My dad was not super-intentional in his parenting. “Oh my God, my dad, I just don’t think he thought about it. It is tempting to think that Duckworth’s father – her parents were Chinese immigrants – used criticism to motivate his children. I knew that was what my dad really cared about.” “I do think that whatever ambition I may have had natively was amplified by my father’s clear valuing of it. “I mean, the question is, would I have done so well – so far as I’ve done – if my dad was just, like, ‘You’re great’!” She replies that she cannot know the answer, she can only reason. Or did she? Is it possible that her father’s relentless disparagement instilled in Duckworth the impetus to succeed? “That is an excellent question,” she says, and immediately begins to improve it. Three years ago, she won a MacArthur fellowship, commonly known as “the genius grant” – thereby proving him wrong on his terms and hers. And she has done it all while achieving everything – and more – he could have hoped for. She has scientifically dismantled her father’s premise, his coveting of genius, by proving the idea itself to be mistaken. He said, ‘Why would you want to be happy? I want to be accomplished.’”ĭuckworth claims “a rebellious streak”, but hers is not a classic tale of rebellion. “I said, ‘I think the meaning of life is to be happy.’ He looked at me surprised and puzzled. She recalls an argument, when she was 17, about the meaning of life. She left Harvard with the Fay prize for best female student, passed McKinsey’s notorious selection process before swerving to teaching – “Couldn’t you at least be a senator?” her dad pleaded – and from there research psychology, and Character Lab, a nonprofit she co-founded to advance the science and practice of character development.Īll along, she challenged her father, who worked as a chemist at Dupont. She went to Harvard, where she founded a nonprofit summer school for low-income middle-school pupils. The reaction has been Duckworth’s life’s work. “I had the sort of … I’ll show you … response.” ![]() “Instead of feeling discouraged, I felt the opposite.” Her voice brightens. “At one level, you’re a kid and you accept it,” she says of her father’s sniping, but she did register an emotional reaction: a silent, internal clench. But the most persuasive grit paragon, the one whose story is implicit rather than directly told – the book is social science not memoir – is Duckworth herself.Įvery family has its funny sayings, the private lore and logic that its members must negotiate. She calls the people whose inspiring tales she recounts “grit paragons”. These include the commitment to finish what you start, to rise from setbacks, to want to improve and succeed, and to undertake sustained and sometimes unpleasant practice in order to do so. Swimmers, chefs, army cadets, telesales executives … Duckworth examines them all, and what she finds is that natural talent – the genius prized by her father – does not make humans disposed to succeed so much as the qualities she sums up as “grit”. Subtitled The Power of Passion and Perseverance, the text is the fruit of years studying the psychology of success.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |