Friska Notes

I am blessed to be lend books from my inspiring boss (Please do read my previous post). She just lend me other book, Grit : the power of passion and perseverance. The book is written by Angela Duckworth. You may watch her famous Youtube TedX video below:

If the previous book, Lean In pumped me with full spirit and strength; the Grit book put my brain on fire hahaha. The book is a research summary that has been done by Angela Duckworth and other psychologists about the psychology of achievement for years. If you really into "grit," I believe you are going to finish reading the book until the last page. Moreover, you would not stop, but reflect. First, you would realise your grit score and challenged yourself that you could done better from the current you.

Actually when my boss lend me this book, I was not really interested. Because I have seen Angela Duckworth's video on Youtube before. At that moment, I did agree with her: Grit defines success, even though it's not definite only because of grit alone. I am confident to tell myself, I have this grit in my life. Angela Duckworth just helped me to define this trait as the 'grit'. So then what? This was my first response when I read the first pages of the book. 

However, after reading into the part III : Grit from the Outside In. It really helped me to see grit from outer perspective. How to initiate the grit for other people? Especially in my job as a librarian who work in school. Working alone as a grittier person is not enough. You should be supported by a grittier team that lead by a grittier leader.

I do not know whether my boss really aware about this. How I see this, why did she give me this book to read? I believe not every employee has offered to borrow my boss' books. This WHY keep bugging me. If I am not mistaken then, based on Lean In and the Grit Book, my boss is going to make a grittier teamwork! Perhaps she thought that I could be a part of that dream team. 

Meanwhile, as for my personal vision, I am determined to shape my vision and grit into something realistic and measured. Including this revelation I just got this morning, I would pursue my graduate program not in library science. For years, I thought a postgraduate program in Library Science is my ultimate goal. I was wrong! I would tell you later once everything has confirmed. Meanwhile, I would find details of the program and save more money for that. I am really relieved to wake up this morning once I realised my old dream!

Thank you so much for God's blessing! My boss really destined to meet me, inspired, and challenged me with many new things. A self-development life to the fullest!

Meanwhile, I am going to copy here some quotes or paragraphs that I found interesting:

How Darwin Seeing Grit

"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.

How Nietzsche Seeing Grit

"With everything perfect, Nietzsche wrote, "we do not ask how it came to be." Instead, "we rejoice in the present fact as though it came out of the ground by magic."

"No one can see in the work of the artist how it has become," Nietzsche said.

... "Our vanity, our self-love, promotes the cult of the genius," Nietzsche said. 

"For if we think of genius as something magical, we are not obliged to compare ourselves and find ourselves lacking... To call someone 'divine' means: 'here there is no need to compete.'" ... Great things are accomplished by those "people whose thinking is active in one direction, who employ everything as material, who always zealously observe their own inner life and that of others, who perceive everywhere models and incentives, who never tire of combining together the means available to them.

And what about talent? 

Nietzsche implored us to consider exemplars to be, above all else, craftsmen: 

"Do not talk about giftedness, inborn talents! One can name great men of all kinds who were very little gifted. They acquired greatness, became 'geniuses' (as we put it)... They all possessed that seriousness of the efficient workman which first learns to construct the parts properly before it ventures to fashion a great whole; they allowed themselves time for it, because they took more pleasure in making the little, secondary things well than in the effect of a dazzling whole."

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Talent x Effort = Skill

Skill x Effort - Achievement

Talent is how quickly your skills improve when you invest effort. Achievement is what happens when you take your acquired skills and use them. Of course, your opportunities-for example, having a great coach or teacher-matter tremendously, too, and maybe more than anything about the individual. .. It doesn't address these outside forces, nor because it include luck. It's about the psychology of achievement, but because psychology isn't all that matters, it's incomplete.

... 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 calculation twice, not once. Effort build skill. At the very same time, effort makes skill productive.

How Will Smith Seeing Grit

"The separation of talent and skill," Will Smith points out, "is one of the greatest misunderstood concepts for people who are trying to excel, who have dreams, who want to do things. Talent you have naturally. Skill is only developed by hours and hours and hours of beating on your craft."

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Effort is the Most Important Trait in Grit

Skill is not the same thing as achievement, either. 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. With effort, talent becomes skill, and, at the very same time, effort makes skill productive.

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Staying in Love

"You mean, stay in one company?' he asked.

"Not necessarily. But skipping around from one kind of pursuit to another-from one skill set to an entirely different one-that's not what gritty people do."

"But what if I move around a lot and, while I'm doing that, I'm working incredibly hard?"

"Grit isn't just working incredibly hard. That's only part of it."

Pause.

"Why?"

"Well, for one thing, there are no shortcuts to excellence. Developing real expertise, figuring out really hard problems, it all takes time-longer than most people imagine. And then, you know, you've got to apply those skills and produce goods or services that are valuable to people. Rome wasn't built in a day."

He was listening, so I continued.

"And here's the really important thing. Grit is about working on something you care about so much that you're willing to stay loyal to it."

"It's doing what you love. I get that."

"Right, it's doing what you love, but not just falling in love-staying in love."

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Staying in Love (2)

By his second year at Oxford, he figured out that journalism was even better fit: "Once I learned more about being journalist and how that could get me back to Africa, and how that actually would be fun, and I could write more creatively than I first imagined journalism was, then I was like, 'Screw it, this is what I'm going to do.' I set out a very deliberate path that was possible, because the journalism industry was very hierarchical, and it was clear how to get from A to B to C to D, et cetera.

Step A was writing for Oxford's student newspaper, Cherwell. Step B was a summer internship at a small paper in Wisconsin. Step C was the St. Petersburg Times in Florida on the Metro beat. Step D was the Los Angeles Times. Step E was the New York Times as a national correspondent in Atlanta. Step F was being sent overseas to cover war stories, and in 2006-just over a decade since he'd set himself the goal-he finally reached step G: becoming the New York Times' East Africa bureau chief.

... What Jeff's journey suggests instead is passion as a compass-that thing that takes you some time to build, tinker with, and finally get right, and that then guides you on your long and winding road to where, ultimately, you want to be.

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Create Your Life Philosophy

Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll puts it this way: "Do you have a life philosophy?"

For some of us, the question makes no sense. We might say: Well, I have a lot of things I'm pursuing. A lot of goals. A lot of projects. Which do you mean?

But others have no problem answering with conviction: This is what I want.

Everything becomes a bit clearer when you understand the level of the goal Pete is asking about. He's not asking about what you want to get done today, specifically, or even this year. He's asking what you're trying to get out of life. In grit terms, he's asking about your passion.

Pete's philosophy is : Do things better than they have ever been done before.

... grit grows as we figure out our life philosophy, learn to dust ourselves off after rejection and disappointment, and learn to tell the difference between low-level goals that should be abandoned quickly and higher-level goals that demand more tenacity. The maturation story is that we develop the capacity for long-term passion and perseverance as we get older.

...

Grit is about holding the same top-level goal for a very long time. 

Most of use become more conscientious, confident, caring, and calm with life experience. A lot of that change happens between the ages of twenty and forty, but, in fact, there is no epoch in the human life span where personality stops evolving. Collectively, these data demonstrate what personality psychologist now call "the maturity principle."

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To Do Better

Likewise, in her interviews with "mega successful" people, journalist Hester Lacey has noticed that all of them demonstrate a striking desire to excel beyond their already remarkable level of expertise. An actor might say, 'I may never play a role perfectly, but I want to do it as well as I possibly can. And in very role, I want to bring something new. I want to develop.' A writer might say, 'I want every book I write be better than the last.'

"It is a persistent desire to do better," Hester explained. "It's the opposite of being complacent. But it's a positive state of mind not a negative one. It's not looking backward with dissatisfaction. It's looking forward and wanting to grow."

...

This is not to say that all grit paragons are saints, but rather that most gritty people see their ultimate aim's as deeply connected to the word beyond themselves. 

My claim here is that, for most people, purpose is a tremendously powerful source of motivation. There may be exceptions, but the rarity of these exceptions proves the rule.

In other words, a genuinely positive, altruistic purpose is not an absolute requirement of grit. And I have to admit that, yes, it's possible to be a gritty villain. 

But, on the whole, I take the survey data I've gathered, and what paragons of grit tell me in person, at face value. So, while interest is crucial to sustaining passion over the long-term, so, too, is the desire to connect with and help others.

My guess is that, if you take a moment to reflect on the times in your life when you've really been at your best-when you've risen to the challenges before you, finding strength to do what might have seemed impossible-you'll realize that the goals you achieved were connected in some way, shape, or form to the benefit of other people.

In sum, there may be gritty villains in the world, but my research suggests there are many more gritty heroes.

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Building the House of God

Fortunate indeed are those who have a top-level goal so consequential to the world that it imbues everything they do, no matter how small or tedious, with significance. Consider the parable of the bricklayers:

There bricklayers are asked: "What are you doing?"

The first says, "I am laying bricks."

The second says, "I am building a church."

The third says, "I am building the house of God."

The first bricklayer has a job. The second has a career. The third has a calling.

Many of us would like to belike the third bricklayer, but instead identify with the first or second.

... workers identify themselves as having:

a job ("I view my jib as just as a necessity of life, much like breathing or sleeping"),

a career ("I view my job primarily as a stepping-stone to other jobs", or

a calling (My work is one of the most important things in my life").

...

Those fortunate people who do see their work as a calling-as opposed to a job or a career-reliably say "my work makes the world a better place." And it's these people who seem most satisfied with their jobs and their lives overall. In one study, adults who felt their works was a calling missed at least a third fewer days of work than those with a job or a career.

...

Amy's conclusion is that it's not that some kinds of occupations are necessarily jobs and others are careers and still others are callings. Instead, what matters is whether the person doing the work believes that laying down the next brick is just something that has to be done, or instead something that will lead to further personal success, or, finally, work that connects the individual to something far greater than the self.

I agree. How you see your work is more important than your job title. 

And this means that you can go from job to career to calling-all without changing your occupation.

...

"A calling is not some fully formed thing that you find," she tells advice seekers." It's much more dynamic. Whatever you do-whether you're a janitor or the CEO-you can continually look at what you do and ask how it connects to other people, how it connects to the bigger picture, how it can be an expression of your deepest values."

"In other words, a bricklayer who one day says, "I am laying bricks," might at some point become the bricklayer who recognises, "I am building the house of God."

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Connection to Your Core Values

David Yeager recommends reflecting on how the work you're already doing can make a positive contribution to society. 

...

Amy Wrzesniewski recommends thinking about how, in small but meaningful ways, you can change your current work to enhance its connection to your core values. 

...

"There have been so many times in my career when I wanted to pack it in, when I wanted to give up and do something easier," Rhonda told me. "But there was always someone who, in one way or another told me to keep going. I think everyone needs somebody like that. Don't you?"

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Be A Grittier Parents for Your Kids

It's indeed remarkable how many paragons of grit have told me with pride and awe, that their parents are their most admired and influential role models. And it's just as telling that so many paragons have, in one way or another, developed very similar interests to those of their parents. Clearly, these exemplars of grit grew up not just imitating their parents but also emulating them.

...

If you want to bring forth grit in your child, first ask how much passion and perseverance you have for your own life goals. Then ask yourself, how likely it is that your approach to parenting encourages your child to emulate you. If the answer to the first question is "a great deal," and your answer to the second is "very likely," you are already parenting for grit.

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Be A Grittier Teacher

Ron Ferguson is a Harvard economist who has collected more data comparing effective and ineffective teachers than anyone I know. In one recent study, Ron partnered with the Gates Foundation to study students and teachers in 1,892 different classrooms. He found that teachers who are demanding-whose students say of the, "My teacher accepts nothing less than our best effort," and "Students in this class behave the way my teacher wants them to"-produce measurable year-to-year gains in the academic skills of their students. Teachers who are supportive and respectful-whose students say, "My teacher seems to know if something is bothering me," and "My teacher wants us to share our thoughts"-enhance students' happiness, voluntary effort in class, and college aspirations.

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Stay Positive

In deciding between an immediately lucrative career and graduate school, Cody did some hard thinking about how he'd gotten to where he was. Next fall, he'll begin a PhD program in computer science at Stanford. Here's the first sentence from his application essay, "My mission is to utilise 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."

So Cody Coleman did not have a psychologically wise mother, father, or grandparent. I wish he had. What he did have was a brother who said the right thing at the right time, an extraordinarily wise and wonderful high school math teacher, and an ecosystem of other teachers, mentors, and fellow students who collectively showed him what's possible and helped him to get there.

...

A local radio station recently interviewed Cody. Toward the end of the conversation, Cody was asked what he had to say to listeners struggling to overcome similar life circumstances. "Stay positive," Cody said, "Go past those negative beliefs in what's possible and impossible and just give it a try."

Cody had these final words: "You don't need to be a parent to make a difference in someone's life. If you just care about them and get to know what's going on, you can make an impact. Try to understand what's going on in their life and help them through that. That's something I experienced firsthand. It made the difference. 

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Employ Your Grit to Its Maximum

"My sense, from being in admissions for over forty years, "Bill concluded, "is that most people are born with tremendous potential. The real question is whether they're encouraged to employ their good old-fashioned hard work and their grit, if you will, to its maximum. In the end, those are the people who seem to be the most successful.

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A Decent Childhood

Geoff sat forward and put his hands together like he was about to pray. "I'll tell you straight. I'm a father of four. I've watched many many kids who were not my own grow up. I may not have the random assignment, double-blind studies to prove it, but I can tell you what poor kids need. They need all the things you and I give to our own children. What poor kids need is a lot. But you can sum it up by saying that what they need is a decent childhood."

About a year later, Geoff gave a TED talk, and I was luck enough to be in the audience. Much of what Harlem Children's Zone did, Canada explained, was based on rock-solid scientific evidence-preschool education, for instance, and summer enrichment activities. But, there is one thing his program provided without sufficient scientific evidence to justify the expense : extracurricular activities.

"You know why?" he asked. "Because I actually like kids."

The audience laughed, and he said it again: "I actually like kids."

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Find a Gritty Culture and Join It

For many of us, the companies we work for are an important cultural force in our lives. For instance, growing up, my dad liked to refer to himself as a DuPonter. All the pencils in our house were company issued, embossed with phrase like Safety First, and my dad would light up every time a DuPont commercial came on television, sometimes even chiming in with the voice over. "Better things for better living." I think my dad only met the CEO of DuPont a handful of times, but he'd tell stories of his good judgement the way you might speak of a family war hero.

How do you know you're part of a culture that, in a very real sense, has become part of you? When you adopt a culture, you make a categorical allegiance to that in-group. You're not "sort of" a Seahawk or "sort of" a West Pointer. You either are or you aren't. You're in the group, or out of it. You can use a noun, not just just an adjective or a verb, to describe your commitment. So much depends, as it turns out, on which in-group you commit to.

The bottom line on culture and grit is: If you want to be grittier, find a gritty culture and join it. If you're a leader, and you want the people in your organisation to be grittier, create a gritty culture.

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Batam, 24 August 2020