Grit
The Power of Passion and Perseverance
By Angela Duckworth
Narrated by Angela Duckworth / 9 hours 22 minutes
In this must-read book for anyone striving to succeed, pioneering psychologist Angela Duckworth shows parents, educators, students, and business people—both seasoned and new—that the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a focused persistence called “grit.”
Why do some people succeed and others fail? Sharing new insights from her landmark research on grit, MacArthur “genius” Angela Duckworth explains why talent is hardly a guarantee for success. Rather, other factors can be even more crucial such as identifying our passions and following through on our commitments.
Drawing on her own powerful story as the daughter of a scientist who frequently bemoaned her lack of smarts, Duckworth describes her winding path through teaching, business consulting, and neuroscience, which led to the hypothesis that what really drives success is not “genius” but a special blend of passion and long-term perseverance.
As a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Duckworth created her own “character lab” and set out to test her theory.
In Grit, she takes readers into visiting teachers working in some of the toughest schools, cadets struggling through their first days at West Point, and young finalists in the National Spelling Bee. She also mines fascinating insights from history and shows what can be gleaned from modern experiments in peak performance. Finally, she shares what she’s learned from interviewing dozens of high achievers—from JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon to the cartoon editor of The New Yorker to Seattle Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll.
Winningly personal, insightful, and even life-changing, Grit is a book about what goes through your head when you fall down, and how that—not talent or luck—makes all the difference.
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“Impressively fresh and original… Grit scrubs away preconceptions about how far our potential can take us.”
Susan Cain, Author of Quiet
“Grit is a persuasive and fascinating response to the cult of IQ fundamentalism. Duckworth reminds us that it is character and perseverance that set the successful apart.”
Malcolm Gladwell, Bestselling author
“Psychologists have spent decades searching for the secret of success, but Angela Duckworth is the one who found it. In this smart and lively book, she not only tells us what it is, but also how to get it.”
Daniel Gilbert, Author of Stumbling on Happiness
About the Author
In her late twenties, Angela Duckworth left a demanding job as a management consultant to teach math to seventh graders in the New York City public schools. Several years in the classroom taught her that effort was tremendously important to success. To begin to solve the mystery of why some people work so much harder and longer than others, Angela entered the PhD program in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is now a professor. She is also a 2013 MacArthur fellow and founder and scientific director of the Character Lab.
Reviews
“A fascinating tour of the psychological research on success...A great service of Ms. Duckworth's book is her down-to-earth definition of passion. To be gritty, an individual doesn't need to have an obsessive infatuation with a goal. Rather, he needs to show 'consistency over time.' The grittiest people have developed long-term goals and are constantly working toward them.”
The Wall Street Journal
“Angela Duckworth [is] the psychologist who has made 'grit' the reigning buzzword in education-policy circles...Duckworth's ideas about the cultivation of tenacity have clearly changed some lives for the better...In this book, Duckworth, whose TED talk has been viewed more than eight million times, brings her lessons to the reading public.”
Judith Shulevitz, The New York Times Book Review
Related Reading
The Power And Problem Of Grit
NPR
Don’t Grade Schools on Grit
Angela Duckworth, The New York Times
![[The] most dazzling human achievements are, in fact, the aggregate of countless individual elements, each of which is, in a sense, ordinary.](https://cdn.libro.fm/assets/quotes/original/Grit_-_1.jpg?1469747992)
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