Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

The US Military Academy at West Point is as hard to get into as an Ivy League school. Top grades, athletic ability, and a nomination from a member of Congress or the vice president are required; 4,000 students get that far, and 2,500 are accepted. Then the real challenge begins: Cadet Basic Training, known as Beast Barracks, or Beast, an extremely rigorous course of study and athletic challenges. One-fifth of new cadets quit during this training; the school’s scoring system for potential cadets, the “Whole Candidate Score,” can’t tell which of them will give up (6).

At Beast, new cadets take a test to determine their place on a Grit Scale. The results have no relationship to their Whole Candidate Scores. Their Whole Candidate Scores nicely predict their outcomes at the academy, but only after they’ve first demonstrated grit by getting through Beast. It’s the Grit score that predicts who’ll survive the summer training.

What causes people to succeed despite obstacles? The author studied many fields of endeavor and found that the “highly accomplished were paragons of perseverance” (8). In vacation time-shares the Grit Scale predicts which sales reps will stay and which will give up, while measures of extroversion, emotional stability, and conscientiousness can’t predict the outcomes. Graduation rates at Chicago public schools depend more on grit than any other measure, including conscientiousness, feelings of safety, and caring about school. Grit determines the amount of education people get, with postgraduates showing more grit than those with a few college courses but no degree.

Among Army Special Forces “Green Beret” candidates, 42% drop out; finishers test higher on grit. Other factors help with success in various life endeavors—baseline fitness for Green Beret cadets, a good teacher who helps a high school student graduate, previous sales experience that helps in a new sales job—but grit shows up as the most important attribute. Grit predicts the winners of spelling bees more than any other trait, including verbal intelligence. Higher SAT scores correlate to slightly lower grit: “Our potential is one thing. What we do with it is quite another” (14).

After graduating from Harvard, the author ran a tuition-free tutoring program for two years then earned a master’s degree in neuroscience at Oxford and worked for McKinsey management consultants in New York. At age 27, she quit McKinsey to teach seventh-grade math at Lower East Side schools, giving up a lucrative career for one she was passionate about. She quickly found that, contrary to her expectations, many of the brighter students didn’t do as well as those who worked harder. She observes, “I’d been distracted by talent” (17).

The following year, Duckworth moved with her new husband to San Francisco, where she taught math at Lowell High, a selective public school whose students go on to prestigious universities. As in New York, the hardest-working pupils tended to score the highest. One kid, David Luong, worked hard and asked for harder assignments. Duckworth got him into the Advanced Placement Calculus track, where he initially struggled—“I was a little behind,” he says—but ultimately persisted, and, as a senior, achieved “a perfect 5 out of 5” on the AP exam (19-20). David later got a dual degree in engineering and economics at Swarthmore, earned a PhD at UCLA, and worked as a “rocket scientist” at the Aerospace Corporation.

Curious to know more about the roots of academic success, Duckworth went back to graduate school in psychology. She read the work of Francis Galton, a cousin of Charlies Darwin, who studied achievement among scientists and concluded that talent was important but that “zeal” and “hard labor” were more important. Darwin concurred, saying people differ more in effort than intellect.

Darwin is a good example. Though not a genius, he had a knack for pursuing ideas well past the time when most scientists would have set them aside, and he made long and careful observations that would later help him develop the theory of natural selection that made him famous. Psychologist William James believed that, though human ability has limits, people use much less of their natural talents than they might.

When asked, most people will say effort is more important than natural talent, but when given a choice between someone who’s a “natural” in a profession and someone who’s a “striver” in that field, people tend to believe the “natural” is the better hire. This “naturalness bias” is true even when the evidence—a recording of, for example, a business proposal or a musical performance—is identical for each candidate.

The author of this research is Chia-Jung Tsay, a professor at University College London who holds five degrees from Harvard and two from the Peabody Conservatory, and who has performed at Carnegie Hall and in recital at the European Union. Of her own abilities, she acknowledges that she has talent but says, “I loved music so much I practiced four to six hours a day all throughout childhood” (26).

The McKinsey consulting firm believes talent is critical to business success. Their best-selling book The War For Talent explains that they hire bright people over all others, have them compete with each other for pay, and cull the least effective among them. When the author joined the company, her class of recruits received a “mini-MBA” crash course in finance then set out to solve the business problems of the company’s clients.

The author wonders, though, whether this is the wisest course. She points out that, with all their smarts, she and her cohorts had very little real-world business experience. Many McKinsey stars haven’t done very well since The War for Talent was published. Enron had a similar “talent mindset” and was Forbes’s Most Innovative Company for years, but CEO Jeff Skilling, a McKinsey alumnus, annually rated employees by performance and fired the bottom 15%, a process derided as “rank-and-yank” (31), which nurtured a culture of narcissism and deception. In the end, Enron was found to have committed massive fraud and went belly-up in one of the largest corporate failures in US history.

The author’s colleague, research psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman, suffered from ear infections as a child and struggled to hear properly in school. Considered academically challenged, he was diverted to the slow-learner group until a wise teacher suggested Scott take on more school classes and activities. Scott began to study the cello; determined to prove himself, he practiced nine hours a day until, by senior year, he was second chair in the school orchestra. He also moved up into honors classes. But his SAT scores were low.

Scott wanted to learn more about intelligence, so he applied to Carnegie Mellon. Despite his achievements, he was rejected—he assumes because of his low test scores—so he reapplied, this time to their opera department, and was accepted. From there, he shifted his studies over to psychology, and he graduated at the top of his class.

As a child, Duckworth was rejected for gifted classes until she retook the aptitude tests and was accepted. Tests may not be very good at determining talent, but they’re definitely no good at judging effort.

Effort, consistently and carefully applied, can create remarkable results: “a high level of performance is, in fact, an accretion of mundane acts” (38). Most people, however, only see the results and attribute them to a mysterious factor called “talent.” The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche believed success was crafted over time. He suggested, though, that people want success to be magical and mysterious so we can excuse ourselves from effort on the grounds that talent is a gift given only to a few others and not to us: “To call someone ‘divine’ means: ‘here there is no need to compete’” (39).

In graduate school, at Duckworth’s weekly meeting with advisor Martin Seligman, the professor interrupted her report to declare that she hadn’t had a good idea in two years, and that she should stop reading so much and just think. Duckworth went home and cried; then she thought hard about the roots of success. She writes, “I have been working on a theory of the psychology of achievement since Marty scolded me for not having one,” and her improved theory is: “talent x effort = skill; skill x effort = achievement” (41-42). Outside forces, such as a great teacher or simple luck, also matter, but Duckworth’s theory concerns inner resources. Inner strengths include talent, but by her theory, effort is twice as important.

Potter Warren MacKenzie produces many ceramic works but considers only a few of them exemplary. He has produced tens of thousands of pieces, which has helped him master the art form as well as create a great many valuable works. Thus, he has multiplied both his talent and his success through continuous effort.

Another example is John Irving, who overcame dyslexia, low test scores, and mediocre grades to become one of the most celebrated novelists of his era. The countless hours of struggle that Irving put into reading and spelling have long since paid off, and his novels—The World According to Garp, The Cider House Rules, and others—have become best-sellers and award-winning movies.

Singer and actor Will Smith credits his success with a ferocious work ethic: “I will not be outworked, period” (46). Others, he says, may be more talented, but he will die before he gives up.

In 1940 Harvard ran a study of 130 sophomores who were given a difficult treadmill test. Few lasted the full five minutes. For decades thereafter, the men were followed, and their work and marital satisfaction, drug use, and other metrics were monitored. Length of time staying on the treadmill, regardless of personal fitness, was positively correlated to good life outcomes.

People often begin a program of self-improvement only to quit a short time later. The difference between the gritty and the non-gritty is that gritty people don’t quit but get up the next day and practice some more. Eventually, effort leads to mastery, and mastery leads to productivity.

Grit isn’t merely about working hard; it’s about working consistently. It’s not about falling in love with a project; it’s about staying in love with it.

A version of Duckworth’s West Point Grit Scale contains 10 statements about grittiness that are ranked based on your judgment of how you compare to “most people” on each statement. The statements are:

1. New ideas and projects sometimes distract me from previous ones.

2. Setbacks don’t discourage me. I don’t give up easily.

3. I often set a goal but later choose to pursue a different one.

4. I am a hard worker.

5. I have difficulty maintaining my focus on projects that take more than a few months to complete.

6. I finish whatever I begin.

7. My interests change from year to year.

8. I am diligent. I never give up.

9. I have been obsessed with a certain idea or project for a short time but later lost interest.

10. I have overcome setbacks to conquer an important challenge (54-55).

The odd-numbered statements are scaled 1 to 5, from “not at all like me” to “very much like me.” The even-numbered statements are scaled 5 to 1, again from “not at all like me” to “very much like me.” To calculate the total grit score, the points on each statement are added together and divided by 10. A score of 3.5 lies at the 40th percentile; a score of 4.9 is in the 99th percentile.

Passion and perseverance are the two elements of grit. The odd-numbered statements test the passion element, and the even-numbered statements assess perseverance; each can be scored separately by adding up their totals and dividing by 5. Most people score higher on perseverance than passion.

With respect to grit, passion involves consistency more than intensity. People who are successful at their work sustain an ongoing enthusiasm for it. This type of passion can be nurtured. Journalist Jeff Gettleman, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times East Africa bureau chief, developed an enthusiasm for reporting because it would help him live and work in East Africa, whose spirit and energy he finds enchanting. Over 10 years, Gettleman carefully worked his way up from college reporter to work at small local papers and then national papers, passing many daunting obstacles until he got the East Africa assignment.

Super Bowl-winning coach Pete Carroll believes his career greatly improved when he was fired as head coach of the New England Patriots and had to think hard about his life and purpose. What emerged was his conviction that success comes from a “life philosophy” that points toward a constant goal. His goal is to “[d]o things better than they have ever been done before” (61). Likewise, Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver believed that everything in his life, from his diet to the hand he used to pet his dog, supported his career as a pitcher.

Day-to-day goals—getting to the office on time, returning a business call, finishing an email—are “low-level goals” that constitute “means to ends” (62). They serve higher-level goals that, in turn, serve an overarching, ultimate goal. Lower-level goals are more concrete; higher-level goals are more abstract and constitute the purpose of the lower-level goals.

Without a consistent, top-level goal, a person’s many lesser goals often conflict, and that person’s life has no focus. As well, a clear top-level goal that lacks lower-level goals for its fulfillment will founder and get nowhere. A single, global goal may not be for everyone, though. The author has two main goals: “Use psychological science to help kids thrive” and “being the best mother I can be to my two daughters” (65). These goals sometimes conflict, but she is willing to juggle them to achieve as much as possible for each.

Paring down high-level goals can help with focus. Warren Buffett suggests that people make a list of their 25 top career goals, then chose five and ignore the rest. The author adds that the top five work best if they aim at a single, central organizing purpose. Though the top-level goals are set down in ink, so to speak, the lower-level ones are done in pencil so they can be changed or erased as circumstances warrant.

Bob Mankoff gave up on being a research psychologist and stand-up comedian before landing on cartoonist. Thousands of rejected cartoons later, he mastered a unique style and learned to submit in batches of 10, “because in cartooning, as in life, nine out of ten things never work out” (74). Eventually, The New Yorker put him on contract, and his stippled drawings have become famous.

Catherine Cox Miles in 1926 published her study of 301 eminent historical figures from the previous four centuries. She reckoned that the 10 most accomplished—including Napoleon, Goethe, and Newton—had IQs averaging 146, while the 10 least accomplished—Bunsen, Coleridge, and Haydn among them—averaged 143. High IQ, then, was necessary but not sufficient for highest achievement.

What separated the entire group from ordinary people, and what separated the greatest on the list from the rest? Cox found four recurrent traits: (1) working toward a distant goal; (2) not seeking novel distractions; (3) perseverance; and (4) overcoming obstacles. These, decided Cox, were more important than intelligence.

Some things we get from our DNA, like height; others we get from our culture, like the language we speak. Where do we get grit? Height, it turns out, is heritable—it’s influenced by nearly 700 genes—but it’s also affected by environment: Europeans are today an average of five inches taller, and weigh more, than they did in the 1850s, largely from improvements in nutrition, medicine, drinking water, and the like. Similarly, grit and other talents have genetic as well as environmental influences—and they can be trained.

British researchers studied grit in twins and found that perseverance is 37% genetic and passion is 20%; the rest depends on experience. These numbers are roughly similar to those for other personality traits.

Along with height and weight, IQ has increased dramatically, nearly 30 points in a century. This is called the Flynn Effect, and much of the improvement is in abstract reasoning, an ability required increasingly at school and work. As people get better at reasoning, their skill is passed on to others in a “social multiplier” effect.

Meanwhile, scores on the Grit Scale tend to increase with age, so that the average score of less than 3.5 at age 25 increases to nearly 4.0 for people in their mid-60s. Either the older generations are grittier for cultural reasons, or grit simply gets stronger as people get older. Perhaps both are true.

Long-term studies indicate that “[m]ost of us become more conscientious, confident, caring, and calm with life experience” (86). Usually we grow up as we grow older. Youth tend to be indulged, but as they reach adulthood, they’re expected to produce or get fired; often this is when they discover grit.

Four psychological assets typify people with a lot of grit: (1) “interest,” or a love for the entire project that tolerates occasional drudgery; (2) “practice,” or the yearning to improve daily; (3) “purpose,” or the conviction that the project is valuable to others; and (4) “hope,” the conviction that effort will prevail. Each of these attributes can be cultivated, as Part 2 will explain.