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The Power of Passion and Perseverance with Angela Duckworth

We love you. Hello, everyone. And welcome to Creativelive. I'm Chase Jarvis, the founder of Creative Live and your host for the next 60 to 90 minutes. Very inspiring guest today. I can't wait to introduce her, but before we do, it's important that I welcome you to creative lime dot com slash tv, which is, Ah, channel that we released here during the pandemic, where we're going live into the homes and kitchen counters studios in the living rooms of the world's top creators and entrepreneurs. And this show is the Chase Jarvis Life Show on Creativelive, where I sit down with the world's top creators and entrepreneurs with the goal of unpacking their brains to help you live your dreams and career and hobby and in life. My guest today is Angela Duckworth's. She's a distinguished professor of psychology, University of Pennsylvania. She is the founder and CEO of Character Lab, a nonprofit whose mission is to advance scientific insights that help Children. Dr. She's a MacArthur genius. Her Ted...

talks been viewed 20 million times. I realized this list is getting long. She's also the co host of No Stupid Questions, a new podcast that she hosts with Stephen Dubner, and she is the best selling author of the book Grit. Grit, which has had a tremendous impact on me as a creator and an entrepreneur. Great is my favorite human characteristic outside of court, of course, of love. But love and great is right next to it. Um, that book has spent, I believe it's fair to say, hundreds of weeks between the hardback and the paperback on The New York Times list sold millions of copies. Eso It gives me great pleasure to welcome the one and all The inimitable I'm is Angela Duckworth's to this show. Angela, Welcome. Thank you so much. I'm so excited for this conversation. Thanks for being here today. Uh, we had some chat before we started recording today. And speaking of chitchat, if you do want to participate in the chat, you go to creativelive dot com slash tv. I'm seeing your questions and comments there. Or if you're watching this on Facebook or YouTube live, I will see those as well. So if you have questions or chats that you want me to forward or surface to Angela, I'd be happy to do so. Maybe you can start off by letting us know where you're calling in from In the meantime, however, this idea of grit as I open with ah in your intro is such a powerful concept in human performance. I believe I have listened toe at least 100 videos of you talking about it. Um, I wanted to start off, uh, for contacts. For those who may be new to your work or not sure how you stumbled into the concept of grit, if you could tell us that story, I believe it evolved from you being a high school math teacher. Yeah, Before I was high school math teacher, I was just a kid, and my dad was so obsessed with achievement that I think he probably endowed in me a lifelong interest in, you know, who becomes really excellent at what they dio. And so, in a way, it's been a lifelong quest. And I was a high school math future for several years, and I found myself pretty frustrated first with the kids. But then, of course, it myself, right? First, I was like, Why aren't you learning what I'm teaching? And then I realized, Oh, I should be frustrated. Well, exactly well with the teacher. Right. So, uh, so I thought, you know why? Why can't I motivate them to their potential? And I I could see what they could do, but I couldn't get them there. And I became a psychological scientist to unpack a little bit. You know, when somebody tries hard, why do they try hard when they give up? Why did they give up grit? I, I say, is, you know, the common denominator of high achievers of those who are really excellent at what they do, and it's different from talent. So, uh, if talent is things coming easily to you and learning quickly, grit is really more about stamina. And I think it has two parts. It has perseverance, which is kind of the obvious part of great, you know, being resilient, hard worker, practicing, taking feedback. But also, I think it's passion loving what you do, how I'm fascinated by the intersection of those two things, and I I to believe, and we had creativelive believe that that's young. The way that you truly can unpack your dreams is by doing something that you care deeply about. Um I don't I don't know If I've heard you talk expressly about this about identifying correctly identifying these areas, is that an area of study for you? Because I think a lot of people say, Oh, I like everything. I like everything from Legos to video games and I like, you know, football and golf. And how do I know what it is that I want? If I'm going to be gritty and persevere and have passion and how do I select these things? It's not. I think there's always a de facto or most of the conversations I've heard you, and there's a de facto approach that we know what areas were passionate about. I'm wondering if that was an area of study or interest for you because there's so many people listening right now we're getting from Zycie, South Africa. I see Australia. These of the usual is Canada, Mexico, New York, Tacoma, Washington. That's very different than Mexico, very focused. We've got people from all over the world. That's the short end of the stick there that are saying, Help me understand this point. I want to know what I'm passionate about, and I haven't been given any tools to discover it. just school and just my parents tell me to be good and and, you know, but it good at what, right? Definitely help. You know, it was a revelation to me, especially actually after the book came out, but to some extent before, because I already had data on this. Most people consider themselves higher and perseverance, then in passion. And it's it's a little non intuitive because you would think that, like working hard and being resilient, like that's the hard part of grit. The passion part sounds like it should be automatically How could you not know what you're interested in? But in fact, I think a lot of people don't know what they're interested in. And maybe it's more than that. I think it's that they haven't developed an interest. You know, we use this word discover when we think about interest, like maybe you can discover an interest in cooking or in photography. But I think develop is probably the better verb, because it turns out that human interests really take a long time to mature and and and, for example, you can't actually be totally in love with something when you're just a total beginner you know, as you develop expertise and, um, and background, you start to see the nuances. You start to see the complexity, and so it can take years really to develop, uninterested the point where you would call it a passion. And you're exactly right. Case. I think there needs to be more than you know. You're like you're eat classes that you take when you're in high school or the four classes that you take when you're in college. I think most people honestly do not develop their passions in those academic context. For most of us, it's it's time outside of the classroom. Yeah. Is that something as a former teacher and now a psychologist, is there a prescription that you could offer for how to actually uncover that? Because so much emphasis put on school. You know, I'd like to think that were sold a map, a map that says, if you behave yourself and you grow up and you go to this school and you get these grades and then you go to this college and you can have this career in this life and I've always believed that that's a We've sell these maps because they're easy to print. But what we really what we really ought to be selling is a compass. And that's how to tune yourself to what is true north to you. But I still I struggle and I think so many people's. We got some folks from the Philippines, from Norway, from Romania also want to know, like, great I'm you acknowledge that that's not happening in school. Where is it happening now? A psychologist? Yeah, as a psychologist, Do you have a prescription for some folks? Hot it out of Endeavor that in their own. So I do have some advice, and I actually taught a class called Grit Lab toe undergraduates this last semester and my undergraduates were dying toe have a passion on my gosh. They're already hardworking, but they were so thirsty for a direction. So my advice is to sample on. And actually that that term comes from researchers who say that before you specialize, for example, there's a study of N B A basketball players. They're obviously very good at what they do, but it turns out that those who sampled a large number of sports when they were younger are, and maybe this is a surprise to some, generally more successful in a lot of metrics. You know, injuries, burnout, etcetera, Um, more successful than those who specialize super early. And And that, by the way, goes counter to a lot of parents intuitions like, you know, my gosh, Therefore, like, I'm gonna put you in this narrow track to be whatever it is. A violinist. Yeah, for the rest of your life, you know, don't don't fall behind. So I think sampling as opposed to premature specialization is the key. Now, I think I can be a little bit more specific than that, because it's like, OK, well, how do I sample? Here are 22 ideas. One is you can actually sample things without actually doing them if you're if you're really not sure. And you just wanna get an idea and you could do that through a curiosity conversation. That's the idea that Brian Grazer, the Hollywood producer ah, used when he was a young man. Teoh learn more about the world. And it could be a 10 minute conversation with somebody where you just really asked them, like, what do you do? What's a day in your life like what you love about your job. What do you hate about it? Um what do you know now that you didn't know people love by the way to have these conversations with people who are, you know, young and figuring themselves out so you could sample that way, you know, call up somebody who you know is like use, you know, doing doing, working, you know, creative production. They could call me and ask me, What is it like to be a professor? That's one way to sample. But I think more authentically. You know, once you get your bearings, you have toe actually do things. And one of the most common mistakes people make is that they think they can figure this out by, like, angst ing about it. Writing in their journal, you know, talking You have toe. You know, it's more like food. I mean, if you want to know what the durian fruit tastes like, you know, there's only one way to really do it. And that is to taste the durian fruit. I love it. I, uh my book I talk about action over intellect. We want we want toe, make the perfect set of decisions from the couch so that so that no effort is wasted and that were the most efficient with their time. No mistakes, not see on. I just don't see that happening. I don't have any experience personally, and I don't see that. And yet that is, you know, measure twice. Cut once. If I had, you know, five hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the 1st 4 are sharpening my axe. There's all these sort of like narratives and our culture, but none that can actually connect you directly with the pastor of the feelings, the phenomenology, to use a philosophical word that you know, I love that word. Share for those who don't know, that's the experience that you have are the feelings around your experience of reality until you do it. And so you do it. You really can't predict. I mean, ah, there is a guy named Roberto Diaz. He is an Emmy Award winning the old list. He is also ah, the head of Curtis Music Academy. I think it's the most competitive music academy in the world. Um, and he grew up to play the viola while his parents played the violin and they were professional musicians, so that's not really surprised. But here's the real story. When he was growing up, he also played the violin and, you know, he was good and I guess you liked it. But he liked soccer more. So he started playing soccer and he thought, I'm gonna become a professional soccer player. Well, that ended up not working out. And one day he picked up the viola, which, you know, it was just a little bit bigger than a violin. It's like it's like you put a violin on a photocopier hit zoom and like you get a viola and he fell in love and and I asked him like How could you not predict that you would have liked the viola so much when you had so much experience with this other thing? And he was like, You know, it's like the human voice that has a different key. You know, these are things I, of course, didn't understand. I'm not a musician, but you can't predict. I mean, you cannot predict you have to try, and sometimes things that are so suddenly different from from other things that you don't like, end up becoming passions for you and and, um and I think that's why you do it. Get off the couch. Get out in the world is very messy. It's also very inefficient. I mean, going and doing an internship for a summer That doesn't work out for you, you know, feels like you're going about things the wrong way. But you're going things about things exactly the right way. When you do things like that, Yeah, that, you know, part of as I retrace your work, Um, this idea of narrowing your focus and you talk a lot about 100% focus on 1% effort, and I think you've made clear already in our conversation that that's not for a four year old violinist or a four year old athlete that you need to sample a lot. But over time, what you've also said in your work is that you have to eat a skill is you only get to maintain or grow your proficiency if you use it or practice it. And yet, for every door that we walk through, we've closed so many others behind us, and I realize, you know, listening to the millions of people in our community that are creators and entrepreneurs and the thought of choosing something to be great at or two masters language that I like to think about is so traumatic and anxious create anxiety creating because you're well, I'm going all in on the viola. But what if it was the violin like serious foam? Oh, right, Yeah, for sure. And these air in many ways. And you know, whether you're spending money on college tuition or your you know, your putting yourself out there taking a risk in front of your friends and peers and teachers and career counselors. And, God forbid your mentor that you find, you know, you've done the internship you got toe work with fill in the blank person, and you feel figure out part way through it. You're not actually supposed to be doing that thing. And it was really something else, and you can't retrace that. So help us understand this. Yeah, that you talk at length about focus 100% effort and also deciding what not to do, which is traumatic for folks. I think it is traumatic. I think you You you put your finger right on it. This this fear that you're getting second best or third best And and I think one of the, uh, one of the like, wrong things that we have in our head that I think prevents us from making more progress is that for a long time, for example, in my life, I also thought like I need to choose the perfect career and it's all about choosing in once you choose it. You know, it's like, No, it should be like in the movies, like Like, great like, and I'm I'm I have a calling and terrific But I think these things are actually at least as much created than chosen. So, for example, you know there is a possibility that I could have done something different than being a psychologist who studies excellence. Like, maybe I could have, you know, continued, I was pre med. I mean, you know what would have happened to me if I had become a doctor like, I don't know. But it's possible that that could also been a great life. It's so much is of What you do is is creating, you know, a great career, a great vocation, not just choosing, and you know, I'll give you one other analogy. Unmarried, and I love my husband, but I feel like our marriage is created as much as chosen, and it is. It's it's work. Ah, and it's amazing, but But it's not that, like the whole the whole job was just to choose the right person and like, great, snap your fingers. Um, if we understand that, I think it just relaxes us a little bit to say Look, you know, take a little pressure off. You don't have to choose the singular one thing that you know you ought to have been. There's probably a set of things on, and in that set, which could be quite wide, your job, really is to create something that you love and can be loyal to. That is a huge central tenant for my raison de trip like that. That creativity is not Popsicle sticks and glue and pipe cleaners that were taught about in third grade, and it's not drawing a picture for the class on the chalkboard. But you know, creativity with a capital C is like everything around us has created, including our lives and this idea that application of effort which to me is the Segway that I'm trying to get back to your work, Like how effort matters and how it's once you've chosen something, that the application of effort and you talk about it very clearly. Um, I'm hoping you can help unpack that a little bit for the folks that are new to your work and the relationship between, you know, the concept of grit and the gap between Okay, I'm gritty. But what do you see? What are the characteristics that air predominant in world class performers? On any stage? You know, you know much more about Nietzsche than Ideo given your background in philosophy, But, um, but one thing I very much love about Nietzsche was his tryingto de mystify genius, which, of course, he was considered being so precocious and so brilliant. But there are geniuses and philosophy. They're geniuses and music. They're geniuses in in mathematics. And one of things I think that is true of geniuses across all those fields is exactly what Nietzsche said, which is that there is the illusion that that everything came easily to these people, that it's like a gift, like, you know, songs just come into their head. You know, the photographs come out beautifully. You know, I I remember when I was writing my book that you mentioned so generously, by the way. So thank you. Um, when I was reading, like at night, I would see these, you know, beautiful sentences, thes really like perfect paragraphs. And I thought, wow, must be really easy for everyone else. But for May, I'm just, you know, just slogging through in front of my home computer. Um, you know, it was like Joyce. Carol Oates has this quote that, um, writing and rewriting is like pushing a peanut across a dirty kitchen floor with your nose. And and this is a thing that we're all doing that. And I think the illusion that Nietzsche wanted toe sort of work against or, you know, de mystify is that that things that are truly excellent come without effort, and and it's not true. I have worked with really, really great writers and scientists, and you should see their first drafts like humiliatingly bad, right? Um and mine are too. So I think it's one of those things where in some ways it's obvious. But I think especially with people who are, you know, on their journey on their path. And they're not quite, you know, at a level of excellence that they aspired to be. I think they often don't know that That's I love hearing that. And that is hopefully reassuring for a lot of folks who, you know, wake up in the morning and look down at your feet on the floor in your like dream. And I'm not a genius. Yeah, this is really hard for me. Yeah, this is hard processing. And that's one of the things that I found so reassuring about your work. Was that this effort, this focus and effort? Um and you've invoked a lot of different people as a lens through which to look at this. But given that we're creators and entrepreneurs and you know his largely our audience that we're talking to today, let's hear a little bit about Will Smith and you've eloquently crush Oh my gosh, Here on just the the effort again, a lot of people think, Ah, genius, good at so many things. And you know, we'll get into the topic of mastery because once you've mastered one thing, I think it's easy to apply it more easier rather to apply it to others because you understand the ingredients. But for the examples that you've used with Will Smith and for everyone who's watching and listening, Will Smith is it is you. I'm talking about you. I'm just using someone that everybody knows as a lens and asking Angela to share. What is it about Will Smith that you uncovered through a your crush to use your word and be studying him and conversing with him that helped helped understand or excavate rather his genius. Yeah, and I'm not just bias toward Will Smith because he's from Philadelphia. Um, that's only part of it. No, he's really great. And by the way, when we say that we admire people like Will Smith. Ah, first of all, he's one of the few people who I think still has kind of can hold his head up high in terms of character and and being really kind, honest person, um, one by one, are icons seem to fall these days, and most Smith is is pretty excellent as a human being. But as an artist, there's so much to admire. One of the things I admire so much about him is that he's not done, you know? I mean, there is no resting on laurels and and And that, to me, is what I think really inspires me about creative people, that there is a drive to create that has never stated it's not about the money, it's not about the status. I don't even think it's about the praise or admiration I did have. You know, I don't want toe sell myself as Bull Smith's BFF, though I would love to be. But we have conversed. And I remember once he was telling me Ah, about you know how a lot of people ask him, You know, how do I become like you? How do I become, You know, great at what I do. Uh, and he said, Well, you know, the thing is like, What do you really want? Um and they of course, say like, I wanna be like, you wanna be excellent use, like what you really want is, you know, when you when the alarm goes off at five in the morning, right, and you say you want this six pack right? And five in the morning, you turn off the alarm. You roll back into bed. You know, you eventually get up, you have yourself a stack of pancakes. He's like then you don't want it on. And I think one of things that really impresses me about Will and other people like you is that there's clarity of purpose. There isn't like all this conflicting like, Well, I sort of want this. But then again, I kind of want These are things that there is as well, Smith has said. You know, a kind of aerodynamic alignment of goals that things were not. There's not a huge amount of of inner conflict, you know, I want to get out of bed and exercise and I want a six pack. But then again, I want to sleep late and I want these pancakes too. It is not to say that you guys aren't complex or you're not human, but I do think there's such clarity of you know, what really matters to you that in a way it blurs the line between work and play that you're not feeling all the time, that you are obligated to do what you do, but you want to do what you do, and I think That's why people like Will Smith can be not only great at what they do, but they can also be happy. Ah, let's to explore that a little bit more this interconnection between effort doing the sort of the right thing, that thing you're designed for, The thing is, you said you've created for yourself and happiness. Have you uncovered anything in in your studies on the topic? I, um, I was actually trained as a PhD student by Marty Seligman, who is the father of positive psychology. So it was just the normal thing to do when you did. A study to include happiness measures and the most widely used measure in science for happiness is something called the life satisfaction scale. It's got five items, Um, and they're basically of the just of like, Overall, I'm satisfied with my life and you give it a rating, and I find that when you measure happiness and grit, they go hand in hand. So if I could show you graph, it would just be a diagonal line. Now that doesn't mean that every single person who's gritty is at the top of the charts of happiness or vice versa. But It means there's a really clear trend. Um, and it also means that these things aren't tradeoffs, necessarily. I think a lot of of my life when I was really young, I thought, Well, you could either be happy or you could be really great at what you do, but it would be hard to be both, and I think that's not right. I think I think it is possible, um, to be great at what you do and also to feel like happy in your life in a in a holistic sense. Uh, so this application of 100% effort in order to achieve world class status, you've also framed this a little bit on three different curves. I heard a great talk from the aft Aspen Institute. Think you're speaking to a group of young people and majors? Yeah, well, assuming were teenagers, because I think we're all young at heart, and I like to share the idea that it's never too late to start down the path that you were meant to do and discovering that is a core part of what you should be doing. Kind of think two things. Find out what you're supposed to do and then do that thing. So if we think of ourselves just temporarily, for sake of this conversation as teenagers, that audience that you were talking to at the Aspen Institute, what advice would you give us about these three different trajectories, and how would you coach us to be on? But I think we'd all agree is the preferred trajectory towards world class status in whatever area of discipline we choose. So in that talk, I was trying to explain to this group of teenagers how human skills, like, literally any human skill you think of how they develop. You know, that could be, you know how toe make a pie or roasted chicken. It could be how to write an essay or an op ed for, you know, newspaper. It can be literally anything even, you know, being a friend, um, or something else that you care about. Um So there are three paths. I think when you talk about human skill development, the path that I think everybody wants to be on is the path of continuous improvement that if you follow the curve, you know, it may be that you know, certain parts or steeper certain parts of shallower. But the curve is going up that you are getting better and better and better at writing at making chickens at being a friend. Etcetera. Um, the other paths are are less desirable. One is that you plateau. And I think this actually happens to a lot of people. You know, they get to be, you know, pretty decent teacher, or they get to be, Ah, pretty distant. Isn't engineer uh, or artist Ah, and there's a point in their development where they just keep doing the same thing that they were doing before, and that is comfortable. It's kind of automatic, but I think the tragedy of that path, the path of arrested development, is that you never see what you could have been. And the third path is quite common, especially among young people, and to some extent applies to sampling, which we were talking about, which is say you start, you know, playing the piano or learning how to paint watercolors or or whatever it is that you begin, and then you know, you're like, not for me, and you put down that skill and you don't come back to it. Well, you know, the brain is use it or lose it. So you know you're not gonna be able to maintain the same level of proficiency than when you started, so that curve goes down. So you have three choices. And of course, we just said, you know, sampling is important because you, you know, you might actually, you know, find that watercolors aren't for you and you should be doing acrylics. Or maybe should be doing sculpture. Maybe should be a dancer, whatever. But I do think that at some point, the most gratifying way to live is to find something where you are willing to keep learning forever on and to be playing the infinite game and to never be done. Even if the increments in your improvement are so small that Onley you can see them, right? And I think when you become truly world class, it may be that most of the world can't even tell that you've changed something that you're that you're growing. Um but you can tell and I think that is, you know what a Will Smith represents to me. You know, somebody who is not done growing and developing as a creator Why do so full? It's just I'm using my very point pointer here this pointer. So there's the declination of skills. There's the world class curve. And then to me, the curve that is actually most dangerous because we have to turn your back on some things in order to be world class, right? You can't be world class and everything at the same time. So take time, you know, file time away a little bit and just let's focus on the curves. To me, the most tragic and yet, um, standard path is this path of arrested development. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, and my question to you, because so many people right now, I believe it's largely because they haven't chosen the right thing because of social programming and conditioning and expectations. I want to hear why you think so many people get stuck in arrested development. What's the why for this most traditional, you know, again categorized largely in our culture as safe and as wise and as, like, average. Why do we get stuck in that common curve that keeps us from greatness and help help us through this? This is Yeah. This is the biggest pain point for people listening. It is. And I agree with you. It does seem to be the standard path, you know, super common, although in our view may be super tragic. Um, I mean, take driving, right? Like a lot of people like you will. You know, there was a point where you didn't have to drive, and then you crawl up this learning curve. But for a lot of people, I don't think they would say like, Yeah, I literally got better driving last year, right? And and so for a lot of parts of your life, you don't need to keep climbing up a learning curve. You know, you don't need to be a better and better, better driver for me. By the way, it's jogging. I mean, I am no better jogging. Maybe even a little worse than I went, but like, that's okay. That's not my vocation. So I think being at this level of arrested development, which is like just good enough is is fine for a lot of our life, you know, like I don't need to get better doing laundry like I'm I'm good enough. I might be able to get better, but I don't care. It's a wonderful thing to have something in your life. You know something, Your vocation in your life, where you're never done where you're always eager tune proof. And I think the reason why some people don't even have one thing where they're doing that is is that it takes effort. So when you study people who are doing this kind of practice that we talked about 100% effort, it's also very, very goal directed. So it's very conscious and deliberate. And then, of course, or cars feedback on day. Sometimes it's a lot of work to even get that feedback. Like you might ask people like, How can I make this, you know, broadcast more effective for you? What can I do better as an interviewer? Um, whatever it is that you're doing getting well, no. You know, what I would say is that, um, I when I started having conversations or doing talks, I I used to not ask for feedback. Then one day, I realized that, like in my talk, I talk about, like, getting feedback and so, actually, quite literally, I will email you chase, and I'm gonna ask you what's one thing I could have done better during this conversation and and that is effort. And also by the way the ego gets in the way. So there are lots of reasons why we might not choose this path of continues improvements. Very effortful. It requires having an ego that says, like, I'm gonna not only accept when people tell me that I could have done better I'm gonna ask people to tell me how I could do better on when you kind of, you know, start to tally up all those things. You're like, Oh, well, you know, essentially being on that plateau over us. The development is like basically being on your couch watching Netflix, and it's easy and comfortable. And and that's, I think, why so many people stay there easy and comfortable is not the path to greatness. It's not how you've chosen to live your life. Well, let's let's go into this goal alignment. And I want to acknowledge a question coming in from be fluid productions from Ah, our YouTube live right now. And it's this you mentioned Arrow dynamic of goals. Aerodynamic alignments are aerodynamic alignment of goals that was a Will Smith land I think. But what what is that? And when I hear people balm, set goals, I hear often very, very vague goals, like I want to get better at more, you know, or I want. I want to put more money in the bank to create security for my family, or it's just these were the vagaries, and I'm curious if you could go, you know, if if not incurring or not incurring, not experiencing that curve of arrested development. If we want to put ourselves on this highest performing path towards world class, let's just take for granted that we've identified something knowing Aziz, we acknowledged earlier with a challenge that is culturally because you're saying no toe your career, counseling your parents, your grandma on your spouse and your partner. What's good for you? You make that decision now. Talk about the aerodynamic alignment of goals, so people all have goals. But the key is, you know, are your goals organized in a hierarchy that is aligned Now what do I mean by hierarchy? Imagine a pyramid of goals where there's a top level goal, that is your purpose. You know what you're all about? Your identity and and it's it's so court who you are so linked to your personal values that you can imagine going to your deathbed with that purpose. And for me, it's pretty specific on it Took me, you know, a while. It's actually figured out, but is use psychological science to help kids thrive. Ah, and I really think about that as, as as guiding every decision that I make, including being on on your show, because I think, Well, there's got to be people out there who you know care about No, no, a kid in their life. So So that's a top level goal, but the hierarchy comes from. Well, how are you going to do that? Well, you know, be a scientist. Also be a communicator. Well, how you gonna be a scientist? Well, here are four projects that I'm working on. Okay, let's take one of those projects like, what's the next thing that needs to happen? Well, I have to write an outline. This is a hierarchy of goals from the most abstract and ethereal to the most specific concrete and short term. And I think when people like Will Smith talk about aerodynamic goals or I think you know he's way more articulate than I am, so he would have, I think, he said. Harmony is aerodynamic. When your goals are in harmony, there's a kind of, you know, there's no friction, right? Like you're just going, I am. I think that's the key. And so I think for for us practically speaking, when you talk to someone and they have this, like, vague goal doesn't really it may be that they don't have, like, a set of concrete specific actions like sub goals that make that you know, Riel, Um, it also may be a little untethered to their highest level goals right at night. I think if people could just as an exercise right, get out of use of paper and start to just sketch out in pencil, not pen, right, just like things that you want and see if you can make a kind of rough hierarchy and see if if toward the top you could say like, Yeah, these are my enduring personal values and at the very bottom, you know, this is my concrete to do list for next week and see if if these things aligned, if they don't line I think that might be why you know, you're not getting anywhere because you're deeply conflicted as opposed to, you know, experiencing the harmony that, um you know, somebody like Will Smith experiences very well articulated. I will offer another suggestion to those who are doing that exercise right now, which is look at how you spend your time. If you do eight analysis on your schedule, this has been a recurring theme for me. I like I want this and then you look at how you spend your time and you realize that it's so fragmented and and not aligned in the world. Smith's sense. Same with with what you support you spend your money on if you're spending your money on one thing and your goal is a different thing, I think those two lenses also also helped. But I love the idea of not putting so much pressure on it like auditing your calendar takes effort. Looking at your bank account, credit card statements, take effort, making a list of things that that what is your to do list and what is your goal and seeing if the thing that you're supposed to be doing over the next week. You know how the list of to do is that we have around the house and rest of our life? Does it align on some very ITT's good lens? And we've got, um, commerce or questions coming in from, Ah, Daniel Tibbets. I see. Marina Mike. Ah, Susie Ridwan A Chris. Um Thanks offer for I just want you to know that I'm seeing you and I've got a couple of other topics. I want to come with Angela, and then we'll get into some of your questions. I just want you to know that I'm seeing them. Um, So, Angela, you talk in depth about this application of, ah, 100% effort. How many people do you feel like in, you know, your experience as a math teacher? Your experiences psychologists studying West Point studying. Ah, 100% effort. Seems like, ah, 100 out of 100. Is that a lot of effort? Right? And a lot. And if that's required for greatness, um, and fulfillment cause I think those two things are important. Apparent one another. What? You know, What do you see on average? Is that a characteristic that most people have? Is it a characteristic. Is it something you can develop? Is it something that you uncover because the thought of 100% effort on your push ups or on your abs to use the technology used earlier with or the narrative around pancakes like, is it? Does it literally require 100% effort? Because that's a big number of 100 out of 100. Yeah, I you know, just as you're saying that I I I see how intimidating that is. And, um, how about this? The more the better. Uh, and the closer to 100% Ah, the better. And by the way, if if If the people who are listening and watching could just think for a moment, if there's ever been a time in your life where you really were 100% concentrated on what you were doing, like completely absorbed by the way I think a lot of people would say this is the flow state, right? Ah, 100% voluntary attention. And, you know, some people will remember. I asked Brian Grazer that question. Actually, speaking of the curiosity conversation guru and Hollywood producer, very creative and he said, actually surprised me. I thought he was going to say something about, you know, being in a film studio. But he said when he's surfing, um, that is 100% concentration. Um, and I think a lot of people experiences when their rock climbing or or they're doing something, frankly, where physically, if they're not concentrating 100% like it's like your body makes you concentrate 100%. I asked you to do that exercise only because you realize that there are times in your life where you've been that, um, undistracted. Um, And for most people, it's a euphoric state to be completely engaged. Its flow right. It's it's flow. Yeah, and And, man, it's hard to beat flow, right, So so s so. I do think people can learn to experience this more. They can learn to direct their attention more. You know, part of this is trivial, right? If you wanna have 100% concentration and you find it difficult, well, you have to, For example, this is appropriate given that we're all in a pandemic right now that you physically be somewhere that were there a few as few distractions as possible. Right? So if you have like a pinging cell phone and you know your monitors up and you know, you're in a place where, like, people are walking by, you know, all the time. Then it is very hard to achieve that kind of concentration. So if you want to get closer to 100% you can start the hack your physical space and say, Look, you know, between 10 and 12 everyone out of the kitchen, right? Like I'm writing in my journal. I'm working on this book chapter like I need to concentrate. That doesn't mean your mind's not gonna wander. Doesn't mean you're gonna be like, oh, wonder what's in the refrigerator. But but you're kind of setting yourself up for that kind of flow state in a way that, um, you know, you're using your environment to your advantage. I love that that there's an intention behind it that I think a lot of if there's a gap between world class performance and what people think world class performances, maybe that's one of the thing, this 100% effort. I'm fascinated by the idea that it can be outside of your area, that what you're really training is focus and focus the on. Of course, you should spend as much damage again focusing on the area of mastery but that you're pursuing but that you're actually conditioning, that you can have a 100% of focus in other areas. Um, also, I was curious about, um not see, there's thread that I wanted to pull on here and it's let me go. Let me let me go a different picture. I want to go down this, um this focusing or having the ability to do lots of different things and then have that apply the lessons that you apply be relevant to what you're doing, because if someone likes to, um, you know, play the violin. But they're really trying to be a world class neuroscientist. How can those you know, how do those things related? And I'm curious from ah, you know, you're educated in neurobiology, which I think a lot of this is, probably has neural pathways at at play, and I just wondered if you could get a little bit more into the sci for us about applying 100% and everything or in anything that you do is actually contributes to the area of mastery So, um uh, just on the point of, you know, how can you be devoted to something? But you might have other interests and, you know, how do you make that work for you? Like you might be? Really? For me? Let's just I'll just make it personal, like I'm I'm really into psychology. It's what I dio. I will definitely go to my deathbed doing it. But I actually love to come Look, um and there was a very brief moment in time where I thought I might, you know, try to have a restaurant someday. Be a chef, Right? So what do I do with those? Well, you know, by the way, it is possible to just live a very happy life where, like, you have a vocation and you have a hobby on the side and advocation and they're just they're not connected at all. But, um, it's especially fun when they can be connected. And so how do I connect? Cooking with my career is a psychological scientist. Well, you know, sometimes really trivial ways. Like I used to bake for the students in my undergraduate class. Uh, that was when you were actually meeting in person trying like different banana bread recipes. But sometimes it could be even deeper than that. So, for example, when I was writing my book, I thought, You know, I'm gonna interview chefs for no other reason than I love cooking and chefs and restaurants. So I'm going to study the psychology of excellence through the lens of award winning James Beard chefs. Now, that is the kind of thing that I do think you know, what interest really is like if we've all experienced interest. But we've also been bored. And if you do a little bit of introspection about, you know, boredom, it's kind of the opposite of the flow state, right? Like you're your mind is like a caged animal. You're so bored. You wanna, you know, find some way to stimulate yourself. It's like I don't want to be here right now. Where is the flow? State is like I am completely voluntarily absorbed. And one of the reasons I love grit is that when you really have a passion, you know if if your photographer like you probably see everything and everything they expect, nothing is boring because you know everything. You're sort of understanding it as a photographer would, you know, as visual imagery in contrast, and beauty a psychologist do. You will never be bored if you're a psychologist, because everything has a psychological dimension. The politics in this country have a psychological dimension when I go to Starbucks has a psychological dimension. So I think that one of the great things about being a really gritty, passionate person is that nothing becomes boring because whatever it is, there's always some connection, like some lateral connection or some angle that ties you back to the thing that you so deeply care about. And that makes your life infinitely interesting. Ah, and really without exaggeration, like never, never boring. And when you asked me about the neurobiology side of this, I'll just say that, you know, I think it's probably premature for me to say things like, Oh, this lights up for this. But but it is definitely true that when we have an idea, what happens in our brain is that a certain network will light up like I'll say a word and and I'll light it up for you. Apple okay in your brain, apple it up, and then certain other things that are you have associated with apple like apple pie. Or like you bring a teacher an apple, or maybe a painting of a nap Or the Yoko Ono apple with, you know, that she gave to John Lennon. I think that was her first painting that he, uh, you know, met her through. So all those associations just start to, like, be activated. And so it is a wonderful thing that when you have kind of a through line, so like, everything is psychology. But then all these little you know, associations are kind of, you know, pulled in. So you're you're not as narrow, really, Aziz, you you think? And I'll just end with this on this question, which is I really like David Epstein's book range. Um, and in some ways, you could think of it as, like, very contra grip. But I think actually, ultimately and we had a conversation about this, I think we we agree there is something about depth which is very special, but it doesn't mean there is no breath means, of course, you have to sample. And also there is this cross fertilization that happens, which is amazing toe have happened when you're a real expert. I love looking at that through the area through the lens of mastery I love. But once you've mastered something, the ability to master other things becomes easier because you understand the ingredients and how they intermix. And certainly they're going to be different in a different area of expertise. I think, yeah, that depth part is fascinating also through the lens of community. Like if I identify as a photographer or someone listening right now identifies as an entrepreneur and, you know, for me, it was action sports. But part of what I learned about action sports was there's this area of psychology like, How did Alex Honnold climb the You know, the one of the most harrowing routes with Is it L. Cappy but with no ropes like there's a psychological aspect. And as someone who I didn't My friend Jimmy Chin, who's also been on the show, directed that. But it's like what the psychology of the of the and this is like an adjacent thread that I got really excited and interested about, because, lo and behold, that happened. That that is, you know, the ability to focus on something the ability to be 100% involved in the project. The effort, the commitment, all those things as super broad application. So I'm I'm with you. I don't see a contrast between range and grid. I think there's this through thread another. This is maybe a slight departure, but I believe that I believe and I think this. I've I've shared a lot with this community about nothing happens, um, in a vacuum and everything, even if it's an in perceived as an individual success. It's a it's a team and it's a community. And so I I advocate for building community, but I want to juxtapose. I want to understand how you feel about it because you talked about when you I think it was around basketball when you looked at the world, some of the world's top basketball players they spent, I think, some disproportionate amount of time, the the highest level of effort, where it was when they were alone, despite it being a team sport. So I'm curious about if, instead of like, individual contributor to team think, can you talk about this idea of, you know, if you believe as I do, that a community is an important part of success and cultivating that. But we the most effort is when we're alone. Yeah, there seems to be, ah, tension or meeting of paradox there. So I was probably referring to the research of Andres Eriksson, who actually is the like, the scientists behind this whole idea of deliver practice and no thousands and thousands of hours of practice become an expert. Um, Anders Ericsson has found in his research of world class performers in In in every imaginable domain, right, whether it's mental or physical, Um, that there is this, you know, key, which is, you know, complete focus or as close to 100% as you can get. And one of things that he has noticed and we've studied together because we collaborate, is that this tends to happen when people are alone versus in groups. So let's take musicians, for example. You know, you could practice like, for example, if you're in a quartet like, wouldn't you practice with the other three people? And of course, quartets do practice together. But a lot of time when you're learning your piece for the quartet, you practice alone. Well, why would you do that. It just turns out, I think, that in that time when you're alone, you can really concentrate in ways that are, I think, very difficult when there's like other people around who are like talking Teoh are, you know, want your attention or you know, we're all social creatures. So when there's another person, that room, I hope we're paying attention to them. And that means we're not necessarily paying attention to what we're practicing. But I don't want people to take that, as you know, to be a gritty, excellent person have to be a loner because it's exactly what you said, she said. It's it's the opposite. I mean, being great at anything is always a team sport, in some sense. So how does this all, you know, square with each other? I think it means that for periods of the day, it may be that you need to be alone, so just so you can concentrate not that you hate people, but just so you can really, completely country on your writing on your, um, you know, practicing a speech, you know, whatever it is, practicing a basketball move and then, of course, if for a lot of people, they have to integrate that into some team play like her basketball player or your, you know, an executive and you're not. You know, you're an entrepreneur and you have to get your team on board. But more more than that, I think you know the idea. Toe. You know, one of the things that I study less, but is totally just not grit. But there are other things you need to be successful is like. I think most of the people that I've studied have been remarkable at developing authentic relationships with other people. I'm not saying they're manipulative. There they are. They're genuinely interested in other people in being helpful, Um, and their empathic eso. You know, when I featured Mark Petrie as a chef in my book as I Love food, Um, you know, I found him because I asked the food writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Who's the greedy? A chef in Philadelphia, they said, Go talk to Mark. So turns out he's very gritty. He does all the things that I study, but I got to know him a little better since then, and I am equally struck by how this guy is so like, profoundly embedded in a network of other chefs off other entrepreneurs of the guy around the corner that he, you know, smoke cigar with like it's it's those kinds of social connections that's not great. But maybe you can call it social intelligence. So it's not just great that makes you successful. Love it, love it. I want to go to a question that has come in from Daniel. Um is a little bit of a precursor. Ah, a couple of comments about creativity and feeling, but ultimately, what he wants to know that I think is a great question is your anticipate. How does your anticipation or your expectations affect your the quality of your performance, your emotions and ultimately even mental health High expectations play into this character to frame it in your world. It does this, this element of grit, um, profoundly important question. Let's take two diametrically opposed expectations. You could be an optimist or pessimist, right? You know, optimists might, you know, be experiencing this pandemic and think like, Well, it's terrible. But gosh, I learned all these things like I learned all these features on Zoom that I didn't know existed. And I, you know, learned how to cook better. I learned how to bake bread. Like, you know, I learned how to, like, you know, figure out a schedule to my day because, like, I had to create one. And, you know, the usual landmarks of leave for work come back from work were gone. Wow. Look at what I learned. And like, look at all the things that I have agency over that I could control A pessimist might have different expectancies, like, Oh, you know, this is gonna go on forever like nobody knows. Like, you know, we're all gonna fight with each other. Teoh, you know, don't really nothing gets done. Like, um, I think these two different expectant kind of different ways of thinking about both the past in the future are in some ways, self fulfilling prophecies. Because if you have that optimistic outlook like always hunting for something that you can do something that you know is going well, then in fact, you will actually find things that you can dio and you know you will, by the way, be drawing other people to you. Because turns out people don't really like to hang out with, like, sad, pessimistic people. But the pessimists are also gonna prove themselves right, right? Like, you know, they'll felt like, you know, I bet this is gonna go terribly. I bet there's nothing I can do. C. C. It didn't go terribly, So I think there's so much power in this, and, you know, some of the people who study therapy, which I'm a big fan of psychotherapy. One of the great inventions in the last 100 years is like so much of it is trying to help people create positive and accurate expectancies and to get out of, you know, distorted and maladaptive pessimistic expectancies. Because you do have this power to fulfill those prophecies. In a way, I think so much of this probably has a foundation. And carol direct ux work. Um, with mindset. I'm wondering if you could put grit and mindset together and talk about those two things. I think that the my mindset, my belief is, is you know, I I like to think of that as the base of any pyramid that you got a foundation of. I'm curious. Um, is mindset a piece of grit? How do you how do you? What's the relation between those two things? I know that some people might be sick and growth mindset, but I love it, and I think it is so important. Um, what is a growth mindset? Carol Dweck at Stanford University. Probably more than anyone. My role model, my hero. She defines a growth mindset as a belief, a conviction that your abilities can change as opposed to a fixed mindset, which is the conviction that you really can't change anything about yourself in any fundamental way and the relationship between grit and growth mindset. I first discovered in a research study that Carol and I were both, um, you know, helping toe lead. And we were looking at teenagers, and we just measured grit. Using my great questionnaires called The Grit Scale. We measured growth mindset using her measure, and there was a correlation. Since then, I've done longitudinal research where I come back again and again and again to the same population, and I measure gritting growth mindset. And here's what I find. There's a virtuous cycle where the grittier you are a time one, the more likely you are to develop a growth mindset a time to the more you develop a growth mindset, a time to the more likelier to grow and grit at time. Three and so on. And so I feel like when you believe that you can change when you have that as a fundamental core belief that leads you to try things toe work hard to be a little more resilient versus a little more fragile. Throw yourselves into things that affirms that belief that fundamental human nature is malleable. And that would be the virtuous path that I think you know, no matter how old you are, it's never too late to get on. Um, and um, and it's much better, I think, than the opposite path, which is, you know, fixed mindset. Don't try. Never go out of your house. Don't get off the couch. Um Ah, and then you get into that, you know, more pessimistic spiral. Amazing. Amazing. It's easy to see what crit is. Ah, spent. I don't know how many hundreds of weeks on the New York Times list, because it's so It's so infectious. The concept. It has this element of psychology and element of physicality and effort. It's, you know, both alone and team. It's It's so dynamic. Did you stumble on that afterwards? You were you obsessed with grit before you uncovered all its components, or was it the other way around? Well, I started studying grit in my very first year of graduate school, but I didn't always call it that. My professor Marty Seligman. Um, at one point early in our our research on grip. But as I said, it was my first year. Um, it was after I had already collected some data. You know, he really wanted me toe name it. And I was like, Well, what do I call this combination of? Of passion and perseverance. And, um, I don't know, Marty, Maybe doesn't matter. Why don't we just think about the name later? But he was pretty stubborn. He was like, No, I'm not gonna talk to you until you have any for it. So, you know, I took out a a legal pad, and I just started writing names like stamina and, you know, like a way I got two. Great. And, um, that stuck. So I'd say I was studying grip from from the very beginning of my career as a psychological scientist. Um the name came pretty early on. I think, though I've continued toe, um, toe understand it better, um, and see how it's connected and ways to things like growth mindset toe having a higher level purpose, a sense of meaning in life, connecting it to the science of flow, connecting it to the science of delivered practice. So I'm definitely learning, and I know it's not the only thing you need to be successful, but But I do stand by my you know, first convictions that it is. It is a common denominator. I mean, people who are really great, you know, it's let's not make the mistake to assume that it was all talent. I really don't think it is. I think there's almost always a huge amount of passion and perseverance, a huge amount of consistency, right? All the things that we talked about in this conversation, the key would be like, Can you do these things? Can you bring them out in yourself in a consistent way over a long period of time? That's what will lead you to excellence at perseverance part. I was going to circle back as we talked a lot about passion and application of effort. But doing so over a long period of time. And I think you say that's why choosing something that you like in order to be world class that is important because that is actually one of the key determining factors is, would you add anything else on perseverance? I think that's part of Ah, the fun and people overlook And I don't want to do that in this conversation. It's really important. I met a guy named George recently. He wants to understand his own Tiger parents, Um, and and I I want to bring that up because, you know, there is something to avoid. I think if you want to be gritty and great, don't don't think that that comes through like extrinsic motivation on Don't parents think that you can force your kids to be greedy and passionate about something that you chose for them. You know, it's it's it doesn't work that way. You can't be like you're gonna be premed and and play the violin and and you're gonna be great at it. I'm because it's exactly what you say. Well, it takes so much consistency and take so long that people just can't sustain that amount of consistent effort in a in a wholehearted way, and by the way, that really does lead to unhappiness. And there's lots of research on when people pursue goals that they feel have been kind of externally imposed on them as opposed to voluntarily chosen. Yeah, they couldn't do it. They can do for an hour. They could do for a week. Um, some people can even do it for longer, but it makes them very, very unhappy. So I think the route that people need to try to follow is to, you know, sample and figure out things. I know it's messy and it takes longer than you would like. But the fruit of that will be that you can develop an interest in a passion that is yours, Um, and not imposed on you by anybody else. That is gonna be the clip out that we're going to share far and wide from this. That is so important. And I got two questions. I know we're coming up on time, and I want to be respectful of what we've carved out for this today. Two things. One, not just 10, hours and whether you attribute that? Anders slash Gladwell the 10,000 hours of effort, this idea that you have champion of deliberate practice and it being actually the work the hardest and the worst and the most painful kind of practice. Can you relate that back to this choosing of what it is that you want to create for yourself? Can you this idea a of deliberate practice, not just 10,000 hours, Like digging a ditch, but 10,000 hours of doing the hard stuff, This deliberate practice, not just going through the motions. How does that relate to this? This choice that we are ultimately are making for ourselves, You know, there seems to be a contradiction, right? Like, wait, are you saying that you're gonna love it? Are you saying that you're gonna hate it, right? Like e, like is a voluntary. You have to force yourself to do hard things. So, um, I remember interviewing Olympic gold medalist swimmer Rowdy Gaines for my book, and I asked him this question because, man, when he described what is like to train for, you know, the freestyle, you know, in the Olympics and, you know, getting up, God knows, went for in the morning. You know, putting on a Speedo, jumping in a cold pool and, like, really like pushing yourself. Do you want to vomit or when you do vomit, like every day? You know, after like, that Sounds terrible, right? But he kept using these words like, I love this sport. You know? I always loved it. I love what I do. So there is something of, ah, kind of apparent tension there. Here's how I think it resolves. You know, there are no great people who don't have some component of what they do that they probably do. But it's not the funnest thing in the moment. It's not the easiest thing, but because they overall love everything. Me and frankly, I've got 17 and 18 year old daughters. I mean, do I loved, um, I I love nothing more in this world than I love my my kids isn't easy. Hell, no. Right. I mean, there's so many things I do where I'm like Oh, my God. I want to clot my eyeballs like you're You know, I'm crying there crying like so. So part of this paradox is resolved when you understand when you love the totality of what you're doing. This what Rowdy explained to me. You know, when you love the totality of it, it does mean that there are parts that are really hard that make you cry. Um uh, that that you do anyway, because you love the totality. So that's one resolution. And here's the Yoda like, um, movie Wan Kenobi stage. I have not yet gotten to like the true jet I stayed. There are some truly great people that I've studied that They say that when you reach a certain state of enlightenment that even the hardest things become flow. Um, and and and those people like Josh, wait, skin world class, chess player, world costs, you know, martial artist. He says that you need a certain stage of understanding that the phenomenology, as you said, like, actually shifts of it. Um, and what was effortful doesn't feel us effortful. I have not yet achieved this state of enlightenment, but But I understand the rowdy Gaines point. And I do think that, um, you know, when you choose this path, you're not choosing it because it's easy, and you know you're not choosing it because it's comfortable. Um and, um and nevertheless, you're choosing it. Amazing amazing speed, round three questions. Then we're gonna let you go. Giant wants to know. Explain with help of an example the best way to cultivate good habits from scratch. Ah, um, the best thing you can dio to cultivate habit is identify the action that you want to be able to do on autopilot. That's the habit. Identify a Q like a physical thing that's gonna qu right four o'clock in the afternoon or every time I see this big red poster on my wall, etcetera. So that's the cue. And then the last thing is to make a habit. You have to make it immediately rewarding so people don't develop habits when there's a queue and they do the thing over and over again. But there's no reward, so you have to eat. For example, you self talk like praise yourself. Every time you do that thing or get someone else to praise you are or do something else that's immediately rewarding. That's how you develop a habit. Amazing. We're gonna put application of your concepts to work here. In this question, Michael Harris wants numb of I'm a photographer but I went to grad school for social work. I'm really interested in people. A lot of things you're talking about. I have multiple goals. Is this OK? I think it's totally okay. You might want to consider this right. If you want to. When you want Teoh, you might want to, like, put those goals out on a piece of paper and see whether there is some way to tie them together. Were more than one of them Anyway, together, maybe you can tie all of them in one bundle that, like grit and chefs. Yeah, we're for me. You know, it's something I didn't mention to you Chase. It was like I really love writing. I like love words. And, um, I think for me like I love writing. I love science and I do a lot of ready about science. So you know, there are other ways. That's why I said, like, you might not be able to tie everything in a nice little bow, but see if you can get more of your loves to go together because that is as well. Smith would say, You know, more aerodynamic Last question from the audience is from Chris Ainslie Practical strategies for moving from fixed to growth mindset. Okay, so I'm gonna try to do what Carol does in her own interventions. Um uh, which is this? I'm gonna just tell you the brain is plastic. Carol Dweck is right. The brain is never stopped in its growth and development. We used to be 50 years ago. People thought, Oh, after childhood, the brain is fixed. But it turns out there is never a day in your life where your brain isn't changing and growing. So maybe knowing that scientific fact will help you understand that when you try something hard and you make a mistake and it feels bad, your brain is growing. Ah, thanks for that little lightning round there. Um, if you have not read grit and you're listening or watching right now, this is an absolute must, one of the most impactful books of my professional development. And I want to say thank you so much for being on the show. I also need to direct people to no stupid questions the podcast that you do with Stephen Dubner, which is just just a delight. Congratulations. Just came out. What, like a week ago. So it's just out. Think. Yeah. Congratulations. Anywhere you'd like to steer the people watching and listening. This is gonna be ready for a long time. This is a classic. So you have a huge audience, right? So remember my top level goal. If you are a parent or somebody who works with kids, then go to character lab dot org's where you can get actual advice on how kids thrive from, among others, me. Amazing. Thank you so much for being a guest on the show was so much fun. So much knowledge, just dislike emanating. And, um, I'm seeing notes have got a three pages of notes here in my notebook. I got just people calling him from all the world saying thank you for sharing with us have been a treat to have you on the show. Um, I'm a huge fan and hope to have you back at some point in the future because I know you'll keep put. Not great stuff. So thank you so much. I had a great