Speaker 1: Pushkin Happy New Year's Slight change listeners. New Year's resolutions
Speaker 1: can feel impossible to keep, but in the last few years,
Speaker 1: I've made it a point to internalize research insights from
Speaker 1: behavioral science, and they've helped me set smarter goals and
Speaker 1: actually stick to them. And so we've decided to go
Speaker 1: back into the archives and share interviews with experts who
Speaker 1: delve into some useful strategies for making change. They'll give
Speaker 1: you the practical tools and motivation you need to not
Speaker 1: only set great goals, but to sustain your commitments well
Speaker 1: into twenty twenty three. In our final episode of this
Speaker 1: special New Year's miniseries, will hear from psychologist Angela Duckworth,
Speaker 1: who teaches us how to cultivate more grit, a power
Speaker 1: combo of passion and perseverance. Plus she offers advice on
Speaker 1: how we can resist some of the daily distractions that
Speaker 1: often get in the way of reach our goals and
Speaker 1: spoiler alert, it will not involve self control. As always,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear which insights resonate most with you.
Speaker 1: You can connect with me on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker.
Speaker 1: What makes a great graphic designer? You know? Same as
Speaker 1: like a great ballerina, but also the same as like
Speaker 1: a world class mathematician, but also the same as a
Speaker 1: civic activists. Like what do they have in common? According
Speaker 1: to psychologist Angela Duckworth, the answer is grit, a power
Speaker 1: combo of passion and perseverance. Angela says natural ability and
Speaker 1: access to opportunity will, of course give you a head start,
Speaker 1: but they alone won't get you to the finish line,
Speaker 1: and focusing too much on natural ability can be counterproductive
Speaker 1: because it's something we can't change about ourselves. So when
Speaker 1: it comes to taching our big goals, Angela wants us
Speaker 1: to reorient our focus to the thing we can change,
Speaker 1: which is the sustained effort we pour into the things
Speaker 1: we care about. When we say like, oh, well, you
Speaker 1: know she or he's a genius and I'm not. I mean,
Speaker 1: it really does let you off the hook, right, Like
Speaker 1: if they have something you don't have, some magical X factor,
Speaker 1: right then you don't have any obligation to wake up
Speaker 1: at five in the morning and train and to like,
Speaker 1: you know, do all the hard things. On today's episode,
Speaker 1: Angela Duckworth teaches us how to cultivate grit channel that
Speaker 1: grit and resist some of the temptations that often get
Speaker 1: in the way of achieving success. I'm Maya Shunker, and
Speaker 1: this is a slight change of plans, a show about
Speaker 1: who we are and who we become in the face
Speaker 1: of a big change. Angela is a true expert on grit.
Speaker 1: She's been studying the topic for over a decade now
Speaker 1: as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She's also
Speaker 1: the recipient of the McArthur Genius Grant, and her ted
Speaker 1: talk on Passion and Perseverance has garnered over twenty five
Speaker 1: million views. I started at our conversation by diving into
Speaker 1: the basics, starting with the definition of grit. I define
Speaker 1: grit as the combination of passion and perseverance over the
Speaker 1: very long term. So that doesn't mean that like every
Speaker 1: day you're doing the exact same thing, but you have
Speaker 1: a kind of overall ambition or goal, you know, like
Speaker 1: I want to help people live better lives through behavioral science.
Speaker 1: You know, I want to be the best pediatrician that
Speaker 1: I can be. You know, I want to be a
Speaker 1: great musician, whatever it is. And there's also a perseverance
Speaker 1: like working really hard, taking feedback and learning. I mean
Speaker 1: really trying to stay in a game and work hard
Speaker 1: at that game in a resilient way over time, so
Speaker 1: passion and perseverance for long term goals. When I was
Speaker 1: a kid, I remember feeling like it was all about
Speaker 1: natural talent. Like in music school, everyone was so quick
Speaker 1: to try to identify the latest prodigy. Absolutely, I remember
Speaker 1: there was this violinist Rachel. Not that I still remember you, Rachel,
Speaker 1: but you were amazing. Hi Rachel, Hi Rachel. I won't
Speaker 1: say your last name because I don't embarrass you, but
Speaker 1: she was a few years younger than me, and she
Speaker 1: was such a gifted violinist. I mean, I felt like
Speaker 1: everything that was hard for me seemed to come easily
Speaker 1: to her. And rather than internalizing, oh, I guess this
Speaker 1: is a lesson to me that I need to work harder,
Speaker 1: I actually just felt despondent, right. I felt like, Okay,
Speaker 1: well should I just give up? Because I don't have it.
Speaker 1: I don't have what it takes, and so the only
Speaker 1: way forward was for me to just keep practicing. But
Speaker 1: I can't say that wasn't without some suffering and mental
Speaker 1: anguish about the fact that I always felt like I
Speaker 1: was a little behind, And so I feel so passionately
Speaker 1: about evangelizing your research in this space because I feel
Speaker 1: like I fell victim to aspects of it as a child. Right,
Speaker 1: it actually hurt my psychology. Do you do you know
Speaker 1: the research of Chia Jung? Say you wrote about her
Speaker 1: in your book, right, yeah, okay, right, so exactly, and
Speaker 1: I wrote about how Chio was a musician like you, right,
Speaker 1: and how she I think, you know, given her personal
Speaker 1: experience with music, I mean, I think that music in particular, Right,
Speaker 1: there are certain domains where, you know, people talk about prodigies,
Speaker 1: and you know, there are YouTube videos of prodigies and
Speaker 1: really is amazing. And you see a kid who's five,
Speaker 1: you know, do something that it just makes you think,
Speaker 1: like that must be something that's born, not made, and
Speaker 1: those people are special and and like you, she really felt,
Speaker 1: I mean so impassionate about like, hey, you know, come
Speaker 1: see the thousands of hours of practice, and you won't
Speaker 1: use the word natural, you know, so flippantly, And I'll
Speaker 1: just say that, you know, it's not that anybody, or
Speaker 1: at least that I would say that we're all equally talented.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that would be right, like ridiculous
Speaker 1: and I think the key is is that you know,
Speaker 1: when you're young and you're trying to figure out like
Speaker 1: should I keep going or should I not keep going?
Speaker 1: Or Frankly, I guess at any age, if you just
Speaker 1: obsess about these differences in things that you can't change,
Speaker 1: I do think it can overshadow you know, the things
Speaker 1: that you can change, right, and and all those thousands
Speaker 1: of hours of practice that that you put in, that
Speaker 1: Shea put in, you know, those are like not very
Speaker 1: fun to watch on YouTube. Frankly, yeah, you know, I
Speaker 1: want to hear Maria Angela. Why why are we such
Speaker 1: suckers for natural ability? Like I was talking with my
Speaker 1: husband the other night, and he was saying, in high school,
Speaker 1: you're really cool if you got good grades without trying
Speaker 1: at all. And by the way, I mean really cool
Speaker 1: in very nerdy circles. I just to clarify, just to clarify,
Speaker 1: just to clarify. But it's like, oh, he got to
Speaker 1: be plus without studying, Like imagine if he had studied,
Speaker 1: you know, And there's this this is aura around people
Speaker 1: who don't try hard. What in our human behavior gives
Speaker 1: rise to this fascination with natural ability? Well, I can
Speaker 1: only speculate. But people do have a preference for people
Speaker 1: that we consider it to be naturals, and we prefer
Speaker 1: them over strivers, even when we know that they have
Speaker 1: accomplished the same thing. And you know, I remember reading
Speaker 1: what Nietzsche wrote about this, and he said, you know,
Speaker 1: when we consider that other people are naturals, but we aren't,
Speaker 1: right when we say like, oh, well, you know she
Speaker 1: or he's a genius and I'm not. I mean, it
Speaker 1: really does like let you off the hook, right, Like
Speaker 1: if they have something, you don't have some magical X factor,
Speaker 1: right then you don't have any obligation to wake up
Speaker 1: at five in the morning and and train and to like,
Speaker 1: you know, do all the hard things. I think there's
Speaker 1: at least a part of it that's like that. And
Speaker 1: you know, there's thing kind of fun about thinking that
Speaker 1: people are like demigods or like we tell little kids like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're a child prodigy in piano or painting. I think
Speaker 1: there's just something fun and mystical about it too, right,
Speaker 1: Like we like to think they're they're just qualitatively different.
Speaker 1: I do think though, that if we can, you know,
Speaker 1: till things such that the honor and the glory goes
Speaker 1: to people who have earned what they do in a
Speaker 1: very transparent way that's maybe not as romantic. Then we
Speaker 1: will be doing a great service to our kids, because
Speaker 1: I mean, I really don't know anybody who has become
Speaker 1: world class and economics or at being a political leader
Speaker 1: or anything else. You know, a classroom teacher, a nurse
Speaker 1: like without you know, just years and years of effort.
Speaker 1: So at this point in our conversation, Angela has made
Speaker 1: a strong argument for the importance of grit. But it's
Speaker 1: grit like talent, one of those things you've either got
Speaker 1: or you don't like. In addition to raw talent, did
Speaker 1: Rachel the violinist also have more grit than me? Okay,
Speaker 1: she probably did that. That's because she's Rachel, and so
Speaker 1: of course she did. But here's the good news. We
Speaker 1: can cultivate grit. Angela says there are four key things
Speaker 1: we can all do in our lives to build some grit.
Speaker 1: Number one, find out what interests you. People who are
Speaker 1: really gritty have this intrinsic interest and curiosity about what
Speaker 1: they're doing, So you can, you know, start a book club.
Speaker 1: If you're at work in a job and you're like, hey,
Speaker 1: I don't learn a lot. You can, you know, start
Speaker 1: listening to a podcast like this one that you know
Speaker 1: really engages your mind, etc. But interest, I think is
Speaker 1: the first seed of passion. You know, interests are you know,
Speaker 1: what naturally grabs our attention. I think that's the best
Speaker 1: definition of what an interest is. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: without effort or without will, you just want to think
Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, And one thing you've said is that
Speaker 1: our interests actually remain relatively stable over the course of
Speaker 1: our lives and even our personalities. And so one way
Speaker 1: we and identify what we're naturally interested in is to
Speaker 1: look back at our childhood and try and remember what
Speaker 1: it is that let us up or made us tick.
Speaker 1: I do want to say, man, it's important to know that,
Speaker 1: you know, interests evolved, so they're not static. So it's
Speaker 1: not like, you know, if you're interested in something when
Speaker 1: you're fourteen, that's exactly what you'll be interested in when
Speaker 1: you're fifty four. But I do think actually, if you
Speaker 1: introspect a little bit and you remember what you were
Speaker 1: like in high school, right, this is during the period
Speaker 1: of adolescence when interests tend to get more specific and
Speaker 1: differentiated and if you think back enough. I think back,
Speaker 1: you know, to my own sixteen and seventeen year old self.
Speaker 1: What was I interested in? Well, I signed up for
Speaker 1: a summer school class in psychology, and I signed up
Speaker 1: for a summer school class in nonfiction writing. Right, I
Speaker 1: didn't pick chemistry, I didn't pick philosophy, I didn't pick
Speaker 1: up So I think in some ways, you know, what
Speaker 1: do I do now? Well, I do a lot of
Speaker 1: psychology and I do a lot of nonfiction writing. So
Speaker 1: I do think that trip down memory lane can sometimes
Speaker 1: just you know, remind us in a way of the things.
Speaker 1: But another tip for you if you don't want to
Speaker 1: just introspect, is like literally ask the people that you
Speaker 1: that you love most. You know, if I asked my husband,
Speaker 1: like Jason, what am I interested in? I mean, it
Speaker 1: sounds like a crazy thing to ask, like shouldn't I know?
Speaker 1: But he will tell me what he observes. He's like, well,
Speaker 1: when I see you read the newspaper, you're always reading
Speaker 1: the food section, vows you know, Like He's like, you
Speaker 1: just when we went to visit houses, when we were
Speaker 1: shopping for houses, instead of asking about the plumbing and
Speaker 1: the mortgage and the abatement. I was like, so then
Speaker 1: they got divorced, and then what happened the relt are
Speaker 1: was like, well and then and my husband was like
Speaker 1: and this has nothing to do with this house. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, I know, but it's so interesting. I just
Speaker 1: want to know. So that's me and human nature. So
Speaker 1: take a trip down memory lane. But also ask some
Speaker 1: people who know you and love you. You know, what
Speaker 1: do you think I'm interested in? And I think you
Speaker 1: might learn something? Yeah, oh my gosh, you and I
Speaker 1: are totally the same. That's always my interest too. I
Speaker 1: must not buy a house to get a terrible bathway.
Speaker 1: Angela's second tip for building grit once you found an interest,
Speaker 1: go all in, engage in focus, practice, and set clear goals.
Speaker 1: Step three is all about thinking about the big picture.
Speaker 1: Angela says to ask yourself, why are you doing the
Speaker 1: thing you're doing, what's your sense of purpose? And then,
Speaker 1: finally step four, cultivate a growth mindset, which is the
Speaker 1: idea that we should think about our mind as a
Speaker 1: muscle that can grow with hard work and perseverance. Basically
Speaker 1: being optimistic about how people's abilities can change and how
Speaker 1: we're not necessarily as fixed as sometimes we're tempted to
Speaker 1: think we are. And it's something that you know, I'm
Speaker 1: still working on. I saw him slip into a fixed
Speaker 1: mindset sometimes, and I try to let my growth mindset
Speaker 1: voice have it say. One person who inspires Angela to
Speaker 1: keep her growth mindset front and center is a former
Speaker 1: student of hers, David Long. So, David Long I met
Speaker 1: years ago when METSI more than twenty maybe now. I
Speaker 1: was a high school math teacher in the San Francisco
Speaker 1: Public schools and David was in my class. And I
Speaker 1: noticed from you know, the first week of school that
Speaker 1: this kid, David really liked math, and frankly was pretty talented,
Speaker 1: but apparently not talented enough to have made it past
Speaker 1: the cut score that would have placed him in his
Speaker 1: freshman year in a higher level math class. So I
Speaker 1: marched David over to the department share whose name was Liz,
Speaker 1: and I say, Liz, like, you know, a grievous error
Speaker 1: has been made. This kid should be in the higher
Speaker 1: level math class. And Liz is amazing, and she moved
Speaker 1: things around. So what happened next, Well, David graduated from
Speaker 1: high school and then he went on to get a
Speaker 1: PhD in aerospace engineering as somebody who basically uses math
Speaker 1: every day. And so I think the lesson of David
Speaker 1: is that it's very easy to make a mistake, you know,
Speaker 1: about somebody's potential. You know, like oh they're SAT scores
Speaker 1: not high enough. You know, it's like, oh, you're not
Speaker 1: gifted and talented. But these other kids, they are gifted
Speaker 1: and talented. You know, these kids they're going to go
Speaker 1: to AP calculus. Those kids they're not. And we do
Speaker 1: it all the time, right, And I think if we
Speaker 1: can restructure education in a way that doesn't have these like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, problems of off ramps and on ramps where
Speaker 1: we're like sorting kids and frankly, we're doing it very
Speaker 1: early in their life. And if we could say instead, hey,
Speaker 1: if you have the motivation and if with support you
Speaker 1: can keep up in these classes, like the door is open.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that would be a much better
Speaker 1: way to run things. Yeah, And one thing I loved
Speaker 1: about David's story is that when he was moved to
Speaker 1: the advanced class and initially wasn't scoring very well on
Speaker 1: those early exams, right getting a C and then getting
Speaker 1: a D, he he brush it off. He's like, I
Speaker 1: wasn't happy about it, but you know he didn't He
Speaker 1: wasn't demoralized. He didn't give up. He just kept working harder.
Speaker 1: You know that knife edge, right, you get a d
Speaker 1: or a ce. My own daughter, Amanda, when she was
Speaker 1: maybe a little younger than David, I think she was
Speaker 1: still in middle school, but she had tested into this
Speaker 1: more advanced track and so she, you know, she settles
Speaker 1: in and you know, she's getting her first exams back.
Speaker 1: I think she failed. I mean failed. She's gonna see
Speaker 1: like failed, I believe, like the first few exams, and
Speaker 1: I had to confess to you, Maya. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe this isn't for you. I mean I looked at
Speaker 1: this math curriculum and I was like, holy smokes, like
Speaker 1: this is really hard. You get like all the way
Speaker 1: through BC calculus before the end of junior year. I
Speaker 1: was like, why don't you just not do this hard thing?
Speaker 1: And my husband was such a better parent than me.
Speaker 1: He you know, worked with her, and I remember the
Speaker 1: stacks of scrap paper they had. I mean, they just
Speaker 1: put in so much work, and I think for him
Speaker 1: it was very important that at that young age that
Speaker 1: she not encode. I can't do this like I'm not
Speaker 1: smart enough, Like I'm a girl, I'm whatever, but like
Speaker 1: I can't do this. So he didn't really care that she,
Speaker 1: you know, became a mathematician. But I will tell you
Speaker 1: what the epilogue of that story is. Amanda's twenty She
Speaker 1: is on track to being a math major at Harvard Um.
Speaker 1: You know, she would not say that things come easily
Speaker 1: to her, like she would not say that like in
Speaker 1: her math classes, you know, you know she's the fastest
Speaker 1: or that, but but she does love math. And I
Speaker 1: think those early experiences where it was a threat to
Speaker 1: her you know, self image, but then that she had
Speaker 1: a loving parent who I wish I could say it
Speaker 1: was me, but it was it was my you know,
Speaker 1: my better half. I just think that's really important. And
Speaker 1: I know that one of the things that you have worked,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, so hard on his equity, and
Speaker 1: I think that, like, you know, one of the very
Speaker 1: deep issues in this country is like how many kids
Speaker 1: have somebody in their life who's going to do what
Speaker 1: my husband did for my daughter, or do what I
Speaker 1: had time to do with David and his you know,
Speaker 1: his other teachers, and you know how much you know,
Speaker 1: wasted potential is there, and how many kids are walking
Speaker 1: around thinking they're not that smart because you know, they
Speaker 1: haven't had the opportunity to see what they can do.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a moment that the slight change
Speaker 1: of plants. We're back with Angela Duckworth. He's teaching us
Speaker 1: about the science of grit and how it can help
Speaker 1: us achieve our goals. Once we've cultivated grit, the next
Speaker 1: step is to make sure we channel whatever grit we
Speaker 1: do have in the right way, and this is where
Speaker 1: deliberate practice comes into play. Deliberate practice is a term
Speaker 1: that was coined by Andres Eriksson, who was a great
Speaker 1: cognitive psychologist. I mean really he was the world expert
Speaker 1: on world experts and really believe strongly. He always, you know,
Speaker 1: would talk about growing up in Sweden in a family
Speaker 1: that you know shared with him the worldview that like honors,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're really interested in something and you
Speaker 1: are willing to work hard at it, like who would
Speaker 1: be the one to say that you couldn't do great things?
Speaker 1: So he grew up without a kind of talent myth
Speaker 1: in his own personal life, but then he encountered it
Speaker 1: as he you know, would then move on into like
Speaker 1: you know, wider circles, and so a lot of his
Speaker 1: research was on the practice element of excellence. In fact,
Speaker 1: you could argue, like all of his research in some
Speaker 1: ways was that there are let's say three elements, but
Speaker 1: if you if you count the fact that you have
Speaker 1: to do them again and again in repetition, then you
Speaker 1: could say, therefore, of deliberate practice, one is that when
Speaker 1: you're practicing something right, and we're all practicing something right,
Speaker 1: you know you want to make a better on lith
Speaker 1: you want to be a better podcaster, you want to
Speaker 1: be a better writer, better leader, better mother, or whatever
Speaker 1: whatever it is that you're working on, you have to
Speaker 1: actually fractionate your overall performance into like tiny parts. And
Speaker 1: what experts do is they only work at one thing
Speaker 1: at a time. So this is kind of laser like
Speaker 1: focus on one small element of their overall performance. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love this notion of sub goals and it reminds
Speaker 1: me when I was working in government in public policy,
Speaker 1: there was research coming out on how we can motivate
Speaker 1: folks to seek employment after they lost their jobs, So
Speaker 1: folks that are on unemployment insurance, and it's very psychologically
Speaker 1: daunting to say my goal is to find work, and
Speaker 1: so parsing it into these micro steps, these more manageable steps,
Speaker 1: like Tomorrow, I'm going to go get a business suit. Friday,
Speaker 1: I'm going to edit the top half of my CV. Saturday,
Speaker 1: I'm going to reach out to three different employers. You know,
Speaker 1: that type of technique was so effective and accelerating people's
Speaker 1: success when it came to finding work. You know, whether
Speaker 1: it's learning to walk again or whether to write you know,
Speaker 1: how to write a book? You know, what does anything
Speaker 1: that's daunting to you, like applying to college, you know,
Speaker 1: getting your driver's license. You know the secret to doing
Speaker 1: those things is to not do the big thing, but
Speaker 1: to make it into manageable small things. And if you
Speaker 1: ask me how small, I would say, you can't go
Speaker 1: too small. And and that is because like, if you
Speaker 1: do accomplish the tiny, tiny goal that you set, guess what,
Speaker 1: you just have more confidence going into the next one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So we've talked about articulating specific goals versus general goals.
Speaker 1: What's next after that second element is that you really
Speaker 1: have to focus one hundred percent. I mean you have
Speaker 1: to try. You know, it's like the opposite of multitasking.
Speaker 1: And I know this sounds kind of simple and straightforward
Speaker 1: and obvious, but just as an indication of what honors means.
Speaker 1: I mean, really, the top performers that he tended to
Speaker 1: study would only do true deliberate practice at this level
Speaker 1: of focus and concentration for a few hours a day.
Speaker 1: Was seemingly not possible to do much more than that,
Speaker 1: even at the peak of your powers. So that's full
Speaker 1: concentration and effort. And then the third element is feedback.
Speaker 1: And feedback is that gift that you know, we don't
Speaker 1: want to unwrap, right, And I think one of the
Speaker 1: remarkable things about these world class performers, you know, much
Speaker 1: more than their gold medals or there's statues or their trophies,
Speaker 1: is that they are remarkably open to and even eager
Speaker 1: for feedback, especially when it's critical. And that's the remarkable thing. So, so,
Speaker 1: do those three things have a precise goal? What exactly
Speaker 1: it is that you're working on. Work on that with
Speaker 1: one hundred percent focus and attention, get feedback usually immediately
Speaker 1: is the best, and then after processing that feedback, repeat
Speaker 1: the cycle. Okay, so now we've got our four strategies
Speaker 1: for building grit, and a deeper understanding of what it
Speaker 1: means to really practice. So we're all set right, not quite,
Speaker 1: And that's because temptations of all kinds creep into our
Speaker 1: daily lives and prevent us from acting on these recommendations.
Speaker 1: And so Angela being Angela has four tips to help
Speaker 1: us reel in the temptations. My number one trick for
Speaker 1: this is is to use your situation for you, not
Speaker 1: against you. If you're on your cell phone too much,
Speaker 1: don't keep it in your bedroom, you know, keep it
Speaker 1: based down, keep it on a high shelf. Frankly, give
Speaker 1: it to somebody else and have them take it away
Speaker 1: from you. I think that's probably the ultimate self control trick.
Speaker 1: But that's all about your situation. You can say, look,
Speaker 1: if the situation is really influential, you know, I'll put
Speaker 1: my sneakers by the door to remind me. I'll I'll like,
Speaker 1: you know, find a gym that's closer to me. I'll
Speaker 1: find a form of exercise that's that's more fun for me.
Speaker 1: And all these ways are changing the situation and not
Speaker 1: changing willpower. The second trick is to change where you
Speaker 1: pay attention, you know. Bob Mankoff, the editor of the
Speaker 1: New Yorker cartoons for many years. You know, he would
Speaker 1: actually point his you know body like away from the
Speaker 1: monitor that had his email because when he had really
Speaker 1: hard editorial work to do, like he knew he had
Speaker 1: to like look over here and not look over there.
Speaker 1: And this is very instinctive for many of us, but
Speaker 1: just you know, do it more intentionally. The third trick
Speaker 1: is to actually change the way you think about things. Right,
Speaker 1: so you have to like, you know, maybe rethink exercise.
Speaker 1: If it's it's on your to do list as a chore,
Speaker 1: could you make it? You know, like Adele has recently said,
Speaker 1: you know her knee time, right, like that shift to
Speaker 1: this is time where I can be me and like,
Speaker 1: you know, nobody else is like asking me to do anything,
Speaker 1: Like I can listen to the music I want, I
Speaker 1: can do whatever I want. Like that's a way of
Speaker 1: changing the way you think about a situation that can
Speaker 1: improve self control. And then fourth, I'm going to say
Speaker 1: something that is you know, really important for anything that
Speaker 1: you want to do, and that's to make a plan.
Speaker 1: You know, if you think, like oh that trick about
Speaker 1: cell phones, what a good idea? Or like, oh that
Speaker 1: trick about attention. What a good idea. Well, if after this,
Speaker 1: you know, conversation that you listen on a podcast, like,
Speaker 1: you don't make a plan about like when you're going
Speaker 1: to do that, you know it's just going to evaporate
Speaker 1: into the error. So so in other words, I think
Speaker 1: there are all kinds of tricks, but if you want
Speaker 1: to organize them, change your situation, change your attension, change
Speaker 1: the way you think about your situation, and then finally
Speaker 1: make al in. In other words, rather than trying hard
Speaker 1: to exert willpower and then failing as we often do,
Speaker 1: it's really about setting up your situation so that you
Speaker 1: don't even need to use willpower, something it seems many
Speaker 1: kids have already figured out. I love in the Walter
Speaker 1: Michelle study with the marshmallow tests, and obviously there have
Speaker 1: been some critiques of what the study showed, but there's
Speaker 1: one element that certainly holds, and just for listeners who
Speaker 1: aren't familiar, in this particular study, kids were offered a
Speaker 1: choice between one marshmallow, which would be immediate, but if
Speaker 1: they waited and didn't consume the marshmallow for some period
Speaker 1: of time, they would actually be given two. So it's
Speaker 1: a test of delayed gratification and kids willingness to exert
Speaker 1: self control in the moment. And some of the kids
Speaker 1: who are most effective at waiting modified their situation. They
Speaker 1: would physically cover the marshmallow, or you know, they very
Speaker 1: cutely cover their own eyes so they couldn't see the marshmallow.
Speaker 1: And that was their way of minimizing the need for willpower, right,
Speaker 1: because if you can't see it, then it's less of
Speaker 1: a temptation. And actually, Walter then did random assignment experiments
Speaker 1: because you know, he wanted to know is it really
Speaker 1: cause little like you know, how can I really And
Speaker 1: when you put a plate over the marshmallow, kids can wait,
Speaker 1: you know, more than twice as long as when the
Speaker 1: marshmallows are right there. And so once you're a little
Speaker 1: more consciously aware of this, it just means that in
Speaker 1: those momentary conflicts between good for me versus a little
Speaker 1: easier for me, you know, you've got to switch the dynamic.
Speaker 1: Don't say like, I'll just use willpower. It doesn't it
Speaker 1: doesn't really work. Yeah, now I'm just chuckling right now,
Speaker 1: remembering like eleven year old Maya, who would take her
Speaker 1: Calvin and Hobbs books and put them on her music
Speaker 1: stand over her sheet music. That's the opposite of what
Speaker 1: we're asking here, right, Well, depending on what your goal is, yeah,
Speaker 1: that might be. I think my goal is to practice,
Speaker 1: but actually ended up getting through Bill Waterson's you know,
Speaker 1: for book collection. Um, okay, So one of the people
Speaker 1: I interviewed is Annie Duke, and you know, she talks
Speaker 1: about the importance of learning how to quit more. And
Speaker 1: obviously these two concepts are compatible. There are context in
Speaker 1: which it makes sense to quit versus grit and vice versa.
Speaker 1: In your experience, what are examples of situations where you
Speaker 1: think people have shown grit but they probably shouldn't have, Like,
Speaker 1: are there any signals people can look out for that
Speaker 1: can tee up? Oh yeah, maybe, Actually this is a
Speaker 1: moment where I should step back or I should stop trying.
Speaker 1: I completely agree with both you and Annie that it's
Speaker 1: possible to hang on too long. Like you can throw
Speaker 1: good money after bad I mean, you could you buy
Speaker 1: a bicycle and think it's a bargain and then you're not,
Speaker 1: Like you end up replacing the wheels and the fender,
Speaker 1: and like, pretty soon you have the cost of more
Speaker 1: than a bicycle. But you keep, you know, repairing it.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just at some point in that process,
Speaker 1: if you had walked away and said, you know what,
Speaker 1: I wasted seventy dollars. But if I keep with this,
Speaker 1: I'm going to waste one hundred and seventy dollars, right, Like,
Speaker 1: it's very hard for us to sometimes detach ourselves. So
Speaker 1: so when to quit and when to grit is an
Speaker 1: excellent question. And I think for me, the the when
Speaker 1: to quit and when to grit question is answered with why.
Speaker 1: You know, like why did you buy a bicycle? Right?
Speaker 1: And if the answer to that question is you know, answerable,
Speaker 1: like okay, well the reason why I bought a bicycle
Speaker 1: is because like I really want to get to work faster,
Speaker 1: or like I want to find a way to work out,
Speaker 1: or but you know, it's the end, not the means.
Speaker 1: When you've reflected on the why, you're like, okay, what
Speaker 1: am I doing here? Like why am I doing this?
Speaker 1: And you think, okay, you know what, there's an easier
Speaker 1: way to get there. You know there's a better way
Speaker 1: to get there. That's when you should quit and then
Speaker 1: take that other route. However, if you think about what
Speaker 1: you're doing and you're like, this is why I'm doing it,
Speaker 1: and there is no other way, then you know it
Speaker 1: is rational to keep going. So I think actually asking
Speaker 1: yourself why, you know, in those moments of frustration, it's
Speaker 1: not just you know, is it the noble thing to
Speaker 1: going or not? It's it's not that simple. You have
Speaker 1: to ask, you know, in a way that's reflective, like
Speaker 1: why am I doing this in the first place? And
Speaker 1: I think it can give you that flexibility that you
Speaker 1: need to, you know, question your assumptions. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think we're seeing people act on that, like in sports,
Speaker 1: for example, Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka, others who are saying, oh,
Speaker 1: actually I am pushing myself beyond the limits and maybe
Speaker 1: there why is ultimately I do the sport so that
Speaker 1: I can be happy and at some point the infringement
Speaker 1: on my well being is so severe the cost benefit
Speaker 1: doesn't pay off anymore. Right, There's at least some awareness
Speaker 1: around that. Yeah. Angela's recently developed an exciting new college
Speaker 1: course at the University of Pennsylvania. It's called grit Lab.
Speaker 1: It's a semester long course dedicated to getting students to
Speaker 1: walk the walk on all the recommendations we talked about
Speaker 1: in this episode. So if you're a student in my class,
Speaker 1: you read about grit, but you also every week have
Speaker 1: an exercise. So I know you want everyone to go
Speaker 1: out and try deliberate practice. Well, that is a homework
Speaker 1: assignment for my classes. Like this week. You know, you
Speaker 1: can all practice what you want, but we're all going
Speaker 1: to do deliver practice and then reflect on it. Goal
Speaker 1: setting Okay, everybody's going to set a goal and make
Speaker 1: a plan this week and then we're gonna reflect on that.
Speaker 1: You know, curiosity Okay, everybody's going to go out have
Speaker 1: a curiosity conversation with someone they don't know about something
Speaker 1: that they're interested in, and then we're going to reflect
Speaker 1: on it. So what have I learned from teaching students
Speaker 1: grit Lab. Well, I think people make changes when they
Speaker 1: do it with other people. Say you're listening to this
Speaker 1: conversation and you've made a little resolution and you know
Speaker 1: you shouldn't use willpower. You're going to change your situations.
Speaker 1: But if you do that with your spouse or your
Speaker 1: girlfriend or boyfriend, if you do that with a best friend,
Speaker 1: if you do that with a coworker, Now you have
Speaker 1: the two of you and it's social, and it's totally
Speaker 1: different than like you on your own, failing or succeeding
Speaker 1: completely in isolation. And so grit lab is all built
Speaker 1: around teams, etc. But it's kind of this social thing
Speaker 1: that we're doing together for fourteen weeks and not just like, oh,
Speaker 1: go off on your own, read this book and do
Speaker 1: things entirely by yourself. So that's just one of the insights.
Speaker 1: But I guess personally, I'll just say, like, you know,
Speaker 1: my why maya, Like you know what wakes me up
Speaker 1: early and keeps me going on bad days is for me.
Speaker 1: You know, everything that you talk about, you know in
Speaker 1: this um, you know format and everything that you've worked on,
Speaker 1: everything that I work on. It really has the potential
Speaker 1: to harness behavioral insights to make people's lives better. Oh
Speaker 1: I love that. Well. I will tell you your students
Speaker 1: loved grit Lab and actually reach out to some of
Speaker 1: them before our interview to see how the class might
Speaker 1: have changed their life. And I just wanted to share
Speaker 1: our one testimonial listener feedback, which is really beautiful and moving.
Speaker 1: One of my biggest struggles at Penn has been learning
Speaker 1: how to admit to myself when I need help, and
Speaker 1: to proactively ask for help from others, whether it be
Speaker 1: a friend or a classmate. Grit Lab taught me that
Speaker 1: seeking out feedback, wisdom, and advice from others is not
Speaker 1: a weakness but an incredible power that we all have
Speaker 1: that allows us to foster our own growth by being
Speaker 1: open and honest about our limits. Love that, and I'm
Speaker 1: hoping that student remembers we had a whole week on feedback,
Speaker 1: you know the science of feedback. We had to practice
Speaker 1: giving and getting feedback, and every class the student remembers
Speaker 1: I got feedback, and I was rated by the students
Speaker 1: on a scale from zero to ten. From zero like
Speaker 1: that was a complete waste of my time, doctor Duckworth
Speaker 1: to ten, like you blew my mind, but like that
Speaker 1: was amazing. And then I got, you know, qualitiative comments.
Speaker 1: And I was very open with students about how defensive
Speaker 1: I felt when I got low numbers and when they
Speaker 1: told me things that I could do better and differently,
Speaker 1: and then I tried to model over them, like hey,
Speaker 1: look I'm defensive. That crushed me. And I learned three
Speaker 1: things and this is why, like today we're going to
Speaker 1: do things differently. And I don't want to make it
Speaker 1: seem easy, but I do think that just that student's
Speaker 1: testimonial and just the potential for you know, the science
Speaker 1: of feedback, the signs of practice, you know, the signs
Speaker 1: of interest, the science of situation modification. You know there
Speaker 1: is this enormous, untapped potential to make our lives better.
Speaker 1: A Slight Change of Plans is created, written, and executive
Speaker 1: produced by me Maya Schunker. The best part of creating
Speaker 1: this show is getting to collaborate with my formidable Slight
Speaker 1: Change family. This includes Tyler Green, our senior producer, Jen Guera,
Speaker 1: our senior editor, Ben Holliday, our sound engineer, Emily Rosteck
Speaker 1: our associate producer, and Neil Lavelle, our executive producer. Louis
Speaker 1: Skara wrote our delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith helped
Speaker 1: arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of Plans is a
Speaker 1: production of Pushkin Industries, so big thanks to everyone there,
Speaker 1: and of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lane.
Speaker 1: You can follow A Slight Change of Plans on Instagram
Speaker 1: at doctor Maya Shunker, and please remember to subscribe, chair
Speaker 1: and rate the show to help get the word out.
Speaker 1: See you next week,