success in adulthood: Margo Gardner, Jodie Roth, and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, “Adolescents’ Participation in Organized Activities and Developmental Success 2 and 8 Years After High School: Do Sponsorship, Duration, and Intensity Matter?” Developmental Psychology 44 (2008): 814–30.
Willingham was the director: Warren H. Willingham, Success in College: The Role of Personal Qualities and Academic Ability (New York: College Entrance Examination Board, 1985). Around the time Warren Willingham was conducting this study, his teenage son Dan went off to college to study psychology. Dan is now a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and, in the spirit of his father’s legacy, dedicated to helping kids benefit from advances in cognitive psychology. My favorite of his books is Why Don’t Students Like School? (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009).
beyond standardized tests: The predictive validity of standardized achievement tests for academic and professional outcomes is well-documented. See the work of psychologists Paul Sackett and Nathan Kuncel in particular. My claim here is not that achievement tests are invalid, per se, but rather that they are an incomplete and imperfect metric for what students know and can do. See Angela L. Duckworth, Patrick D. Quinn, and Eli Tsukayama, “What No Child Left Behind Leaves Behind: The Roles of IQ and Self-Control in Predicting Standardized Achievement Test Scores and Report Card Grades,” Journal of Educational Psychology 104 (2012): 439–51. See also James J. Heckman, John Eric Humphries, and Tim Kautz, ed., The Myth of Achievement Tests: The GED and the Role of Character in American Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014).
“purposeful, continuous commitment”: Willingham, Success in College, 213.
“winning an important meet”: Michael Wines, “Extracurricular Work Spurs Success in College,” Los Angeles Times, October 17, 1985.
“productive follow-through”: Willingham, Success in College, 193. For a review of the advantages and disadvantages of various approaches to measuring qualities like grit, see Duckworth and Yeager, “Measurement Matters.”
at very different rates: Brian M. Galla et al., “Cognitive and Noncognitive Determinants of High School Grades, SAT Scores, and College Persistence,” Journal of Educational Psychology (under review, 2015).
the Grit Grid: Alyssa J. Matteucci et al., “Quantifying Grit from Extracurricular Activities: A Biodata Measure of Passion and Perseverance for Long-Term Goals” (manuscript in preparation, 2015).
extracurriculars of novice teachers: Robertson-Kraft and Duckworth, “True Grit”
corresponsive principle: Brent W. Roberts and Avshalom Caspi, “The Cumulative Continuity Model of Personality Development: Striking a Balance Between Continuity and Change in Personality Traits Across the Life Course,” in Understanding Human Development: Dialogues with Lifespan Psychology, ed. Ursula M. Staudinger and Ulman Lindenberger (Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003), 183–214.
“set like plaster”: William James claimed in 1890 that by age thirty, personality is “set like plaster.” Quoted in Brent W. Roberts and Wendy F. DelVecchio, “The Rank-Order Consistency of Personality Traits from Childhood to Old Age: A Quantitative Review of Longitudinal Studies,” Psychological Bulletin 126 (2000): 6.
change after childhood: Ibid. Avshalom Caspi, Brent W. Roberts, and Rebecca L. Shiner, “Personality Development: Stability and Change,” Annual Review of Psychology 56 (2005): 453–84. Brent W. Roberts, Kate E. Walton, and Wolfgang Viechtbauer, “Patterns of Mean-Level Change in Personality Traits Across the Life Course: A Meta-Analysis of Longitudinal Studies,” Psychological Bulletin 132 (2006): 1–25.
tendency toward sociability: Brent W. Roberts, Avshalom Caspi, and Terrie E. Moffitt, “Work Experiences and Personality Development in Young Adulthood,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84 (2003): 582–93.
“It’s never far from reach”: William R. Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard College, in an interview with the author, February 17, 2015.
“plain old hard work”: William R. Fitzsimmons, “Guidance Office: Answers from Harvard’s Dean, Part 3,” New York Times, September 14, 2009, http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/harvarddean.
“all that grit”: Fitzsimmons, interview.
dropping precipitously: Kaisa Snellman, Jennifer M. Silva, Carl B. Frederick, and Robert D. Putnam, “The Engagement Gap: Social Mobility and Extracurricular Participation Among American Youth,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 657 (2015): 194–207.
Harlem Children’s Zone: For more information on Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children’s Zone, visit www.hcz.org.
“a decent childhood”: Geoffrey Canada, founder and president of the Harlem Children’s Zone, in conversation with the author, May 14, 2012.
“I actually like kids”: Geoffrey Canada, “Our Failing Schools. Enough Is Enough!” TED Talks Education video, filmed May 2013, https://www.ted.com/talks/geoffrey_canada_our_failing_schools_enough_is_enough?language=en.
Bob Eisenberger: For a summary of his research, see Robert Eisenberger, “Learned Industriousness,” Psychological Review 99 (1992): 248–67 and Eisenberger’s book Blue Monday: The Loss of the Work Ethic in America (New York: Paragon House, 1989).
playing fields for grit: Even for those of us who are beyond our high school and college years, there are many activities we can sign up for that offer challenge and support. For example, I’ve learned a lot about grit from Joe De Sena, founder of the Spartan Race. Here’s a story from our interview: “We live in Vermont. It gets very icy. My son is on the ski team. One day, he comes in an hour before lunch. He tells me he came in early because he was cold.” It turns out that the rest of the team was still out practicing. “Okay,” Joe said to his son, “I understand you’re cold. But you’re on the team, and the team is skiing, so now you’re on my team, and my team doesn’t take the chairlift.” Father and son then proceed outside and hike up the mountain on foot, the son upset and complaining the whole way. And then they skied down. Lesson over. “Sounds like torture,” I said, half-joking. “The point was not to torture him,” Joe replied. “The point was to show him it could be a lot worse. We never had that issue again because now he had a frame of reference that said, ‘Okay, this is uncomfortable, but it could be a lot worse.’ ” Then Joe paused. “You know, I’ve quit a race before. I learned there’s a lot worse than dealing with the pain in front of me. That’s a lesson you need help learning. You’re not born knowing that.”
CHAPTER 12: A CULTURE OF GRIT
“really have grit”: Pete Carroll, interviewed by Eric Wayne Davis, NFL AM, posted by the Seattle Seahawks, “Pete Carroll: ‘We’re Looking for Grit,’ ” February 3, 2014, http://www.seahawks.com/video/2014/02/03/pete-carroll-were-looking-grit.
“be great competitors”: Pete Carroll, head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, in a phone call with the author, May 13, 2013.
“join a great team”: Chambliss, interview.
thinking a different way: Lee Ross and Richard E. Nisbett, The Person and the Situation: Perspectives of Social Psychology (London: McGraw-Hill, 1991). This book sums up all this research beautifully.
James March: James G. March, “How Decisions Happen in Organizations,” Human-Computer Interaction 6 (1991): 95–117.
“I am a West Pointer”: Tom Deierlein, cofounder and CEO of ThunderCat Technology, in an email with the author, October 29, 2011.
“they got used to it”: Deierlein, in an email to the author, September 17, 2015.
“the Finnish spirit”: Time, “Northern Theatre: Sisu,” January 8, 1940.
“he can stand worse”: Hudson Strode, “Sisu: A Word That Explains Finland,” New York Times, January 14, 1940.
asked a thousand Finns: Emilia Lahti, “Above and Beyond Perseverance: An Exploration of Sisu” (Masters Capstone, University of Pennsylvania, 2013).
“I wear this jersey”: Betty Liu, Work Smarts: What CEOs Say You Need to Know to Get Ahead (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2014), 7.
“grytte”: Ben Smith, “Master Howard Dean,” Observer, December 8, 2003, http://observer.com/2003/12/master-howard-dean.
senior year at Browning: Duff McDonald, Last Man Standing: The Ascent of Jamie Dimon (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009), 5.
“I call it fortitude”: Jamie Dimon, chairman, president, and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, in conversation with the author, April 14, 2015.
“the ultimate thing”: Dimon, interview.
“how they treat people”: Nick Summers and Max Abelson, “Why JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon is Wall Street’s Indispensable Man,” Bloomberg Businessweek, May 16, 2013.
“let my kids work for them?”: Dimon, interview.
“actually in the arena”: Theodore Roosevelt, “The Man in the Arena. Citizenship in a Republic,” address delivered at the Sorbonne, Paris, 1910.
“not reasons to quit”: JPMorgan Chase & Co., How We Do Business, 2014, http://www.jpmorganchase.com/corporate/About-JPMC/document/20140711_Website_PDF_FINAL.pdf.
“that as a compliment”: Tim Crothers, The Man Watching: Anson Dorrance and the University of North Carolina Women’s Soccer Dynasty (New York: Thomas Dunne, 2006), 37.
“final measure of greatness”: Ibid., 106.
“It’s our culture”: Anson Dorrance, head coach of the University of North Carolina’s women’s soccer team, in an interview with the author, August 21, 2015.
the Beep Test: Luc A. Léger, D. Mercier, C. Gadoury, and J. Lambert, “The Multistage 20 Metre Shuttle Run Test for Aerobic Fitness,” Journal of Sports Sciences 6 (1988): 93–101.
“this is a test of your mentality”: Dorrance, in an interview with the author, September 30, 2015.
“language is everything”: Dimon, interview.
“making you happy”: George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy (New York: Penguin, 1903), 32. The original passage reads: “This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one . . . the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”
the Bugle Notes: West-Point.org, “Bugle Notes,” accessed February 10, 2015, http://www.west-point.org/academy/malo-wa/inspirations/buglenotes.html.
“than to make an army”: Major General John M. Schofield, former superintendent of the United States Military Academy, address to cadets, August 11, 1879.
“the yelling and screaming”: Lieutenant General Robert L. Caslen, superintendent of the United States Military Academy, in an interview with the author, September 4, 2015.
less than 2 percent: Data provided by the United States Military Academy.
“allows you to get there”: Carroll, Win Forever, 183.
“they can demonstrate passion”: “Pete Carroll Returns to USC, Full Interview, 2014,” YouTube video, 1:57:42, posted March 20, 2014, https://youtube/jSizvISegnE.
“they’re helping me to get better”: Earl Thomas, “Take Nothing for Granted,” Earl Thomas’s blog, January 25, 2014, http://www.earlthomas.com/2014/01/25/take-nothing-granted.
“the worst call in NFL history”: Don Banks, “The Worst Play Call in NFL History Will Continue to Haunt Seahawks in 2015,” Sports Illustrated, July 21, 2015.
“failure is never fatal”: “The Wizard’s Wisdom: ‘Woodenism,’ ” ESPN, June 5, 2010.
“And use it. Use it!”: Greg Bishop, “Pete Carroll, NFL’s Eternal Optimist, Is Ready to Turn Heartbreak into Triumph,” Sports Illustrated, August 3, 2015, http://www.si.com/nfl/2015/07/28/pete-carroll-seattle-seahawks-2015-season-super-bowl-xlix.
CHAPTER 13: CONCLUSION
hand in hand with well-being: Victoria Young, Yuchen Lin, and Angela L. Duckworth, “Associations Between Grit and Subjective Well-Being in a Large Sample of US Adults,” poster presented at the 16th Annual Convention of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Long Beach, CA, February 2015.
between the extremes: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. Adam M. Grant and Barry Schwartz, “Too Much of a Good Thing: The Challenge and Opportunity of the Inverted U,” Perspectives in Psychological Science 6 (2011): 61–76.
wanted to be grittier: This data was collected in 2015 and is not yet published.
honesty trumps all: Geoffrey P. Goodwin, Jared Piazza, and Paul Rozin, “Moral Character Predominates in Person Perception and Evaluation,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 106 (2014): 148–68.
character is plural: I wish I could take credit for the expression, “character is plural.” I cannot. Many others have made the same observation, including Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman in Character Strengths and Virtues (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 10.
dimensions of character: Daeun Park et al., “A Tripartite Taxonomy of Character: Evidence for Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, and Intellectual Competencies in Youth,” (manuscript under review, 2015). Note that these same three virtue clusters correspond, roughly, to the Big Five personality dimensions of conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to experience.
tend to be self-controlled: I see self-control as related but distinct from grit. You can be self-controlled about a goal that is not your top-level, ultimate concern. And self-control isn’t directly related to overcoming setbacks and failures. However, both grit and self-control are about achieving valued goals. See Angela L. Duckworth and James J. Gross, “Self-Control and Grit: Related but Separable Determinants of Success,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 23 (2014): 319–25. I personally believe that self-control is an extraordinarily important virtue, and to learn more about strategies that facilitate it and their benefits, see Walter Mischel, The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control (New York: Little, Brown, 2014), and Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength (New York: Penguin, 2011).
“resume virtues”; “eulogy virtues”: David Brooks, The Road to Character (New York: Random House, 2015), xi.
world of ideas: I haven’t touched upon creativity in this book. In many endeavors, creativity is absolutely essential, and I direct the interested reader to Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire, Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind (New York: Perigee Books, 2015).
predict different outcomes: Park et al., “Tripartite Taxonomy.”
“nothing was coming out”: “Advice on Writing from the Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates,” Atlantic video, September 27, 2013, http://www.theatlantic.com/video/archive/2013/09/advice-on-writing-from-i-the-atlantic-i-s-ta-nehisi-coates/280025.
“writing is failure”: “Journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, 2015 MacArthur Fellow,” MacArthur Foundation video, posted September 28, 2015, https://www.macfound.org/fellows/931.
INDEX
A note about the index: The pages referenced in this index refer to the page numbers in the print edition. Clicking on a page number will take you to the ebook location that corresponds to the beginning of that page in the print edition. For a comprehensive list of locations of any word or phrase, use your reading system’s search function.
Academy Awards, 44
Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), 310n
Age and grit, 84–89
Airborne Rangers, 248, 260
Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, 143
Allen, Woody, 49
Amazon.com, 95, 111
America’s Got Talent (television program), 31
Anderson, Chris, 134
Angelou, Maya, 140
Animal experiments. See Dogs, experiments on; Rats, experiments on
Anxiety, 174
Apatow, Judd, 127–28
Aristotle, 146, 271–72
Army Special Operations Forces. See Green Berets
Army Ten
-Miler, 249–50
Asemani, Kayvon, 190–91
Attribution retraining program, 179
Attrition model, 259
Authoritarian parenting, 200, 203, 211, 212, 213
Authoritative parenting. See Wise (authoritative) parenting
Autonomously motivated goals, 297n
Bacon, Francis, 76
Baime, Michael, 155–57
Baldwin, James, 183
Basketball, 84
Beast Barracks, 4–7, 9–10, 12
characteristics of successful cadets, 5–7
diminished attrition rate in, 259
typical day at, 4
Beck, Aaron, 173, 175–76
Beep Test, 255–56
Berg, Justin, 166
Between the World and Me (Coates), 275
Bezos, Jeff, 95, 96, 99, 104, 110–11, 263
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 218, 230–31
Blaine, David, 124
Blake, Juliet, 133–34
Bloom, Benjamin, 107, 108, 144, 211, 215–16
Bodrova, Elena, 141–42
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 76
Boredom, 104, 111–12
Bozeman, Sylvia, 194
Breakthrough Greater Boston, 158
Bricklayers, parable of the, 149–50, 152, 153
Brigham Young University (BYU), 202, 206, 215
Brodsky, Joseph, 257
Brooks, David, 274
Browning School, 253
Buffett, Warren, 66–68
Bugle Notes, 258
Bugnard, Chef, 101
Bundick, Matt, 160
Bunsen, Christian K. J. von, 76
Burke, Edmund, 76
Bush, George H. W., 49
Calling, 149–57
developing vs. finding, 153
taking time to identify, 155–57
unconventional paths to, 161–62
Grit Page 33