Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

One of “The Hottest Spring Nonfiction Books”
—The Wall Street Journal

A “Leadership Book to Watch for in 2016”
—The Washington Post

A “Must-Read Business Book for 2016”
—Forbes

“Grit delves into the personal ingredients of great success. It’s worth reading…the gist is that talent and skill are less valuable than effort.”
—Andrew Ross Sorkin, The New York Times

“It really isn’t talent but practice—along with passion—that makes perfect, explains psychologist Duckworth in this illuminating book. Inspiration for non-geniuses everywhere.”
—People

“Grit is a pop-psych smash.”
—The New Yorker

“With Grit, Duckworth has now put out the definitive handbook for her theory of success. It parades from one essential topic to another on a float of common sense, tossing out scientific insights.”
—Slate

“If you have recently bumped into that word, grit, Duckworth is the reason…In education and parenting circles, her research has provided a much needed antipode to hovering, by which children are systematically deprived of the opportunity to experience setbacks, much less overcome them…What sticks with you [in Grit] are the testimonials, collected from sources as disparate as Will Smith, William James, and Jeff Bezos’s mom, that relentlessly deflate the myth of the natural.”
—The Atlantic

“A fascinating tour of the psychological research on success…A great service of Ms. Duckworth’s book is her down-to-earth definition of passion. To be gritty, an individual doesn’t need to have an obsessive infatuation with a goal. Rather, he needs to show ‘consistency over time.’ The grittiest people have developed long-term goals and are constantly working toward them.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“Duckworth is the researcher most associated with the study and popularization of grit.  And yet what I like about her new book, Grit, is the way she is pulling away from the narrow, joyless intonations of that word, and pointing us beyond the way many schools are now teaching it…Most important, she notes that the quality of our longing matters.  Gritty people are resilient and hard working, sure.  But they also, she writes, know in a very, very deep way what it is they want.”
—David Brooks, New York Times

Angela Duckworth, PhD, is a 2013 MacArthur Fellow and professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She has advised the White House, the World Bank, NBA and NFL teams, and Fortune 500 CEOs. She is also the Founder and Scientific Director of the Character Lab, a nonprofit whose mission is to advance the science and practice of character development. She completed her BA in neurobiology at Harvard, her MSc in neuroscience at Oxford, and her PhD in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance is her first book and an instant New York Times bestseller.