Madeline
This book has been on my “To Read” list for years and I finally decided it was time to pick it up and read it. I first became aware of this book and Angela Duckworth when she was featured on Stephen Dubner’s podcast, Freakanomics. Since then, I’ve seen this book and Duckworth everywhere.
The Premise of Grit
The main premise of the book is to show that a large part of success is not based on intelligence or ability to do something but is mostly built on grit, or the stick-to-itivness. Being able to stick to something no matter how difficult or mononymous it is proves success over natural ability. Duckworth also talks about why some people have grit and many people only have grit for certain things.
For Example, students at West Point go through a rigorous first few months. Predicting who will not only graduate, but who will make it through the first few months has been imposible. To get into West Point, great SAT or ACT scores, being in the top of the class, and go through interviews is necessary. However, none of this predicts of who will make it. None of these factors directly correlate with the rigorous schedule that a new West Point student goes through. Therefore, it is hard to predict who will make it through. Duckworth then put together a questionnaire that asks varying questions vaguely about how long they typically stick with something. With this questionnaire a pattern of who would drop out and who would stick with the program started to emerge.
Final Thoughts
This book is full of antidotes and cautionary tales of grittiness to support her findings. But even Duckworth will admit, because rating grittiness is based on answering questions, and people are not always honest with themselves, it’s not a perfect measure. In addition, people change on the grit scale day by day. One day I feel like conquering the world and others, I feel like marathoning 90 Day Fiance.
