Angela Duckworth Quotes

It's a start. Let's continue, in the next chapter, to see how grit can and does change. And, then, in the rest of the book, let's learn how to accelerate that growth.

My longitudinal studies show these three virtue clusters predict different outcomes. For academic achievement, including stellar report card grades, the cluster containing grit is the most predictive. But for positive social functioning, including how many friends you have, interpersonal character is more important. And for a positive, independent posture toward learning, intellectual virtue trumps the others.

Of course, your opportunities — for example, having a great coach or teacher — matter tremendously, too, and maybe more than anything about the individual. My theory doesn't address these outside forces, nor does it include luck. It's about the psychology of achievement, but because psychology isn't all that matters, it's incomplete. Still, I think it's useful. What this theory says is that when 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. Let me give you a few examples.

My mission is to utilize my passion for computer science and machine learning to benefit society at large, while serving as an example of success that will shape the future of our society.

One biographer describes Darwin as someone who kept thinking about the same questions long after others would move on to different — and no doubt easier — problems: The normal response to being puzzled about something is to say,"I'll think about this later," and then, in effect, forget about it. With Darwin, one feels that he deliberately did not engage in this kind of semi-willful forgetting. He kept all the questions alive at the back of his mind, ready to be retrieved when a relevant bit of data presented itself.

Here they are: Talent is how quickly your skills improve when you invest effort. Achievement is what happens when you take your acquired skills and use them.

As any coach or athlete will tell you, consistency of effort over the long run is everything.

Talent x effort = skill. Skill x effort = achievement. 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.