Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
Ratings27
Average rating3.8
Humorously, this book both got me PUMPED aaand raised my hackles. 3.5 stars!
A sibling to Carol Dweck's Mindset, and a cousin to the work of Aaron Beck and cognitive behavioral theapy, Angela (great name) Duckworth's thesis is basically: grit - i.e. tenacity - i.e. the ability to stick with things - is a huge driver of success. More than talent. Much more!
I'm down with that. Sounds great. The book's format is kinda classic (capitalist) self-help: there are stories of heroes in business, sports, and the military. There are inspiring tales of rags to riches, of people overcoming great odds. I got verklempt. Every story is meant to illuminate, ahem, TRUE GRIT. (Obligatory fave scene.)
I would say I spent 70% of this book GALVANIZED and PUMPED and ready to go out there and conquer the world. The other 30%, I spent with research eyebrows strongly furrowed. Like - okay: the “grit scale” is a self-assessment that basically asks permutations of the question, “How gritty are you?” Furthermore, when you boil it down, this research finding feels like lots of other BIG important social research findings: kind of tautological and redundant? Like, people who are able to complete things more enjoy success in life - as defined by completing more things? I did appreciate the quote that “decisions are made by the people that show up”, and that way more people call themselves a “writer” and have in-progress manuscripts compared to those who actually have things to submit. Yeah, follow-through. Completing things! That's important.
But I found Carol Dweck's book more stimulating, and less fluff. Dweck's work on mindset also raised the interesting idea of talent as a disadvantage - that is, when you have a fixed mindset + talent, you start to AVOID things that could lead to failure. And hence you don't grow! That was really interesting.
