Speaker 1: Pushkin. What makes a great graphic designer? You know, same
Speaker 1: as like a great ballerina, but also the same as
Speaker 1: like a world class mathematician, but also the same as
Speaker 1: a civic activists, Like, what do they have in common?
Speaker 1: According to psychologist Angela Duckworth, the answer is grit, a
Speaker 1: power combo of passion and perseverance. Angela says natural ability
Speaker 1: and access to opportunity will of course give you a
Speaker 1: head start, but they alone won't get you to the
Speaker 1: finish line, and focusing too much on natural ability can
Speaker 1: be counterproductive because it's something we can't change about ourselves.
Speaker 1: So when it comes to reaching our big goals, Angela
Speaker 1: wants us to reorient our focus to the thing we
Speaker 1: can change, which is the sustained effort we pour into
Speaker 1: the things we care about. When we say like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know she or he's a genius and I'm not.
Speaker 1: I mean, it really does let you off the hook, right,
Speaker 1: Like if they have something you don't have some magical
Speaker 1: X factor, right then you don't have any obligation to
Speaker 1: wake up at five in the morning and train and
Speaker 1: to like, you know, do all the hard things. On
Speaker 1: today's episode, Angela Duckworth teaches us how to cultivate grit,
Speaker 1: channel that grit, and resist some of the temptations that
Speaker 1: often get in the way of achieving success. I'm Maya Shunker,
Speaker 1: and this is a slight change of plans, a show
Speaker 1: about who we are and who we become in the
Speaker 1: face of a big change. Angela is a true expert
Speaker 1: on grit. She's been studying the topic for over a
Speaker 1: decade now as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: She's also the recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant, and
Speaker 1: her TED talk on Passion and Perseverance has garnered over
Speaker 1: twenty five million views. I started at our conversation by
Speaker 1: diving into the basics, starting with the definition of grit.
Speaker 1: I define grit as the combination of passion and perseverance
Speaker 1: over the very long term. So that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: like every day you're doing the exact same thing, but
Speaker 1: you have a kind of overall ambition or goal, you know,
Speaker 1: like I want to help people live better lives through
Speaker 1: behavioral science. You know, I want to be the best
Speaker 1: pediatrician that I can be. You know, I want to
Speaker 1: be a great musician, whatever it is. And there's also
Speaker 1: a perseverance like working really hard, taking feedback and learning,
Speaker 1: I mean really trying to stay in a game and
Speaker 1: work hard at that game in a resultant way over time.
Speaker 1: So passion and perseverance for long term goals. When I
Speaker 1: was a kid, I remember feeling like it was all
Speaker 1: about natural talent. Like in music school, everyone was so
Speaker 1: quick to try to identify the latest prodigy. Absolutely. I
Speaker 1: remember there was this violinist Rachel. Not that I still
Speaker 1: remember you, Rachel, but you were amazing, hiel hi Rachel.
Speaker 1: I won't say your last name because I don't embarrass you,
Speaker 1: but she was a few years younger than me, and
Speaker 1: she was such a gifted violinist. I mean, I felt
Speaker 1: like everything that was hard for me seemed to come
Speaker 1: easily to her. And rather than internalizing, oh, I guess
Speaker 1: this is a lesson to me that I need to
Speaker 1: work harder, 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 I always felt like
Speaker 1: I was a little behind, and so I feel so
Speaker 1: passionately about evangelizing your research in this space because I
Speaker 1: feel like I fell victim to aspects of it as
Speaker 1: a child. Right, it actually hurt my psychology. Do you
Speaker 1: do you know the research of Chia Jung. Say you've
Speaker 1: wrote about her in your book, right, yeah, okay, right,
Speaker 1: so exactly, and I wrote about how Chio was a
Speaker 1: musician like you, right, and how she I think, you know,
Speaker 1: given her personal experience with music. I mean I think
Speaker 1: that music in particular, Right, there are certain domains where,
Speaker 1: you know, people talk about prodigies, and you know, there
Speaker 1: are YouTube videos of prodigies and really is amazing. And
Speaker 1: you see a kid who's five, you know, do something
Speaker 1: that it just makes you think, like that must be
Speaker 1: something that's born, not made, and those people are special,
Speaker 1: and like you, she really felt, I mean so impassionate
Speaker 1: about like, hey, you know, come see the thousands of
Speaker 1: hours of practice. And you won't use the word now natural,
Speaker 1: you know, so flippantly, And I'll just say that, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not that anybody, or at least that I would
Speaker 1: say that we're all equally talented I mean I think
Speaker 1: that would be right, like ridiculous. And I think the
Speaker 1: key is is that you know, when you're young and
Speaker 1: you're trying to figure out like should I keep going
Speaker 1: or should I not keep going? Or Frankly, I guess
Speaker 1: at any age, if you just obsess about these differences
Speaker 1: in things that you can't change, I do think it
Speaker 1: can overshadow you know, the things that you can change,
Speaker 1: right and um, and all those thousands of hours of
Speaker 1: practice that that you put in, that you have put in,
Speaker 1: you know, those are like not very fun to watch
Speaker 1: on YouTube. Frankly, yeah, um, you know I want to
Speaker 1: hear Maria Angela? Why why are we such suckers for
Speaker 1: natural ability? Like I was talking with my husband the
Speaker 1: other night and he was saying, in high school, you're
Speaker 1: really cool if you got good grades without trying at all.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I mean really cool in very
Speaker 1: nerdy circles. I say, just to clarify, I go to
Speaker 1: just to clarify, I just to clarify. But it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: he got to be plus without studying, Like imagine if
Speaker 1: he had study, you know, And there's this this is
Speaker 1: aura around people who don't try hard. What in our
Speaker 1: human behavior gives rise to this fascination with natural ability. Well,
Speaker 1: I can only speculate, but people do have a preference
Speaker 1: for people that we consider it to be naturals, and
Speaker 1: we prefer them over strivers, even when we know that
Speaker 1: they have accomplished the same thing. And you know, I
Speaker 1: remember reading what Nietzsche wrote about this, and he said,
Speaker 1: you know, when we consider that other people are naturals,
Speaker 1: but we aren't, right when we say, like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know she or he's a genius and I'm not.
Speaker 1: I mean, it really does like let you off the hook, right,
Speaker 1: Like if they have something, you don't have some magical
Speaker 1: X factor, right, then you don't have any obligation to
Speaker 1: wake up at five in the morning and and train
Speaker 1: and to like, you know, do all the hard things.
Speaker 1: I think there's at least a part of it that's
Speaker 1: like that. And you know, there's something kind of fun
Speaker 1: about thinking that people are like demigods or like we
Speaker 1: tell little kids like, oh, you're a child prodigy in
Speaker 1: piano or painting. I think there's just something fun and
Speaker 1: mystical about it too, right, Like we like to think
Speaker 1: they're they're just qualitatively different. I do think though, that
Speaker 1: if we can, you know, till things such that the
Speaker 1: honor and the glory goes to people who have earned
Speaker 1: what they do in a very transparent way that's maybe
Speaker 1: not as romantic, then we will be doing a great
Speaker 1: service to our kids, because I mean, I really don't
Speaker 1: know anybody who has become world class and economics or
Speaker 1: at being a political leader or anything else. You know,
Speaker 1: a classroom teacher, a nurse like without you know, just
Speaker 1: years and years of effort. So at this point in
Speaker 1: our conversation, Angela has made a strong argument for the
Speaker 1: importance of grit. But it's grit like talent, one of
Speaker 1: those things you've either got or you don't like. In
Speaker 1: addition to raw talent, did Rachel the Violent also have
Speaker 1: more grit than me? Okay, she probably did that. That's
Speaker 1: because she's Rachel and so of course she did. But
Speaker 1: here's the good news. We can cultivate grit. Angela says
Speaker 1: there are four key things we can all do in
Speaker 1: our lives to build some grit. Number one, find out
Speaker 1: what interests you. People who are really gritty have this
Speaker 1: intrinsic interest and curiosity about what they're doing, so you can,
Speaker 1: you know, start a book club. If you're at work
Speaker 1: in a job and you're like, hey, I don't learn
Speaker 1: a lot, you can, you know, start listening to a
Speaker 1: podcast like this one that you know really engages your mind, etc.
Speaker 1: But interest, I think is the first seed of passion.
Speaker 1: You know, interests are you know, what naturally grabs our attention.
Speaker 1: I think that's the best definition of what an interest is.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, without effort or without will, you
Speaker 1: just want to think about it. Yeah, And one thing
Speaker 1: you've said is that our interests actually remain relatively stable
Speaker 1: over the course of our lives and even our personalities.
Speaker 1: And so one way we can identify what we're naturally
Speaker 1: interested in is to look back at our childhood and
Speaker 1: try and remember what it is that lit us up
Speaker 1: or made us tick. I do want to say, man,
Speaker 1: it's important to know that, you know, interests evolved, so
Speaker 1: they're not static. So it's not like, you know, if
Speaker 1: you're interested in something when you're fourteen, that's exactly what
Speaker 1: you'll be interested in when you're fifty four. But I
Speaker 1: do think actually, if you introspect a little bit and
Speaker 1: you remember what you were like in high school, right,
Speaker 1: this is during the period of adolescence when interests tend
Speaker 1: to get more specific and differentiated. And if you think
Speaker 1: back enough, I think back, you know, to my own
Speaker 1: sixteen and seventeen year old self, what was I interested in? Well?
Speaker 1: I signed up for a summer school class in psychology,
Speaker 1: and I signed up for a summer school class in
Speaker 1: nonfiction writing. Right, I didn't pick chemistry, I didn't pick philosophy.
Speaker 1: I didn't pick up So I think in some ways,
Speaker 1: you know, what do I do now? Well, I do
Speaker 1: a lot of psychology and I do a lot of
Speaker 1: nonfiction writing. So I do think that trip down memory
Speaker 1: lane can sometimes just you know, remind us in a
Speaker 1: way of the things. But another tip for you if
Speaker 1: you don't want to just introspect, is like literally ask
Speaker 1: the people that you that you love most. You know,
Speaker 1: if I asked my husband, like Jason, what am I
Speaker 1: interested in? I mean, it sounds like a crazy thing
Speaker 1: to ask, like shouldn't I know? But he will tell
Speaker 1: me what he observes. He's like, well, when I see
Speaker 1: you read the newspaper, you're always reading the food section,
Speaker 1: vows you know, Like He's like, you just when we
Speaker 1: went to visit houses, when we were shopping for houses
Speaker 1: instead of asking about the plumbing and the mortgage and
Speaker 1: the abatement. I was like, so then they got divorced,
Speaker 1: and then what happened the routes are was like, well,
Speaker 1: and then and my husband was like and this has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with this house, And I'm like, I know,
Speaker 1: but it's so interesting. I just want to know. So
Speaker 1: that's me and human nature. So take a trip down
Speaker 1: memory lane. But also ask some people who know you
Speaker 1: and love you, you know, what do you think I'm
Speaker 1: interested in? And I think you might learn something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, you and I are totally the same.
Speaker 1: That's always my interest too. I must not buy a
Speaker 1: terrible fathay. Angela's second tip for building grit. Once you
Speaker 1: found an interest, go all in, engage in focus, practice,
Speaker 1: and set clear goals. Step three is all about thinking
Speaker 1: about the big picture. Angela says to ask yourself, why
Speaker 1: are you doing the thing you're doing, what's your sense
Speaker 1: of purpose? And then, finally step four, cultivate a growth mindset,
Speaker 1: which is the idea that we should think about our
Speaker 1: mind as a muscle that can grow with hard work
Speaker 1: and perseverance. Basically, being optimistic about how people's abilities can change,
Speaker 1: and how we're not necessarily as fixed as sometimes we're
Speaker 1: tempted to think we are. And it's something that you know,
Speaker 1: I'm still working on. I saw him slip into a
Speaker 1: fixed mindset sometimes, and I try to let my growth
Speaker 1: mindset voice have it say. One person who inspires Angela
Speaker 1: to keep her growth mindset front and center is a
Speaker 1: former student of hers, David law. So David Long I
Speaker 1: met years ago when METSI more than twenty maybe now.
Speaker 1: I was a high school math teacher in the San
Speaker 1: Francisco Public schools and David was in my class. And
Speaker 1: I noticed from you know, the first week of school
Speaker 1: that this kid, David really liked math, and frankly was
Speaker 1: pretty talented, but apparently not talented enough to have made
Speaker 1: it past the cut score that would have placed him
Speaker 1: in his freshman year in a higher level math class.
Speaker 1: So I marched David over to the department share whose
Speaker 1: name was Liz, and I say, Liz, like, you know,
Speaker 1: a grievous error has been made. This kid should be
Speaker 1: in the higher level math class. And Liz is amazing,
Speaker 1: and she moved things around. So what happened next, Well,
Speaker 1: David graduated from high school and then he went on
Speaker 1: to get a PhD in aerospace engineering as somebody who
Speaker 1: basically uses math every day. And so I think the
Speaker 1: lesson of David is that it's very easy to make
Speaker 1: a mistake, you know, about somebody's potential. You know, like
Speaker 1: oh they're sah, she scores not high enough. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, you're not gifted and talented. But these
Speaker 1: other kids, they are gifted and talented. You know, these
Speaker 1: kids they're going to go to AP calculus. Those kids
Speaker 1: they're not. And we do it all the time, right,
Speaker 1: And I think if we can restructure education in a
Speaker 1: way that doesn't have these like, um, you know, problems
Speaker 1: of off ramps and on ramps where we're like sorting
Speaker 1: kids and frankly we're doing it very early in their life.
Speaker 1: And if we could say instead, hey, if you have
Speaker 1: the motivation and if with support you can keep up
Speaker 1: in these classes, like the door is open. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that would be a much better way to
Speaker 1: run things. Yeah, And one thing I loved about David's
Speaker 1: story is that when he was moved to the advanced
Speaker 1: class and initially wasn't scoring very well on those early exams, right,
Speaker 1: getting a C and they're getting a D. He brush
Speaker 1: it off. He's like, I wasn't happy about it, But
Speaker 1: you know he didn't. He wasn't demoralized. He didn't give up.
Speaker 1: He just kept working harder. You know that knife edge, right,
Speaker 1: you get a D or a CE. My own daughter, Amanda,
Speaker 1: when she was maybe a little younger than David, I
Speaker 1: think she was still in middle school, but she had
Speaker 1: tested into this more advanced track and so she, you know,
Speaker 1: she settles in and you know, she's getting her first
Speaker 1: exams back. I think she failed. I mean failed. She's
Speaker 1: gonna say like failed, I believe, like the first few
Speaker 1: exams and I had to confess to you, Maya. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, maybe this isn't for you. I mean
Speaker 1: I looked at this math curriculum and I was like,
Speaker 1: holy smoke, like this is really hard. You get like
Speaker 1: all the way through BC calculus before the end of
Speaker 1: junior year. I was like, why don't you just not
Speaker 1: do this hard thing? And my husband was such a
Speaker 1: better parent than me. He you know, worked with her,
Speaker 1: and I remember the stacks of scrap paper they had.
Speaker 1: I mean, they just put in so much work, and
Speaker 1: I think for him it was very important that at
Speaker 1: that young age that she not encode. I can't do this,
Speaker 1: like I'm not smart enough, like I'm a girl, I'm whatever,
Speaker 1: but like I can't do this. So he didn't really
Speaker 1: care that she, you know, became a mathematician. But I
Speaker 1: will tell you what the epilogue of that story is
Speaker 1: Amanda's twine. She is um on track to being a
Speaker 1: math major at Harvard Um. You know, she would not
Speaker 1: say that things come easily to her, like she would
Speaker 1: not say that like in her math classes, you know,
Speaker 1: you know she's the fastest or that you but she
Speaker 1: does love math. And I think those early experiences where
Speaker 1: it was a threat to her you know, self image,
Speaker 1: but then that she had a loving parent who I
Speaker 1: wish I could say it was me, but it was
Speaker 1: it was my you know, my better half. I just
Speaker 1: think that's really important. And I know that one of
Speaker 1: the things that you have worked, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: so hard on his equity, and I think that, like,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the very deep issues in this
Speaker 1: country is like how many kids have somebody in their
Speaker 1: life who's going to do what my husband did for
Speaker 1: my daughter, or do what I had time to do
Speaker 1: with David and his you know his other teachers, and
Speaker 1: you know how much you know wasted potential is there,
Speaker 1: and how many kids are walking around thinking they're not
Speaker 1: that smart because you know they haven't had the opportunity
Speaker 1: to see what they can do. We'll be back in
Speaker 1: a moment that the slight change of plants. We're back
Speaker 1: with Angela Duckworth. He's teaching us about the science of
Speaker 1: grit and how it can help us achieve our goals.
Speaker 1: Once we've cultivated grit, the next step is to make
Speaker 1: sure we channel whatever grit we do have in the
Speaker 1: right way, and this is where deliberate practice comes into play.
Speaker 1: Deliberate practice is a term that was coined by Andres Erickson,
Speaker 1: who was a great cognitive psychologist. I mean really he
Speaker 1: was the world expert on world experts and really believe strongly.
Speaker 1: He always, you know, would talk about growing up in
Speaker 1: Sweden in a family that you know shared with him
Speaker 1: the worldview that like honors you know, if you're really
Speaker 1: interested in something and you are willing to work hard
Speaker 1: at it, like who would be the one to say
Speaker 1: that you couldn't do great things? So he grew up
Speaker 1: without a kind of talent myth in his own personal life,
Speaker 1: but then he encountered it as he you know, would
Speaker 1: then move on into like, you know, wider circles. And
Speaker 1: so a lot of his research was on the practice
Speaker 1: element of excellence. In fact, you could argue, like all
Speaker 1: of his research in some ways was that there are
Speaker 1: let's say three elements, but if you if you count
Speaker 1: the fact that you have to do them again and
Speaker 1: again in repetition, then you could say, Therefore, of deliberate practice,
Speaker 1: one is that when you're practicing something right, and we're
Speaker 1: all practicing something right, you know, you want to make
Speaker 1: a better on lit, you want to be a better podcaster,
Speaker 1: you want to be a better writer, better leader, better mother,
Speaker 1: or whatever whatever it is that you're working on, you
Speaker 1: have to actually fractionate your overall performance into like tiny parts.
Speaker 1: And what experts do is they only work at one
Speaker 1: thing at a time. So this is kind of laser
Speaker 1: like 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 and that is because like, if
Speaker 1: you do accomplish the tiny, tiny goal that you set,
Speaker 1: guess what, you just have more confidence going into the
Speaker 1: next one. Yeah. So we've talked about articulating specific goals
Speaker 1: versus general goals. What's next after that second element is
Speaker 1: that you really have to focus one hundred percent I mean,
Speaker 1: you have to try. You know, it's like the opposite
Speaker 1: of multitasking. And I know this sounds kind of simple
Speaker 1: and straightforward and obvious, but just as an indication of
Speaker 1: what honors means, I mean, really, the top performers that
Speaker 1: he tended to study would only do true deliberate practice
Speaker 1: at this level of focus and concentration for a few
Speaker 1: hours a day. Was seemingly not possible to do much
Speaker 1: more than that, even at the peak of your powers.
Speaker 1: So that's full concentration and effort. And then the third
Speaker 1: element is feedback. And feedback is that gift that you know,
Speaker 1: we don't want to unwrap, right, And I think one
Speaker 1: of the remarkable things about these world class performers, you know,
Speaker 1: much more than their gold medals or their statues or
Speaker 1: their te fees, is that they are remarkably open to
Speaker 1: and even eager for feedback, especially when it's critical. And
Speaker 1: that's the remarkable thing. So, so, do those three things
Speaker 1: have a precise goal, what exactly it is that you're
Speaker 1: working on. Work on that with one hundred percent focus
Speaker 1: and attention. Get feedback usually immediately is the best. And
Speaker 1: then after processing that feedback, repeat the cycle. Okay, So
Speaker 1: now we've got our four strategies for building grit and
Speaker 1: a deeper understanding of what it means to really practice.
Speaker 1: So we're all set right, Not quite, And that's because
Speaker 1: temptations of all kinds creep into our daily lives and
Speaker 1: prevent us from acting on these recommendations. And so Angela
Speaker 1: being Angela has four tips to help us reel in
Speaker 1: the temptations. My number one trick for this is is
Speaker 1: to use your situation for you, not against you. If
Speaker 1: you're on your cell phone too much, don't keep it
Speaker 1: in your bedroom, you know, keep it based down, keep
Speaker 1: it on a high shelf. Frankly, give it to somebody
Speaker 1: else and have them take it away from you. I
Speaker 1: think that's probably the ultimate self control trick. But that's
Speaker 1: all about your situation. You can say, look, if the
Speaker 1: situation is really influential, you know, I'll put my sneakers
Speaker 1: by the door to remind me. I'll I'll like, you know,
Speaker 1: find a gym that's closer to me. I'll find a
Speaker 1: form of exercise that's that's more fun for me. And
Speaker 1: all these ways are changing the situation and not changing willpower.
Speaker 1: The second trick is to change where you pay attention.
Speaker 1: You know, Bob Mankoff, the editor of the New Yorker
Speaker 1: Cartoons for for many years. You know, he would actually
Speaker 1: point his you know body, like away from the monitor
Speaker 1: that had his email because when he had really hard
Speaker 1: editorial work to do, like he knew he had to
Speaker 1: like look over here and not look over there. And
Speaker 1: this is very instinctive for many of us, but just
Speaker 1: you know, do it more intentionally. The third trick is
Speaker 1: to actually change the way you think about things. Right,
Speaker 1: so you have to like, you know, maybe you 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: could 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 air. 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 a plan. 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's 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,
Speaker 1: right because 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, you wanted to know is it really
Speaker 1: cause all, 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 woolpower. 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. Okay, So one of the people I
Speaker 1: interviewed as Annie Duke, and you know, she talks about
Speaker 1: the importance of learning how to quit more. And obviously
Speaker 1: these two concepts are compatible. There are context in which
Speaker 1: 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 some times detach ourselves.
Speaker 1: So so when to quit and when to grit is
Speaker 1: an excellent question. And I think for me, the the
Speaker 1: when to quit and when to grit question is answered
Speaker 1: with why, 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
Speaker 1: it and there is no other way, then you know
Speaker 1: it is rational to keep going. So I think actually
Speaker 1: asking yourself why, you know, in those moments of frustration,
Speaker 1: it's not just you know, is it the noble thing
Speaker 1: to keep going or not? It's it's not that simple.
Speaker 1: You have to ask, you know, in a way that's reflective,
Speaker 1: like why am I doing this in the first place?
Speaker 1: And I think it can give you that flexibility that
Speaker 1: you need to 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 home
Speaker 1: work assignment for my classes. Like this week. You know,
Speaker 1: you can all practice what you want, but we're all
Speaker 1: going to do deliver practice and then reflect on it.
Speaker 1: Goal setting Okay, everybody's going to set a goal and
Speaker 1: make a plan this week, and then we're gonna reflect
Speaker 1: on that. You know, Curiosity Okay, everybody's going to go
Speaker 1: out have a curiosity conversation with some of they don't
Speaker 1: know about something that they're interested in, and then we're
Speaker 1: going to reflect on it. So what have I learned
Speaker 1: from teaching students grit Lab. Well, I think people make
Speaker 1: changes when they do it with other people. Say you're
Speaker 1: listening to this conversation and you've made a little resolution
Speaker 1: and you know you shouldn't use willpower. You're going to
Speaker 1: change your situations. But if you do that with your
Speaker 1: spouse or your girlfriend or boyfriend, if you do that
Speaker 1: with a best friend, if you do that with a coworker.
Speaker 1: Now you have the two of you, and it's social
Speaker 1: and it's totally different than like you on your own,
Speaker 1: failing or succeeding completely in isolation. And so grit lab
Speaker 1: is all built around teams, etc. But it's kind of
Speaker 1: this social thing that we're doing together for fourteen weeks
Speaker 1: and not just like, oh, go off on your own,
Speaker 1: read this book and do things entirely by yourself. So
Speaker 1: that's just one of the insights. But I guess personally,
Speaker 1: I'll just say, like, you know, my why maya, Like
Speaker 1: you know what wakes me up early and keeps me
Speaker 1: going on bad days is for me. You know, everything
Speaker 1: that you talk about, you know in this um, you
Speaker 1: know format and everything that you've worked on, everything that
Speaker 1: I work on. It really has the potential to harness
Speaker 1: behavioral insights to make people's lives better. Oh I love that. Well.
Speaker 1: I will tell you your students love grit Lab and
Speaker 1: actually reach out to some of them before our interview
Speaker 1: to see how the class might have changed their life.
Speaker 1: And I just wanted to share our one testimonial listener feedback,
Speaker 1: which was really beautiful and moving. One of my biggest
Speaker 1: struggles at Penn has been learning how to admit to
Speaker 1: myself when I need help and to proactively ask for
Speaker 1: help from others, whether it be a friend or a classmate.
Speaker 1: Grit Lab taught me that seeking out feedback, wisdom, and
Speaker 1: advice from others is not a weakness but an incredible
Speaker 1: power that we all have that allows us to foster
Speaker 1: our own growth by being open and honest about our limits.
Speaker 1: I love that, and I'm that student remembers we had
Speaker 1: a whole week on feedback, you know, the science of feedback.
Speaker 1: We had to practice giving and getting feedback, and every class,
Speaker 1: the student remembers I got feedback, and I was you know,
Speaker 1: rated by the students on a scale from zero to ten.
Speaker 1: From zero like that was a complete waste of my time,
Speaker 1: doctor Duckworth to ten, like you blew my mind, but
Speaker 1: like that was amazing. And then I got, you know,
Speaker 1: qualitiative comments. And I was very open with students about
Speaker 1: how defensive I felt when I got low numbers and
Speaker 1: when they told me things that I could do better
Speaker 1: and differently, and then I tried to model over them,
Speaker 1: like hey, look I'm defensive. That crushed me. And I
Speaker 1: learned three things and this is why like today, we're
Speaker 1: going to do things differently, and I don't want to
Speaker 1: make it seem easy, but I do think that just
Speaker 1: that student's testimonial and just the potential for you know,
Speaker 1: the signs of feedback, the signs of practice, you know,
Speaker 1: the signs of interest, the science of situation modification. You know,
Speaker 1: there is this enormous, untapped potential to make our lives better.
Speaker 1: Join me next week when I talked to Amanda Knox,
Speaker 1: she was wrongfully accused of murder and spent four years
Speaker 1: in an Italian prison before she was exonerated and allowed
Speaker 1: to return back to the US. When I first came home,
Speaker 1: I thought that I was going to get to have
Speaker 1: the life that I had left behind back that once
Speaker 1: this is all worked out and everyone agrees that I'm innocent,
Speaker 1: then I get to go back to my life that
Speaker 1: I lost that was on pause, and I realized that
Speaker 1: that life didn't exist anymore. A Slight Change of Plans
Speaker 1: is created, written and executive produced by me Maya Shunker.
Speaker 1: The best part of creating this show is getting to
Speaker 1: collaborate with my formidable Slight Change family. This includes Tyler Green,
Speaker 1: our senior producer Jen Guera our senior editor, Ben Holliday,
Speaker 1: our sound engineer, Emily Rosteck, our associate producer, and Neil Lavelle,
Speaker 1: our executive producer. Louis Skara wrote our delightful theme song
Speaker 1: and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so big
Speaker 1: thanks to everyone there, and of course a very special
Speaker 1: thanks to Jimmy Lane. You can follow A Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker and please
Speaker 1: remember to subscribe, share and rate the show to help
Speaker 1: get the word out. See you next week.