Nature or Nurture with Eli Manning and Dr. Angela Duckworth

What matters more: nature or nurture? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice explore what creates expert performers with CEO of Character Lab Dr. Angela Duckworth, featuring our interview with Eli Manning.

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

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk Sports Edition. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, bringing to you this episode which we've titled, "Nature vs. Nurture." And by the way, I hate that debate, "Nature vs. Nurture," but sometimes you have to resurrect it because you're confronted with something you cannot otherwise explain without duking it out over whether nature or nurture matters. Because in this episode, we are featuring my exclusive sit-down interview with Eli Manning. Eli Manning, Super Bowl-winning quarterback for the New York Giants, brother of another Super Bowl-winning quarterback, both of whom were sons of an NFL quarterback.

• 0:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, there's a lot going on in that family and there's a lot to talk about in this show. I've got my co-host Chuck Nice. Chuck, baby.

• 1:07Chuck Nice?

  Hey Neil, I hate this show too.

• 1:11Chuck Nice?

  Just hate it so much.

• 1:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Chuck, with no actual athletic experience, he's here to bring a touch of levity, if you don't otherwise know that. But I do have Gary O'Reilly. Gary?

• 1:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Hey Neil.

• 1:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, good, good.

• 1:27Gary O'Reilly?

  I do love this show, just as the illegitimate stepchild of podcasts gets some love somewhere along the line.

• 1:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, former football pro baller over in the UK and it's always great to have you. You also served time as an announcer there. So we didn't just pluck you off the field. You were honed in all the ways necessary to do what we need you to do for this show. So, it's like, we have to ask, were the Manning brothers manufactured because of the environment in which they were raised by their father? Or is there some genetic component that we need to pay attention to? And to do this, I think we need some academic expertise.

• 2:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And who do we call? Who are you gonna call? There's only one person in the universe who can comment on this with depth and intensity and expertise, and that's Angela Duckworth. Angela, welcome back to StarTalk.

• 2:25Speaker 03

  Hey, guys. It's great to be with you again. I love this show already, by the way, even though

• 2:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent.

• 2:30Speaker 03

  Even though I'm with you, the nature of versus nurture. The only problem is the versus part. But yeah, well, let's get

• 2:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's it. That's the versus. That's maybe that's I should have localized it. Yeah, to the versus part. And I just want you to know, Chuck, that Angela wrote the book on grit.

• 2:48Chuck Nice?

  She actually did. Lit, yes. Wait a minute. Literally.

• 2:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Literally. Literally.

• 2:54Chuck Nice?

  Look, see what happened there? What?

• 2:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You see what I did there?

• 2:57Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, man, it's just so meta all over the place.

• 3:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So she's a professor of psychology at Psychology at University of Pennsylvania. She studies like grit. In fact, she's partially responsible for that word being in our vocabulary in the way we use it. Grit and self-control. And she's also founded the Character Lab. This is audacious. A founder and CEO of this, the Character Lab. It's a not-for-profit organization to advance the science and practice of character development, something we haven't heard much of lately.

• 3:31Chuck Nice?

  Nope.

• 3:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there it is, author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. And that was released five years ago, back in 2016, and it was on the New York Times Bestsellers for 21 weeks. So it hit a chord with many, many people. And so Angela, we have you here to reflect on these clips of mine when I sat down, caught up with Eli Manning up in, where was he? He was in Connecticut when I caught up with him. If he came from a house where everybody's got to win, like, what does that mean in his early years? Is this good force? Is it a bad force? And I want to get Angela's reaction, Angela, when we, after you take a listen to this clip. So here we are, my first clip of several in conversation with Eli Manning.

• 4:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The way you described this tells me that at no time did you feel pressure. You know, that parental pressure. That's my boy out there. He's gonna, check him out. And then now you gotta perform. Because otherwise you'll disappoint.

• 4:32Speaker 04

  Right.

• 4:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your parents. So what, what was that relationship?

• 4:35Speaker 04

  You know, my dad, um, my dad loved for us to play sports. He played sports and, you know, growing up, there was an important part of his life. But more on the fact.

• 4:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Cause he was pro.

• 4:46Speaker 04

  He was a pro. He played 14 years in NFL. He played baseball in college as well. And so he, he just, you know, grew up playing sports as a young boy. And so he just thought it built great character. It built, you know, just a, a good work ethic. It, it helped with, you know, teamwork and, and dealing with the good and the bad that happened to you in life. And so, um, he wanted us to play sports, but his rule was, says, um, you know, you had to ask me. You know, so we had to ask him to go, you know, throw the football with us or go shoot hoops with us or go, you know, make catch. It was not the other way around. We had to be in charge of our own athletic.

• 5:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And your own initiative.

• 5:25Speaker 04

  And our own initiative. It had to, it had to start from us. And if we asked him, you know, he would drop and, and go out there.

• 5:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That is the complete opposite of the way most parents run that play.

• 5:35Speaker 04

  Okay. I know.

• 5:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like you're playing, we're gonna catch today, whether you like it or not.

• 5:42Speaker 04

  Get out here right now. We gotta catch a hundred balls. You're gonna make a hundred free throws. I think the fact that he, I mean, he, he lived his athletic career. Like he wasn't trying to live his sports life through us. He did his own. He had 14 years in NFL. He was just trying to raise three boys to be good kids, do well in school. And, you know, and create a, a, you know, make sports being positive and fun. And that's how I think he was raised. And so he tried to do the same with us.

• 6:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Angela, this sounds like the ideal environment to not have the pressure, but still have the tap roots to grow. So is this the kind of family that works for you?

• 6:22Speaker 03

  I think this is not only the kind of family that raises, you know, two quarterbacks who have storied careers, but it's just the kind of family that raises great kids. You know, this clip reminds me of, you know, one of the core tenets of motivational psychology and also what we know about the science of parenting, which is that human beings of all ages, but especially kids, have a huge need for autonomy, the ability to make the choice, the ability to say, you know, I want to do this, not that. And this need for autonomy is in a way, like, you think, well, that's kind of obvious. Like, you know, it's like

• 7:02Speaker 03

  the opposite of tiger parenting, which is actually what a lot of people mistakenly think is that, you know, the roots of greatness is that you have some parent who's like making you do all these hard things that, you know, 15 years later, you're glad that they forced you to do that. And in fact, the research is unequivocal that when you take away choices from your kids, they lose intrinsic motivation. And, you know, you can keep them going for a while just by like browbeating them into practicing their piano or whatever, but they'll never be great. I think that's, you know, one of the things that I would say also of my research, that when you look into the childhoods of people who eventually

• 7:46Speaker 03

  become great, it's hard to find evidence of this kind of coercive parenting that, you know, some people call tiger parenting.

• 7:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 7:54Chuck Nice?

  What if you actually recognize in your child a gift, if you want to call it that, a certain proclivity towards greatness?

• 8:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you don't want them to squander it.

• 8:06Chuck Nice?

  And you don't want them to squander it. And so you're just like, hey, man, no, you got to do this. But then they catch on to the fact that they are great. And then that kind of gets the ball rolling and they take over.

• 8:16Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 8:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How often does that happen?

• 8:17Speaker 03

  Okay, so Chuck's bringing up a really good point. I want to actually say, there's two things. I mean, so, rule number one for parenting is respect for autonomy, right? Respect for the autonomy of your kid. But, there's two, I don't know, corollaries, or like, footnotes, asterisks, because it's not that easy, right? Anybody who's been a parent knows that you have to occasionally, like, tell your kids to do things that they don't want to do. So, that's, you know, in a way, not respecting their autonomy, right? Like, no, you can't cross the street right now. Like, no, you can't take that. But here are the two asterisks that I want to put on the, like, need for autonomy parenting advice. One is that, once your kid is committed, you know, to football, or whatever, you know, like, I'm gonna be

• 8:59Speaker 03

  on the school newspaper this year, etc. I do think, and this is also from my own parenting experience, because I've got an 18 and 19-year-old, two girls, right? Like, yeah, you, as a parent, do have to enforce their decision, right? Once they have said autonomously, "Yeah, I'm gonna do track," right? But then, after the first track meeting, this is what happened to my younger daughter Lucy, she was like, "Oh, changed my mind, didn't like it after all," right? And I was like, "No problem, there's only seven more weeks of track season." And then you can make another choice. So, I do think you have to enforce the commitments. I mean, you know, what kid really is gonna say, like, "Hey, it's a really sunny day outside, like, I really want to, like, practice this instrument, you know, violin, that I

• 9:41Speaker 03

  said that I wanted to practice?" So, I think the first asterisk is, like, yeah, parents have to help their kids, like, meet their commitments, but the commitment comes from the kid. And the second one is, like, what you just said, Chuck, right? Like, there are times where, and I think, you know, I have a research project on this right now, but there are times where our confidence falters, right? It's not like there's no variation in your confidence, that, like, every day you wake up and you're like, "I can do this." And I absolutely think that it is an enormously important thing for a parent, or anybody else, like a coach, right, to say, like, "I know you don't believe in yourself today, right? And I know you want to quit, because you don't think you can do this, but I'm not letting you quit on a bad day."

• 10:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, there are buoyant force in what's going on?

• 10:24Speaker 03

  There are buoyant force, especially when it comes to confidence. And I think, very often, the kid is myopic, the parent can see far.

• 10:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, let's find out what makes Eli Manning tick. Let's go to my second clip.

• 10:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People can't stop wondering, was it in the water supply, or in the food, in the biscuits your parents baked for your family? You, you and your brother and your father, and you have, there's another sibling, right?

• 10:54Speaker 04

  Uh, our oldest brother Cooper played football. He was a receiver and then had a neck injury and had to stop.

• 10:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's too bad. But, but nonetheless, all of three of you were engaged.

• 11:03Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 11:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In this way.

• 11:05Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 11:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is it the food? Is it the air you breathe? Is it, what is your analysis?

• 11:15Speaker 04

  You know what, uh, I think it's just a sense of, some people, you know, like I talked about earlier, some people can just, they can get a ball and they could say, "I'm gonna throw it and hit that tree." And for whatever reason, without thinking about it, your body just, you know, moves and you create torque and you get arm angle and it all just flows. And, and if you had to, if I had to think about how to throw a football, like, what do your hips do? And what does your shoulder do? I would have no idea. I was like, if I had to think about it, I might not be able to throw it. So I just, you know, you just, you can just, it's just a natural motion that we could, we could do and it just made sense to us. And then we also enjoyed, you know, kind of, um, learning about the game of football. And learning, hey, why are defenses playing this,

• 12:00Speaker 04

  you know, this, this style of defense? Why, what's this coverage? What are good plays that go against this coverage? It's kinda, you're, you're figuring out the equations, like a math equation. You're figuring out the answer. Hey, they play this defense, we run this play, we'll have success. We'll, we'll create that touchdown, which is kind of the final answer.

• 12:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, he's got a, he came at this by saying, "Oh, I did this and it felt natural." And then he pursued what he would then call his natural proclivity, his natural ability. So Angela, is there, is it fair to say that some people have a natural ability? Because I can practice at something and get better at it and no one's going to call it natural if I practice at it, but if the end result is the same, why are we even distinguishing between the two?

• 12:45Speaker 03

  I think there's such a, you know, reflexive, you know, is it innate talent? Or is it something that you can practice? I mean, you know, very similar to the, is it nature or is it nurture dichotomy? When the messy truth is that it's almost got to be both, right? So what we know from behavioral genetics is there's nothing about us, you know, our ability to throw a football the first time that we get one in our hands, or, you know, a math equation, or, you know, to like sing a song, or to be extroverted, like literally everything about us has some genetic influence. The DNA that got shuffled and that we inherited from our mom, biological mom, and our biological

• 13:30Speaker 03

  dad, like it influences everything about us. So there's got to be an extent to which you can say that the Mannings have a gene pool that inclines them toward that, you know, multifaceted ability that adds up to being a great quarterback or a great athlete. At the same time, every single one of those things that I mentioned, being extroverted, being able to throw a football, you know, the first time you get a chance to sing, like what happens? Those things are all malleable and they are practicable. And so if we could get people to, out of this conversation, you know, get out of the kind of either or thinking when it comes to their own kids or themselves into both and thinking,

• 14:15Speaker 03

  yeah, there's both some genetic influence and there's a hell of a lot I can do to actually change things.

• 14:21Gary O'Reilly?

  So when he talks about his younger days, sorry Neil, when he talks about his younger days and obviously the physical aspect of him being able to throw intuitively is there, but he talks about his enjoyments. Of problem solving as a quarterback. Is this him really beginning to unlock his true potential?

• 14:40Speaker 03

  Gary, I'm so glad you brought that up. I noted that as well. And by the way, enjoying running around, you know, enjoying athletic activity, enjoying, you know, what some psychologists just like kinesthetic intelligence, right? You know, the, the, where my body is in space, like where everybody else's body is in space, that kind of thing. That is also both nature and nurture, right? So absolutely, some kids are born enjoying that more or enjoying music more or whatever. At the same time, experience matters. What the Manning family story reminds me of is this fantastic study by Benjamin Bloom at University of Chicago.

• 15:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Angela, we don't have time to hear that study in this segment, but if our audience can hang on, and so can you. When we come back, we'll pick up that story on what research has to say about what's going on in the Manning family on StarTalk Sports Edition.

• 15:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk Sports Edition. I got Chuck and Gary with me, of course, my co-host, intrepid co-host. And we've got Angela Duckworth to help us understand and interpret and analyze my exclusive interview with NFL football great Eli Manning. And Angela, you were saying after we heard those first two clips, that it reminded you of some research that you're about to quote. Tell us what's going on there.

• 16:10Speaker 03

  When you ask a great performer, you know, why it is that they're great, they usually say something about enjoying learning about what they're doing. I mean, they just really enjoy music or football, whatever it is. Now, this research that I was getting into was done by Benjamin Bloom at University of Chicago. He looked at 120 world-class performers, swimming, neuroscience, sculpture, piano, tennis, and...

• 16:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  People top of their game.

• 16:40Speaker 03

  At the very top of their game, and he actually interviewed people, typically, like, for example, like, when they were so far into their careers that they, everybody knew they were great, but that their parents and their coaches were still alive to also be interviewed. And one of the things that came out is that when you talk about cultivating an enjoyment of a craft, which, like everything else we're talking about today, is not only nature but also nurture, like, what is that nurture part? I think there's two things. One is that somebody in that young kid's life is actually modeling enjoying that craft, and very often it was their parents. So, in the way that perhaps, you know, Archie Manning was just demonstrating, just he was a personal example, like, how wonderful sports was, like, how terrific it is.

• 17:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Archie Manning, the father, the father of this.

• 17:26Speaker 03

  Exactly, of the two, of the two boys, right? Who had grown up. So, so that happened over and over again in these stories of 120 world-class performers. Doesn't mean that if your, your mom or dad isn't already, like, the thing that you're gonna grow up to be, that you'll, you'll never love it, but it does actually make it more likely. And I happen to think that, you know, a parent who models passion for something is also, you know, a powerful role model, just that you're, that you're really into something, and your kids should watch that and appreciate that. And then, the, you know, the second thing I'll just say about this Benjamin Bloom study is, at the same time, they always do respect that kid's autonomy, right? So, so it's not forcing your kids to go into the thing that you love, but modeling that you do love it, and encouraging them, and, you know, just like Eli Manning said, "You

• 18:10Speaker 03

  have to ask me," but if you do ask me, yeah, I'm gonna go throw the ball around with you.

• 18:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I, in my interview, I did ask him directly what he thought about the nature versus nurture question in his own life. Let's check it out. Can anybody become you?

• 18:26Speaker 04

  What, and what, what? What does that mean? Are we talking, like, clones here? Like, where are we going with this?

• 18:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, if I, if I wanna be a football star, and let's say I'm in middle school or high school, if I just worked hard at it... Can I become you? Or do you think there might have been some genetic profile that you came out of your mother with? Where you were just ready and born for it?

• 18:52Speaker 04

  No, I definitely think there is some sort of like, you're born with a certain skillset. And some people, you know, whether it's throwing a ball, throwing a football, shooting a basket, it just makes sense to them. And I relate it to golf. You know, I think there's some people that can just hit a golf ball. They get up there and the hips and the arms and everything is in sync. And for me, I've played so much golf and it's, I mean, I'm okay, but I'll never be able to get to that professional level. I could get a coach and I could practice every single day and I've kind of, I'm just limited in certain things. And I think that's just the way it is in certain sports.

• 19:34Speaker 04

  You can improve and you can get better, but there's gonna be some limitations that if you don't have these certain skillsets or skillsets or have this certain mobility, then you can't create that to get to the top of the top level.

• 19:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Angela, would you say that maybe what people should do is explore everything they could be good at? And then make a list of that and then find out of what you could be good at, what you enjoy doing most? And then this filters down to just what we need? This filters down to how we should perhaps be investing our time and energy?

• 20:12Speaker 03

  There have got to be some genetic limits. For example, height, right? I mean, you know, you look at the Olympics and it's like, wow, none of these gymnasts are six foot six, right? Like, and you know, it turns out none of the basketball players are five foot one, right? But, but, you know, that's just one example, right? There have to be some genetic limits and also just some genetic weightings, right? Some things where it's like, well, yeah, you can climb that slope, but it's gonna be really steep for you. But for this other person, it's gonna be easy downhill walking. So there've got to be, you know...

• 20:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, so is Chuck genetically funny?

• 20:47Speaker 03

  Well, I have thought about humor, actually, which is really, you know, the same thing to me as like, you know, sports or chess or astrophysics, right?

• 20:54Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 20:55Speaker 03

  Like, it's a, it's a skill, it's a craft, it's a love, it's a passion, you know, you get better at it, I think, Chuck, right? Like, I think you could argue that you...

• 21:03Chuck Nice?

  The only difference is you, um, you, you certainly don't want to model passion for it in front of your children because you don't want them to become comedians. You're like, whatever you do, don't do this.

• 21:18Speaker 03

  Well, uh, that, that may be the only exception, right? Because everything else, I think, applies. And, you know, when, um, when Eli talks about being born with a certain skill set, I mean, it's an interesting choice of words because I, I don't know that, you know, the human brain is not born actually like pre-wired with like, you know, how to throw a long pass, right? Like, I, that's...

• 21:40Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, Angela, let me ask you this question.

• 21:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:44Gary O'Reilly?

  Right? Uh, there are those athletes that don't match the physical perfection of their event, but they still make it, they're still successful. So what's their pathway in looking at what they don't have and making up in other ways to achieve the goal they've set out for?

• 22:01Speaker 03

  Some of the greatest basketball players alive today, right, aren't the tallest ones on the team. I mean, that just wouldn't be, you know, something that you would expect. I mean, some of them are like, so that would be an example, right, Gary? I think. I'm just saying that there are obviously some things which do make it harder, or even in some sports, you could argue like just impossible, right? Like, you know, there, there are certain like very extreme things where you're like, that's... I, I will say that, um...

• 22:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But just to be clear, Michael Jordan was 6'6", I think, is that correct?

• 22:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, but like Steph Curry...

• 22:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He was not like amazingly tall.

• 22:30Speaker 03

  Oh, oh.

• 22:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, it's about average.

• 22:32Speaker 03

  Okay, right. Not especially tall. And, and given the choice of, you know, given a magic wand, you know, these players may be like, yeah, give me the other inch, like, give me the five inches, right? So, so I do think there are advantages and disadvantages. Again, I wouldn't call them skill sets because I, and it's, you know, the human brain is actually plastic, and so it is, um, what, um, some scientists would call experience-dependent and experience expectant. So there might be like proclivities, right? Like, you know, like it's prepared.

• 23:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Interesting phrasing, I like that, yeah.

• 23:03Speaker 03

  You know, but it's not like you're born with a kid who actually knows how to do anything, right? Like, think of babies, like, they don't know how to talk, but they are born, like, prepared to learn how to talk. So, there's guts.

• 23:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Angela, I thought our brains were made of organic matter and not plastic.

• 23:16Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 23:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, this is a...

• 23:17Speaker 03

  Metaphorically, metaphorically. I don't know why we say that, because I don't even know if plastic is that plastic. Do you know what I mean?

• 23:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not even stretchable. Right, right. It's not... Plastic doesn't stretch.

• 23:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay. Nallyable. Nallyable.

• 23:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go.

• 23:32Speaker 03

  So...

• 23:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We gotta get to my... Our next clip. The next clip, Eli Manning comments on the value of being at the right place, even at the right time. Check it out. When you realize you could throw a ball and hit the tree,

• 23:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  that's good, but clearly you would have to further refine that.

• 23:53Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 23:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To be... To win championships either in high school or in college, or in the NFL.

• 23:59Speaker 04

  Right.

• 23:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, wherever you began, how far did you train yourself relative to where you sort of walked in the door?

• 24:08Speaker 04

  Right.

• 24:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How about that? That's the question.

• 24:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, I mean, it took a lot of, a lot of training and a lot of work, and I mean, and it's... I think it does go back to, you know, those times when you're in, you're in grade school and you're out for recess with the kids and you're playing pickup games and, you know, I played quarterback and, you know, our team, whatever team I was on, we would usually win because I was a better quarterback than the other team. So then they made me permanent quarterback. I was on both sides to kind of create an equal game for everybody else. But I think those added...

• 24:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It was so uneven when you're on one side.

• 24:43Speaker 04

  Right.

• 24:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They had to share you.

• 24:44Speaker 04

  Share me, but, but I think all those throws, like, add up. I wasn't practicing right there. I wasn't practicing to become an NFL player, but those added up. But so, but, so by the time I got to high school, and I remember high school, I would go, I, I, I remember I worked, I used to work out with a guy named Tom Shaw. He was a speed specialist and he worked with a lot of college guys and NFL players. I lived in New Orleans with the New Orleans Saints. And so he was training a lot of NFL players. And they wanted to throw routes afterwards and they didn't have a quarterback to train with them. So in high school, he asked if I would go and he would train me on running, but if I would throw to his receivers. So in high school in the summer, I'm throwing to college and NFL receivers all summer. And so like all those things, that also at that point,

• 25:29Speaker 04

  now you're, now you're training. Now you're practicing. This isn't recess. This is like, hey, I'm, I'm got, and, and I'm learning from these receivers how to throw these routes and how to throw 20 yard comebacks and go routes. And I'm like, I don't want to throw an incompletion because I don't want this, you know, 10 year NFL vet yelling at me for throwing a bad route. And so, you know, it's just, it, it, you know, the training started there and all that, all those throws add up.

• 25:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Angela, is this, is this just another way to say he spent 10,000 hours honing his craft?

• 26:01Speaker 03

  The, the research on deliberate practice, the kind of practice that experts like the Mannings exemplify, which by the way, as you know, all of you know, it's not exactly 10,000 hours, but it is true that across every domain that's been studied, you know, every one, it's always thousands of hours. I mean, it just gives you a sense of the magnitude of like how long it takes to become really world-class at whatever you do. Yes. What he's talking about when he said, oh, this wasn't just playing, this was now trying to become better at this thing that I'm doing. That is where you cross the line. And going back to Benjamin Bloom, the University of Chicago scientist who studied the world-class

• 26:41Speaker 03

  performers, there was what he called the early years, the middle years, and then the later years. And the early years are a play. It's like, oh, it's just fun and you know, it was like recess and then it turns out. And then you cross this line and you enter the middle years and that's when you start doing deliberate practice. And the motivation, I think, then becomes like to get better. And I think the, the thing that I note about the world-class achievers that I've studied is that they love to one-up while other people, especially if they're athletes, but they love to one-up themselves. So that motivation to get better at what you're doing just turns on in the middle years.

• 27:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So a personal best is a driver. Yeah. Okay.

• 27:22Gary O'Reilly?

  So what happens then Angela, when you put someone like Eli Manning and you hot house him as a high school student with NFL players? And then what's the burn rate for these young athletes or even younger than high school? Or burnout, burnout rate, yes. Yeah, so what is that and the psychological damage that you can put into a young person's mind?

• 27:43Speaker 03

  I think the chief error that Benjamin Bloom also studied was when you skip the early years, right, the kind of intrinsic motivation, like I choose to do this, this is so fun. Of all the things I could do, I really want to do this, mom and dad. Then when you pass into the middle years, you have a foundation of love for the sport. And you don't really necessarily lose that, it's just that you're now adding on this need for challenge, this need for improvement. I think where you get burnout is when you skip the early years and you forget how important it is that the kid actually chose this to begin with. Not to say that it's the only problem, obviously you can train to exhaustion, you can overtrain, etc.

• 28:25Speaker 03

  And I think it's always helpful to remember that in this research where you have different motivations at different stages, and by the way, different coaches at different stages who really understand that aspect of the game. The ideal performer never loses the motivation of the earlier stages. So the first stage is like, this is fun. The second stage is, I can get better. And by the way, the third stage is to have a sense of purpose, have a sense that what you're doing is beyond the self. And so ideally, when you get to that third stage, you still have that kind of, you know, this is fun, and you still have the like, wow, I can get better.

• 28:59Chuck Nice?

  The great thing is you see that when you look at elite players, and by that I mean anybody on a professional level, they are deadly serious during the execution of whatever the sport might be. But their deadly seriousness always erupts into childlike joy when they have an achievement. And so it's like, here are these guys battling it out, mano a mano, all the way down the field, and then they make a touchdown, it's like, ahh!

• 29:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And they're shaking their butt. And they're shaking and they're.

• 29:32Speaker 03

  That's my favorite part of the game. Exactly. And they're like eight years old again.

• 29:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's like in baseball, if someone hits a walk off, gets a walk off hit or a homerun, then they round the bases. People are jumping up and down and dumping data rate on each other. That'll be the win bonus, Neil.

• 29:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that'll be the touchdown bonus that every athlete gets. We gotta take another break. When we come back, Angela, if you can stay with us for that one last segment, we got more for you. And plus, we're gonna find out, forget Angela, we're gonna find out what Eli thinks can make you successful.

• 30:05Speaker 03

  Good.

• 30:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And StarTalk Sports Edition continues.

• 30:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. StarTalk Sports Edition, featuring my interview, sit down exclusive interview with Super Bowl great, New York Giant great, Eli Manning. And for this.

• 30:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck is from Philadelphia. Okay. It took this long. Go Green Bay, Birds. Go Birds, all the way. You held it, you held it in very long. And I couldn't take it anymore. Congratulations.

• 30:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So let's go straight to this next clip, where Eli Manning has a checklist of what it takes to be success. Because forget anything that Angela just told you. We're gonna get it from Eli Manning himself. There's some families that have a really great athlete in among the siblings and the rest are not. So.

• 31:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not a given that some genetic profile out of a, you know, a family,

• 31:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  it doesn't guarantee that everybody becomes successful.

• 31:31Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 31:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, do you have any bits of wisdom you can just put out there that other people can absorb in their ambitions?

• 31:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, I think, I think a, a strong work ethic, I think a strong mental, you know, mindset and just being driven, uh, the, uh, kind of the power of the will, uh, is much more important uh, than, than natural talents. And so you, you see people who are just determined are the ones that go out there and are successful and, and those are the guys you can count on. They're the best teammates because you know, they're doing everything possible uh, for the betterment of the team. And so there's, you know, I would challenge people, what, and not just sports, but in science and in school work, it's the people that, uh, that are driven, that work harder. Um, and that, um, you know, or in a lot of cases, kind of maybe doing it

• 32:27Speaker 04

  not only for themselves, but doing it for someone else, uh, that, that get the most out of it and, and become successful.

• 32:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So Eli had his own ideas. I think, I actually, I, I, I prefer what Angela has shared. I was gonna say, you said, forget what Angela said. I'm just like, that guy doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.

• 32:46Speaker 03

  No, I, I would say.

• 32:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's get back to Angela. Let's get back to Angela quick on that one.

• 32:51Speaker 03

  Look, you can get back to both of us because I think we're like violently agreeing, right? I mean, look.

• 32:56Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, that's the way I felt.

• 32:57Speaker 03

  Right? I mean, he talked about like this, um, you know, mental mindset, like the, you know, the people who are really determined. Like you know, you can count on them. Like you know, you don't even have to be watching what they're doing all the time because when nobody's watching, they're practicing, right? And, and I think, um, when he says like that might in his own rank ordering, right? This is Eli's, not mine, like that, that, um, that he would put that above natural talent. Well, I would choose the same rank ordering. Um, but here's the thing I also want to underline, you know, he said like, you know, when you really look into what these people are doing, it's like they're doing it for, not just for themselves, right? Like they have a sense of purpose, which is greater than themselves. And I've been, um, shocked actually to find that it's not only athletes in team sports.

• 33:42Speaker 03

  Like football where that might be understand or basketball, right? Baseball, but also individual sports like downhill skiing or like where there is a sense of beyond the self motivation. And I just don't think people get up out of the morning, you know, in the morning out of bed at like five in the morning, whatever it is, when it's only for themselves. I think there's something deeply human about the need to serve other people.

• 34:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, and team sports can can inculcate that very, very easily. So I want to make sure we have time for this final clip, so I'm going to go to it right now. And it's Eli brings up the topic, which has been in all the news as the mental health and wellbeing of professional athletes, especially those that are performing in very, very public settings. And he decided to take control of his own mental health. Let's check it out. So at what point did you realize, if ever, that your mind had to be a part of that effort? Because we are sensitized in recent months and years to high performance, high profile

• 34:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  athletes who've stepped out of the of the big game or the big contest because they needed some mental time.

• 34:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think in 2007, so my fourth year in the NFL is when I I reached out and got a a sports psychiatrist to start working with. And that's when, you know, just kind of realized, hey, you lift weights, you you study film, you practice, and yet, you know, there was this one thing out, you kind of left out the the mental approach to it and your mind, if your mind's on the right spot, if you're not thinking positively, if you're not prepared to go out there and be your best, then it's not going to happen. Whatever the mind thinks is usually what the body is going to happen.

• 35:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's going to happen.

• 35:34Speaker 04

  And so, and then, you know, that year went on to win a Super Bowl and had success. And so I just, you know, I think it is so important and like you said, you see it now with some athletes in the Olympics and tennis and other sports, you know, just, you know, kind of not be able to handle. Some of those circumstances and so you you you know understand that the mind is so important and and you can do it you know you kind of learned that I remember in 2007 just doing a lot of visualizations and all of a sudden you're like sitting there in a chair like this thinking about a two-minute drive in the game and you're having this you're smelling the smell of the stadium you're hearing the crowds you're running the plays and you're

• 36:16Speaker 04

  sweating I mean it's it's 65 degrees in the room and you're in a full sweat and so you realize the power of the mind what it can create.

• 36:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So maybe it's been long overdue where we would fully accept if you had an elbow injury or a knee injury of course you're going to miss a few games so maybe the time has come where someone needs some mental recovery time that that's no different in a in in the total package that an athlete represents.

• 36:44Speaker 04

  Yeah I think it's just it is harder to accept I think as as you can see you can you know you can feel your knees pain a doctor says boom your your knee is hurt here's an MRI hey your your bone is broken here's an x-ray you know it's hard to look into the mind into this the mental state of someone you think that well that's easy to fix and it's not I mean you can you can definitely get in that bad you know and and be in a bad place in a bad position and be thinking negative thoughts and I think you know people would say well you just got to find a way to to to work through that and grind through it and and go out there for your teammates and so it is it is a tough battle but having

• 37:25Speaker 04

  been in those kind of in that position I just understand that the mind is powerful and if it's not in the right place you're not going to be able to go out there and perform very well.

• 37:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Angela I and again I've been hogging all these questions I want to make sure Chuck and Gary have have their their their say in this but I I want to sort of take what Eli just shared with us and ask you. Isn't there a day when we would have just said, "Just suck it up and get on with it," you know? And you'd have to- That was today. Well, that was today. That was early this morning. That's when that was. That was early this morning.

• 38:00Speaker 03

  That was hours ago.

• 38:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, let's assume that that might even be possible, but it's not always in the best long-term interest of the person's mental health. But it is true that people have been injured physically, and the coach or they themselves says, "I'm just gonna suck it up," okay? We had Lindsey Vonn on this podcast, talk to us about getting injured on some downhill slope, get airlifted out, and then she's back competing the next day because she didn't want to lose a beat. And meanwhile, she's like bandaged and chewing gum and bailing wire to just- to continue. So here she is, sucking it up and getting on with it. So, where do you- what do you advise in terms of people's mental health?

• 38:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With regard to taking the time off or not, or just sucking it up?

• 38:50Speaker 03

  Lindsey's my girl, so now we're talking. I love Lindsey. We're pretty good friends. And I have thought a lot about like her mental toughness. And then, you know, the mental toughness of, you know, people like Eli Manning. I think we're in the middle of a revolution, honestly. I mean, it's not the case that today people would say like, "You literally just have to suck it up," or "There's nothing that like," for example, a performance psychologist, or even, I think Manning said like, "Performance psychiatrists." I'm not sure, you know, whether like he meant exactly that. But that, yeah, you can get somebody to help you with your mind, just the way you would get somebody to help you with your knee or your hip. And that revolution-

• 39:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the stigma has changed, you're saying, because we're talking about the macho sport of American football. You can't go on the sidelines and start crying because you don't feel good that day. That doesn't play. And but you're saying we're going, we're undergoing a shift.

• 39:45Speaker 03

  I think it's a cultural revolution. I think, I think the fact that you're seeing it in a, you know, macho sport like football is just an indicator that the whole world must be changing. You know, the, the memoir that Lindsay just wrote, she talks very honestly, right? Also about depression and, and about, you know, how, having to, you know, manage that, deal that, learn from that. And I think what we're seeing now is that these high performers are human beings. And as human beings, they sometimes need help from other people. They can, you know, work on things like their emotions and they have emotions and so.

• 40:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But Angela, you're wrong. They're not human beings. They're superheroes.

• 40:25Speaker 03

  Well, they're, they're super human beings.

• 40:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't want to walk down the street and find Superman crying in a phone booth because he can't handle it.

• 40:32Speaker 03

  Why is Superman having a bad day?

• 40:36Chuck Nice?

  By the way, that's, that's Batman's job, crying.

• 40:39Gary O'Reilly?

  So here's the, here's the deal. You walk into the stadium, right? From the parking lot. And as the coach, and I'm looking at you, can I tell whether or not you're game ready or you're half baked and you're not going to be performing? Now, you can, there's certain tells in the body language. But if you're one of those people that covers that up, I, I can't tell what's going off in here. So we need to have.

• 41:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In here, in your mind.

• 41:05Gary O'Reilly?

  In my mind, yeah. So it's one of those things that now I see it because the, the way it used to be is blindfold that guy, push him into a dark room and let's see if he gets out the other side. And you would fumble your way through this. Now we have so much more understanding of, you know what? This is a package. It's holistic. It's body and mind. Don't just expect one thing and one thing alone to carry this.

• 41:25Speaker 03

  So Gary, would you just ask now? Like whereas before you would just like, you know, shove them into it and see what happens? I mean, I, I feel like there would be a conversation, you know, whereas, you know, 20 years ago, there wouldn't be.

• 41:37Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 41:37Gary O'Reilly?

  No.

• 41:37Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's, that's. 20 years ago, 20 years ago, we had a lot more anger to feed our performance. All of these sports were driven by anger. All of the time that you spent becoming what you were becoming, the fact that this other guy was on the other side of you, it was like, I'm going to kill you. That was the game.

• 42:01Speaker 03

  What is it now? Wait, what is it now, Chuck?

• 42:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, wait, Angela, as you can see, Chuck still needs therapy.

• 42:08Chuck Nice?

  No, now it's about, now it's about performance, it's about competitiveness.

• 42:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, I see.

• 42:14Chuck Nice?

  Achieving excellence. You're fueled by something different from the inside. When you look at guys like Jack Lambert and Ronnie Lott, these guys wanted to kill you. They wanted to kill you.

• 42:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 42:27Chuck Nice?

  They would do things like you be at the bottom of a pile and they would bite you.

• 42:31Speaker 03

  Okay, so I count that as progress.

• 42:33Chuck Nice?

  What does that have to do with football? That doesn't have anything to do with football.

• 42:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 42:39Chuck Nice?

  So, you know.

• 42:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, guys, we've got to try to land this plane here. Angela, do you have any sort of final reflections on, or nothing is final. Do you have any, any timely reflections on where society is now? And also informed by what we've learned from Eli today?

• 42:57Speaker 03

  You know, a lot of people like me don't know a lot about football, but we nevertheless admire the Mannings, all of them, right? And I think it's because they are people of character, right? Like, they have work ethic, yeah, they have grit, they love something. They're also honest people who are, you know, fairly brave, I think, about, you know, things that have gone well for them and especially about the things that haven't gone well. So, you know, I love that we have some heroes left. Some days I wake up and wonder if we are going to have any left since there's a lot to be disappointed about in the world. So, anyway, I have really appreciated listening to something like that, not only because of, you know, athletic accomplishments, but because of character and the role model that

• 43:42Speaker 03

  these people are.

• 43:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And what didn't make these clips, but I'll share with you now. I didn't follow every game he ever played in, so I had to ask him. I said, "Eli, did you ever play as quarterback directly against your brother? And if so, how did you do?" And he said, "Let's not talk about that." I said, "Okay, shut off the cameras now."

• 44:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I actually don't know how he did, but he was very funny about it. I think we can guess.

• 44:11Speaker 03

  I don't know, I don't know if I can guess.

• 44:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, let me see, let me give the bard the last reflection here. I think it's from the 12th Night. And Angela, you tell me how often, I think he's right on the money here when he says, this is from the 12th Night, says, "Some people are born great, some people achieve greatness, and some people have greatness thrust upon them."

• 44:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That kind of covers all the angles there, I think.

• 44:38Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 44:39Speaker 03

  Um, I'm gonna disagree politely with the bard and say,

• 44:45Speaker 03

  yeah, well, you know, the bard's not here to defend himself, so, um, so, um, I think that people who are great, um, are, are born with a certain lucky combination of qualities and, uh, they achieve it and circumstances, uh, enable them, uh, to do it. So I think all three-

• 45:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so it's not war, it's not a bunch of wars?

• 45:05Speaker 03

  I think it's and, and, and, and, you know, the bard will have to come on and, and talk about how I'm wrong.

• 45:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll get him on our next episode.

• 45:12Speaker 03

  Exactly. He'd be a great interview.

• 45:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Angela, I'm, I'm, I own a copy of your book and if we're ever in person, I'm gonna get you to sign it. Um, and it's an important book on the landscape of how we can all be all that we can be. So, thanks for writing that book. Thanks for being you and thanks for sharing your expertise with us here on StarTalk Sports Edition. And do you have a social media platform that we can find you?

• 45:35Speaker 03

  I would like people to go to characterlab.org and that is a nonprofit website where we give science away for parents and teachers.

• 45:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent. And, and some, some percentage of the people who visit that will also give you money to do that because it's a nonprofit.

• 45:48Speaker 03

  That would be great, too.

• 45:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent, excellent. Gary, Chuck, always good to have you here, man.

• 45:54Chuck Nice?

  Pleasure, pleasure.

• 45:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. This has been StarTalk Sports Edition, featuring the Eli Manning interview, Nature vs. Nurture. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal natural physicist. Keep looking up.