Transcript
This isn't your average business podcast, and he's not your average host. This is The James Altucher Show. Today on The James Altucher Show. When should I quit? This is the question for everybody. Do you quit when, the going gets tough? Do you quit when you're no good? Or how do you know when you're no good? Do you quit when it's frustrating or too frustrating? This is a big question that I'm constantly grappling with. Because whenever you try to get good at something, most of the time, you're going to be bad because that's the nature of getting good. Like, you're always trying to get to the next level, whether it's a business, I mean, I wanna improve revenues. Whether it's a a sport, I wanna beat people who are were originally better than me. Whether it's an artistic endeavor, like, I've been painting for years and nobody likes my paintings. Or or it's a podcast, like, nobody's listening or they're listening, but I'm not growing anymore. I used to grow exponentially. Now, nothing. When do you quit? Well, I had the pleasure today of talking once again with Angela Duckworth, author of Grit, which is all about when you combine passion with perseverance, you get grit and that is a key ingredient for success. But when does grit when do you have to just sort of turn around on grit? When does grit run out? Or when does grit actually suggest you should quit? Well, we talk about grit. We talk about effort. We talk about what if you have multiple passions. We talk about many things. We start off talking about quitting. Plus, maybe some of Angela's past not taken for various reasons, related to grit. So here we go. Angela, I wanted to ask about there's grit and perseverance and pursuing your passions on the path to success, which leads to happiness and all these good things. But when do you know when to quit something? When should you not persevere? I think my last year piano was around 6th grade. I had this teacher, missus Durst, who would, you know, show up and, like, every week, I I would sight read my lessons for missus Durst. So even after playing for, I don't know how many years, by the time I got to 6th grade, I was terrible, and I quit. And that was a very good decision because the world does not need another mediocre piano player from New Jersey. And I put missus Durst out of a lot of suffering, I think, when I quit. So that's quitting for the right reason, I think, which is I didn't wanna do it anymore. And it was a very consistent decision. So I wasn't flip flopping at all. And, you know, the day I quit, it was just like joy. It's like I could hear the angels singing in heaven. Everyone was happy. I think the wrong kind of quitting is when you're quitting out of a kind of myopic, like, a need to relieve immediate pain. So, like, you wanna go out for track, you do go out for track, and then you lose your 1st race, and it's humiliating. And you say, I quit. Right? Or I remember taking my daughters to ballet when they were really little. And, you know, they'd be fine going on like, like a rainy day, but they didn't wanna go on a sunny day because like, on a sunny day, they wanted to, like, go out to the playground and play instead. And I think quitting because like, oh, today, I'd rather go to the playground. That's not a reflective decision. So I guess the moral of the story is, I think quitting is very often the right thing to do. But I do think we very we very often quit for the wrong reasons, which is to relieve immediate pain. But let's say you're passionate about tennis, and you love it so much. And then you enter in a tournament, as you suggest, you win against the beginners, and you feel like I've got talent at this. I'm gonna keep going. And then in the next big tournament you play in, you you lose. And you're like, oh, this is I'm the worst. This is horrible. And you're suggesting that is not a good reason to quit. Well, it's if it's not a reflective decision. Right? So so one of my favorite thinkers is this philosopher named Harry Frankfurt, and he's, I think, most famous for writing this very short, little book, like, slimmer than your pinky called On Bulls**t. Oh, I remember that book. Right? I mean, yeah, he's he's kinda he was, like, one of the few philosophers who, like, made it into the public awareness. But he wrote another, even more, I think, important essay, and it was called On the Freedom of the Will. And I think in this essay, you have the answer to your question. So Frankfurt said, you know, we have lots of wants. You know, like, I wanna eat a bowl of ice cream. I wanna itch this mosquito bite. Like, I you know, I wanna talk to James. Whatever it is that is on our long list of wants, they are what we desire. But we also as human beings, and I think he would argue uniquely as human beings, like pigeons can't do this, dogs can't do this, and maybe even primates other than human beings can't do this. Like, we have second order desires, like that which we want to want. So you wanna scratch your mosquito bite, but you kind of wish you didn't want to scratch a mosquito bite because you know, you know, this is, like, not helpful and might scar or whatever. So so I think for somebody who's about to quit something, of course, you want to quit it on the day that you say out loud, like, I quit. Right? Do you want to want to quit it? And I do think that, Frankfurt was right because, like, that is the will. That is, what it means to be a human being who's able to make choices, not only to do what we want, because any animal does what they want, but to have second order desires. And and I think, you know, much of life is trying to align our first order desires with our second order desires. So we're not fighting ourselves all the time. We're not like, oh, god, I guess I'll have the salad, but I don't really wanna like, oh, god. I guess I'll have the salad. But I don't really wanna have the salad, but I want to want to have the salad. But I guess I would I mean, the, like, a life where what you want is the same as what you want to want, to me is, like, really the ultimate in well-being. So, you know, one thing you said about the piano, though, you gave you gave really two reasons why you quit. 1 the second reason was you weren't enjoying it. You felt like when you decided to quit, you felt like the heavens opened up, the angels were singing, and that seemed like a good reason. But the other reason you gave was the world doesn't need another mediocre pianist. And that I question because not everyone has to be the the best in the world at something to enjoy a passion and to to wanna continue to be good at it and and do it and so on. And that goes for not just skills, but, like, entrepreneurship. Like, the world doesn't need another pizza restaurant, but, you know, many people enjoy making pizza and wanna make a living making pizza. Yeah. Well, that'll probably beat you. You're right. That's a very astute observation. In my story, there are probably 2 motivations. 1 is that I didn't enjoy it, and the other was that I wasn't, you know, like, Juilliard level. Like, I wasn't I wasn't I wasn't getting any feedback that I was like, wow. I'm really great at it. And I think you're you're saying that, yeah, the first reason makes a lot of sense. You know, you don't do it. Don't do it. But, like, why quit things just because you're not gonna be, you know, or something. So I think in that second motivation, I'm betraying something which I now know to be true of myself, which is that I'm very ambitious. And I don't say that proudly. I say that almost shameful. I mean, not not like I think it's a terrible thing to be ambitious, but, it's just me. Like, I don't like to do anything, James, unless I can do it really well. But it's not a rule that I would make for everyone. I think it's just like a preference that I have. But, no, I don't like to do things that I kind of like, yeah. You know, she's okay. And if like, I'd rather just, like, not do it. I feel like I'm the same way. And the reason I asked that question and the reason I I noticed that is because I have the same tendency in myself, and I often question whether this is a good thing. Because it's so easy to get disappointed in yourself if you wanna be the best in the world at something. And when you're on that learning curve where you're everything's you're learning really quickly or at the beginning of the learning curve, It feels so good because you're learning new things every day. But when it starts to plateau or even sometimes when things get difficult, you know, you you go down, you go up. It starts to be a little bit more volatile. You're you're learning and your growth. That's the time when it's very difficult to persevere. And it seems like you have to have more intrinsic reasons for wanting to do like, take a podcast for instance. Okay. I love doing a podcast. Love talking to people like you and learning things. That could be reason in of itself to do a podcast. But, you know, sometimes there are some months you look at the numbers, and they're going up a lot, and some months are just sort of flat. And let's say 2 months in a row are kind of flat, the number of downloads you get, you feel like, oh, well, what's happening? Am I not as good anymore? Am I not getting better? Am I what's the point if I'm not growing or if what I'm doing is not getting better? And I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Like, is it can is sometimes a good enough reason that the growth is over, so you're not getting that huge dopamine satisfaction of of, you know, climbing a steep learning curve. Well, do you feel like you get better every, you know I don't know, But this is too high in order. But, like, do you do you get better every podcast? Like, do you, like, do you every episode, do you are you constantly and this is different from the numbers. Right? Like, are you getting better? Do you think? Well, well, that's a good question. So regardless of the answer but you also mentioned the word feedback. Like, when the when you're getting when you're not getting feedback that what you're doing is the where you wanna be, like you mentioned about piano, why continue if you're not getting that feedback of of that you're gonna be a Juilliard level, player? How important is feedback in the decision to to quit or not? Well, you know, I'll say what what I think is true even if it, like, isn't what I wish it were, which is I think what's true about pretty much all of us is that we just love positive feedback. I mean, we just love the idea that, you know, things are going well and that things are gonna go even better in the future. I mean, Adam Smith said that it is human nature to seek praise and to be praised and to be praiseworthy and to avoid blame and to being blameworthy as Adam Smith put it. Right? So so, you know, I don't know anybody who doesn't respond to encouragement. I think what I was asking you is they're your podcast numbers. It's like writing a book. Right? I don't know that anybody can guarantee that they're gonna write a bestseller. But you can actually have some sense that, like, you have written an excellent book. And maybe if you write more than one book, not something I intend to do, but like most authors, like they write books, not book singular. I guess my question is, you know, is your second book for you? Maybe not the numbers, maybe not the sales, but but for you, do you feel like the second book was a progression? You know, because I think that's actually what I I wasn't for me, by the way, quitting piano was mostly because I didn't like it. I just I am not that musical. I don't even listen to music. I'm like, you know, not interested in music. But I do think the quality that I see in the people that I study, who are gritty and who are high achievers, is that whether there's an external barometer or not, they are always seeking to improve. And they don't really like doing things unless they're improving. And in addition to that, they really do wanna be world cla*s. Like, they just they just really don't wanna have, like, a balanced life with, like, you know, 4 things that they're sort of good at. But, you know, there's tons of people who are better at them at all 4. Yeah. So it's it's like 2 components. 1 is, do you feel like you're improving, and the other is, is the feedback from the world agreeing with you? And and and sometimes, like like with writing writing's, let's say, the activity that I've pursued for the longest amount of time. And sometimes, you can measure it by, well, how many people read it? How many people commented? How many people, quote, unquote, liked something? But often, the articles I write where I feel the best about them are the ones where it didn't really go neither here nor there in terms of feedback or likes or whatever, but I knew it was good. And that's when I feel the best. 2nd best is when the world responds appropriately. And if if the world's not responding and I don't really feel good about it, like, the quality of the writing, then I start to think about What about what about both? What what about when you think, like, I hit it, it was awesome, and the world is like, yay, James. Go. That's Yeah. That's the best. That's the best. Yeah. Right. And and But there are these 2 different metrics. Right? And they're not always lined up. Right. And and, like, the same goes for, like, performance. Like, let's say, doing comedy. Sometimes the crowd will laugh at everything, but I'll get off the stage thinking, you know, I was just rehashing material. I was just doing easy tricks to get them to laugh. It wasn't really that good. And other times, they'll just stare at you, and you feel horrible, but you also feel good about how you're doing it. It just happened to be you were trying to serve sushi to an audience that wanted barbecue. It just didn't wasn't the right fit. And so so, but but, like, I'll I'll tell you, like, when when Steven Dubner and I were doing, this podcast together, we kinda quit at the point when we just felt we weren't doing anything new. Like, the the numbers were not the numbers were good, but they were not growing that much. And we didn't feel like we enjoyed it as much anymore. And so that that I thought about that a lot because that seemed like a good time. Why did you just try to make it better? I guess we either didn't have the interest or the tie you know, I guess that's part of it too is how much did we really start planning? Like, hey. Something has stalled in either the quality or the marketing or whatever. What can we do? And we just didn't feel like having those discussions. So I guess there's this third quality, which is, you know, what's your cost. Yeah. And what's your internal motivation to what's your internal motivation to pay a higher cost versus other activities that you're doing? Because we're all involved in in we all have a choice to pursue many different things. And so the reason I'm asking all this to you is where's the role of grit in this? Because at some point, grit should also tell you give you the right signals, you grit until you quit. Yeah. I mean, look. I think that the misunderstanding, which is understandable about grit, is that, like, you persist at everything at all cost. Right? But sometimes to be gritty about your top level goal, right, like the thing that you're ultimately trying to accomplish, requires, of course, quitting. Right? So I will tell you that I've had graduate students who didn't work out. Right? What am I gonna do? Stalk them and, like, you know, hunt them down, try to get them to, like, come back to my lab and, you know, like, keep working? And, no, like, for a variety of reasons, like, it didn't work out. I quit, they quit, we quit each other. Right? I think my nonprofit character lab, there was an aspect of it that I really wanted to do, which is like help children thrive using psychological science. And there's another aspect of which, which I was not very good at, and I really didn't enjoy. By the way, those things are usually correlated. Right? Like, I'm not very good at it, and I don't love it. And that was managing people. I I actually had a second order desire to manage people. Like, I wanted to want to manage people. Like, I wanted to want to sit down with someone and review the last month and and, you know, with in a very empathic way, in a very wise way, like, you know, lay out a road plan for what they could do next to improve. I wanted to want to do that, but I could never get myself to actually want to do that. So I, in a way, quit managing well, I did. I quit managing people, but I didn't quit the whole organization. Right? So now my job is to do things like this, right, which is have conversations, you know, right, to talk. So I think there's a lot of quitting in grit. But I think the the real difference between, you know, quitting for the right reasons and quitting for the wrong ones is that, you know, when I said, you know, I don't really like managing people, I'm not very good at it. I'd like to do less of that and more science and more communicating. It was a reflective choice. You know, I understood my wants. I understood my want to wants. You know, I figured out, like, you know, what I wanted to do, and then I did it. That's very different from the kind of impulsive desire to relieve pain, you know, like like, this isn't this is terrible. I quit. Like, that's that's very different. I think if we can make a distinction between, you know, quitting on a good day as it were and quitting on a bad day. Right? Quitting on a good day and usually quitting for the right reasons. So, but you mentioned the words want to want. You know? So this is something you did want to get better at and and enjoy. Isn't that, like, an indicator that maybe it's worth applying a little bit more, you know, thinking into, well, should I do it anyway? My warranty order. Yeah. Right. Kind of like, I want to want to have a salad, but I want a cheeseburger. So should I try to should I try to get my salad, want to want to beat the cheeseburger one? Isn't isn't that a a grit thing to do is to to pursue the one to 1? It depends on your top level goal. Right? So so here's where opportunity cost comes in. Right? I was like, well and and I think honestly, if I had not seen any alternative, right, I was like, look, you're gonna have to just learn how to there are many things that everybody has a job that that comes like it's like a relationship, right? It comes with all its parts. And there are some that you can't eject. Right? And if it were the kind of thing where it's like, you know what, you want this nonprofit to survive, like, you literally have to manage, there's no other way, then James, I would have done it. And I would have done it. And I would have like, done what I always do is like, work really hard. But I found this just way easier alternative. So there's a guy, his name is Sean. Sean loves managing people. He loves seeing people develop. He loves sitting down like literally every month. Can you imagine? I can't. Like, like, so you know, what are the high points of level? Like, where do you see your developmental? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I wanna like chew my left arm off. So it was just easier to get somebody who was interested in and good at managing people to do that. So if you can outsource something, I think you should when you don't wanna do it or delegate it. Is there there are things you can't. Right? So when you're married to someone, you can say, like, wow, I love everything about you, but I don't like this part. You can't, like, kind of outsource being married to that part of that person. Or there might be just, like, otherwise, like, you know, like, essential elements of your work. Yeah. And don't you think that most writers would say that there are aspects of writing that they just it's like the it's it's like the lowest lows, right? Like the most torturous, you know, if you can't outsource it, then then you do have to do it. I just think in this case, I I was able to juggle things so that I could race my strengths and not have to train my weaknesses. Yeah. Like well and, you know, you mentioned writing, like, everything about writing 90% of the things about writing are very unpleasant. You have to just sit sit for hours at a time, which is not a natural thing to do. You have to type these tiny letters, like, you know, so much that I mean, our hands are not built for it. Everybody gets carpal tunnel syndrome who writes multiple books or articles or essays, and you you don't get to socialize, and it it takes hundreds of hours or thousands of hours to write a book. And then you spend all this time in a book. What's the odds that out of the 2,000,000 books published each year, you're gonna be one of the 100 bestsellers? Like, they're infinitesimally small. So it's a very unpleasant activity, and yet people do it for many reasons. And you can't outsource most of those things. Right? Like, some of them you can, but maybe most of them you can't. And what you can't, you know, eject or delegate or outsource if you really because that's why I say, like, it depends on what you want. Right? If if what you really want to do is, you know, just it makes this part a necessity then and I I think it also changes what it feels like to do things where you're like, you know what? There's really no choice. I think we feel most tortured when we have some intuition, some second sense that, like, you know, somebody else could be doing this. It's not, like, uniquely that I have to do this. And so how much, like, when you when you in terms of when things have a cost, it's you mentioned opportunity cost. So you're investing time or money, usually significant time. You're you're you're investing effort. This is what you mean by opportunity costs. And whenever you invest something, you also have to take into account risk and have a plan b if things don't work out. So for instance, if you start a major activity, you're gonna start a new lab or a major project with a bunch of research students, and it may or may not work. Your the results you want may prove to be insignificant or not what you were expecting or whatever. How how much is having a plan b part of constructing a goal towards getting better at something, learning something, or whatever? There is debate both in the scientific literature and also just in the world at large about whether it's a good thing or a bad thing to have a plan b. Right? So you will find arguments and evidence on both sides. You know, evidence for having a plan b, like a backup plan, you know, like, flexibility, creativity. Like, there's this whole idea in in goal research of, equifinality, which is this fancy word for, like, there's more than one way to skin a cat. I know it's a cool word, equifinality. And I'm thinking of the work of this, like, really great psychologist. He's so great. I I'm actually a little intimidated to reach out to him, but I I made it a New Year's resolution to send him an email. Ari Kruglanski. And he studies goals. And and and one of the things that is true about goals is that, you know, there are different ways to achieve a goal usually or often, or you can think of them. Right? And that's equifinality. And, you know, when you have that as a reality, like, it could just be that, like, you're you're gonna not do one path because there's, like, another path, which is better or easier. And then there are other goals where, like, there's just only one way. Right? Like, I mean, say say you're Usain Bolt. Right? And you have scoliosis because that is true of Usain Bolt, right? The fastest human being who has ever lived had like an orthopedic issue, which is like pretty serious and I have scoliosis. So I will tell you, like, there's all kinds of things that happen with like having an asymmetric spine that you would imagine would be kind of like a deal breaker for somebody who's trying to be the fastest human being who ever lived. And it did create like additional problems for him, which he then had to compensate for. But, you know, Usain Bolt cannot outsource the kind of, like, abdominal work and strength training that he needed to do to compensate for scoliosis. He just had to do it. And so I think if we understand what we're going for, in some cases, we'll see, like, these multiple paths open up. We're like, wait. I could hire somebody to do that. Holy smokes. There's a there's a bot that does that. Like, I can hire, you know, 2 people to do that, but you can't hire someone to do your abs workout if you're Usain Bolt. So, like, it depends on what you want and then some reflection about, like, are there other ways that I could be doing this? But I I think that's why grit isn't just like, oh, persist at all costs. Right? Like, oh, never quit. Like, that would be the butter knife version of grit. But, really, you know, we should use it as a scalpel. So I guess, you know, despite him having scoliosis, he must have had I don't really know too much about his story. I didn't know, for instance, he had scoliosis. So he must have had this, like, burning desire somehow to just run and over everything else. Like, what what gave him his his grit in this case? You know, I haven't interviewed him, actually. So I'm gonna be modest and, you know, somebody on your side can fact check my, like, school. I I'm I'm very interested in his well, I'm interested in anybody who's like him. Right? He did, though, like, lots of interviews where he talked about, like, another thing that he probably, at some points, liked more than running, and that was cricket. Like, he really loved cricket. I think he probably thought it was, like, a lot more fun. I mean, first of all, it's a game. Right? Like, I don't know if running the 100 meter is, like, fun in the same way that, like, playing cricket with your team, beating other teams and keeping it like so, I do think there was a point in time where he had 2 roads diverge in the wood. You know? Do I take cricket as my path or do I take track? And you would have to ask Usain yourself. And if I ever get to interview him, I will ask him. But I think it was because he looked down these paths as far as he could see, and I think he did see that, he could be the world's greatest track athlete, which is what he became, or, you know, he could be a very, very good cricket player, but maybe not the best, or maybe he would be among the best, but not like so, so whether the scoliosis had anything to do with it, I'm guessing no. I think for many people, not everyone. Right? Some people wanna just do it purely on enjoyment. It's just like, well, I just think Craig's more fun. I was gonna have a good healthy career. And I I know for me, it it mattered a lot to me. But, again, that's because I think I have a strong preference to be, like, really good at what I do. And I I'm not saying that's an ethical choice. It's just like it's just it's like liking chocolate chip and ice cream. I mean, I I just, like, I just do. So not only really good at what you do, but acknowledged by a hierarchy that you're really good at what you do. It seems like that's part of the decision making a little bit. So and it might have even been with Usain Boltz. Maybe. I don't know. I think that's more of a guy thing, honestly. I mean, look, I I don't wanna speak out of turn because I don't wanna, like, make broad sweeping statements about gender differences. But but what I'll tell you when I was growing up, like, I of course, like, there's some, you know, feedback we get from the world. And so, like, you know, they're like there's there's, you know, you do care even if your internal barometer is more important. But I will say that for me, like, it wasn't that I wanted to beat other people or that I wanted to have, like, a lot of external affirmation. I I just wanted to know that I was, like, the best at what I did. And and I know that sounds like idealistic or whatever, but but I sometimes, like, sometimes I think it's like a guy thing to be like, yeah. But you kinda you need, like, this external acknowledgment. I don't know. I didn't I don't I don't it didn't feel exactly that like that, but I did wanna be excellent. And and how do you how do you measure excellence? Is it internal or against, again, against the hierarchy? Well, I think that any performer in any domain, and I mean, like, a performer meaning, like, anybody who's performing their job. Right? Like, has to, you know, have 2 ears, like, an ear to the outside world and ear to the inside world. So, like, I'm not saying that I was, like, not caring about, like, external feedback that things were going really well, but it it didn't feel to me like that was the only thing or the primary thing. Like, I know when so I'm not as prolific as you are as a writer, but I write every week. Right? I write every week for Character Lab. Right? So I send out this tip of the week every week. It's like 60 seconds of actionable advice for parents and and, and anybody else who is a young person in their life. And, when I write it, like, you know, there is an internal critic. Right? And, of course, the critic could be wrong, but, like, there are things that I know are good. And there are things where I'm, like, not as good. And to me, like, I'm looking for excellence according to my own internal critic, and I'm looking for progression. Like, if I'm just doing the same thing in 2 years, like, time from now, then, like, I'm gonna be very dissatisfied. Like, what the hell am I doing? Like, why is this not evolving? Right. And so and this was, like, a a a point of Anders Ericsson, who we discussed last time, is that you have to have metrics for measuring that progression. And some fields, that's difficult. For instance, you know, like managing people. There's some often, there's, there's not an easy metric because a lot of it depends on the industry you're managing the people in, the actual people you're managing, as well as your own personal style. So, or painting. You know, if you're a painter, you could feel good about what you're doing, but there's that's still a difficult metric to determine if you're actually progressing. If you're gonna endeavor to succeed at something, how important is it that you very quickly define the metric for success? Well, I think for Anders for Anders, it was important, first and foremost because he he wouldn't study it if there weren't an objective or, like, defensible metric. Right? So, you know, chess was great for Anders because, like, you knew exactly how good somebody was and you knew who won the game, and sports was good for Anders. And, I think I think that was in part because as a scientist who want to put world class expertise under the microscope, you know, he only wanted to put things under the microscope where he thought he could see something. Right? I think he fully acknowledged that there would be, you know, fields of study that, like or or domains of expertise where, like, it would be very hard to do that. And so as a scientist, he wanted to prioritize things that did have a clear metric. As an individual, because most people are not scientists who study expertise, most people are just humans who want to be experts at something. I think it's also important because without some external feedback, you know, I mean, look, we've all been to art galleries where you think to yourself, like, did someone think that was a cry? Like, that's horrible. Like, it's just, you know, I'm thinking of a particular painting right now. But, like, it's it's, I think I think this is why, you know, most athletes that I know, you know, even though, like, 90% of their attention is, like, in their internal critic, like them compared to themselves, like all that good stuff. Right? Where they're just trying to be on a journey of improvement or and and and some part of their attention, maybe 10%, like, is actually going to the score, is going to the rankings. Because without that discipline of kind of like anchoring yourself in somebody's, you know, estimation other than just your own private estimation, I think we we can sometimes go wildly off course. Right? Like, we think our writing is fantastic. We think our singing is fantastic. We think we're a wonderful manager. But if you never, you know, find out from other people, like, how's my singing? Like, how's my art? Like, do do people under me actually thrive? Like, you know, you you can go wildly wrong. You know, I'm not I'm not sure if we've talked about this, but I feel like this is where the Dunning Kruger bias actually plays a valuable role in grit. Like, when you begin something and you're quickly moving up that learning curve and you're getting this huge dopamine hit from that, you feel like you're a genius even though you're just a beginner. And so that's this bias that you think you're better than you are when you're you know, a little knowledge is a a dangerous thing is the is the cliche. But that's actually pretty valuable on the flip side towards being gritty. It keeps you going despite the fact that you might suck and not realize it. You know, the Dunning Kruger effect, which is, named after the 2 psychologists who discovered that, you know, people who are underperforming tend to overrate themselves. Right? So it's often that they're beginners, like, or not real begin like, people at the very, very, very, very beginning of things often have, you know, very pessimistic or cautious estimations of, like, how well they will do or, you know, like, how hard something's gonna be. But then once they get started, they're like, oh, right. Because they don't know what they don't know. Right? And so, yeah, they can be wildly overconfident about how they are currently performing or how they will end up performing in the in the overall rankings of things. So, it's usually the more seasoned players who have, like, a more sober and, accurate estimation of of how things stand. So there is this kind of, like, a little bit of knowledge can be a curse thing. I think the part of this research or this, like, you know, insight into human nature that can be practically useful for people who want to be gritty in the sense of, you know, devoting themselves to something that takes years years to, make progress on and and to, you know, to, like, just keep at it. Right? Assiduously trying to improve is that, I do think we we we need encouragement. Right? So so if it's not the thrilling, like, oh my gosh, you know, I went from skiing a blue to a black diamond. Okay. Now I can you know, you don't expect that every day. But I do think the part of this research that we can take home as a a practical insight is that human beings need encouragement. How am I gonna get encouragement? Right? And and and you have to learn to get that hit of like, wow, I see some progress in in very micro doses. Right? So so if you even if you just make a tiny little advance I mean, honestly, I think that if people could, could set for themselves the goal of, like, making some progress, like, some non zero progress on literally any aspect of their performance, but to do that every day, like, that is a pretty sound recipe for becoming great at things. Like, you know, you don't have to worry so much about, like, did I get better at the right thing? Like, maybe I could have improved it. Like, maybe I could have gotten, you know, 2 x better instead of, like, 1.5 x better. But if if you really literally improve on something every day, you know, in 10 years, you're gonna be great. Like, I'm a teacher. Right? I'm a professor. You know, I could work on lots of things. Should I work on my, like, one on one student relationship? Should I work on my curriculum? Should I work on my assessments? Should I work on my syllabus? Should I do a better job lecturing? Should I not, you know, like, assign so many readings? I mean, what am I gonna improve on? You know what, James? It doesn't matter. As long as I'm improving on something every day without a break, in 10 years, I will be a much better teacher than I was today. And I see very few people who have that kind of, you know, disciplined routine where they are quite literally improving on something every single day. Yeah. I think the discipline routine part is important because take a game like like chess, which you mentioned that, you know, was a a very convenient Right? Or is it backgammon or is it? No. No. Chess is chess is my original love. Oh, okay. Got it. And and and I was in some of the early nineties, Anders, experiments on chess. What? Yeah. And Wait. Hold on. My mind is being blown. What? I didn't know that. Yeah. It was it was, you know, some people scientists he was working with, like, De Groot and, Ferdinand. Wait. You were in those studies? I didn't know. I was in the one where, it's amateur master, grand master memorizing positions for 5 seconds, 30 seconds, a minute. Wait. Which level were you? I'm master. So Holy shmoly. So I'm so impressed, James. So so it was it was interesting because you you know, the he the the experiment sort of proved that there's no prodigious memory advantage that chess players have. It's it's more like they the the master and the grand master memorizes these language of chunks, and grand master's specific Yeah. To the chest specific skill doesn't mean that you're gonna be, like, good at memorizing recipes or something. Right. Or if they showed you random a random chess position that didn't come from a legal game, then Yeah. The grand master was no better than the amateur. Yeah. And so that was the the end result of the experiment, which is valuable towards learning because it means how do you structure your learning? So you're learning chunks instead of you know, you it changes the way you learn. But, you know, I I see a lot of people who just play mindlessly every day just And they're not getting better at some point. They're just like just play more chess. It's like playing more tennis. So the invention of computers to study the games afterwards is is very important. That's how you do this, let's say, 1% improvement a day, which leads to, you know, compounded as whatever this means, 37 100% a year. You like you say, you get to be great much greater if you just improve a tiny bit each day, and most people sort of forget that because it's it's just tiny improvement. So people it's an easy thing to forget. You you you could tell, I'll do that tomorrow. Today, I'm just gonna play. Yeah. Yeah. And it's always harder to do the 1%, right, which is, just interviewing Carrie Walsh Jennings. You know, she talked about, like, becoming a better and better volleyball player, you know, looking to go to her probably last Olympics. Right? But, you know, her career has been record setting, and it's like she lives by the rule of 1%. Right? It's she's not trying to get, like, 10% better. It was just like, but can I do things 1%? But, like, one thing even, like, can I do this thing 1% better than I did the day before? And I know that makes it seem small, which, by the way, is a good way to frame it. Right? Now you're not trying to do something necessarily heroic every day. You're trying to do something consistent every day, but that 1% is always gonna be harder than 0%. Right? So so how many people are Carrie Walsh Jennings? Like like, not not that many. And I think in a way, understanding that she's trying to get 1% better should make it more democratic. Right? Should make it more accessible for the rest of us. So, yeah, I I think that, what really happens is that what, or what often happens is that there's, like, a short burst of intensity where people try to get 25% better. So, like and then and then they just stop. I I had a postdoc once who was named Pete Mindel. So he's now a professor at West Point, but he, you know, was, in my lab after getting his PhD, and he had, been an undergraduate track star at Stanford. So we were doing all these research studies on effort and, you know, developing a frustration task to assess, you know, tolerance for frustration. So I just said to him it was like one late night who were, like, working on this paper. And I was like, don't you think that people, like, don't try hard enough? And he was like, you know what? I think people try too hard. Like, what do you mean, Pete? And he said, like, when you think about runners, right, when people start out and they're like, I'm gonna join track or I'm gonna start my they they go all out and then they and they try too hard as it were. And then it's like exhausting. And then they just, like, never run again. Right? Or they never run hard again. But but, really, the secret is to try consistently and to set a pace for your training and your improvement, which is sustainable. Yeah. And it's very relaxing to think of improvement in those terms. It's because, like, if you trust the process, however you measure 1% because in some fields, that's difficult. Like, how do you get 1% better at painting every day? But, like, if you trust the process, you're going to get better. If you truly improve 1% a day, which is doable in almost every endeavor, you're going to get better, whether you're disappointed in yourself now or not. About the 1%. How about this? Like, let's make it 0 or 1 off or on. Right? Do I think you know, when I when I do an honest accounting of my day when I go to bed, you know, did I did I, you know, try to like, you can even set the bar like this. Did I try to do one specific thing better? How did I do? Honestly, if you go to bed every night and say, you know what? Every day, when I put myself to to bed, I can say that I I had identified consciously one thing that I was working on during that day, at some point for any amount of time, and that I was at least trying to get better. You know, I I I think that's a near guarantee of somebody who's gonna be making progress. And I think it's much easier to just, like, go to bed without doing any of that, and and, certainly, to wake up the next morning and not to set that intention. So was there ever a time where, like, all research aside, was there ever a time you could look back on and there was an area you were passionate about? There was all the ingredients for you to be you know, to have grit and pursue it and persevere and and so on where you just didn't. And you you you were disappointed in yourself or something, and it was it was just you just didn't follow through. Yeah. I I would say my senior year in college, what I am sort of disappointed myself, but not not entirely disappointed, which is, that I was a neurobiology major. I was doing research at the medical school that was kind of down the road and across the bridge. And so, you know, a couple times a week, I would, like, you know, get myself there, and I would be working on it was on Alzheimer's disease. So it was, like, you know, looking at these very thin slices of human hippocampus that we were staining for this protein called spectrin. And I was trying to figure out whether this protein had anything to do with the onset and the development of Alzheimer's. And, you know, I was just a college student, so it wasn't like I was about to win the Nobel Prize. But, there were these findings about, like, you know, this protein and its isoforms and the dendrites versus the axon. And, I mean, I remember it. It was, like, you know, like as if it were yesterday. Right? And and, and I think they were certainly, like, important. And by the way, bottom line was, like, not really, not so much. Spectrum was not the, you know, the core reason why people develop Alzheimer's, but still an interesting and important scientific finding. Now I had a choice. I could have written that up and tried to, you know, pursue that and get, like, you know, highest honors in my major and graduate summa and also, like, go down this path of becoming an MD PhD who would hopefully unlock the mysteries of neuropathology. And I didn't. And the reason I didn't was that I was spending most of my time my senior year, raising money for a nonprofit summer school for kids. And so I had this tension between, you know, what I was trying to do in my extracurriculars and what I was doing in my academics. And and there was, a road not taken for me. And then, you know, the road was really not taken because basically, the farther I went down the path of education, the the more implausible it was that I would, like, go back to what my dad really wanted me to do, which is to become like a medical school professor. And so do you do you ever feel disappointment that you didn't continue that research? The reason why I said, like, I'm sort of disappointed is that I realized that I probably could have, you know, done more at least in my senior year. Right? Like, you know, I didn't graduate summa cum laude. I didn't get I was like, I I would say that the reason why it's like really tepid disappointment is that, I love what I do now. And I think I have the wisdom of a 50 year old to say, you know, like, you can't do everything in life. You know, like, there was also like a a little part of me that wanted to be a food writer. Right? And when you asked me what I read when I go to bed at night, I don't read psychology journals, like, the minute I'm about to fall asleep. The thing that's on my nightstand is food writing. Like, I just read Ruth Reichl's, like, the 7th book. I've read, like, everything Samin Nosrat's written. Like, I've, I read the food section of all these newspapers. I don't even go out to eat or, like, make these. I just I really love food writing. Now that's a road not taken also. But I'm 50 now. I'm not 30 or 20 like, I now recognize that, like, that's life. Life is, like, mostly roads not taken, and, I'm happy to be on the road that I did take. But, you know, what would it look like? I'm this I'm really fascinated by this. Like, people like you say, you're 50. A lot of people after a certain age doing something for a certain number of years, they reach this plateau in what they're doing, and they have a choice. They can switch to another hierarchy and and experience that fast learning curve again. It doesn't matter if you're 20, 30, 50, 70. What would it look like if right now you decided, you know what? I've done what I can in academia. I love it, but I also really I don't wanna let this life go away without really pursuing this other love I have, food writing or or cooking or whatever it is. Like, what would that look like if you were to to pursue that now? So okay. I wanna I wanna answer your question, James, but I also wanna give you the alternative to that. Right? Because I'm not choosing that. But but I know what you mean. I mean, if you look at, for example, like, Academy Award winning actors and actresses, they often, you know, in their 4th decade of being, like, great at what they do in their ultimate they actually do something different. They they they could, you know, like, start over and become a restaurateur or a painter. Right? But, I think, for example, Winston Churchill, like, you know, decide when he retired from civil service, basically painted. Right? And I think so did George w Bush, if I'm not mistaken. Right? I actually saw some of his paintings and kinda liked them. Anyway, so, so I think that's one choice. But the other choice that you often see, for example, Academy Award winning performers, in film do, is that they become directors or they become producers. And so that it's not exactly like starting completely over from scratch and a new professional together, but it's like an evolution. And I would I would argue that, for for me, right, like, I, you know, why am I on a podcast with you? And why do I do this podcast with Steven Dubner? And it's it's it's it's a way of, like, evolving as a psychological scientist who cares about communicating science. And so it's it's like my goal hierarchy isn't completely swapped out for a new one, but more like with recognition of what my high level goal is, I can, like, kind of find, you know, a better path to it or additional path. So there's evolution, but there's also starting over entirely. If I were to start over entirely, I think there is a road not taken for me, which is like to have a bed and breakfast. Like, when I was growing up, there was that miniseries hotel with Connie Celica. And, like, it was very eighties, and it was Yeah. I kinda remember it. Do you remember it? Oh my gosh. I loved it. I remember the opening sequence. I remember the music. I mean, you know, it was like a miniseries soap opera. So so so nothing remarkable there, except for that when I watched it, I was like, I'm gonna be a hotel manager. And I actually applied to hotel management school, at Cornell when I was, you know, a graduating high school senior and didn't take that path. But I could start over. I could be like, well, I've done a lot in psychology. Now I'm gonna open a bed and breakfast. Like, now I'm gonna make huevos rancheros. Right? Like, I could. And I think for my thirties, and maybe, you know, some part of my forties, probably not. It just it was a little bit of a daydream where I was like, yeah, that might be fun. But, where I stand now, like, I I would much rather evolve, in my current goal hierarchy and try some, you know, other equifinality type paths, to get to my higher level goal of using psychological science to help kids thrive, then, you know, experience the thrill of beginning a new learning curve. It's it's it's interesting because I often do the the road not taken, which is I mean, would you say stand up comedy for you was like starting over? Yeah. Because let's say I started that 5 or 6 years ago. So I was in my late forties, and nobody starts in their forties. Like, that's something you start with when you're 14. I think it is actually a totally different thing, right, than, like, what you than I mean, you could make like, you could draw a line between that in writing and stuff, but, like, would you say it's pretty much a different thing? It's totally a different thing. And I thought it would be similar, but there was nothing similar at all. So then you unpack your motivation, and are you glad you did it? And and and why did you do that? And not not choose to just, like, evolve. I thought it would be an evolution, so I thought I I rationalized and thought this is gonna be an evolution. This will make me better in some ways at what I'm already doing. And maybe it did a little because the the process of getting good at something is like a meta skill, and so I got good at that meta skill of getting which I'm able to apply to learning. Yeah. But and and also learning at a at a higher age, which deals with there's some site there's a lot of psychological issues with that as well. Like, you're you're an outsider. You're always an outsider. You're never gonna be an insider. Everyone's always gonna be skeptical. You're always gonna speak with an accent. Yes. Exactly. So there's no there's not really many good things about it other than there's not gonna be a career for me in it, or it's gonna be very difficult to have a a a career the way other people have. So why did you keep doing it? Why? At at that point in the narrative, I would have been like, oh, I'm done. I love it, and I'd still try to rationalize and say it's helping me in other ways. But more recently, I've kind of thought, you know, it hasn't helped me as much as I thought. And if I had spent all that time, for instance, starting a business or doing something in finance, because I've also have have a career in that, then I would have had a a lot more money, for instance. So what what like, what are you supposed to be famous for? So, like, you know, I met you, like, as as as, like, kind of more of a friend. Like, I and I remember I was, like, googling something, and you came up as, like, a LinkedIn influencer. And then I was like, wait. Do I even know who James is? Like, what what what is your main thing? I don't know if I have one. I've been and I've started businesses that I've sold successfully. I've been a successful investor. I've been written a bunch of best selling books. I've do this podcast. I do comedy. I do other things, play chess. You you're like a contradiction to my my thesis, which is that you have to really devote yourself to something and and not be a dilettante and not spread yourself too thin. But, like, I think you might be contradicting then my my, claim here. Maybe yes or maybe no because I have thought this about myself too. Am I too much of a dilettante? So I never really get to be the best in the world at something Mhmm. Even though that could be a desire of mine. Every time I'm interested in something, I only wanna do it if I could be the best in the world, like what you were saying about yourself earlier. But it's very hard to make that happen if you switch interests every 8 years, say. Yeah. And, because, you know, it takes longer than that to be the best in the world. So the writing is the thing that I've done the longest, but being interested in other things helps writing because, like, you can combine experiences. Right. Yeah. You can it's like sort of like it's like when journalists tell me. It's like if I ask them to answer the grit scale and it's like, you know, new interests, you know, like, take me down new paths, kind of thing. Like, they're like, yeah. So what it means to be a journalist, like, you know, things have beginning, middle, and end, and then you're on to the next project. But there's a through line. Okay. So this might be rationalization. But do you think there is a through line for for James? Like, is there kind of, like, look, if you really wanna understand me, like, what all these things that superficially seem totally different, and in some ways are different. Right? Like but there's something that I can come, like, you know, I love complex problem solving or, like, they're all about human nature or they're all about, like, the written words. I mean, maybe not. But, like, is there do you think there's a through line? Do you have a center? And I've I've I've thought about it a lot. I don't know. I think there's some aspect that's like games. So chess obviously is a game, but investing is a game. It's the it's the same type of game as as chess or poker. It just happens to be in this, domain that pretends it's not a game. You know, comedy is like a game in the sense that, you know, you have to come up with more interesting wordplay and ways of describing things than the other competitors around you. I don't know if, I'm maybe I'm pretending that's a game or not. I don't know. But, also, there's another line, which is, writing and comedy is also a form of performance. So it's it's it's you're entertaining people. You're educating people too, but you're entertaining them. And so there's some combination between games and entertainment that is somehow But that doesn't explain investing or, chess game. And and, so Oh, okay. Right. Games yeah. But you can't make everything exactly fit Yeah. I can't make everything intersection of those things. Right? Yeah. And so maybe there's some intersection between games and and writing, but I and and perform and entertaining, but I don't I don't know it yet. So are you happy? How how happy are you on a scale from 0 to 10, where 10 is like my brain is exploding with ecstatic joy, and 0 is like I am the depths of depression. Well, let me ask you. How important is that? How important is the answer to that question? Yeah. Because you could be passionate about something, but be miserable most of the time. Like, so for instance Well, you answer my question first, and then I'll answer your question. Don't think I think I'm I'm a roughly happy person, but sometimes, I'm not very happy at all because I'm not performing. You know, there there might be times where I'm not performing so well. Phrase it this way. How overall satisfied are you with your life? I'm pretty satisfied with my life. Let's say a number. Let's say, like, an 8 or a 9. Jeez. That's pretty that's a lot. Yeah. 8 or 9 on a 0 to 10 scale. But every now and then, I think, well, what if I had just stuck with this thing I started when I was 21, whatever that was? Like, what if I had just stuck to one thing? So maybe that's why you're not a 10. That's that that's probably why I'm not a 10. But then again, you see many people who are unhappy who did stick to the one thing Yeah. And then end up That's why you're not a 0 either. Yeah. Like yeah. Or even a 7. Right? And I That's a very interesting answer. But then sometimes I take a step back and say, well, by man on the street standards, I'm successful at many of these things I've tried. But by my standards, I'll look at someone let's take chess. I'm a master, but there's a hundreds of grandmasters out there. So they I suck, and they're great. And, now compared to 99.9% of chess players, I might be great. But to the ones I look to, I suck. And, and so then I think I'm just mediocre at everything I do. Even though, again, by man on the street standards, I've written these books. I've done I got a popular pie you know, all these things I'm successful at, I don't consider it success. And so on that level, I'm not so happy. Interesting. Okay. Very meta. So and I know we're coming to the end of our time. We all seem to run out of time even though I feel like I've devoted more time to being on your podcast than any other podcast except for my podcast. And I appreciate it. I've learned I've learned quite a lot from talking to you. Yes. So Okay. But let me end with this. Right? So just to bring it all back to Frankfurt, maybe there is, how am I doing? Right? Like, in terms of what I want, like, how am I doing in terms of my ambitions? So that's, like, a first level question. And then there's, like, how am I doing with how I'm doing? Kind of like a second order question Yeah. Of satisfaction. And, you know, I think that they both count. And, you know, really, if we can get to a point where there's some alignment there, like, you feel pretty good about how you're doing, but that you feel pretty good about how you feel good about that. You know what I mean? Like, at at that you don't have a lot of internal conflict. So for me, I would say, to answer the question just for myself, I am very often dissatisfied with the quality of my work, how the last lecture went, you know, the progress I'm making, you know, how I'm mentoring students. But I'm also at a meta level at the very same time, pretty satisfied with being unsatisfied. So, like, I I have a kind of second order, like, repose, even if at the first order level, there's all this distress about, like, pretty much everything in my life not being the way I want it to be. And so in this case, like, I think that, you know, even more than alignment is what matters is that like my second level happiness, like, yeah, I'm doing well with how I'm doing even if I don't feel like I'm doing well enough. I'm feeling like a I don't know. I'll give it a a 9. I I think that that second order thinking is is valuable, and, also, it's a way of broadening the field until it encompasses all the different activities you're doing. So if you can't be a bed and breakfast owner, you could you could still be, have a lot of knowledge about cooking and hospitality, and you could feel that, okay, as long as I keep getting better at a more general broader domain, and and it fits in studying, like, how does someone get better at cooking, now you're getting back into grit, and it all kind of fits under our bigger umbrella. Yeah. I don't I don't spend a lot of time, you know, pining after my bed and breakfast, you know, the the unrequited dreams of a bed and breakfast entrepreneur. But there's a a certain grit factor in betty being a better cook, for instance, that could be studied. Sure. Yeah. And I can study them, which which is its own, and for me, better gratification. But I like the second order stuff, and I know you have to go. So, Angela Duckworth, thank you for part 3 of the grit concept episode. Yes. The trilogy. And Angela trilogy. Yes. It's been very fun, which is probably why we keep talking. But thanks, James. Yeah. Thank you.
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