but like, you know what, if your kid's not interested in something, they're not going to be great at it.

And so looking for those, I think looking for flickers of interest is more important than looking at flickers of talent, right? Not just like what seems to come easily to your kid, but what holds their attention. You know, those are the seeds of passion. So I lied. One final, final question. What can kill grit? What do you need to avoid? What can get you stuck or reduce the levels of grit? Well, we talked about the situation. We don't have a whole conversation on burnout. But I do think there's a nuance here.

If you just look at correlations between grit and burnout, the grittier people are less burned out. That's honestly not shocking. But I think really gritty people are in some ways at the highest risk of burnout because slackers don't get burnt out. And gritty people work so hard and they are so tenacious. So what imperils grit? I think when you asked about, you know, what are the environments, the crucible, I said, like, I'm listening to your story. I hear a lot of challenge. I'm guessing that there's another through line of support somewhere in there

or Scott wouldn't become Scott. So I think burnout is what happens when you try really, really hard in a very gritty way, probably, and somehow things are just not working for you. And when that happens, I think, looking outside of yourself instead of inside yourself, looking at what could make it easier to accomplish your goals as opposed to berating yourself for not trying harder.

Honestly, Scott, that's what I'm trying to do. Yeah, forgive yourself. Angela Duckworth is a psychologist, the co-founder of Character Lab, and a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She's also the author of the number one New York Times bestseller, Grit, The Power of Passion and Perseverance. She joins us from her office at the great educational institution, the University of Pennsylvania. Professor, you own, you literally own a character attribute that is such good for you. Well done. Oh, it's not patented. You know, when the Flyers named their, the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team, when they named their mascot Gritty, no royalties were exchanged, nor should they have been. Yeah, but more importantly,

when people say to your kids, who is your mom? My mom was the Grit Woman. There's just a lot worse things you could say about people. Congratulations on your success. Thank you, Scott. Algebra of happiness. I've been thinking a lot about masculinity. I'm writing a book on it. And some younger people said masculinity is an outdated word. So it might be notes on becoming a man and i'm trying to write a book it not only talks about i'm not trying to position myself as

an expert because i'm not but talking about where i failed as a man and what i've learned and where i've done okay and i think i've been thinking a lot about the election and some of the swing voters still up for grabs are young men and And the Democratic Party has done a terrible job of making young men feel seen. And what does that mean? Programs acknowledging that young men are struggling. But I believe the election might be won by young men, or lost, if you will, or decided, I should say. And that is, this election was supposed to be seen as a referendum on women's rights. And I think that's largely the case, but I think people who feel strongly about bodily autonomy one way or the other have already decided. It's young men that are up for grabs. And I'd like to think that everyone should have a code. And I'd like to think that masculinity or an aspirational modern

form of masculinity could be a great code. And this is why I am supporting, or one of the reasons I am supporting, and we always get shit for being political on the show. I get it. That's not why you invited me here, but I want to be transparent. I think the economy is doing really well and, or better than most people want to acknowledge. It's not evenly distributed, but we have the least bad economy in the world right now. And when I think about your code of being a man or becoming a man, I think of three legs of the stool. I think provider, protector, and procreator. So provider, it is much easier to be a provider in a strong economy. And this is lowest unemployment rate, highest GDP growth, lowest inflation. I think you're more likely to be able to be a provider in this economy, a protector. I think men's first instinct should be to protection. Real men break up fights. They don't start them. Real men defend their country. They don't shitpost it. Real men, immediately their default setting is protection and then this is the one that's a little harder a little more controversial procreator

most wonderful thing in my life hands down is raising boys with a competent partner and how did it start sex i didn't see my partner at the pool at the raleigh hotel and think wow she'd be great i bet she's really good with a 401k or at some point is going to buy apartments and fix them up and generate cashflow for us. I thought I'd really like to have sex with that woman. And I think sex is a wonderful thing. And I think desiring sex and wanting to be physical with women, I think that is how most relationships start. And then you have sex or you're physical, you really enjoy it. You start hanging out together and you find you like each other and you find you miss that person and you decide to build a life together and maybe have

kids. That's the whole shooting match. AI, GDP growth, Trump versus Harris, that is all a means to the ends. And the ends is deep and meaningful relationships. Specifically, the most important one will be who you have kids with and see above sex. I think it's good for men to be, I don't want to say aggressive, but to initiate contact, to approach strange women or strange men and express romantic interest while making them feel safe. If you approach somebody at a bar, ask them out for coffee, whatever it is, and they're not interested, you're both going to be fine. You are a provider, a protector, and a procreator. This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez and Caroline Shagrin, and Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for

No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn. And please follow our Prop G Markets Pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.