Book: 20210504 to 20210607, "Grit" by Angela Duckworth

Part I: What grit is and why it matters

20210505 - Showing up

Our potential is decided by gene (IQ etc.), how much of it will be realized is decided by our grit.

Which one is more important? Maybe this is a wrong question. Our IQ is (possibly) fixed, so the only thing we can do is to be grit.

Then how about curiosity? What's the relationship of curiosity and IQ?

20210508 - Distracted by talent

"We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources." - William James. (p22)

How to win Nobel Prize? My answer is:

1. The IQ needs to be above 120;

2. Keep the question in mind all the time, and work hard on it for at least 20 years;

3. Luck.

How to get rich? My answer is:

1. The IQ needs to be above 90;

2. Keep the desire in mind all the time, and work hard on it for many years;

3. A little bit of luck.

Talent is important, but it's not necessary to succeed in life, and it's not necessary to have happy life. 

Society/schools/companies/friends seriously overweight the importance of talent.

I believe that long term goal and time management(grit) are the key, for grit people to beat talented people.

20210510 - Effort counts twice

Angela Duckworth believes: Talent * Effort = Skill, Skill * Effort = Achievement

Why do we believe that other people's success come from genius? So we don't need to blame ourselves that our mundane life is because we don't want to study/work harder. Those genius know that their success is based on 1% genius and 99% of sweat. Thomas Edison said that 1% genius is critical. I think he was wrong. That 1% genius is actually not genius, it's luck. Luck is more about probability. If we keep trying it, then sooner or later, we will succeed.

And not just that. How to choose skill/direction? Many people have no clue what career they will love, and then they stuck there and have no idea what to do.

Or, they chose the wrong one, such as hydrogen car. They may waste decades on it, and then realized that's dead end. Only a lot of reading can reduce this probability.

If we don't know what to do, we should do something that is definitely correct. Such as physical exercise, diet, and read a lot of non-fiction books.

20210511 - How gritty are you?

Grit is like the laser which pointing to the same direction for long time. Focus and strong and stable for long time. That's how we break through something.

Identity is the ultimate goal. How long we can focus on this goal, together with the length of the laser(capability), and the right direction of the laser(perception), decide our final achievement.

Then how about habit? Good habit reduces the time we wasted, and need less willpower to focus on the high priority tasks.

20210515 - Grit grows

Interest: I am bored.

Practice: The effort isn't worth it.

Purpose: This isn't important to me.

Hope: I can't do this, so I might as well give up.

Grit improves with our age. What we need to do, is to accelerate this procedure.

Part II: Growing grit from the inside out

20210521 - Interest

How to choose which career worth trying? 

1. Reduce the scope by our certain personalities.

Do we like talking to people, or do we prefer to work alone? Are we more optimistic or more pessimistic?

Apart from that, we also need to understand the world. Ourselves is part of the world too.

2. Try different work in the chosen scope.

We need to try it to understand it more, then we can figure out whether we really like it.

3. Try harder

We need to understand it more from different angles.

What if we have to work hard on something (in short term) we don't enjoy? Try to turn it into a game. We can create illusion in our mind. ( "Barking Up the Wrong Tree" by Eric Barker, chapter 3. "Do Quitters Never Win and Winners Never Quit?" )

20210524 - Practice

To learn playing violin is like building a pyramid ("The Art of Learning" by Josh Waitzkin). We need to know how many bricks are needed. Their shape, size and the location of each one. Practice is to build these bricks and then put them together. Each brick represents a weak point.

If we don't know exactly what bricks are needed, then it's not deliberate practice.

How to do deliberate practice?

1. A clearly defined stretch goal (identity, including many layers of goals)

2. Science. Know what need to do to reach the goal.(perception)

3. Full concentration and effort (action)

4. Immediate and informative feedback (action, ignore negative feelings, be more rational)

5. Repetition with reflection and refinement (capability)

6. Make it a habit (capability)

Can I apply these tips to Meditation?

How to improve the efficiency of deliberate practice?  Elon Musk: make a 5 year goal, then try to reach it in 6 months.

"It's all about in-the-moment self-awareness without judgment. It's about relieving yourself of the judgment that gets in the way of enjoying the challenge." (p141)

No pain, no gain. Where does the pain come from? Most of the pain are just our illusion. Embarrassment, shamefulness, frustration, desperation, stress.......these are pure illusion. If we want, then they don't affect us.

Struggling could be great.

What's the difference between "Flow" and "Tranquillity(meditation)"?

20210525 - Purpose

Spirit is at pure gene level. Identity is between gene and psychology level.

These two levels are not related to our own benefit.

Three bricklayers are asked:"What are you doing?"

The first says, "I am laying bricks."

The second says, "I am building a church."

And the third says, "I am building the house of God."

The first bricklayer has a job. The second has a career. Third has a calling.  (p149)

The purpose needs to both benefit "self" and "others".

Keep the purpose in mind all the time. Think about how to get closer to it in every daily routine and every work task.

Role model which demonstrate us what the purpose looks like, helps a lot. That's why "biography" is so important.

20210528 - Hope

Suffering without control leads to desperation, and then giving up. So, "hope" is about "control".

Don't worry, don't pray, move! No matter what, don't stay there waiting, do something!

"When you keep searching for ways to change your situation for the better, you stand a chance of finding them. When you stop searching, assuming they can't be found, you guarantee they won't." (p178)

"Man's Search for Meaning" is wrong. Grit give us more chance to succeed, but it doesn't give us meaning. Here, the "meaning" is "identity", the long term goal, something much bigger than ourselves.

"Growth mindset and grit go together." (p181)

Growth mindset -> optimistic self-talk -> perseverance over adversity (p192)

Asking for help doesn't mean giving up. It tell people that you are not going to give up.

Part III: Growing grit from the outside in

20210529 - Parenting for grit

Wise parenting = supportive + demanding (p212)

Both supportive and demanding mean "attention". Need to pay a lot of attention to the children to guide them.

After that, it's about "model". We need to show the children those guidance is not just words but practical, and works!

These should work, because there are so many examples. However, we don't know whether it's "Survivorship bias".

20210531 - The playing fields of grit

Whoever can stick to some extracurricular activities for more than 2 years, has much better chance to complete their college study. This is easy to understand. However, why some people can do this, and some can't?

This is more like the tip of iceberg, but I want to know more about the underwater part. How much is this grit related to gene? Is it possible that somebody don't have grit ever with wise parenting?

Grit is half natural, half learned/developed. Why can we learn it? Hope Doesn't Float, It Swims

Grit is the key against "normal distribution".

The Hard Thing Rule, family rule: (p241)

1. Everyone has to do a hard thing. (measurable)

2. Cannot quit on a bad day.

3. Pick the hard thing by yourself.

4. Starting from high school, each hard thing needs to last for at least 2 years.

Yes, it's about spare time. It's about how to get good habit to avoid wasting our spare time, in the rest of our lives.

20210602 - A culture of grit

Identity is not just about long term goal. It answers the fundamental question: who am I?

If someone believes he/she is smarter and grittier than other people, he/she is more likely to succeed. This is more important than "perception". Correct perception doesn't guarantee success, because if people don't believe they can succeed, then they are not used to try hard, so they are more likely to fail.

See a good chance to make money in stock market doesn't mean it's easy to make money. The question is, how good this chance is? How risky is this investment? For someone with confidence and correct perception, he/she will be more likely to act based on their objective analysis.

Identity is like hypnosis. It changes our thinking and behavior drastically and unconsciously. Long term goal is more likely the further result of identity confirmation.

Environment is catalyst. Some good habit may look weird in bad environment. If everyone else have luxury oversea trip every year, it's hard to avoid it. Or else, people nearby will look you down. If everyone else work/study hard, it's much easier for us to work/study hard. From this point of view, selective school is better than private school.

From another angle, the speed of improvement is always about "think ahead, think hard". When a group of people aim at the same target, and all "think ahead, think hard", they will improve much faster than single person.

Multiple rays of laser are much stronger than single one, if they all aim at the same target. They help each other to learn faster. But, if they are not aiming at the same target, they may distract each other. One person "think ahead, think hard", cannot beat many people "think ahead, think hard".

How would different people aim at the same target? If they have same identity. Then they would have the same long term goal. Tesla's master plan is the long term goal. Elon Musk list it out so everyone can aim at it.

Companies more likely use "money" to attract people to aim at the same target. But different people have different understanding about "money". When other company induce the current employees with more money, it's hard for them to resist, because "money" is their target. But money is meaningless, when it is above certain threshold. People don't know that they should not focus on money directly. Great leader can point that out, and set up a real meaningful target for the employees.

How to think objectively? It's better to treat ourselves as machines. Machines don't get distracted, and they are not cheated by illusions easily. We can face our psychological weakness directly, if admit that our body are just machines. What should we do? What do we want to do? What do we choose to do? We will make the right choice if we know that we are just machines.

=======

https://www.lawyersmutualnc.com/blog-drafts/unc-soccer-rules-coachs-rules-for-soccer-and-life

https://jpoletti.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/core-values.pdf

1. We don’t whine. "The true joy in life is to be a force of fortune instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy." (George Bernard Shaw)  (p257)

2. The truly extraordinary do something every day. "Roosevelt, more than any other man living within the range of notoriety showed the singular primitive quality that belongs to ultimate matter, the quality that medieval theology assigned to God:  ‘he was pure act." (Desmond Morris) 

3. Make your experience rich, valuable and deep. "[B]roaden your mastery of one or more important subjects that will go on deepening your understanding of the world, yourself and the people around you." (Reynolds Price)

4. We work hard. "The difference between one person and another, between the weak and the powerful, the great and the insignificant, is energy – invisible determination . . .  This quality will do anything that has to be done in the world, and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities will make you a great person without it." (Thomas Buxton)

5. We don’t freak out over ridiculous issues or live in fragile states of emotional catharsis or create crises where none should exist. "What an extraordinary place of liberties the West really is . . . exempt from many of the relentless physical and social obligations necessary for a traditional life for survival, they become spoiled and fragile like over bred dogs; neurotic and prone to a host of emotional crises elsewhere." (Jason Elliot  An Unexpected Light:  Travels in Afghanistan)

6. We choose to be positive. "Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance . . . in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person (you are is) the result of an inner decision  . . . therefore, any man can . . . decide . . . that (this) last inner freedom cannot be lost." (Viktor E. Frankl)

7. We treat everyone with respect. "Class is the graceful way you treat someone even when they can do nothing for you." (Doug Smith, Manager 1986)

8. We care about each other as teammates and human beings. "No man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main . . .  any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." (John Donne, For Whom the Bell Tolls)

9. When we don’t play as much as we would like we are noble and still support the team and its mission. "Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death.  Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.  The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity – even under the most difficult circumstances – to add a deeper meaning to his life.  It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish.  Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal.  Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him.  And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not." (Viktor E. Frankl)

10. We play for each other. "People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care." (Note given to me by Rakel Karvelsson, UNC ’98)

11. We are well led. "Not long ago, to ‘believe in yourself’ meant taking a principled, and often lonely, stand when it appeared difficult or dangerous to do so.  Now it means accepting one’s own desires and inclinations, whatever they may be, and taking whatever steps that may be necessary to advance them." (William Damon)

12. We want our lives to be never-ending ascensions, but for that to happen properly our fundamental attitude about life and our appreciation for it is critical. "Failing to feel grateful to those who came before is such a corrosive notion, it must account at some level for part of our bad feelings about the present.  The solution—a rebirth of thankfulness—is in our self-interest." (Gregg Easterbrook, The Progress Paradox)

=======

"Success is never final; failure is never fatal. It's courage that counts.", by John Wooden  (p264)

"Compete in everything you do." (p265) 

"(Always) Reach for your best." (p266)

"No whining. No complaining. No excuses. Be early." (p266) = "Think ahead, think hard."

Motivation/incentive is the first step, then coaching. Needs someone to explain what he needs to do. He needs a plan. He needs help in figuring out those next steps." (p267)

[20220413]

In West Point, old tradition had been replaced by new tradition. People use "creative mode" replaced "survival mode". When people team up and understand the purpose of their activities, they got GRIT.

20210605 - Conclusion

We can grow our grit and IQ.

Duckworth care more about identity, capabilities and action here, but this book missed "perception".

20210607 - Afterword - SEVEN QUESTIONS I GET ASKED ABOUT GRIT

How to fight with temptations of mobile phone? Priority. We should only relax after important things are done.