Brian Johnson explores Angela Duckworth's "hard thing rule" for building grit: pick something challenging, practice it daily, don't quit mid-season, and choose what genuinely interests you. His son's chess progress shows how sustained effort turns skill into achievement.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. In our last plus one, we talked about Emerson's year to year growth in chess. I thought out loud with you as I tried to wrap my brain around the contributing factors to his growth and concluded that the factor at least tied for first was the fact that Emerson had a very clear heroic target. He was very excited to hit. He knew what he wanted, he whooped it, then he got to work. If you have no idea what whoop is, check out the link in this +1. And he worked hard for a full year, and as a result, he made remarkable progress in that plus one. I casually referenced a little equation. I said that with the support of me and his mom and his coach, he got to work. His talent times effort produced skill. His skill times more effort produced achievement. Now, as you know, if you've been following along closely, that talent times effort equals skill, skill times effort equals achievement equation is from Angela Duckworth and her great book Grit, as we've discussed, but it's always worth repeating. Angela tells us that talent, which she defines as the speed with which you gain skill, matters, but nothing will come from talent unless you put in effort. As they say, hustle beats talent when talent doesn't hustle. And as Angela Duckworth says, and I quote her, without effort, your talent is nothing more than unmet potential. Without effort, your skill is nothing more than what you could have done but didn't. With effort, talents become skill. And at the very same time, effort makes skill productive. So talent times effort equals skill. Then you need to put in more effort, such that skill times effort equals achievement. As Angela says, effort counts twice. Now, Angela also talks about parenting in her book, as we discuss in the notes on grid. Check those out. Seriously, check those out. The word parenting literally means to bring forth our job as parents, to bring forth the best within our kids, our job as leaders, coaches, teachers. To bring forth the best within those we are blessed to serve. Now, Angela offers some wise parenting advice. She tells us that she and her family have what she calls the hard thing rule. In short, everyone in the family picks something challenging that they're committed to mastering. For Angela, it's her psychological research. For her husband, it's his real estate development. For their daughters, it includes things like ballet and piano. Three rules. Number one, you need to deliberately practice daily. Number two, you can quit, but not until this season is over. No quitting on a bad day. Midway through, you gotta finish. And number three, you pick your hard thing. You need to be intrinsically interested in it. Today's +1. How can you be an even more wise parent and help bring forth the best within your kids? Don't have kids. Awesome. How can you help bring forth the best with any nieces or nephews you may have and or kids in your community? And don't forget to bring forth the best within yourself. Ultimately, that's the only way you'll have the best shot at helping others do it within themselves. It's day one. We're all in time to bring forth the best within each of us. Let's go.
