Angela Duckworth on why grit isn’t enough

With the highly anticipated follow up to her bestseller “Grit”, psychologist and author Angela Duckworth offers a new framework for achieving excellence. She talks with host Jeff Berman about why making even small changes to your situation is the precursor to success. You can find more about Angela's book Situated here: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Situated/Angela-Duckworth/9781668005941 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Jeff Berman?

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• 0:48Jeff Berman?

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• 1:32Jeff Berman?

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• 1:41Speaker 01

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• 2:10Speaker 02

  When human beings think about what determines behavior, they think intentions determine behavior. That's not wrong, but what social psychologists will point out is that we make an error when we forget about how powerful the situation is. I was astonished. I have never seen, in all of my years of studying companies, a culture where unvarnished negative feedback was taken with such maturity and even enthusiasm.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  I'm sure a lot of people hate me for saying so many negative things about working in your home office all day. And I know there are upsides, but I have to say, I have so many misgivings about it.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  The NFL may be the last bipartisan community builder we have. Whether you're red or blue, like, you know, E-A-G-L-E-S, go Eagles.

• 3:05Jeff Berman?

  Oh, please, no. No, no, we can't. We can't. No, no, no. That's where we gotta cut it.

• 3:10Speaker 02

  You're like, okay, we're gonna edit that out. Fly Eagles, fly. I'm a Philly girl.

• 3:18Jeff Berman?

  This is Masters of Scale. I'm Jeff Berman, your host. I am thrilled to be joined today by Angela Duckworth. Angela is a brilliant psychology professor and co-director of the Penn Wharton Behavior Change for Good Institute. With millions of copies sold, it's a good bet that her first book, Grit, is already on your shelf. She's now back with a fascinating follow-up. Angela, welcome back to Masters of Scale.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  It is good to be back and it's good to be talking to you again, Jeff.

• 3:47Jeff Berman?

  It is great to be talking to you. It occurred to me that maybe you perceived that the market overcorrected toward grit and situated Almost Reads as a response to that overcorrection. Is that a fair way to talk about why situated is such an important follow-up to grit?

• 4:05Speaker 02

  Jeff, I think that the idea of this second book is maybe not a correction of grit, but it is a completion. I mean, I'm a psychologist who will always be obsessed with achievement. I think the completion of the story of grit says that for all the things that we need to work on, so that the inside game, our mental game, our mindset, our attitudes, our assumptions, our goals, the way we think about our goals, the inside game is always going to be important. If there's a message of grit, it's that effort matters. And effort matters arguably more than natural talent. If there's a message of this second book, I mean, you call it a sequel in some ways, as we'll discuss, it may be a prequel.

• 4:50Speaker 02

  The outside game matters, too, because all of that effort pays off more and is more rational in some ecosystems and some environments and some cultures and some places with some people, and less so in others. And I think if you're gonna achieve your potential, you need to master both the inside game and the outside game. But I don't think either negate the other.

• 5:11Jeff Berman?

  There's the story in the book of Cody Coleman, which I'm gonna ask you to share a little bit about Cody.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  I met Cody Coleman through an email that he sent over the transom on a day in May 2013. That introduces himself as a senior at MIT studying computer science and electrical engineering. And he's apparently watched my TED Talk. He feels compelled to tell me that the journey he's taken from being born in a prison near Trent, New Jersey, to be graduating from MIT with a nearly perfect GPA in the hardest majors that you can have at MIT, that this is a story of grit. What happened next? Well, an internship at Google, enrolling in the PhD program in computer science at Stanford,

• 6:00Speaker 02

  where he successfully earns his PhD, studying with some of the pioneers in artificial intelligence, and becoming the third black recipient of a PhD in computer science in Stanford's entire history. He is a paragon of grit. But the reason he's very relevant to this conversation is that he's more than that. He has very strategically oriented himself to situations that make the most of his grit. And he will tell you that the only way you get exponential growth in your personal development is by leapfrogging from a good situation to a better one, and yet a better one, and ever improving.

• 6:43Speaker 02

  Now he's the CEO of an AI startup called Coactive in San Jose.

• 6:49Jeff Berman?

  Yeah, there's so much about Cody's story that stood out for me. But as our regular listeners know, I started my career as a public defender. And one of my very first clients, who I'll just call Brian here, I was heading out to the juvenile jail to meet with him for the first time. I'm reading through his file, and he's classified as extremely low IQ. Like, I'm worried that he's not going to understand what I'm doing, why he's locked up, what we're dealing with here. And I'm sitting down with him, and I remember it's like it's yesterday. It is almost 30 years ago that this first conversation with Brian happened. And I'm explaining his rights to him. And I'm just, Angela, I'm so worried he doesn't get it. And he looks at me and goes, is this what the Boston Tea Party was about?

• 7:34Jeff Berman?

  And I go, oh, interesting. Say more. And he's like, well, because they didn't feel like they had their rights, and so they were fighting for their rights. And I was like, actually, yeah, like, that's exactly right.

• 7:46Speaker 02

  It took me a beat. I'm like, right.

• 7:48Jeff Berman?

  Right. But that's why I was like, wait, say more. And over my time representing him, I was like, this kid is absolutely not low IQ. This is a smart young man who, similar to Cody, was born into just absolutely awful circumstances and wasn't able to encounter the mentors or the people who could guide him out of it or change the circumstances. And he grew up eight miles from my home, where I grew up.

• 8:12Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 8:12Jeff Berman?

  Right? I grew up in a home, where, as you talk about in the book, two parents. I've got a home full of books. I've got a dinner table with adults sitting around it, talking about world events and national events. And I'm treated as an equal participant in those discussions. I'm in a world-class public school district, all of it. And it was the first time in the context of my public defender work where it just landed how deeply the accident of birth was for me. And so the thing about Cody's story for me that stood out in this context is it is one thing to be able to change the small things in our lives. It's another thing to be able to achieve at this level. And I'm just curious what you take from Cody's story

• 8:54Jeff Berman?

  that can apply for people who do find themselves in extremely difficult circumstances.

• 8:59Speaker 02

  You know, I was walking down a hill recently, and a more experienced hiker passed me by. And he turned around and he said, small steps, soft knees. And I thought, that's good advice. And I think it's good advice when it comes to changing your situation. I think if you... Imagine the biggest change you could make. You quickly convince yourself that it's not possible. Are you going to move where you live? Are you going to change where you work? Those are big decisions and very few of us can make those decisions on a dime. And the answer might very well be, no, it's not yet possible, actually. But the small step, soft knees advice is do anything.

• 9:42Speaker 02

  So in the soft knees part, I think, at least the way I'm taking it, I'm sure when you're downhill hiking on a sandy trail, it literally means just keep your knees soft. But I think there's this like suppleness that we need, especially now. I mean, you know better than I do, Jeff, like the world is changing under everyone's feet. And so the suppleness you need, the ability to be agile, to take small steps, but also to adjust, to trajectory correct as needed. When human beings think about what determines behavior, they think intentions determine behavior, values determine behavior, character determines behavior. That's not wrong, but what social psychologists will point out is that we make an error when we forget about how powerful the situation is.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  So I think wherever we are, we can ask ourselves, not only what can't I do? Which is fine. You can make a very long list of all the things you cannot change about your situation. And I encourage you to do so. But if there is anything on the list of things that you can change, people you can spend more time with, objects that you can place far away or near, if you're trying to, you know, remind yourself to do something. I think you should start working down the checklist and, you know, seeing how that changes everything.

• 10:58Jeff Berman?

  Yeah. And I mean, the other thing that Cody did, not all of us are going to have the opportunity to be PhD students at Stanford, but he did move to the center of the tech world. And if you're going to launch an AI company, there's no better place, literally in the known universe than the Bay Area to do it. And you talk in the book about a word I've never heard of that puts name to a concept that I think we understand called agglomeration, where there are centers of excellence. It also feels like you've almost created your own agglomeration at Penn with Katie Milkman there, who's been on the show, with Adam Grant there, who's been on the show. The work that you all are doing, helping us understand what motivates us, what creates change, how we live our best lives.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  You know, the way that Katie and Adam and I wrote our first paper together is we all live here and I was taking one of my daughters to a dentist appointment at Penn Dental. And I had this like narrow window that I knew I had to be in the waiting room from some indeterminate time. And like literally Adam Grant, Katie Milkman and I met in a corner of the Penn Dental office while my daughter got her teeth cleaned or something and, you know, hatched our first study together. And that co-location effect, you know, I know that there are many things to say about remote work and that is its own complex topic. One of the things you lose when you are not physically in the same city, in the same

• 12:23Speaker 02

  room as other people are those chance encounters and also those planned encounters where you get together and you hatch an idea. And I think that idea of agglomerations and the importance of place, I think it's important to emphasize now because sometimes people are like, I can live anywhere. I can work anywhere. And in some ways, that's factually true. It may not be the best thing for you.

• 12:48Jeff Berman?

  Let's talk about remote work. Tricia and Masha, who are producing us today, are sick of hearing me talk about this.

• 12:53Speaker 02

  I haven't heard your speech yet on remote work.

• 12:55Jeff Berman?

  Well, I'm struggling with it because, as you know, I've jumped from industry to industry. Part of my great good fortune has been the ability to sit in rooms and watch people who are far wiser, far more experienced than I am work and to pick up what I can to apply to my own approaches, these things, but also to take the walk to grab a coffee or tea after and ask all the dumb questions. And remote just makes that so hard to do, right?

• 13:22Speaker 02

  I don't want to say that like every company should be, you know, five days in the office. I mean, that would be naive. I think that remote work, when it does work, is when there's a very intentional effort to bring people together physically, all in one place, in the same room, breathing the same air and having a synchronous experience, but also having some leeway, you know, that informality, the sort of spontaneous conversation. Like when you're on a video call, at least if you're on a video call with me, there damn well better be an agenda because I don't want to waste time. But nobody puts on the agenda like eight minutes of kibitzing.

• 13:57Jeff Berman?

  Right.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  But that's exactly what you do with a coffee machine.

• 14:00Jeff Berman?

  I also really worry, my kids, I think, are a little bit younger than yours, but they're in the same range as they're entering the work world soon, what this is going to mean for them, what it means for the more junior members of our team here and their own opportunities to grow and learn. And I guess I'm stuck because on the one hand, I feel almost captive by my own experience and how much I benefited from it. And on the other hand, I'm trying to imagine how, how this can work in the new world. And maybe it's a lack of my own imagination for how to make it better. I want to invite in a member of our team who is living the remote work life. Masha Makutinina is a producer on Masters of Scale and works across the Weight Watch properties. She's awesome.

• 14:42Jeff Berman?

  And I know she has a reaction to this every time we talk about it. So it's okay. I'd like to invite Masha in.

• 14:48Speaker 02

  I approve. Love to hear what Masha has to say about remote work.

• 14:51Speaker 03

  Hi, thank you so much. What you've shared about the worries or the problems that young professionals like me are having really resonated as I was sitting in my bedroom, right behind me, my bed. The only job experience I've had so far has been remote. I am working from my bedroom. I am embarrassed by my hair because I just thought that I'm going to work from home and no one is going to see me today.

• 15:17Speaker 02

  Why brush my hair?

• 15:18Speaker 03

  Why brush my hair? What is a behavior change that maybe someone like me could try?

• 15:25Speaker 02

  So how's it going first? Can I ask, Masha, like, how do you feel about working remotely?

• 15:29Speaker 03

  It sucks.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  Tell me, tell me how it sucks.

• 15:35Speaker 03

  I feel like I try to be a good sport and kind of, you know, do my small talk on Slack. But it is much easier to maybe choose to be off camera and hop off the call a little bit earlier. And then by the end of the day, I'm somehow feel a little isolated but drained at the same time.

• 15:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:58Speaker 03

  And so I try to maybe seek those connections out in the wild world, but I just feel like I've worked the whole day and I'm like, oh my God, like now, like what do I do? How do I force myself?

• 16:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's interesting that you use the word force. Okay, well, I have two ideas. And without knowing a whole lot about your particular situation, you can tell me how these land. I think physically working in your bedroom all day is awful for most people, in part because there is no transition. There is no cue that now work is over. Oh, wait, now work has started. It's just one blur. So I think a physical transition to work is one idea. You can tell me whether it's a good idea or not, but that could mean, you know, working in a coffee shop with good Wi-Fi for much of your day or, you know, going to a WeWork type place. So I think a physical separation, you know, where you like put on different clothing,

• 16:54Speaker 02

  for example, you are not old enough to have watched Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, but Mr. Rogers would always come in and he would take off his outside shoes and put on his inside shoes. And he would take off his outside jacket and put on his inside jacket. And the costumes that we put on to say like, now I'm at work, now I'm working out, now I'm going to bed. I mean, with athleisure, it could be all the same outfit. Physically, that might work, but psychologically, I don't think it does. So you might consider these physical transitions that you can make that you don't have to make, but you might choose to make. And the second option I would have for you is to go visit people. So I would say of these coworkers that you would probably like to have, you know, a friendship

• 17:38Speaker 02

  with, just go, like go and, you know, do work in their city for a day and go out to dinner and then get on a plane and go home and make Jeff pay for it.

• 17:48Speaker 03

  Love this. Thank you so much, Angela. I'm hearing intentionality, which sometimes requires discipline, but sounds great.

• 17:54Speaker 02

  Changing your situation takes a little bit of willpower, but that little bit of willpower pays off. So I think if you can take those small steps in the first case, bigger step when you get on a plane, but like, you know, sure, it'll take a little willpower to get it organized, but I think it'll be worth the investment.

• 18:10Jeff Berman?

  Well, the other note for me as an organizational leader is offering unlimited WeWork may not be enough. And what are the nudges that we can offer, the incentives that we can offer that make it easier for you, Masha, to get out of the home and go co-work with team members or with friends or what have you? And so I think it's fair for you also to say, like, I could use some help here. And I appreciate you jumping on and asking Angela for her advice. And you and I can work on this together to make things better.

• 18:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, sounds good.

• 18:38Speaker 02

  You have to keep me posted. I'll give you a grade when you're done.

• 18:43Speaker 03

  Please.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  We'll make it pass fail.

• 18:44Jeff Berman?

  There we go. Thanks, Masha.

• 18:46Speaker 02

  So again, I'm sure a lot of people hate me for saying so many, you know, negative things about, you know, working, you know, in your home office all day. And I know there are upsides, but I have to say, I have so many misgivings about it. There was very recently a study in Science, which is the top journal arguably in the field of all of science, not just social science, but the hard sciences too. And it was a study by economists on remote work. And what they did was they looked at professions that were easily transitioning to remote because they were things that could be done through video calls and Google Docs and so forth, and compared them to professions where it's like nearly impossible. Like it's just an in-person job. You have to be there physically.

• 19:28Speaker 02

  And when you look at the well-being of people who are employed in these different sectors, those who have, you know, been in sectors that are more likely to have gone remote are actually doing much worse than those who in some ways are forced to be in person. So that's the personal decision, but I, I think understanding how important social connection is, is a big part of becoming, you know, situationally aware.

• 19:59Jeff Berman?

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• 20:35Jeff Berman?

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• 21:18Jeff Berman?

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• 21:51Jeff Berman?

  You talk in the book about Coach Lad and DeSalle High School, which happens to be about 15 minutes from where I'm sitting today in Arinda, California, having this conversation with you, which had a pretty rough streak of losing seasons for a long time, and then went on to rip off 151-game win streak, which is mind-boggling in any sport. And I'd love for you to tell the story of how they built the culture there with commitment cards and the rituals around it, because we've already had a conversation about implementing it at Wait What, the company behind Masters of Scale, because it just struck me as so powerful.

• 22:25Speaker 02

  Coach Lad was in his young twenties when he became the coach of the football team at DeSalle High School. It's a very small, modest Catholic school. I don't think they had ever had a winning season in their history as a school before Coach Lad joined. And how does he turn it into the football team with the longest streak in history? And John Madden took time out of his career and his life to make a full documentary on DeSalle High School because he thought the phenomenon was that worthy. And it is all about culture. So what Coach Lad did was create a culture of peer accountability. You know, he discovered

• 23:07Speaker 02

  very early on, as a coach and as a mentor, that you can tell people what to do, but it doesn't work very well. And you can try to keep the people who report to you, in this case, his players, accountable by the force of your authority, because you are higher level than they are. But it's not very effective. And so what he discovered was that there is no higher force, there is no higher court than the court of peer opinion. And therefore, he tried to get a culture going where you play your heart out, and you practice your heart out, not because the coach told you to, and not even to please the coach, but to please your fellow teammates. He had this commitment card idea, actually

• 23:51Speaker 02

  was, I think, an assistant coach at the time, who was working for Coach Lad, who had this idea. But, you know, together, they ginned it up. You take a three-by-five blank index card, and you, as a player, write down your goals for the next week. When you get to, you know, the end of writing this down, you end by saying, "I commit to," and then you name another player, and you exchange cards with that other player. And for those next seven days, your peer, your teammate, keeps you accountable. They watch you in the weight room. They watch you at practice, and they watch you on game day. And the following week, before you write your next commitment card, your partner stands up, and they read out

• 24:36Speaker 02

  your goals to the whole team who's watching in reverent silence. And they'll say, "Failed, succeeded." So you kind of get this report card on how you did last week. When I witnessed this commitment card ceremony, I was astonished. I have never seen, in all of my years of studying companies, a culture where unvarnished negative feedback was taken with such maturity and even enthusiasm. Nobody that I watched that evening actually got a perfect score. It was like, you know, these are hard goals. And I think if you can develop a culture where it's not only that you're accountable to your boss or your manager, but you have

• 25:21Speaker 02

  the esprit de corps and the formal rituals and structures to be accountable to another person who is at your peer level, I think that, and I think this is what Coach Lad would say, I think that is the magic of the DeSalle Spartans.

• 25:36Jeff Berman?

  There's a beautiful photo in the book, because the other thing that Coach Lad did was have the players, the pair who've committed to each other, they walk out on the field for each game, holding hands, which, it was such a powerful visual to see young men fully suited up in their football gear, walking out, holding hands, knowing that they've made these commitments to each other. So beautiful.

• 25:57Speaker 02

  I know that not everyone can make a field trip to conquer California and to spend a day with the DeSalle Spartans, but I feel like every leader would be changed if they did. So I feel like the challenge of leadership is how to create a culture with rituals, by the way, and I think those rituals are elemental, that is not only high standards, high expectations, but also this kind of unconditional support. That magical combination is something, whenever I see it, I know it, but I am not a leader. And I am always just in like, kind of astonished admiration at the leaders who are able to achieve that.

• 26:37Jeff Berman?

  We can agree to disagree that you're not a leader, but I think where we will agree is, we're in a moment where, not just nationally, globally, the leadership that is being lauded doesn't just lack empathy and lack love, it doesn't even really have accountability. It's lionized for its cruelty. And when you look at these institutions that have built cultures where the foundation is really the twins of love and empathy and accountability, real accountability, and you see how they flourish, why isn't that happening more nationally and globally? And why aren't we lionizing those leaders over those who lead with the lack of that?

• 27:18Speaker 02

  I wish I knew. I agree with you, and I don't have an answer. As a psychological scientist who has studied human nature, individual differences, for her whole career, I don't have an answer. I wonder, Jeff, do you have a, like, a pet theory, even if you don't have evidence for it yet?

• 27:36Jeff Berman?

  Well, some of it, I fear, goes back to the atomization of our society, right? We're living in these bubbles. We're watching algorithmically-driven media. We don't have, you know, the monoculture had its problems, right? It was a lot of people who frankly looked a lot like me, who were deciding what you watched and what you read, what you engaged with. And so there's a lot of benefit to a world in which we have far more diverse sources of information, entertainment. But when you're spending hours a day on TikTok, we're products of our environment in really meaningful ways. And so I fear that that's some of it.

• 28:12Speaker 02

  I agree with you. I mean, there are downsides of a monoculture. There are freedoms of a culture where, like, everyone's doing their own thing. Frankly, they're doing it in different places at different times. Like, we're not experiencing, you know, the same perspectives. But there is a real cost. It's a dissolution of what Bob Putnam sometimes refers to as bridging capital. He distinguishes between two kinds of social capital. Bonding capital is like you and your kith and kin, you know, the people that, you know, you really care about, and they're going to bring you chicken soup when you're sick. And, and those are very important, and that's a big part of social connection. I think it's what people think of when they think of social connection. They want a best friend, they want a romantic partner, they want to spend more time with their friends. But there's another kind of social capital called bridging capital.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  And that is you and your neighbors, you and the people that you go to mosque, synagogue, or church with, like you and the people who, you know, happen to like frequent the same coffee shop. So these are not your kith and kin. They're not your close friends or family. But bridging capital is very important because that is where America has created the cohesion of, I don't look like you, I don't talk like you, I may not have even voted like you, but I recognize you as a human. Like, we can still talk about the game on Monday, like, we can still smile at each other and share a cup of coffee. And that is one reason why my husband and I go to church. I mean, especially, he has made the argument, because I whine sometimes, I hate to be in the car, I'm like, oh, my gosh, the whole morning's gone.

• 29:39Speaker 02

  He was like, bridging capital, Bob Putnam, bridging capital. And I think he's right. And as you know, despite recent trends, attendance and allegiance to religious institutions, those are among the institutions that are really on the decline. And so I do think some of these macro trends lead me to the conclusion that the default settings of the modern world, the situation, if you don't change it proactively, is not a healthy situation. If you are not proactive about putting yourself in places and with people that are good for you, the default settings are not necessarily going to be for your best.

• 30:14Jeff Berman?

  Couldn't agree more on the, on the, the third places, the religious institutions, the, the coffee shop where you go work, the office, whatever it might be. I'll tell you what gave me some hope earlier this summer was the World Cup. And the experience, not just of seeing the abject joy and people coming from outside the US and experiencing our country and seeing them fall in love with Buc-E's or Waffle House or whatever it is, but my wife and I were in a bar in Portsmouth, New Hampshire for the, the Cabo Verde Argentina game. And I guarantee you, 80% of the people in that bar had never heard of Cabo Verde before the World Cup. And yet, there we were, like, all rooting on this little team, this little country in their, in their David versus Goliath moment. And we had instant community that night.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  Right. Isn't it amazing?

• 31:00Jeff Berman?

  It's awesome.

• 31:01Speaker 02

  And it happens so fast, you're like, it's like, you feel like it's like a chemical change, like, you're like, what neuromodulator is going through my brain right now? Like, I, I had a similar experience earlier on. We, we did not watch, you know, every game, but Philadelphia was a host. And, and just walking down the sidewalk and seeing people in their, you know, in their messy, you know, jerseys or, you know, whatever country. And there's this sort of like, you know, you look at each other, there's like a note of acknowledgement, like, there's a smile. Yeah, that, I think, it is hopeful. I have a colleague, Todd Rogers. So Todd's a big sports fan, in addition to being a professor and a social scientist at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. And he has lately been studying the NFL. And Todd has some empirical evidence suggesting that when people watch NFL games, they, they

• 31:45Speaker 02

  experience this kind of like, social connection. You know, Todd has convinced me that, you know, the NFL may be, you know, the last bipartisan community builder we have. You know, it's whether you're red or blue, like, you know, E A G L E S, go Eagles, like, so.

• 32:01Jeff Berman?

  Oh, Ajo, please, no, no, no, we can't, we can't, no, no, that's where we gotta cut it. We can't, we can't have that.

• 32:06Speaker 02

  Okay, we're gonna edit that out. I gotta, you know, fly Eagles, fly, I'm a, I'm a Philly girl. But also, go Hawks, and yeah, like, I have my favorite teams. But anyway, I, I do think that gives you an example of what can happen. I also think that live events, you know, when we talk about situations that are electric, that like, there's almost something chemical that feels like it's happening. The practice of going to concerts, if you asked me, like, 15 or 20 years ago, is concert going, going to go up or down? I probably would have shorted concerts. I would be like, oh, you're kidding, you know, music's getting digitized, you can have it whenever you want, the fidelity is better, like, you know what? I think people are craving that feeling of being in the audience with other people.

• 32:49Speaker 02

  It's sometimes called in sociology, it's collective effervescence, the phenomenon of like, joint attention to one thing happening, and then this like, collective emotion that is, it's not just that you're feeling something, but everyone's feeling something, but you know that everyone's feeling something. And it really actually is, to me, like, one of the things that explains why we are still going to concerts. And I hope it happens more. I hope there are, you know, the World Cup only comes, what, every four years?

• 33:19Jeff Berman?

  Every four years, and we don't get to host it every four years.

• 33:21Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, that's so true.

• 33:23Jeff Berman?

  Unfortunately, yeah.

• 33:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's not gonna be back in the United States for a long time, but, but could we take it as a hopeful example? I mean, I, I think people should do things. I think people should do things together. You wanna get situated, like, get with other people.

• 33:36Jeff Berman?

  I wanna close by asking you, because I think legally I'm required to ask you some question about AI in this moment.

• 33:43Speaker 02

  It's in your contract.

• 33:44Jeff Berman?

  But I wanna ask you a specific question about AI. In the more optimistic versions of an AI-driven future, we're working less and generating even more output. And so I wanna focus on one of those more optimistic visions of, of that future. And in the event that we really are able to go down to a, a four-day work week, or a three-day work week, or a, a six-hour work day, and we do have that much more free time, how do you envision the use of that time in a way that can actually benefit us and propel our country in a, in a better direction?

• 34:19Speaker 02

  I'll tell you what I hope it isn't, and then I'll tell you what I hope it is. I hope it isn't, you know, what we now do with a lot of our free time, which is just, you know, fill it with amusements, like entertainment, like, just, you know, things that make you smile or laugh for a few minutes, and then just like, you know, it's like the morning dew, it's like evaporates and it's gone. I mean, that is how Americans are spending a lot, I think maybe the majority of their time, just like scrolling, watching, you know, doesn't add up to very much. It is the nature of human nature to work. And that doesn't mean paid work necessarily. That doesn't mean that, you know, we all should be working 12 hours a day. But when I say it is the nature of human nature to work, what I mean is that it is

• 35:01Speaker 02

  part and parcel of our DNA to chase goals, to have aims, to try to go from here to there. That's what a goal is. A goal is the desired state of the world that you are trying to achieve. And we all know people who've retired and become abjectly miserable, because now they have everything that they always thought they wanted, no responsibility, no deadlines, no checklists, just, you know, leisure. That's what happened to my own father. He always said to me, in the years before retirement, when I retire, I'm going to do nothing. That is what my dad did. And he was never more depressed than when he left his, you know, 35-year career at DuPont.

• 35:44Speaker 02

  So what I hope it is, is that we fill the time that we have, should this scenario come to pass, with work of some kind, that something that is meaningful to us, a goal that we're trying to achieve. Maybe that is leisure-related for some people, but it's not, it's not amusement, it's not like, nothing. It's not only that nature abhors a vacuum, it's that happiness abhors a vacuum. When the founding fathers said that we have a country where there is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, I always thought, life, yep, liberty, yep. It's the happiness of pursuit. I think people are their happiest when they're starting a podcast, when they're trying to become a better writer, when they're trying to get this charity off the ground, when

• 36:29Speaker 02

  they're being a Girl Scout leader. You know, what I hope it does not become is just more relaxation, entertainment, and amusement.

• 36:37Jeff Berman?

  From your lips. Angela, we are not going to wait for you to have your next book out, to have you back on, we're gonna twist your arm to have you back soon. You're the best, so wonderful having you on Masters of Scale, and can't wait to see you in person.

• 36:49Speaker 02

  Jeff, I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed this conversation. Thank you for having me.

• 36:55Jeff Berman?

  Thanks again to Angela Duckworth for joining us. Her new book, Situated, is out now. It is a terrific read, full of insights that can help you improve your own situation. And I have to say, I read a lot of these kinds of books every year. I'm usually looking for one or two actionable insights, something that I can take into my daily life. If I'm lucky, I get that. Every now and then, you come across a book where you just, you just can't count it, and you're annotating basically every other page. This is one of those. I can't recommend it highly enough. I'm Jeff Berman. Thank you for listening.

• 37:45Jeff Berman?

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• 38:25Speaker 04

  Hey, listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show because every Friday, we release a second Rapid Response exclusively in the Rapid Response feed. The guests and topics are just as compelling and timely, from Ford CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from the devil wears Prada. It takes about 10 seconds to find, just search Rapid Response wherever you listen to podcasts, and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode. I hope to see you there.

• 39:01Speaker 05

  Humans will never be more intelligent than AI.

• 39:05Speaker 06

  There's gonna be two types of companies. Those are great at AI, and those that went out of business because they weren't.

• 39:10Speaker 07

  How do we build a future that is human-centered?

• 39:15Speaker 08

  I'm Rana Elkhayubi. And on my podcast, Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone. Every week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future, and we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives. Find Pioneers of AI wherever you tune in.

• 39:45Jeff Berman?

  Masters of Scale is a Wait, What original. Our executive producer is Eve Tro. Senior supervising producer is Tricia Bobita. Associate producer is Masha Makatana. Video editor is Noah Walstein. Senior talent executive is Stephanie Stern. Mixing and mastering by the audio boys, Aaron Bastinelli and Brian Pugh. Original music by the legendary Ryan Holiday. Visit mastersofscale.com to find the transcript for this episode and to subscribe to our newsletter. And be sure to check out our YouTube channel.