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DOCTOR’S CORNER
GRIT
by Allen Weiss, MD, MBA, FACP, FACR more so than total practice hours. “High effort” practice mattered
President and CEO, NCH Healthcare System even though it was not as enjoyable, required much more effort and
was much harder.The first two activities take less energy and are more
W hy are some people so successful, even though they seem enjoyable. It is hard work to stay focused, self-motivated and be on
not as talented as others who never quite make it? Why do your own.
some people love to work out, practice, and persist—while
others drop out, get frustrated, and never seem to finish anything? The concept that “talent multiplied by effort equals skill” applies
to spelling competence in regard to the time and effort spent on the
The answer is grit, which is also the title of psychologist Angela three types of preparation—reading for pleasure, quizzing, and self-
Duckworth’s authoritative book with the formal title,“Grit, the Power study. Again, we define talent as how quickly skills improve when you
of Passion and Perseverance.” invest the effort.
Talent does not equal achievement, she maintains, but there is a Another noteworthy example of grit is the ability of incoming
direct relationship when effort is included as a factor. In other words, West Point cadets to graduate, as nearly 20 percent will drop out with
talent multiplied by effort equals skill. Thus, talent is defined as how a disproportionate percentage dropping out during the rigorous first
quickly skills improve when you invest the effort. summer.
Let’s explore two examples before offering a quick self-quiz to Typically there are more than 14,000 applicants who start
check your grit. the process with only 4,000 obtaining a nomination from their
representative in Congress. Of these, 2,500 meet the rigorous
The National Spelling Bee is televised yearly on ESPN. To say academic and physical standards and 1,200 are enrolled. These
the students are impressive and the words difficult to spell is an outstanding students have typically been varsity athletes, top of
understatement. Duckworth and her colleagues interviewed and their class academically, and have excellent College Board scores or
assessed the spelling bee finalists to learn about how they prepared the equivalent.
and how much effort was involved.
The admissions process takes in all of the objective measures of
The advisory book, “How to Spell Like a Champ,” suggests three intellectual and athletic prowess combined with a subjective leadership
types of learning and preparation to become a competitive contestant. ability score to form the “Whole Candidate Score.”This measurement
First, read for pleasure and play word games like Scrabble. Second, get process is carefully thought out, but this Whole Candidate Score was
a partner or computer to quiz you.The third and most critical action is not a good predictor of who would survive and thrive at West Point.
unassisted study doing solitary spelling practice. This most important The 20 percent of who dropped out of the program rarely did so
last activity is directed at memorizing new words from a dictionary, because of lack of talent or ability—but rather the lack of the “never
reviewing tricky words in a “spelling” notebook and learning the roots
of words.
The successful spelling bee contestants were more intense when
studying. Deliberate practice was the best predictor of success—even
46 Life in Naples | November 2016
