1. Introduction
1.1. Angela Duckworth PhD
1.1.1. Professor of Psychology at University of Pennsylvania
1.1.2. Advised the white house, Professional Sports Teams and Fortune 500 CEOs
1.1.3. Founder of Character Lab a nonprofit whos mission is to advance the science of character development
1.1.4. Alumni of Harvard, Oxford and University of Pennsylvania
1.1.5. Grit is her first book based on a topic that she is the world expert in
1.2. Grit
1.2.1. “Why were the highly accomplished so dogged in their pursuits?"
1.2.1.1. For most, there was no realistic expectation of ever catching up to their ambitions. In their own eyes, they were never good enough. They were the opposite of complacent. And yet, in a very real sense, they were satisfied with being unsatisfied. Each was chasing something of unparalleled interest and importance, and it was the chase— as much as the capture—that was gratifying. Even if some of the things they had to do were boring, or frustrating, or even painful, they wouldn’t dream of giving up. Their passion was enduring.
1.2.1.2. "In sum, no matter the domain, the highly successful had a kind of ferocious determination that played out in two ways. First, these exemplars were unusually resilient and hardworking. Second, they knew in a very, very deep way what it was they wanted. They not only had determination, they had direction."
1.2.1.3. "It was this combination of passion and perseverance that made high achievers special. In a word, they had grit.”
1.2.2. What is Grit?
1.2.2.1. Combination of intense passion + intense perseverance toward a long term goal that matters to you
1.2.2.2. Grit correlates with success in almost any endeavor than IQ or other conventional "markers"
1.2.2.3. Book is filled with tonnes of great stories and research connected with some of the other great books we've done Mind Maps on
1.2.2.4. I recommend you pick this one up.. Probably one of the best 'success' oriented books I've read!
2. BEAST
2.1. “By the last day of Beast, seventy-one cadets had dropped out."
2.1.1. "Grit turned out to be an astoundingly reliable predictor of who made it through and who did not."
2.1.2. "The next year, I returned to West Point to run the same study. This time, sixty-two cadets dropped out of Beast, and again grit predicted who would stay."
2.1.3. "In contrast, stayers and leavers had indistinguishable Whole Candidate Scores. I looked a little closer at the individual components that make up the score. Again, no difference."
2.1.4. "So, what matters for making it through Beast?"
2.1.5. "Not your SAT scores, not your high school rank, not your leadership experience, not your athletic ability. Not your Whole Candidate Score. What matters is grit.”
2.2. Grit in Action
2.2.1. Beast is a super challenging initiation used at West Point where new cadets are put through the ringer for two months..
2.2.1.1. They have already spent almost two entire years trying to get into West Point
2.2.1.2. A ton of people drop out during the two month process
2.2.1.2.1. The military has tried to figure out who would drop out for decades.. But they couldn't!
2.2.1.2.2. Angela's grit questionnaire was able to better predict the outcome for these people than any of the military scores
2.2.2. The Grit Questionnaire
2.2.2.1. Angela gave the cadet's a simple 10 question survey on grit..
2.2.2.2. I'll leave a link to it below in case you want to take it yourself
2.2.2.3. Five questions were about perseverance and five questions were about passion
2.2.2.3.1. The two main ingredients that determine Grit
2.2.3. Obviously Grit is important..
2.2.3.1. What is your Grit score?
2.2.3.2. What did the questions tell you about yourself?
2.2.3.3. How could you work to develop more grit? *More on this later
3. Effort Twice
3.1. “I have been working on a theory of the psychology of achievement since Marty scolded me for not having one. I have pages and pages of diagrams, filling more than a dozen lab notebooks. After more than a decade of thinking about it, sometimes alone, and sometimes in partnership with close colleagues, I finally published an article in which I lay down two simple equations that explain how you get from talent to achievement."
3.1.1. Talent x Effort = Skill --- Skill x Effort = Achievement
3.1.2. "Talent is how quickly your skills improve when you invest effort. Achievement is what happens when you take your acquired skills and use them. Of course, your opportunities—for example, having a great teacher—matter tremendously, too, and maybe more than anything about the individual. My theory doesn’t address these outside forces, nor does it include luck. It’s about the psychology of achievement, but because psychology isn’t all that maters, it’s incomplete."
3.1.3. "Still, I think it’s useful. What this theory says is that when you consider individuals in identical circumstances, what each achieves depends on just two things, talent and effort. Talent—how fast we can improve a skill—absolutely matters. But effort factors into the calculations twice, not once. Effort builds skill. At the very same time, effort makes skill productive."
3.2. Why Effort is Important
3.2.1. Angela points out here that Psychology of Achievement is not the only thing that plays into success..
3.2.2. But if you take two individuals in the same situation then Effort is going to be the determining factor!
3.2.3. Effort is a force multiplier.. Because it counts twice!
3.2.3.1. It's also the main one that is within our control..
3.2.3.2. Plus it's trainable! And an almost endless quantity of effort is available..
3.3. How Much Effort do You Put in?
3.3.1. Angela Quotes Will Smith in This Chapter
3.3.1.1. “I’ve never really viewed myself as particularly talented... Where I excel is ridiculous, sickening work ethic.”
3.3.1.2. "The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me is: I’m not afraid to die on a treadmill. I will not be outworked, period. You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, you might be sexier than me. You might be all of those things. You got it on me in nine categories. But if we get on the treadmill together, there’s two things: You’re getting off first, or I’m going to die. It’s really that simple.”
3.3.2. Can you Adopt That Mindset?
3.3.2.1. The treadmill is just a metaphor for life..
3.3.2.2. How much effort are your exerting when it comes to getting what you want out of it?
4. Compass
4.1. “What I mean by a passion is not just that you have something you care about. What I mean is that you care about the same ultimate goal in an abiding, loyal, steady way. You are not capricious."
4.1.1. "Each day, you wake up thinking of the questions you fell asleep thinking about. You are, in a sense, pointing in the same direction, ever eager to take even the smallest step forward than to take a step to the side, toward some other destination."
4.1.2. "At the extreme, one might call your focus obsessive. Most of your actions derive their significance from their allegiance to your ultimate concern, your life philosophy. You have your priorities in order.”
4.2. Vision
4.2.1. What is your Vision of the future?
4.2.1.1. Tony Robbins would call this your 'Compelling Future'
4.2.1.2. Basically it's this.. What would you want to accomplish given anything is possible?
4.2.1.3. Building that compelling future up in your minds eye is a precursor for Grit
4.2.2. This is the first and probably most important part of my Self Coaching course..
4.2.3. The Vision is what motivates you to take the massive action that is necessary to achieve!
4.2.3.1. Having this Vision is what Angela would call the compass and Tony would call the magnet
4.2.3.2. What is your Vision?
4.3. Death to Distraction
4.3.1. Once you've got your compelling future you have to eliminate anything that might cause you to stray from your path..
4.3.2. Mihaly says in his book 'Creativity'
4.3.2.1. “After creative energy is awakened, it is necessary to protect it. We must erect barriers against distractions, dig channels so that energy can flow more freely, find ways to escape outside temptations and interruptions.”
4.3.3. Focused attention is necessary..
5. Assets
5.1. “In fact, when people drop out of things, they do so for a reason. Actually, they do so for different reasons. Any of the following four thoughts might go through your head right before you quit what you’re doing:"
5.1.1. ‘I’m bored.’
5.1.2. ‘The effort isn’t worth it.’
5.1.3. ‘This isn’t important to me.’
5.1.4. ‘I can’t do this, so I might as well give up.’
5.1.5. "There’s nothing wrong—morally or otherwise—with thoughts like these. As I tried to show in this chapter, paragons of grit quit goals, too. But the higher the level of the goal in question, the more stubborn they are about seeing it through. Most important, paragons of grit don’t swap compasses: when it comes to the one, singularly important aim that guides almost everything else they do, the very gritty tend not to utter the statements above."
5.1.5.1. "Together, the research reveals the psychological assets that mature paragons of grit have in common. There are four. They counter each of the buzz-killers listed above, and they tend to develop, over the years, in a particular order.”
5.2. Cultivating Grit
5.2.1. Angela says that there are four 'Psychological Assets' that we should cultivate if we want to be 'Grittier'
5.2.2. Interest: In order to sustain our passion we need to be drawn to what we're doing.. It's got to fire us up!
5.2.3. Practice: For me this is like our note on Deep Work and Flow.. How can you expect to get better at anything if you don't practice it all the time!
5.2.3.1. The Meta here is learning how to practice..
5.2.4. Purpose: Some people use "Purpose" and "Vision" interchangeably.. I see purpose as our work having some effect on the grater good!
5.2.5. Hope: This is essentially the ability to always seeing what we want to achieve as 'possible'.. Angela talks about falling down 7 times and getting back up 8! That takes hope.
6. Genius
6.1. “‘You’re no genius,’ my dad used to say when I was just a little girl. I realize now that he was talking to himself as much as he was talking to me."
6.1.1. "If you define genius as being able to accomplish great things in life without effort, then he was right: I’m no genius, and neither is he."
6.1.2. "But if, instead, you define genius as working toward excellence, ceaselessly, with every element of your being—then, in fact, my dad is a genius, and so am I, and... if you’re willing, so are you.”
6.2. Genius is Yours to Create
6.2.1. Most people think of things like IQ and test scores as being 'genius'
6.2.2. But now more than ever IQ and test scores matter less because of the amazing power of Google
6.2.3. Instead people who are Gritty and willing to stick to things will become genius through the power of Effort compounded!