Loved this talk on “Leading with grit” by Angela Duckworth at the recent Norges Bank Investment Conference 2024. This is a particularly interesting topic for me given scouting gritty founders is one of the pillars of my venture strategy.

Some interesting insights from this talk:

1/ Definition of Grit

GRIT is sustained passion and perseverance for especially long-term goals.

Grit needs not just perseverance, but also passion for a long-term goal.

2/ Talent & IQ has NO correlation with Grit

Grit actually unlocks the latent talent of people.

3/ A nuance of the 10,000-hour rule

It’s not just the quantity of practice that makes a world-class expert, it’s also the quality. High-quality practice can be called “deliberate practice”. Low-quality practice will only take you to the plateau of “arrested development”.

4/ “Dropping out” can be valuable in certain cases

If you start something and with some practice, realize that you aren’t enjoying it, or that the opportunity cost is too high, or things are just not working out for some reason, it’s perfectly acceptable to drop out.

Essentially, mindless grit should be avoided.

5/ Three elements of deliberate practice

(a) Decide on a small sub-skill to practice.

(b) Practice with 100% focus (the opposite of “multi-tasking”).

(c) Feedback and reflection.

While the best at this practice alone, they also work with a coach to show them the results of their practice and get feedback.

6/ The hierarchy of goals

Important to have a top-level goal that is long-term. But then, this goal should be broken down into a set of mid-level goals that in turn, are broken down into extremely tactical low-level goals with a daily/ weekly cadence.

Leading with grit means being extremely stubborn with the top-level goal but highly flexible and agile with low-level goals.

PS: if you found this intriguing, check out one of the all-time best TED talks by Angela on Grit.

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