Review: Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'll start with my issues with the book:

First of all, Calvin Coolidge pretty much figured this out around 100 years ago. The author calls it "perseverance and passion". Coolidge called it "Persistence and determination". Here is the full quote:

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

Sooo, yeah. Odd that the author doesn't even acknowledge this quote. Truth be told however, I always liked the quote, so the book was pretty much preaching to the choir from the get-go. 

Secondly, the book talks about finding something you're passionate about. In this book it is slightly more subtle than many other places (talking about pain and getting into the flow, etc.), and goes more into detail, but it's there. The issue I have with this, is I think most people are probably passionate about earning a living and giving a good life for their family. That's their main motivator for working, earning, getting promoted, etc. and I'm not sure that type of motivation works well for a book like this. Most shoemakers want to provide for their family more than change the shoe world. 

That's pretty much it. The rest is all good points, and I plan on keeping this book as reference 

By grit, she basically means what I would have called perseverance. She says it's perseverance mixed with passion, which makes sense. 

She admonishes Skilling at Enron for having a system that fired the bottom 15% each year, but GE did the same and it seemed to work well for them. 

I loved the anecdote of Scott Kaufman, who got rejected from Carnegie Mellon's cognitive science program, so he applied to their musical program, took psychology electives, took it up as a minor, and then changed his major to it. 

Strivers beat talented people because "as strivers are improving in skill, they are also employing that skill" (p. 50)

Having a long-term goal, but not knowing the intermediate goals needed to get there, is just positive fantasizing, which leads to disappointment, since you won't achieve your goal. (p. 65)

At a certain point the book seemed to concentrate more on children, and how to foster more grit in them, which, having a 2-year-old daughter, I really appreciated. I liked the KIPP pointers, as well as the things to say to children rather than the normal feedback you usually hear (p. 182)

Her points about follow-through are good as well (p. 228), and I think I will try applying the Hard thing Rule (p/ 241) in our family as well.

3.5 stars

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