Review of
Instaread Summary of Grit The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth
Three out of five stars
In this case,
grit is used to refer to an individual’s ability to accept a mistake, learn
from it and then continue to work towards their goals. The premise of the book
is to make the case that innate talent is less important than a willingness to
persevere through failures and disappointments. This is of course an obvious
point, provided one includes the qualification “for the vast majority of
people.” There will always be a wide spectrum of abilities in humans, those
with high, outlier skills on the right and those with low, equally outlier
skills on the left.
The key
takeaways are all high on the obvious scale. They are:
*) Talent is less important than grit for achieving
success.
*) The grit scale can quantify grit. It can be used to
predict success.
*) To cultivate grit, it is important to identify
one’s passions.
*) High achievers improve their skills through
difficult, deliberate practice.
*) Gritty people feel they have control over their
fate and that hard work can change outcomes.
*) In their parenting, adults should provide love,
support, and examples of passion and determination.
*) Children’s extracurricular activities encourage the
development of grit.
*) Gritty cultures or communities can create gritty
individuals.
The most
interesting item in the summary is the mention of a 2010 study of child
prodigies. Of 210 child prodigies studied, only six went on to having a comparable
level of success as an adult. Of course, a deep dive is necessary to fully
evaluate this study. If the child was a true prodigy, then their high level of
early achievement simply may have been the best thing that they will ever do. A
form of regression to the mean as one moves through life. Nearly all people
have a best professional achievement of their life, for prodigies, it just came
earlier.
While there are
points of interest in the summary, most of them are routine repeats of what has
appeared in many other venues. One can see that from the key takeaways, which
can be found in many self-help books.
This book was made available for free for review
purposes.
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