The first part of Angela Duckworth's Grit:  The Power of Passion and Perseverance is titled What Grit Is and Why It Matters.  In one of the more intesting chapters, Duckworth addresses the old nature-versus-nurture argument. The nature-nurture question is a very basic one.  We have an intuitive sense that some things about us - like our height - are pretty much determined in the genetic lottery, while other things - like whether we speak English or French - are a result of our upbringing and experience.  "You can't train height" is a popular expression in basketball coaching, and many people who learn about grit want to know if it's more like height or more like language.

Likewise, we learn, as novelist John Irving did, that "to do anything really well, you have to overextend yourself," to appreciate that, "in doing something over and over again, something that was never natural becomes almost second nature," and finally, that the capacity to do work that diligently "doesn't come overnight."

First comes interest.  Passion begins with intrinsically enjoying what you do...With enduring fascination and childlike curiosity, [gritty people] practically shout out, "I love what I do."

Next comes the capacity to practice.  One form of perseverance is the daily discipline of trying to do things better than we did yesterday.  So, after you've discovered and developed interest in a particular area, you must devote yourself to the sort of focused, full-hearted, challenge-exceeding-skill-practice that leads to mastery.  You must zero in on your weaknesses, and you must do so over and over again, for hours a day, week after month after year.  To be gritty is to resist complacency...

Third is purpose.  What ripens passion is the conviction that your work matters.  For most people interest without purpose is nearly impossible to sustain for a lifetime.  It is therefore imperative that you identify your work as both personally interesting and, and at the same time, integrally connected to the well-being of others...

And finally, hope.  Hope is a rising-to-the-occasion kind of perseverance...but hope does not define the last stage of grit.  It defines every stage.  From the very beginning to the very end.  it is inestimably important to learn to keep going even when things are difficult, even when we have doubts.  At various points, in big ways and small, we get knocked down.  If we stay down, grit loses.  It we get up, grit prevails.

I have to say, in sorting through all of the stories that the author tells and the interviews she conducts, I find this listing of the process to be easy to understand.  Coming from an educator's point of view, I can share that process with my students.  But as simple as the definition is, the process is definitely not as easy.  For example, how does a teacher get a student interested?  Is it a matter of students seeing the teacher's exuberance for a subject?  That has to be a part of it. If I were writing a book about grit, specifically aimed at education, I would add a section about the myths perpetuated by teachers.  Those myths, in my opinion, include some of my Professional Pet Peeves, and you can read about some of those here: Stop Being Friendly Stop Giving Handouts Stop Making It Fun Stop Silencing the Children

The four psychological assets of interest, practice, purpose, and hope are not You have it or you don't commodities.  You can learn to discover, develop, and deepen your interests.  You can acquire the habit of discipline.  You can cultivate a sense of purpose and meaning.  And you can teach yourself to hope.

...[M]ythologizing natural talent lets us off the hook.  It lets us relax into the status quo.  That's what undoubtedly occurred in my early days of teaching when I mistakenly equated talent and achievement, and by doing so, removed effort - both my students' and my own - from further consideration. This, from the third chapter of Angela Duckworth's book, Grit:  The Power of Passion and Perseverance, is how many people (teachers) think.  I have seen people equate naturally successful students with successful teaching.  The kid comes into the classroom, racks up some high test scores on day one, and the teacher gets the credit.  Actually, the kid who doesn't naturally score high, but succeeds after hard work might be more of an educational achievement.

...[W]hen you consider individuals in identical circumstances, what each achieves depends on just two things, talent and effort.  Talent - how fast we improve in skill - absolutely matters.  But effort factors into the calculations twice, not once. Effort builds skill.  At the very same time, effort makes skill productive. Duckworth likes to tell stories in this tome.  She tells of soldiers, swimmers, entrepreneurs, and actors.  Later in this chapter, she draws upon rapper/actor Will Smith.  I was particularly impressed by this quote from Mr. Smith: The only thing that I see that is distinctly different about me is:  I'm not afraid to die on a treadmill.  I will not be outworked, period.  You might have more talent than me, you might be smarter than me, you might be sexier than me.  You might be all of those things.  You got it on me in nine categories.  But if we get on the treadmill together, there's two things:  You're getting off first, or I'm going to die.  It's really that simple.

I would add that skill is not the same thing as achievement, either.  Without effort, your talent is nothing more than your unmet potential.  Without effort, your skill is nothing more than what you could have done but didn't.  With effort, talent becomes skill and, at the very same time, effort makes skill productive.

...I began to reflect on how smart even my weakest students sounded when they talked about things that genuinely interested them.  These were conversations I found almost impossible to follow:  discourses on basketball statistics, the lyrics to songs they really liked, and complicated plotlines about who was no longer speaking to whom and why.  When I got to know my students better, I discovered that all of them had mastered any number of complicated ideas in their very complicated daily lives.  Honestly, was getting x all by itself in an algebraic equation all that much harder.

For years, several national surveys have asked:  Which is more important to success - talent or effort?  Americans are about twice as likely to single out effort.  That same is true when you ask Americans about athletic ability.  And when asked "I you were hiring a new employee, which of the following qualities would you think is most important?" Americans endorse "being hardworking" nearly five times as often as they endorse "intelligence."

...And to All a Good Night!

Why were the highly accomplished so dogged in their pursuits?  For most, there was no realistic expectation of ever catching up to their ambitions.  In their own eyes, they were never good enough.  They were the opposite of complacent. And yet, in a very real sense, they were satisfied being unsatisfied.  Each was chasing something of unparalleled interest and importance, and it was the chase - as much as the capture - that was gratifying.  Even if some of the things they had to do were boring, or frustrating, or even painful, they wouldn't dream of giving up.  Their passion was enduring.

In sum, no matter the domain, the highly successful had a kind of ferocious determination that played out in two ways. First, these exemplars were unusually resilient and hardworking.  Second, they knew in a very, very deep way what it was they wanted.  They not only had determination, they had direction.

It was this combination of passion and perseverance that made high achievers special.  In a word, they had grit.