Old School Grit: Backed by Modern Science (Heroic +1 #1,428)
17 Dec 2025 · 0 min
Brian Johnson celebrates Darren Donnelly's book about an NCAA coach writing letters to his grandchildren on cultivating grit. Donnelly defines grit as "willpower to persevere with passion and a sense of purpose." Science shows grit predicts success and happiness better than IQ, talent, or upbringing.
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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic Plus One. In our last couple 1s, I've been raving about Darren Donnelly's great sports for the Soul series of fables. I plan to continue celebrating his awesomeness. His books are astonishingly inspiring and equally packed with practical wisdom. And by the way, I recently moved celebratory up to the very top of my love virtues in my heroic Big three protocol. I want to more and more deliberately celebrate life and the amazing people I'm blessed to have in my life as I more and more fully embody my identity as a joyful soulmate. Note Joyful Soulmate applies not just for my wife, but also for my kids and team and you as I want to joyfully connect Daimon to Daimon all day, every day. Fun fact. The day I made that edit to my Virtues Moving Celebratory to the Top I sent an email to a new friend who is part of our community. Hi Jay. He's a goosebumps and misty as I typed it, super cool guy who is integrating and applying some of our heroic ideas in a really cool way. I sent him an email telling him how much I appreciated and admired him. He replied telling me how much he appreciated the email saying that it was, and I quote, hard to imagine receiving a more encouraging and spirit lifting correspondence. Identity Joyful Soulmate Driving Virtues Celebratory Driving target behaviors appreciate someone plus micro moment of awesome for the soul force at 101 infused win that, my heroic friend is one way I'm using our app to move from theory to practice to mastery. Now carrying on with our regularly scheduled programming, here are the quick links to notes on all six books in Darren Donnelly's Sports for the Soul series. If you're watching this, check out the plus one for the actual links. We've got Think Like a Warrior Old School Grit, Relentless optimism, Victory favors the fearless life to the fullest and the turnaround. Today we're going to talk about Old School Grit. Let's get to work. Old School Grit features an NCAA basketball coach at the end of his career writing letters to his grandchildren on how to live a great life. As you can imagine, it's all about helping us cultivate grit of the old school variety. Now, one of the reasons I really enjoyed this series and binge read all six books in a week is because Darren has a unique ability to tell a great while connecting that story to solid scientific wisdom. He tells us, and I quote, the people who achieve the most success in life are not those who somehow find a way to avoid making mistakes or encountering obstacles. No, Mistakes and obstacles are an unavoidable part of life. The most successful people are those who are willing to keep moving forward after making mistakes. They find a way not to avoid life's inevitable obstacles, but to overcome them. To which I say, amen. Ohms. Obstacles make me stronger, baby. He continues by saying, and I quote again in a similar way, happiness doesn't come from living a life free of adversity, a standard that is impossible to achieve. Rather, happiness comes from the contentment of knowing you. You have what it takes to overcome any adversity that will come your way. End quote. Amen. Sounds an awful lot like antifragile confidence, doesn't it? Then Donnelly tells us, and I quote again with this in mind, it's not surprising that psychologists now tell us that the secret to a successful and happy life is something called grit. What is grit? Well, Darren puts it perfectly defined as willpower to persevere with passion and a sense of purpose. Grit is what matters most in whether a person succeeds or fails. Numerous studies confirm that when it comes to achievement, grit is the difference maker. Contrary to popular opinion, even a person's iq, talent and upbringing takes a backseat to grit on the road to achieving one's goals. Exactly. That's today's plus one. It's time to cultivate our old school grit as we move from theory to practice to mastery. Eating obstacles like energy bars and forging antifragile confidence as we give the world all we've got with purposeful passion and perseverance. Day one all in Always. In always. Let's go, hero.
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