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True Grit, a Successful Life, and Great Accomplishments


clip_image002True grit!  Charles Portis introduced us to it in his classic novel, and John Wayne brought it to life in the film by the same name: an aging, hard-drinking U.S. Marshal is hired by a young girl to bring her father’s killer to justice because that marshal has “true grit.” How does she know? He’s tenacious and undaunted by obstacles, has a longstanding passion for his work, and persists until the job is done. The pursuit of the killer is complex and dangerous, as these things often are – and, yes, the marshal gets his man!

True grit makes for a great story and blockbuster movie. Turns out, it also makes for top performance and a very successful life.

clip_image004Psychologist, researcher, and MacArthur “genius” grant winner, Angela Duckworth, has done ground-breaking work on what leads to high achievement.  Her book, Grit, offers a refreshing look at the issues, and her findings should encourage us all!

The secret to world-class achievement, according to Duckworth, is not talent, genetic make-up, or high IQ. Focused, passionate, and purposeful persistence makes the difference – and that’s a strategy open to anyone.

Our culture is obsessed with genius and natural talents, but you can’t be distracted by that. You need to look behind great work and see its true origin. Hard work!  Effort, according to Duckworth’s research, is twice as valuable as talent or genetics in explaining extraordinary outcomes.

clip_image006Even Einstein attributed his success to it: “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

Elizabeth Gilbert tackles it in her liberating treatise, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, and calls it her “stubborn gladness” – get up, get going, keep working, keep learning, and do it all with unending curiosity and joy. Focusing on the journey is way more important than the destination!

To be clear, having talent is an asset! Natural talents can start you on a road to discover your deep passions and get you far. Talent also offers a clue to how quickly you will learn and master the basics of a new skill or interest.

But talent alone won’t get you to the top of your game. For that, you need grit.

Duckworth has isolated three important components of grit: passion, persistence, and purpose. Let’s look into all three. Each has subtle features beyond the everyday meaning of the words. You’ll want to understand those and add them to your bag of life and career tricks.

Passion: Passion at the heart of high achievement is multi-dimensional. It is part personal interest – we are always willing to work at things that we enjoy and feel good about. It is also sustained attention, rooted in our experiences, and deepened and developed over time through intentional effort and connections.

This kind of passion is life-orienting. It takes time to find and nurture – and it will ebb and flow. No one feels passionately inspired or clear in direction every day. The trick is to identify an interest that you are willing to invest your amazing energies in – maybe something you keep returning to again and again in your dreams or choices – and get working. And work hard!

clip_image008You may have found your daemon – your life’s calling. If that’s true, strengthen and put it to good use. Maybe you haven’t. That’s OK, too. At least you’ll have learned something new about yourself, the world, and how to build a sound work ethic – all of which will serve you well in your continuing search.

Benjamin Bloom’s edited collection, Developing Talent in Young People, illustrates three stages of skill development and suggests how you can find and nurture your own passion over a lifetime. Each stage outlines different activities and supports needed to progress. Bloom labels the stages as early, middle, and later years.

Duckworth sees each stage informing one of her three vital components of grit: early years focus largely on discovering one’s passion, the middle years on persistence and how to learn, and later years are a time to broaden one’s personal interests with larger social meaning and purpose.

So, let’s begin at the beginning. How are lifelong interests found? How do they transform into life-guiding passions?

Early stage skill development is a playful taste of life and its possibilities – a time to discover and test possible interests and to develop some basic mastery. This developmental work is helped along by supportive others, exposure to new and multiple experiences, and opportunities for autonomous experimentation and fun happenings. At its core, the early stage is a relaxed discovery of self and of areas you might want to more deeply embrace. Individuals progress with the help of encouraging teachers, mentors, and coaches. The activities are enjoyable and individually rewarding. And you’ll get enough experience under your belt to make an informed decision about whether to commit or move on to something else.

A good way to understand this stage is to think about sampling a variety of sports or musical instruments so you can decide which you’d like to spend more time playing.

Persistence: Middle stage is the time for “deliberate practice,” not just more of the same approach used earlier for basic mastery. This is the real deal in skills development – and a stage I wish I had understood more clearly years ago!

There is an old Japanese saying that roughly translates as fall seven, rise eight. “Deliberate practice” embodies that ethic.

You will need tenacity, perseverance, and willpower to sustain your skill improvement in the face of frustration, obstacles, fears, tedium, and setbacks. In fact, if things are going too smoothly, you may not be challenging yourself or practicing deliberately enough. You can expect basic satisfaction and pleasure from improving your skill – even moments of ecstasy and “flow”[1] when something comes together suddenly or in new ways. Those, however, can be few and far between.

“Deliberate practice” is not glamorous: it is roll-up-your-sleeves determination and toughing-it-out through plenty of monotonous repetition for the sake of learning and improvement. Think about the talented Chicago Bulls player Michael Jordan spending hours and hours alone in the gym shooting foul shots!

“Deliberate practice” has a very specific set of rules, and they go something like this:

1. Isolate a skill area that is a current challenge for youPick a small part of the larger whole and make it something foundational for success or progress.  An aspiring concert pianist, for example, might choose a passage in a piece that requires unusual left hand agility and speed; a basketball player, shooting three pointers from the left corner line; a writer, a strong query letter; and so on.

2. Set and clearly define a stretch goal. Perhaps you want to play the piano passage without mistake daily on a first try for a week, or shoot 60% during every basketball practice for a month. 

3. Give the chosen goal your full concentration and work, work, work on it.

4. Figure out where you are falling short and fix thatBe pleased with what you are doing well; however, more importantly, be proactive and seek feedback from experts about what you are doing wrong. If not, you’ll solidify bad habits and hardwire your brain for current weaknesses.

5. Continue the cycle of repetition with reflection, feedback, and refinementWork as long as you need on your one, chosen skill.

6. Identify when you have reached your stretch goal, set another, and begin the “deliberate practice” cycle again on your new chosen flat spot.  

Neuroscience explains why “deliberate practice” works. Humans are born with a vast potential to develop in response to environmental challenges. To over-simplify, it all has to do with the myelin sheaths that insulate your nervous system and allow any part of the body – brain, abs, biceps, etc. – to develop in response to intensive use, deliberate experiences, and repetitive practice. Mother was right: practice makes perfect!

Purpose: Personal interests take on new meaning and purpose when they contribute to the well-being of others and the world in Bloom’s later stage of development. We are hardwired as social beings, and human survival has always depended on the work of many. All of Duckworth’s “gritty” high achievers saw their personal passions mature into something useful to the world which fueled their efforts further.

Music, for example, fosters global understanding and peace to superstar cellist YoYo Ma. Anthropologist Margaret Meade studied South Pacific island culture, yet her autobiography describes her work as bringing new understandings of human behavior and gender to the world. Sister Helen Prejean’s ministry to the poor included becoming a pen pal with a convicted killer, sentenced to die in the electric chair. Her learning from that relationship led to a book, Dead Man Walking, that took her humble death row ministry to the world stage.

And I could go on, but you get the point. There is exhilaration, increased motivation, and sheer beauty in finding the sweet spot where one’s life passion contributes to a larger good!

clip_image009Got grit? You don’t need to be a household name – or even aspire to fame – to do great things that matter to the world or those around you. You just need to know what you really want to do and get on with it – and work with focus, determination, persistence, and passion!

You have everything you need to succeed within you. Don’t let fear or false beliefs about genes or talent or anything else hold you back.

The world is your oyster when you apply your true grit. 

I have no doubt that you have greatness within – and the true grit needed to set it free. Do you? So, what will your contribution be?

[1] M. Csikszentmihalyi (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: HarperCollins.

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Be Informed: Embracing Compassion Requires Understanding It

You must not hate those who do wrong or harmful things; but with compassion, you must do what you can to stop them.

— Dalai Lama XIV

Compassion heals the compassionate soul and creates a world in which we can come together across our differences. How can we increase our personal capacity for compassion and make it a fundamental virtue in love and work?

Understanding its meaning and purpose is a first step: common misconceptions will get in our way.

Compassion does not mean feeling sorry for people, nor does it ask us to invite the world’s suffering into our living room. Compassion is attunement to others with the hope that through our intentional interactions with them, their suffering lessens.[I]

Compassion at its core is inviting others into our circle of life: offering to understand them and working to be open and generous in spirit even when we disagree with what they do or believe. Ah, there’s the rub: maintaining a kind and open heart is a challenge for the best of us in the face of hurtful or egregious actions. Anger is easier when we feel vulnerable, hurt, or powerless. Anger, however, has its costs.

In our book, Engagement: Transforming Difficult Relationships at Work, Lee Bolman and I assert that compassion is a pillar of successful engagement in the world and required for the kind of interactions that resolve complex social problems. We add the adjective “informed” to underscore that compassion is not denial, collusion, or even forgiveness – horrific or criminal acts may be difficult or even impossible to ever forgive.

Informed compassion is an authentic expression of human connection, a willingness to walk in another’s shoes if only a few steps, and an unyielding belief that all can learn. That learning only happens through willing engagement.

The Dalai Lama, the world’s symbol of compassion, sees compassion as self-serving with added benefits to others and society at large:

Compassion is what makes our lives meaningful. It is the source of all lasting happiness and joy. And it is the foundation of a good heart, the heart of one who acts out of a desire to help others. Through kindness, through affection, through honesty, through truth and justice toward others we ensure our own benefit. This is not a matter for complicated theorizing. It is a matter of common sense. There is no denying that our happiness is inextricable bound up with the happiness of others. There is no denying that if society suffers we ourselves suffer. Nor is there any denying that the more our hearts and minds are afflicted with ill-will, the more miserable we become.[ii]

Neuroscience and the study of human physiology also confirm that compassion for others is good medicine for us. It interrupts cycles of thought that hard-wire our brains for needless pain and anger. It can release destructive emotions and stress that predispose us to a host of health issues – from anxiety, depression, disturbed sleep, and an increased risk of heart attack to adverse physiological changes in our chromosomes that signal cell aging and death.[iii] Medically speaking, embracing compassion is high-level self-care – the best “unselfish selfishness”[iv] around.

Practicing compassion takes, well, practice! Research shows that compassion can be learned. We can train ourselves to be realistic yet non-judgmental and to see what’s happening yet assume the best until consistent data confirms otherwise – and even then, we can train ourselves to respond first by changing how we relate to others so as to try another way to bring out their best.

Practicing compassion may also require learning to say no with grace and yes more often. That may seem counter-intuitive. It is not. No is the word we use to protect ourselves and to stand up for all that matters to us. It can anger others and destroy relationships, so we often say yes when we really want to say no, say no poorly, or say nothing at all. Strategies for delivering a positive no, according to negotiating guru William Ury[v], attend to both clear and authentic communication and relationship maintenance.

The comedy world of improvisation reminds us that yes, and[vi] is a way to validate and build on what others have initiated and a way to explore new alternatives – foundational strengths in problem-solving and teamwork.

As when learning any skilled behavior, we will need instruction in how to if we ever plan to improve our game and a commitment to practice.  The same is true with compassion.

Compassion includes four basic steps: (1) recognize suffering in others, (2) acknowledge it, (3) set an intention to do something, and (4) take an action. Which step is most challenging for you? Start there.

Angela Duckworth’s research in her path-breaking book, Grit, reminds us that skill building comes from “deliberate practice” of the identified component of skilled performance with which we struggle most. Honest feedback from others on how we are doing helps, too.

Dr. Amit Sood outlines nine practices to strengthen compassion skills.[vii] It might be easier for you to begin your study by choosing one from his list:

1. Recognize that difficult behaviors in others may be a call for help. Respond with kindness and assess what difference it makes.

2. Delay snap and negative judgments: try to walk in others’ shoes and acknowledge the urgency driving some important unmet need for them.

3. Remember that no one chooses to suffer or behave ineffectively. Work to resolve the puzzle of what’s happening for the other.

4. Be grateful for your good fortune and all you have – and let your gratitude fuel your problem solving capacities.

5. See yourself in others’ mistakes: the journey they travel today is one you may have traveled before or will in the future.

6. Pay it forward: perform acts of kindness – and if you can, forgiveness; do something good and forget it!

7. Act with humility: act to help, not wow! Act to engage and understand, not control!

8. Recognize the difference between fear and caution: caution is rational, fear shackles.

9. Move toward others: lean-in in simple ways counter to your desire to move away.

Set out to deliberately practice it over a determined period of time, and then assess how well your efforts are improving the quality of life for you and others. Go slow to avoid compassion fatigue[viii]! You must gradually build up your capacities to stand with, but not take in, others’ emotions.

Onward! I have confidence you’ll soar.


[I] Amit Sood (2013).The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-free Living. Boston, MA: DaCapo Press, Chapters 12, 13, 14.

[ii] His Holiness the Dalai Lama (1999). Ethics for the New Millennium. New York: Riverhead Books/Penguin Putnam.

[iii] Amit Sood (2013). Ibid, p. 216

[iv] Amit Sood (2013). Ibid, Chapters 13, 22.

[v] William Ury (2007). The Power of a Positive No: Save the Deal, Save the Relationship, and Still Say NO. New York: Bantam.

[vi] Kelly Leonard and Tom Yorton (2015). Yes, And: Lessons from The Second City. New York: Harper Collins.

[vii] Amit Sood (2013). Ibid, pp. 133-145.

[viii] William A. Kahn (2005). Holding Fast: The Struggle to Create Resilient Caregiving Organizations. New York: Brunner-Routledge.