Kind: captions
Language: en
Hey everybody, welcome to another
episode of Impact Books. Today we are
reviewing none other than Angela
Duckworth's book Grit. This is published
by Simon and Schustster and it totally
blew me away. So mad shout out to you
guys at Simon and Schustster. This one
is brilliant. It really, really covers
some powerful concepts about what it is
that actually separates people that end
up being successful from people that had
all the talent in the world but didn't
really go on to do anything with it. All
right, the first thing we have to cover
is what is grit? Grit has two parts,
passion and perseverance. It's the
ability to find the thing that will
sustain your interest even when it gets
hard and boring. To paraphrase
Duckworth, it's about both falling in
love and staying in love over the long
run. And that's a really important
concept that she goes into great detail
about. All right, this book has
countless powerful takeaways that I
think for anyone who opens themselves up
to being changed will really have a
tremendous impact on you. But I've
broken it down into the three most
important. All right, takeaway number
one, grit is about stamina. You have to
view your life as a marathon and not a
sprint. You guys have heard me talk
about that before and she breaks it down
in the book very powerfully as to why
that's the case. The difference between
a willingness to work hard and grit.
They're not the same. And that was one
of those things that kind of caught me
off guard because to be honest, as
somebody who prides himself on working
hard, I really did see them as one and
the same. and she teases them apart and
shows how they're two distinct, albeit
very important concepts. And one of the
things that she notices is there's many
people who start things, even work hard
at them, but they find themselves
running out of enthusiasm once the
initial excitement wears off and they
move on to something else. And she says
if you do that occasionally, fair
enough. But if you do it time and time
again, that's actually a sign that you
don't have much grit. The important
thing is your willingness to stick with
something for the long run, long after
it stopped being fun. And that is where
gritty people shine. All right, key
takeaway number two. Talent counts, but
effort counts twice. And I can
practically hear you guys leaving
comments for me right now saying, "Yeah,
but what about talent?" There's some
people that are just born with something
special. And that's true. And there's no
question that talent means something. It
is uh going to play into all of this.
But at the end of the day, effort counts
more. Especially here in America, people
say that they believe that hard work is
more tied to success than natural
talent. But in studies, people actually
revealed themselves to having a bias
towards people who are naturally
talented. This was crazy, but a really
ingenious study. And what they did was
they had somebody, the same person, play
a piece of music and they would tell the
people listening to that music, one of
two stories. Story one, this is somebody
who's naturally talented. Listen to the
music. Tell us what you think. Story
two. This is somebody who's really had
to work very hard to be as accomplished
as they are. Listen to their music. Now,
it's the same person playing the exact
same piece of music, the same recording,
and yet people said that the person who
was naturally talented. Now, these are
the people that said that hard work is
more tied to success than natural
talent. But yet, when they were told
that the person was naturally talented,
they rated that performance higher. It's
absolutely nuts. But nonetheless, we
really do as a society at least have a
natural bias towards people who are
naturally talented. But the important
question is, and it's something that she
addresses in the book, why? She gives a
really compelling answer, which is when
you make somebody extraordinary, when
you think of them as being naturally
talented, you don't have to compare
yourself to them. And not having to
compete with somebody who's
extraordinary, let's all think about
Michael Jordan for a second. Not having
to measure myself against Michael Jordan
if I'm on the basketball court is a
pretty damn good thing. But in making
other people extraordinary just to let
yourself off the hook, you miss your
opportunity to flex your grit and
actually get better and persevere over
the long run. If instead you looked at
people, even people that are absolutely
astonishing in what they've
accomplished, if you say that over time
with enough effort that I could match
the results, then you could do something
extraordinary with your life. All right,
takeaway number three. Grit can be
developed. This one stopped me in my
tracks and it's something that I want
all of you to take note of because it
drives me nuts that people manage to
convince themselves and I'll even put
myself in this camp sometimes, but we
manage to convince ourselves that
certain traits are fixed and can't be
improved. And in the book, Duckworth
goes into more examples of things like
that where people are just absolutely
convinced that it's a trait that just
can't be developed. And one of those
honestly that when she said it, I
realized in the back of my mind I
believed that it was a fixed trait is
grit itself. And that's the awesome part
about the book. You're not going to read
it and go, well, I either am gritty or
I'm not. You're going to read it and go,
I either am gritty now or I'm not yet.
And that subtle distinction makes all
the difference. And she really goes into
how you can develop your grit and what
awaits you on the other side if you do
it. I'm telling you guys, this one is
worth the price of admission alone. If
that was the only thing that you got out
of the book, it would still be
incredibly, incredibly powerful. My
favorite part about reading books is the
quotes. And this book, oh my god, it had
so many amazing quotes that it is
brutally difficult to pick just three.
But here are my three. One, consistency
of effort over the long run is
everything. Now, the reason that this
one I think is so critical for everybody
to understand. None of us are very
impressive right now today, right? At
least I hope. I don't think of myself
like that. I encourage you guys not to
worry about what you think of yourself
right now today. People write to me all
the time because they're not impressed
with their skill set. But guess what?
Neither am I. I'm not impressed with
what I've done up to this point. I'm
just thinking about where I'm trying to
go and the gap in skill sets between who
I am today and the person I need to
become in order to execute on that. All
right. Number two, and I want everyone
to stop what you're doing right now and
pay attention to this one. There are no
shortcuts to excellence. Now, why do I
think that's so important? Because I
think people spend a lot of wasted time
looking for a shortcut that doesn't
exist. They're looking for a hack or a
trick that's going to allow them to
accelerate. And I get it. I get why you
want to do that. I want to do it. But
the fact is, it doesn't work. Excellence
is about actually getting good at
something. It's about becoming
excellent. It's about doing things that
other people can't do. It's about
transcending what people think is
possible. It's not about campaigning.
It's not about talking. It's about
learning. It's about growing. It's about
pushing your skill set. And there's no
shortcut to that. Maybe you can do it
faster, but it doesn't make it any
shorter. All right. Number three.
Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.
This is where you guys should be
focusing your energy. It's easy to get
excited about something. Don't uh be too
impressed with yourself for being
excited about something, some grand
challenge that you're going to go after.
Pride yourself on whether you stick with
it over the long run because things are
going to get hard. It's going to be
difficult. And if you can stay focused
on what you're trying to accomplish and
deal with the mundane, the benal, the
painful stuff, then you'll be able to
really do something
incredible. All right. Like I said, this
book is chock full of amazing quotes and
ideas. So, be sure to go to impact
theory.com for more quotes. These are
quotes to live by. All right, I'm going
to leave you guys with one last quote.
Grit isn't just working incredibly hard.
That's only one part of it. What's the
other part? You're going to have to read
the book to find out for yourself. All
right, guys. I hope that you enjoyed
this review. Be sure to like it, share
it, and until next time, my friends, be
legendary. Take care.
[Music]