Book Review: Grit by Angela Duckworth

I had bought this book when it first came out but I had put off reading it since I was learning what was in the book form the mass media since this topic and Ms. Duckworth’s book was a ubiquitous subject amongst the education and coaching wonks. Grit and resilience had become the Growth mindset for the last few years. After a while, I finally decided to sit down and read it.

All of that is to say that my impressions of the book are affected by the widespread popularity of the subject and my lack of enthusiasm is not so much that I disliked what Ms. Duckworth wrote, it is that my impressions of the book suffered from being exposed to the subject due to her success in getting her ideas through to the reading public.

As with most books which appeals to the business crowd, Ms. Duckworth follows the tried and true business book formula: define the problem, lay out the solution to the problem, and give a lot of anecdotal case studies backed with qualitative summaries of quantitative studies in order to get past the general public’s impatience with numbers and lack of aptitude with statistics. In this regard, Ms. Duckworth did a masterful job. Every chapter is backed up with numerous anecdotes; she patiently attacks our preconceived notion of intelligence being the determining factor for successful people with wave upon waves of examples that makes her point for her. In fact, when she does goes to the solution phase of her book: Growing Grit from the Inside out and Growing Grit from the Outside In, she still couldn’t quite let go of her initial pedantic mode.

Even as the reader has become more than convinced of her thesis, she persists in attempting to persuade the reader to accept her premise that Grit is important and desirable in our lives. It was all this reader could do to NOT scream: I get it, it is important, it is a great character trait to have and develop, get to explain the HOW and not the WHY.

While I am a firm believer in letting each person develop their own methodology in teaching, it was somewhat maddening to be reading more anecdotes which illustrate her key ideas in how to train grit. In the end however, I did glean lessons on a process, I will have to apply this process experimentally and apply the scientific method to ascertain whether my guessing was correct. In the end it will probably be better for me to go through this process rather than being spoon fed a process, it doesn’t lessen the frustration.

Indeed, this book was indeed a landmark achievement, I just wish that the author did not choose to follow the business book clichés and be more direct with her conjectures on the What-If’s and How’s of attaining Grit.

Book Review-The Antidote By Oliver Burkeman

I picked up this book at Carmichael Books in Louisville. It sat there, quite innocuous with a rather mundane title and a rather funny looking cover. I’d read about the book previously and the topic looked entertaining, so I bought it. Little did I know that this was going to change my world view completely.

The Antidote questions, in the first chapter, our obsession with being happy, and in so doing it also questions the underlying folk wisdom that we take for granted. Such things as our cult like adhesion to the western definition of happiness, our goal setting habit, our aversion to anything that smacks of negativity, our fear of failure, our discomfort with death, and our deep seated dread of uncertainty. In eight well researched and written chapters, Mr. Burkeman dives in and dives in deep. Unlike most books investigating a specific subject, Mr. Burkeman does not just cite and regurgitate academic research results, although he does a quite reasonable job of that. He dives into experiencing a number of topics that challenges the status quo and certainly places him into some uncomfortable situations, all in order to conduct research for the book. Some of the more satisfying portions of the book are his descriptions of his own feelings and mental states as he is conducting his research.

Another source of reading pleasure are his in depth interviews with people. Rather than just doing a cursory review and restatement of the salient points of the interviews, Mr. Burkeman goes into deeper descriptive elocution of the interviews, this part of the chapters were wonderful peeks into the conversation and gives the reader a snapshot of the discussion. His subjects were eclectic and representative of the fascinating world that he had jumped into with both feet.

The breadth of the book is broad, Mr. Burkeman discusses the Stoic philosophers and philosophy, the Buddhist philosophy and how the two correlate. He examines the impossible situation that we force ourselves into when we adapt the ubiquitous and pedantic habit of goal setting, and how our fear of uncertainty reinforces our grip onto that goal setting habit. He then delves into our fear of failure, and how some have embraced failure as a guide and utilize that examination of failure as the guiding principle towards achieving tranquility, in place of happiness. He invokes the Stoic practice of looking at the most negative possible outcome in order to gain perspective and alleviate fears, fear of uncertainty, and submitting to the Stoic practice of dichotomy of control. He also dives in on the Stoic practice of Memento Mori, which forces us to examine the role of death and dying in our culture and attempts to get our minds to accept the finality of death and to overcome our fear of death. I must admit that this part of the book was particularly difficult for me, yet this practice does allow me to understand this previously taboo subject. I am still working on this part of my own thoughts.

The Antidote is not an easy read, which s what makes it special. The integrity of Mr. Burkeman who made sure that he had skin in the game as he did research was a singular point of merit; it made me that much more interested because he made the effort. Mr. Burkeman’s epilogue in the Antidote was matter of fact and rational. It did not appeal to nostalgia nor emotional hysteria, instead he remained Stoic in his story telling, which is the very attractive quality that permeates the entire book.