“40 or 50 pots in a day”: Warren MacKenzie, potter, in an interview with the author, June 16, 2015.
“continue to engage the senses”: Warren MacKenzie, Artist’s Statement, Schaller Gallery, https://www.schallergallery.com/artists/macwa/pdf/MacKenzie-Warren-statement.pdf.
“the most exciting things”: “Oral History,” Archives of American Art.
“in my work today”: Ibid.
“first 10,000 pots are difficult”: Alex Lauer, “Living with Pottery: Warren MacKenzie at 90,” Walker Art Center blog, February 16, 2014, http://blogs.walkerart.org/visualarts/2014/02/16/living-with-pottery-warren-mackenzie-at-90.
“Garp was a natural storyteller”: John Irving, The World According to Garp (New York: Ballantine, 1978), 127.
“the great storyteller”: Peter Matthiessen, quoted in “Life & Times: John Iriving,” New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/06/15/lifetimes/irving.html.
Garp “could make things up”: Irving, Garp, 127.
“my lack of talent”: John Irving, The Imaginary Girlfriend: A Memoir (New York: Ballantine, 1996), 10.
SAT verbal score was 475: Sally Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia: A New and Complete Science-based Program for Reading Problems at Any Level (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003), 345–50.
“lazy” and “stupid”: Ibid., 346.
“frequently misspelled words”: Irving, Imaginary Girlfriend, 9.
“slowly—and with my finger”: Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 346.
“you have to overextend yourself”: Ibid., 347.
“no matter how difficult it is”: Ibid.
“Rewriting is what I do best”: John Irving, “Author Q&A,” Random House Online Catalogue, 2002.
“to have to go slowly”: Shaywitz, Overcoming Dyslexia, 347.
“sickening work ethic”: 60 Minutes, CBS, December 2, 2007, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/will-smith-my-work-ethic-is-sickening. A lyric in one of Will Smith’s raps goes: “If you say you’re going to run three miles, and you only run two, I don’t ever have to worry about losing in nothing to you.” See “Will Smith Interview: Will Power,” Reader’s Digest, December 2006.
“or I’m going to die”: Tavis Smiley, PBS, December 12, 2007.
“healthy young men”: Clark W. Heath, What People Are: A Study of Normal Young Men (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1945), 7.
for only four minutes: Katharine A. Phillips, George E. Vaillant, and Paula Schnurr, “Some Physiologic Antecedents of Adult Mental Health,” The American Journal of Psychiatry 144 (1987): 1009–13.
“strength of will”: Heath, Normal Young Men, 75.
“becomes too severe”: Ibid., 74.
“with mental health”: Phillips, Vaillant, and Schnurr, “Some Physiologic Antecedents,” 1012.
“I’m not all that persistent”: George Vaillant, professor at Harvard Medical School and former director of the Grant Study, in an interview with the author, April 8, 2015.
“never write the play or book”: William Safire, “On Language; The Elision Fields,” New York Times, August 13, 1989.
“Eighty percent of success in life is showing up”: Ibid.
less than they’d expected: Consumer Reports, “Home Exercise Machines,” August 2011.
“beating on your craft”: Today show, NBC, June 23, 2008.
CHAPTER 4: HOW GRITTY ARE YOU?
Grit Scale: The original twelve-item Grit Scale, from which this ten-item version is adapted, was published in Duckworth et al., “Grit.” The correlation between these two versions of the scale is r = .99. Note also that, as you’ll learn in chapter 9, I’ve revised item 2, adding, “I don’t give up easily” to “Setbacks don’t discourage me.”
how your scores compare: Data for these norms are from Duckworth et al., “Grit” Study 1. Note that there are numerous limitations of any measure, including self-report questionnaires like the Grit Scale. For an extended discussion, see Angela L. Duckworth and David S. Yeager, “Measurement Matters: Assessing Personal Qualities Other Than Cognitive Ability for Educational Purposes,” Educational Researcher 44 (2015): 237–51.
“work in East Africa”: Jeffrey Gettleman, East Africa bureau chief for the New York Times, in an interview with the author, May 22, 2015.
“it was the easiest to fulfill the requirements”: Abigail Warren, “Gettleman Shares Anecdotes, Offers Advice,” Cornell Chronicle, March 2, 2015, http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2015/03/gettleman-shares-anecdotes-offers-advice.
“I wanted to make it a part of my life”: Gettleman, interview.
“who wants to work for a boring newspaper?”: Max Schindler, “New York Times Reporter Jeffrey Gettleman ’94 Chronicles His Time in Africa,” Cornell Daily Sun, April 6, 2011.
“I was pretty lost academically”: Gettleman, interview.
“have a life philosophy”: Pete Carroll, head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, in an interview with the author, June 2, 2015.
they have ever been done before: For more on Pete’s perspective, see Pete Carroll, Win Forever: Live, Work, and Play Like a Champion (New York: Penguin, 2010). Some of the quotations in this section, and later in the book, are from interviews with the author between 2014 and 2015. Others are from Pete’s book or public talks.
“drive all my actions”: Carroll, Win Forever, 73.
“and filling binders”: Ibid., 78.
goals in a hierarchy: Material in this chapter on the hierarchical structure of goals from Angela Duckworth and James J. Gross, “Self-control and Grit: Related but Separable Determinants of Success.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 23 (2014): 319–25. On goal hierarchies more generally, see Arie W. Kruglanski et al., “A Theory of Goal Systems,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 34 (2002): 331–78. And, finally, for a review of goal-setting theory, see Edwin A. Locke and Gary P. Latham, “Building a Practically Useful Theory of Goal Setting and Task Motivation: A 35-Year Odyssey,” American Psychologist 57 (2002): 705–17.
an “ultimate concern”: Robert A. Emmons, The Psychology of Ultimate Concerns: Motivation and Spirituality in Personality (New York: Guildford Press, 1999).
when he retired in 1987: Ira Berkow, “Sports of the Times; Farewell, Sweet Pitcher,” New York Times, June 23, 1987.
“day after day, year after year”: Pat Jordan, “Tom Terrific and His Mystic Talent,” Sports Illustrated, July 24, 1972, http://www.si.com/vault/1972/07/24/612578/tom-terrific-and-his-mystic-talent.
“then I eat cottage cheese”: Ibid.
“help me be happy”: Ibid.
“positive fantasizing”: Gabriele Oettingen, “Future Thought and Behaviour Change,” European Review of Social Psychology 23 (2012): 1–63. For a terrific summary, and practical suggestions, on goal setting and planning, see Gabriele Oettingen, Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation (New York: Penguin, 2014).
reportedly gave his personal pilot: James Clear, “Warren Buffett’s ‘Two List’ Strategy: How to Maximize Your Focus and Master Your Priorities,” Huffington Post, originally posted October, 24, 2014, updated December 24, 2014, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-clear/warren-buffetts-two-list-strategy-how-to-maximize-your-focus-_b_6041584.html.
a more important end: For instance, in one study, young adults wrote down their high-level, mid-level, and low-level goals; over the next two weeks, they reported on daily frustrations. People whose goals demonstrated a more organized, hierarchical structure subsequently demonstrated greater resilience in the face of daily frustrations. In particular, when confronted with frustrating experiences, they maintained a sense that they were in control of attaining their goals. In a related study, a more hierarchical goal structure predicted feeling less anger and annoyance in the face of daily frustrations over the next two weeks. See Michael D. Robinson and Sara K. Moeller, “Frustrated, but Not Flustered: The Benefits of Hierarchical Approach Motivation to Weathering Daily Frustrations,” Motivation and Emotion 38 (2014): 547–59.