Angela Duckworth’s dad told her, “You know you’re no genius” throughout her childhood. “He was deeply concerned with how smart he was….how smart his family was…(and) worried that this intellectual handicap would limit what we’d eventually achieve in life,” as she writes in the preface to her best-selling book “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.” Imagine the moment then when she was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, aka “genius award.”
Further adding to the irony is that Duckworth won this “genius” award for “discovering that what we eventually accomplish may depend more on our passion and perseverance than on our innate talent.” In other words, don’t focus on those IQ tests.
Intrigued by her book, I spoke with Duckworth about why some super smart people do not achieve their goals, while sometimes less-smart people do become high-achievers. She is a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, Founder/CEO of the nonprofit Character Lab, and advisor to top elected officials and Fortune 500 leaders, whose TED Talk attracted over 14.6 million views as of this writing.
Here are eight key takeaways from my conversation with Dr. Duckworth:
- Have goals: People with grit who achieve their goals work day after day “towards the same goals…like, be the best athlete I can be, or advance our understanding of the physical universe,” Duckworth told me. “it’s something that ties it all together. It’s like a theme for everything you’re working for that gives you a kind of constancy, a kind of direction.” It’s a passion.
- Develop your talent: It’s not about something we either have or we don’t. We can develop talent with practice and perseverance. Beyoncé is a talented musician, for example, and “an incredibly hard worker,” as Duckworth told me. The key is practice, to improve in something that captures your interest, to experiment. “The seed of passion is curiosity,” Duckworth told the Penn State University 2018 graduates at their commencement.
- Be open to experience, feedback: High-achievers, according to Duckworth’s research, score high on “openness to experience” on the “grit” scale. That is, being open to ideas that are not yours. If you look at all the top performers across any field they all embraced ideas and feedback from other people.
- Make it useful: “I think one important thing, though, that distinguishes just kind of random, mind-wandering, day-dreaming from genuine creativity or innovation is that, (your) new idea ….also has to be useful,” has to make things “better,” Duckworth told me.
- Have a purpose: Purpose is what drives perseverance, what carries you through the tough times, Duckworth said. “When I talk to people about their work and they tell me that it’s meaningful or it has purpose ….they always end up telling a story about how it’s part of something bigger than themselves, and it improves other people’s lives.”
- Have “a growth mindset”: A key to remaining focused on your goals and to not letting setbacks discourage you, is “a hopeful, optimistic way of looking at experience and always looking to see what you can learn even on bad days.” Innovators talk about their work like a “crush….(but) being in love with what you do, doesn’t mean it’s always easy, that every day is a good day.“ Never stop learning.
- Notice what you tell yourself, your thoughts: “This ongoing dialogue with ourselves…. is really so consequential,” Duckworth explained to me, “because depending upon what it is that you’re saying you’re going to do and feel one thing or another.” Celebrate small wins, focus on what you did well, what you learned and what you can do differently next time.
- “Race your strengths and train your weaknesses” : We need to emphasize our strengths and “design (our) careers around them,” Duckworth told me, adding that women tend to dismiss what they’re good at. There are crucial parts of your work that you might not be so great at, but that you cannot outsource, and those are the parts you need to “train.”
The example she gave me was, “Maybe you’re not an especially emotionally intelligent leader. Maybe you lack empathy, Well, you can’t really outsource emotional intelligence, so then, you should work on it. And I think a lot of character and character development is being honest about our weaknesses and our limitations and having the courage and the grit to work on them.” A tennis player can’t outsource their serve, for example. Just ask tennis superstar Serena Williams (who played while pregnant and resumed training after childbirth).
Since Duckworth had changed careers a few times, and we live in an age when we have multiple careers in a lifetime as our interests, passions and purpose evolve and as we live longer, I asked her about advice for women changing careers. She said, “Figure out how you can generalize your skills… to something new, (which)…is sometimes called in psychology ‘asset transfer’… Recognize that we have these strengths that will be useful in this other context.”
In case you’re wondering what happened with her dad when Duckworth won the MacArthur “genius” award, she wrote, ”my dad turned to me and said, 'I’m proud of you.’" And added that she wanted to say many things in response, but “Thanks, Dad” was enough.
As we closed the conversation, she wanted to make it clear that no matter how you score on her “grit” scale, “there are many other ways to be a good person in the world,“ and that there are other important things in life and other paths to success. “I think emotional intelligence is very important,” and creativity, curiosity, gratitude, generosity and kindness are also important in life."
All of which she demonstrated in her response to her dad.
