Pete’s take…
During my time in management, I have hired many people. In selecting candidates to hire I would focus on intelligence as one of the main traits to look for. Sales is a very tough and challenging business. It is important for sales people to be smart and have the ability to think quickly on their feet. Unfortunately, I have hired many very smart salespeople who have failed.
Perhaps in many of those instances I put the importance of being bright over someone who can persevere and stick to achieving a long-term goal. In Angela Duckworth’s book Grit, she writes about the single best predictor of success being the grittiness of a person. She discusses the importance of sticking to long-term difficult goals and how grittier people are more likely to have a healthier emotional life.
I completely agree with her that life is like a marathon and you have to be willing to take chances and fail. I love the way Angela ties in so many stories of how gritty people beat the odds to succeed. She writes about her research of the Seattle Seahawks and their head coach Pete Carroll. I loved his message about always competing and the need to finish strong in everything you do. It’s a winning culture that he brought to the team and which helped them win Super Bowl XLVIII.
Grit is a well written book that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. Ms. Duckworth is no snowflake. It’s also a great book for teachers, parents or soon to be parents.
Cheryl’s take…
This 5 minute TED Talk is a good intro into what the book GRIT is all about.
Angela Duckworth has made it her life’s work to research GRIT and how it may be a significant indicator of our future accomplishments. She received the MacArthur Fellowship (aka “Genius Grant) for her work, so I was intrigued enough to want to dive into this book to learn more.
Another more selfish reason was because I was curious. I wanted to know… did I have grit?
The book is divided into three broad sections:
- What Grit is and Why it Matters, including a chapter titled “How Gritty Are You?” – I started here because I didn’t want to read the 52 pages prior in order to know if I was gritty or not!
- Growing Grit from the Inside Out.
- Growing Grit from the Outside In.
I guess I would call myself a very competitive person, because I was NOT happy with my grittiness score. OK, so I scored in the 92% range for perverseness, but only 20% for passion? That can’t be – I’ve always considered myself “passionate” about my work and my goals. But according to Ms. Duckworth, “enthusiasm is common, endurance is rare”. This definitely had me curious to read on.
Turns out that the passion component of Grit is “consistency over time”. An almost obsessive dedication to the achievement of a particular goal. While I do believe I am good at driving to “get things done”, I have to admit, I do a good bit of jumping around in terms of focus on one particular goal. Do I have a singular life focus as this author does in spending her life researching the topic of grit? No comparison, the answer is no.
My next question (because I’ve never liked scoring low in ANYTHING) was, can I grow my grittiness? Angela answers this question in Part 2 of the book. Increasing your grit IS possible and requires a focus on the four psychological assets of: interest, practice, purpose, and hope.
A full chapter is devoted to each of those areas and this is the part of the book that grabbed my interest the most since it held a formula for increasing my own grittiness. A lot of what the author talks about aligns with my own understandings already – like deliberate practice not just the number of hours of practice. The science put forth by the author on deliberate practice includes making sure you:
- Have a clearly defined stretch goal
- Put forth full concentration and effort
- Get immediate and informative feedback
- Repeat the process with reflection and refinement
Angela suggests that “most people are cruising through life doing precisely zero hours of deliberate practice.”
The information and stories told to back up her findings are very compelling. A great read that I will keep on my bookshelf for re-reading on a regular basis. I’ll leave you with that as it’s time for me to…
- Narrow down my multiple life goals to a more grittier singular focus
- Create a habit around deliberate practice
- Clarify my purpose in helping others reach their goals – GoalHound Goal Achievement System coming soon!!!
- Move confidently forward knowing that I have it completely in my power to make tomorrow even better than today through my own efforts.
Time to go GROW MY GRIT!
