Grits were on the menu Tuesday morning as the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship hosted their annual fundraising breakfast in downtown Seattle, drawing hundreds of leaders in business, politics and education to discuss how hard work, determination and perseverance oftentimes trumps raw skill.
The breakfast raises money for students in Washington state who are pursuing degrees in science, technology, engineering and math, the majority of whom are the first in their families to attend college and 57 percent of whom are women. (GeekWire is a partner with WSOS, raising money for the organization through our Geeks Give Back campaign this fall).
Delivering the message of grit — over grits — was none other than Angela Duckworth, the professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and best-selling author of Grit. Duckworth offered some insights on grit, taking the stage after remarks from Gov. Jay Inslee and telling the more than 900 in attendance why hard-work is so darn important to human development.
“Talent and effort are not the same thing,” said Duckworth, who has advised politicians, CEOs and sports stars over the years, including Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll who embodies the characteristics found in the psychologist’s research. “And you really do need both to create any complex human skill, be it acting, be it playing football, be it running a large global corporation. Talent times effort yields human skill.”
Emphasizing that point, Duckworth used a video of comedian and actor Will Smith, who said the only thing that makes him different is that he refuses to be “outworked.”
“I don’t care how talented you are, I don’t care how easily things come to you, in what you have chosen to do,” said Duckworth. “Talent does not immediately convert into skill, into mastering something, unless you summon forth high-quality, high-quantity effort.”
In other words, Duckworth noted that “effort, in my book, counts twice.”
So, how do you cultivate grit?
Duckworth offered this first piece of advice: “Children, and grown ups, don’t do anything with passion unless they are interested in it…. Interests are not discovered as much as developed with experience.”
In many cases, interests germinate over a number of years, and only develop when they come with real experience, she said.
Secondly, Duckworth said that young people need to learn the “science of practice.”
Kids often watch people effortlessly perform a skill on YouTube, thinking that they just naturally occurred. “What is hidden is the thousands of hours of clumsy, confused, one-step forward, two-steps backwards practice that is truly a hallmark of experts in every field that is studied,” she said.
Those who excel in certain fields do not let frustration bog them down when they fail in practice, instead using that to analyze and adjust how to move forward. Frustration should not be used as a sign that you can’t do something — say math or sports or computer — but instead a signal that you’ve just not yet mastered a skill. “That’s exactly how experts get to be so fluent, so excellent, at whatever their chosen craft is,” Duckworth said.
You can listen to Duckworth’s full talk here:
Duckworth’s presentation was followed by an amazing 12-minute talk by Mark Bennett, a Washington State Opportunity Scholar who emerged from homelessness to study mathematics at the University of Washington.
Hear his full talk — which brought laughs, tears and a standing ovation —and why Bennett embodies the philosophies supported by Duckworth.
