Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

The Power of Passion and Perseverance is a thoughtful and research backed book that explores why sustained effort and consistency often matter more than raw talent. It breaks down the idea of “grit” in a way that feels practical, using real examples from education, business, and high performance environments to show how long term commitment drives success. The writing is clear and easy to follow, even when it leans into psychology and research. For a leadership perspective, it is especially useful because it reinforces the importance of developing teams, habits, and cultures that value resilience and follow through. It is not overly complicated or abstract, which makes it accessible for everyday application in work and personal growth.

Note: I wrote this as part of a book review series I started at my workplace, thus the (slight) emphasis on work. So, what is this book about? According to bestselling author Stephen King, “Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.” I don’t know about you, but I didn’t always understand this. I used to believe that talent alone determines success—that if you have enough talent, you can be successful in something, and if you don’t have enough talent, you won’t succeed. Psychologist Angela Duckworth sets out to disprove this mistaken notion in her book. When you want to achieve an important goal, talent only gets you started. What keeps you going is a combination of passion and perseverance that Duckworth calls “grit.” For those of you who worry that you don’t have much grit (I’m talking to myself), good news: grit can grow. This book shows you how. How difficult is the subject matter? Duckworth is a psychologist, so naturally a lot of the material for Grit draws from her own research in the field as well as from the work of other psychologists and social scientists. However, you need not fear that this book is a bunch of statistics and clinical studies thrown together with some text. For Duckworth, the subject of grit and how it can help people thrive is her personal passion, so she shares much of what she has learned in a very approachable way: through stories. Inspiring stories about people from many different backgrounds, including West Point cadets, National Spelling Bee finalists, the women’s soccer coach at UNC Chapel Hill, a potter in Minnesota, a New York Times journalist in Kenya, the Seattle Seahawks, and students Duckworth herself used to work with when she taught seventh-grade math in New York’s Lower East Side. From these stories of gritty people doing gritty things, you’ll learn how grit is formed, how it grows, and how you can develop more grit in your own life and work. How can this book help me in my daily work? The subject of this book is too big to apply only to your daily work, in my opinion. Grit is a mindset encompassing one’s entire outlook on life. So if you are seeking specific practices for improving specific aspects of your work, this book will not be much help. But I believe this book can definitely help you, whatever your goals and responsibilities are, if you want to become a grittier person. And being grittier can certainly help improve your work performance. What’s the main takeaway? Duckworth sums it up like this: “Our potential is one thing. What we do with it is quite another.” In other words, talent is overrated; grit, a combination of passion and perseverance, is a better determinant of success. What are some key nuggets? Grit is chock-full of great nuggets! Here are a few: • “In my view, the biggest reason a preoccupation with talent can be harmful is simple: By shining our spotlight on talent, we risk leaving everything else in the shadows. We inadvertently send the message that these other factors—including grit—don’t matter as much as they really do.” • “From the very beginning to the very end, it is inestimably important to learn to keep going even when things are difficult, even when we have doubts. At various points, in big ways and small, we get knocked down. If we stay down, grit loses. If we get up, grit prevails.” • “How you see your work is more important than your job title. And this means that you can go from job to career to calling—all without changing your occupation.” • “When you keep searching for ways to change your situation for the better, you stand a chance of finding them. When you stop searching, assuming they can’t be found, you guarantee they won’t.” • “The bottom line on culture and grit is: If you want to be grittier, find a gritty culture and join it. If you’re a leader, and you want the people in your organization to be grittier, create a gritty culture.” Any caveats? This book is not a best practices guide per se; as I said earlier, it’s about an overarching mindset. Rather than giving specific techniques, what it gives instead are insights into how you can develop a mindset of grittiness. You won’t get instant results. You’ll have to show up every day and rise every time you fall down. You’ll have to face a lot of resistance—mainly your own. But if you put in consistent effort over time and don’t give up, you’ll be a grittier person than you were before, and who knows what you’ll achieve? Personal note: It’s been about a month since I first read Grit, and I can report that I have grown a little grittier already. I still struggle a lot with inner resistance and the temptation to give up when things turn out to be harder than I anticipated; I’m sure these struggles will always be present to some extent. However, lately I’ve become more self-aware and often catch myself before I’m about to procrastinate or give up. I tell myself that gritty people keep going, and then I dust myself off and do my best to keep going.

For decades the U.S. Army has been educating their finest at West Point military academy. Only about half of the 2,500 applicants meet its rigorous academic and physical standards, which are as high as the elite universities. Nearly all men and women are ‘varsity athletes’. The first few months, known as the Beast, are the most physically and emotionally demanding of the four-year course. All admitted candidates have been selected, based on the ‘Whole Candidate Score’ test. However, those who stayed and those who dropped out during the Beast, had indistinguishable scores. Both the Army and Dr. Duckworth were perplexed by the question: “Who spends two years trying to get into a place and then drops out in the first two months?” What emerged from Duckworth’s work on the problem was the Grit Scale—a test that measures the extent to which you approach life with grit. Grit turned out to be an astoundingly reliable predictor of who made it through and who did not. The Grit Scale was tested with sales people, among others, who are subject to the daily hardship of rejection. In an experiment involving hundreds of men and women who sold vacation time-share, Grit predicted who stayed and who left. Similar results were found in other demanding professions such as education. “I came to a fundamental insight that would guide my future work,” explains Duckworth. “Our potential is one thing. What we do with it is quite another.” Natural talent as the explanation of success, according to sociologist, Professor Dan Chambliss, “is perhaps the most pervasive lay explanation we have for athletic success.” However, his research led him to the conclusion that the minimal talent needed to succeed, is lower than most of us think. “Without effort, your talent is nothing more than your unmet potential. Without effort, your skill is nothing more than what you could have done but didn’t. With effort, talent becomes skill, and effort makes skill productive.” Grammy Award–winning musician and Oscar-nominated actor, Will Smith, says of himself: “I’ve never really viewed myself as particularly talented. Where I excel is a ridiculous, sickening work ethic.” Too many of us, it appears, give up far too early and far too often. Duckworth’s research has led her to the conclusion that Grit has four components: interest, practice, passion, and hope. According to the meta-analysis of sixty studies conducted over the past sixty years, employees whose personal interests fit with their occupations, do their jobs better, are more helpful to their co-workers, and stay at their jobs longer. Of course, just because you love something doesn’t mean you will excel at it. Many people are poor at the things they love. Many of the Grit paragons interviewed by Duckworth spent years exploring several different interests before discovering the one that eventually came to occupy all of their waking thoughts. “While we might envy those who love what they do for a living, we shouldn’t assume that they started from a different place than the rest of us. Chances are, they took quite some time figuring out exactly what they wanted to do with their lives,” she explains. The second requirement of Grit is practice. Numerous interviews of Grit paragons revealed that they are all committed to continuous improvement. There are no exceptions. This continuous improvement leads to a gradual improvement of their skills over years. “That there’s a learning curve for skill development isn’t surprising. But the timescale on which that development happens is,” Duckworth discovered. Anders Ericsson’s work with a German music academy revealed that those who excelled, practised about 10,000 hours over ten years before achieving elite levels of expertise. The less accomplished practised half as much. Ericsson’s crucial insight is not that experts practice much more, but that they practice very deliberately. Experts are more interested in correcting what they do wrong rather than what they did right, until conscious incompetence becomes unconscious competence. Dancer Martha Graham says “Dancing appears glamorous, easy, delightful. But the path to the paradise of that achievement is not easier than any other. There is fatigue so great that the body cries even in its sleep. There are times of complete frustration. There are daily small deaths.” Gritty people do more deliberate practice than others. The third component of Grit is purpose, the desire to contribute to the well-being of others. If Grit starts with a relatively self-oriented interest to which self-disciplined practice is added, the end point is integrating that work with an other-centred purpose. “The long days and evenings of toil, the setbacks and disappointments and struggle, the sacrifice—all this is worth it because, ultimately, their efforts pay dividends to other people,” Duckworth identified. Most Gritty people saw their ultimate aims as deeply connected to the world beyond themselves. The bricklayer may have a job laying bricks so he can pay for food. He may later see bricklaying as his career, and later still as a calling to build beautiful homes for people. It is this last group who seem most satisfied with their jobs and their lives overall, and missed at least a third fewer days of work than those with merely a job or a career as opposed to a calling. The final component of Grit is hope, but a different kind to the “hopium” many embrace. It is the expectation that our own efforts can improve our future. The hope that creates Grit has nothing to do with luck, so failure is a cue to try harder, rather than as confirmation that one lacks ability. The book also includes chapters on developing Gritty children, sports teams, and companies. It is a book for those who relish solid research and well-reasoned conclusions. It is highly motivational, in a mature and thoughtful way. Get the book. Work it, and share the knowledge. It could be transformative. Readability Light ---+- Serious Insights High +---- Low Practical High -+--- Low *Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy and is the author of Strategy that Works.

Grit was a great read and really changed how I think about long-term success. The core idea — that passion and perseverance matter more than raw talent — really hit home. Angela Duckworth does a great job showing that people who stick with something, put in the work, and stay committed over time usually outperform those who rely only on natural ability. It made me reflect on the areas in my own life where I’ve pushed through challenges versus the times I gave up too early. What I liked most is how the book mixes research with real stories from athletes, students, business leaders, and everyday people who pushed past setbacks. It feels motivating without being cheesy, and it reminds you that consistency matters far more than we usually give it credit for. The message is simple but powerful: effort counts twice. If I had one critique, it’s that some of the stories and examples start to overlap as the book goes on, and if you’ve read other personal development books, a few ideas may feel familiar. Still, the way Duckworth explains grit — breaking it down into passion, practice, purpose, and persistence — makes it easy to apply in real life. Overall, Grit is a meaningful, encouraging read. It pushes you to rethink what really drives achievement and helps you see that building perseverance is just as important as having talent. If you’re working toward big goals or want a mindset boost, this book is definitely worth your time.

To: All parents, teachers, coaches, athletes, students, and caregivers: Re: the book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Dr. Angela Duckworth Buy it. Read it slowly and deliberately. If you listen to it on Audible, set the speed at 50%. After many years of writing book reviews primarily for friends and executives at YPO, I have have finally found a recommendation to give to this esteemed group. It is fitting Dr. Duckworth’s inaugural book debuted the week of the Kentucky Derby as I am fortunate enough to live around and know several jockeys whom I would ascribe the greatest exemplars of grit the world has ever known-what professor Duckworth refers to as grit paragons. What Lean In did to encourage less timidity for women in the workplace, Grit will inculcate and elevate passion and perseverance for long term goals should you choose to accept the practical applications of years of related and transportable research. By this time, you have undoubtedly heard of “grit” the construct coined, developed, and researched by Dr. Duckworth with contributions from notable colleagues along the way including the late Dr. Chris Peterson of “other people matter” fame. After validating the grit scale, she has gone on and tested tons of interesting groups from West Pointers and national spelling bee participants to teachers and athletes. The concept appears to be fairly intuitive until you get the very deep dive into the details of what passion and perseverance over the long term really mean. Is grit nature or nurture? Can you develop it? Can you have too much of it? Dr. Duckworth’s fresh writing is able to distill very difficult psychological concepts and present them in a way that anybody can explain them on the back of a napkin which is a tribute to her as both a teacher and writer. The short TED video by the author from 2013 provides a great introduction and motivation to read the book. The polished TED presentation though is a result from one of the many transformative topics in her book-the confluence of painful effort, feedback, and immense pleasure through deliberate practice (search youtube for rehearsals pre-TED talk). The beauty of this book is that it is really a “book of books”. It interweaves numerous related research activities and concepts, contributions of luminaries in psychology, and solid parenting guidelines (in particular the “hard thing rule”). Here is a short list of the concepts and legends that you will meet: flow, hope, resiliency, fixed vs. growth mindset, learned optimism, Sisu, talent (overrated), cognitive bias’ including “naturalness", goal setting, positive self-talk, passion, purpose, job, career, calling, William James, Nietzsche, Aristotle, Adam Grant, Martin Seligman,Anders Ericsson, Mihaly Csiksgentmihalyi, David Yeager, Amy Wrzesniewski, Justin Berg,Jane Dutton, Aaron Beck, Emilia Lahti, Carolyn Dweck, and even Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll. . As a former student of hers in the MAPP Program at University of Pennsylvania, I felt like I had I had just done a refresher course. (side note: physical therapy mentioned two different times in the book, would automatically would get a 5 star rating from me!). My biggest personal takeaway is the influence of culture in the environment and workplace and how this alone can foster and make one “gritty”. To that end, I am proud of our healthcare company’s strategic intent: "Our Success is through meaningful work that impacts lives” and perhaps even more so one of our ten commitments that we formed in October of 2014: I commit to Sisu – I will face challenges head-on. “In my life and work, I refuse to be derailed by people or circumstances and will face them with valor. I acknowledge ‘stuff’ can and will happen but choose to ‘power on’ even when it appears that I have reached the limits of my mental and physical capabilities.” Thank you Dr. Duckworth for being a terrific writer, teacher, and example of this profound concept and having an impact far in excess of what I believe you ever imagined. Undoubtedly, those who read it will be driven to further a life of passion, meaning, and prosocial concerns for the long term.

Grit by Angela Duckworth is one of those books that stays with you because it challenges the way we typically think about talent, intelligence, and achievement. Duckworth makes a compelling argument that long-term success is often less about natural ability and more about perseverance—what she calls “grit”: sustained passion and effort over time. She uses research, real-life examples, and stories from education, sports, business, and military training to show how resilience and commitment shape outcomes. As an educator, I found this especially meaningful because it reframes the conversation around students and performance. It’s not just about who is “smart” or who learns quickly—it’s about who keeps going, who believes growth is possible, and who develops the stamina to work through frustration and failure. It's also applicable for myself and goes far beyond 'resilience'. Some parts of the book repeat concepts, but overall it’s a motivating and practical read that encourages reflection on how we develop character, habits, and long-term discipline. If you’re a teacher, parent, coach, or anyone trying to build a meaningful life and career, Grit is worth reading.

I was carrying a copy of "Grit" with me as I visited recently with a professor in the Behavioral Sciences Department at West Point.. I asked Colonel Ryan if she were familiar with Angela Duckworth's book, and especially the portion that discusses West Point's difficulty in predicting which cadets might drop out of the challenging Beast Barracks at the beginning of their Plebe year. She laughed, and said that her department had just had Dr. Duckworth on campus to discuss that very issue. "Grit" fits wonderfully with two other powerful books I have recently read: "Mindset" and "The Talent Code." In "Mindset, Dr. Carol Dweck posits that one can learn to develop a growth mindset that allows each obstacle and setback in life to be viewed as an opportunity for growth and refinement of existing skills, and the development of new skills. In "The Talent Code," Daniel Coyle lays out a case showing that deep practice triggers growth in the myelin sheath that surrounds neurons, further insulating them and speeding up the rate at which signals are passed along the neural pathways. With an appropriate ignition event to allow a person to have the persistence to engage in deep practice, one can develop extraordinary levels of talent. The final piece of the triple ecosystem that Coyle describes is a world class coach to keep a person fully engaged in the ongoing process of improvement and refinement of talent. In "Grit," Dr. Duckworth emphasizes the importance of persistence, perseverance, and passion in determining success in life. She shares many examples and case studies, including the experiences of West Point cadets, and NFL players for the Seattle Seahawks under the coaching of Pete Caroll, whose philosophy of leadership is in harmony with Duckworth's premise. Throughout the book, the author points out that achieving true grit results from a combination of inner drives and external impetuses. The most effective external dynamics include becoming part of a group or tribe in which all of the members are striving for excellence. She quotes sociologist Dan Chambliss in describing how this works in practice: "It seems to me . . .that there's a hard way to get grit and an easy way. The hard way is to do it by yourself. The easy way is to use conformity - the basic human drive to fit in - because if you're around a lot of people who are gritty, you're going to get grittier." (Page 247) Dr. Duckworth devotes several key pages to the case study of Coach Anson Dorrance, who has led the women's soccer team from UNC Chapel Hill to many national titles. He inspires grit in his players in a number of ways, including having them memorize 12 key literary quotes that together define the culture of the team. I was struck by the quote about whining penned by George Bernard Shaw: "The true joy in life is to be a force of fortune instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy." (pages 257-8) Finally, the author quotes Lieutenant General Robert Caslen, Superintendent of West Point. In describing the culture of West Point that inculcates leadership in the men and women who make it through the grueling four year curriculum, Caslen points to the words of one of his predecessors, General John Schofield: "The discipline which makes soldiers of a free country reliable in battle is not to be gained by harsh or tyrannical treatment." "Schofield goes on to say - and the cadets must memorize this, too - that the very same commands can be issued in a way that inspires allegiance or seeds resentment. And the difference comes down to one essential thing: respect. Respect of subordinates for their commander? No, Schofield says. The origin of great leadership begins with the respect of the commander for his subordinates." (Page 258) This book and its insights will be the topic of several gatherings that I will be hosting in the next few weeks. It is a treasure trove of wisdom, encouragement, and challenge.

I gave it three stars because the premise of the book and the overall message is great. However, editing was terrible. The author RAMBLES and made the book unecessarily drawn out to deliver it's core message. I had such a difficult time not skipping to the next chapter. 25 pages to tell you that grittier people engage in deliberate practice more than non-gritty people. Duh. There's a HEAVY reliance filler and anecdotes to make each point. I don't need to know every thought and pondered question the author had on a subject. If you aren’t going to deepen the argument, move on. This is a book you could easily skim and still get the core message.

Great book, well documented, eye opening. I wish I had this book when I was 15 or 20 [now I’m 73]. I’ve had a great life and a lot of success, the concepts in this book might have made it easier. I have no doubt that grit played a large role in my successes, but with this book as a 15 year old the development of my grit would have been smoother and sooner.

As expected

Great book. Informative. Enlightening. I have a few problems with it which I've put below. I don't think I'm the intended audience and I hope anyone else who feels like me will read it with some warning. It's an interesting read, but as someone who is neurodivergent (adhd) it was a little discouraging in some parts. The definition of grit from the beginning felt unfair. Basically it described someone who doesn't have adhd. I would also like to understand why certain people have more grit than others or how to go from not having it to having it. Do upbringing, financial position or support networks have anything to do with it? I don't see how those crucial aspects were fully investigated. I think this book is encouraging if you're already a natural achiever and don't struggle with executive functions. Maybe you just need a kick to keep going or a reminder to persevere. I didn't see much about getting through the difficult circumstances in life that you need to overcome before you can even dream of achieving things, like homelessness or unemployment without any support. I think surviving those things is a whole other kind of grit and requires the same tenacity it does to do things considered to be success in the book.

Kaliteli baski. Kusursuz urun.

"Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance" by Angela Duckworth is a compelling and thought-provoking book that delves into the concept of grit, or the combination of passion and perseverance, and its role in achieving success. Duckworth's research, which draws from both scientific studies and personal anecdotes, is engaging and easy to understand, making the book accessible to readers from all backgrounds. The book is not only informative, but also inspiring, as it provides practical strategies for developing grit and achieving one's goals. Overall, I highly recommend "Grit" to anyone looking to understand the importance of grit in achieving success and improving their own lives. I would wholly recommend to anyone especially, parents , teachers and coaches.