Angela Duckworth: Grit Isn't Enough (#317)

3 Takeaways™

In this episode of Three Takeaways, psychologist Angela Duckworth, renowned for her work on grit, discusses her new book 'Situated,' which challenges the idea that perseverance alone leads to

Key takeaways

Perseverance alone is insufficient; the right environment often matters more than individual effort.
People are deeply influenced by their surroundings—what we do, think, and feel is shaped by peers, culture, and physical spaces.

Main topics

The limitations of grit and perseverance
The power of environment and situational influence

Notable quotes

"The situation is incredibly powerful... it has a invisible but extremely powerful force."

"Trying hard is great. But that is not the only trick you have in your playbook."

Conclusion

Angela Duckworth concludes that success isn't just about individual grit—it's about creating and choosing

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:01) My guest today wrote the book on grit. Then she found herself in the Atlantic Ocean holding her unconscious mother while fighting a current she couldn't overpower. And that moment changed everything for her. Hi, everyone. I'm Lynn Thoman, and this is Three Takeaways. On Three Takeaways, I talk with some of the world's best thinkers, business leaders, writers, politicians, newsmakers, and scientists. Each episode ends with three key takeaways to help us understand the world and maybe even ourselves a little better. Speaker 1 (0:40) Today, I'm really delighted to be with Angela Duckworth. Angela is a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, a MacArthur Fellow, and one of the world's leading researchers on achievement. Her first book, Grit, changed the way millions of people think about success and the importance of passion and perseverance. It was a number one New York Times bestseller and sold over 5 million copies. Her new book, which is wonderful, is situated. Angela, welcome back to Three Takeaways. Hi, Lynn. I'm so excited to talk to you. Me too. You're in the ocean holding your unconscious 86-year-old mother and fighting a current that you can't overpower. What happened? I was on vacation with my family and we went snorkeling. Speaker 1 (1:37) In retrospect, why would you bring your 86-year-old mother on that particular part of the vacation? But there we were, miles off the coast of Miami's shore, and my mom was drowning. And I was next to her, holding her head up, but she had lost consciousness and treading water and very soon realizing that I couldn't swim her back to the boat. Yes. You spent years showing us why grit and perseverance matter. When did you begin to realize grit wasn't the whole story? Was it when you were in the ocean with your mother or sometime before that? It was before that because only days before that ill-fated snorkeling excursion and not to leave everyone on a cliffhanger, my mother just celebrated her 91st birthday. So we lived. I had realized that the... Speaker 1 (2:28) Situation is incredibly powerful and the people and places around us exert such a force. You know, sometimes we're not aware, but it's always pulling at us and pushing at us to do, to think, to speak certain things. The idea that the situation can change the trajectory of your life in some ways is obvious. But as somebody who has long studied achievement, what was not obvious to me was. how much you can change the situation before it changes you. There is a game that we play not only in our heads to achieve our potential with the right mindsets and habits and so forth, but there's a very important game that we need to play outside of our heads to surround ourselves with people and put ourselves in places where we can really be our best. Speaker 1 (3:17) Did grit accidentally teach some of us to overestimate how much success comes down to individual effort? I think that's a fair question. You could argue it's a fair criticism of grit that the word grit just sounds like, oh, it's all about you against your situation. Your situation can be your enemy, but you can overcome it through force of will. I don't agree with that message. I think for me as a psychologist, this... dawning appreciation for just how important the situation is and also how much it is under our control to make our situation not our enemy, but our ally has been maybe 10 or so years in the making. But it's more that I have expanded my field of view, that I'm expanding my aperture to take in not only the person, the hero, the achiever themselves, but also everything around them. Speaker 1 (4:13) You call the first act of your marriage, just try harder, and the second burnout. How did two people nearly grit their way out of a marriage? Both of us grew up in kind of striver families. Our parents set very high expectations for us. I think our whole lives, we realized that we were not the most gifted or talented students in any classroom or