This review first ran in the Oct. 26 edition of The Hamilton Spectator.
Grit to Great: How Perseverance, Passion and Pluck Take You From Ordinary to Extraordinary
By Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval
Crown Business
$25.95
Do your kids a favour.
Stop telling them they’re special.
Your pride and joy won’t always be the smartest kids in the room and they’ll eventually slam into a problem they can’t solve on autopilot. Will they rise to the challenge or run away?
Start doing this instead. Praise your kids for their hard work and hustle. Notice when they’re grinding it out and going the extra mile. Encourage your kids to be the ones who are never outworked.
And put away the bubble wrap. Quit shielding your kids from disappointment, rejection and failure. Your kids, and their future employers, will thank you.
A little failure goes a long way to building grit and grit’s the best gift we can give our kids, say Brooklyn-born authors Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval and co-founders of an award-winning ad agency. “Emerging research suggests that there is far more to success in life than a country club pedigree or natural ability and sheer talent. Passion and perseverance matter more than talent or intelligence when it comes to being successful. Taking the measure of a person’s grit is a more accurate barometer of how successful he or she will be than any report card or resume.”
So what’s grit? Kaplan Thaler and Koval say it’s about sweat and character rather than swagger and charisma.
“Grit is the hard-fought struggle, a willingness to take risks, a strong sense of determination, working relentlessly toward a goal, taking challenges in stride, and having the passion and perseverance to accomplish difficult things, even if you are wallowing in the most difficult circumstances.”
You get grit by being courageous, resilient, tenacious and a self-starter. Most of us stand around saying something should be done. The gritty few step up and get it done without fanfare.
Grit’s a scarce commodity in our confidence-boosting Age of Self-Esteem. Every kid gets a trophy while all the grown-ups meet or exceed expectations on their annual performance reviews. We visualize being a success without focusing on the years of slogging, sacrifices and setbacks required to get to the top of our game.
The good news is that grit can be learned and it’s age agnostic.
Kaplan Thaler and Koval offer up dozens of grit builders. Be willing to go the extra 30 minutes every day. “You’d be surprised at the edge you can develop by applying yourself for an extra half hour on something – a goal, a skill, a job. A half hour each day adds up to 180 hours of extra practice a year.”
Quit following your dreams and instead set a specific goal, come up with a game plan and start moving the yardsticks with small wins. “While the dreamers are still sleeping, the doers are taking victory laps, because they had the sense to wake up and get to work. They put themselves in a grit state of mind.”
For added inspiration, Kaplan Thaler and Koval profile ordinary people who’ve done extraordinary things thanks to grit. They show what you can achieve through the virtue of hard work and resilience.
“Grit is the great equalizer in life, because anyone, at any time, whatever their background or resources, can lay claim to it. It’s been proven time and again that those individuals who relentlessly and passionately summon their inner fortitude when things get tough and scary; who tirelessly turn defeat into victory thanks to their resilience; who turn roadblocks into initiatives; and hold on with the fierce tenacity of a mother tiger to her cubs, are the true winners in life.”
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