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099 - The Secret Ingredient

Hello there, Kevin here with another episode of the Feel…what? Feel Good English podcast, the only podcast that is helping you become more fluent in English and more fluent in life.

A very important episode for you today, well I guess they’re all pretty important, right? Today we are going to talk about a TED Talk, I am going to go through a TED Talk, actually play some of the audio from the TED Talk and then explain the English and explain the concepts from the talk. I used to do these episodes more often; I haven’t done one in a while, I hope you enjoy it.

As you might know, ted.com is a wonderful website, great videos. A lot of the books I read come from talks that I have seen on ted.com. And in this episode, I’m going to help you understand the person speaking and also help you understand the concepts a little bit better.

Today we are going to talk about a video, a TED Talk called The power of passion and perseverance, by professor and author Angela Lee Duckworth.

And in this talk, she talks about a characteristic, a very important, a vital characteristic that successful people have. It’s not how smart you are, it’s not how good you look, it’s something else and I’m going to talk about that in this TED Talk today.

If you are new to the podcast, welcome, I hope you enjoy it. Other than the podcast I also send weekly inspirational educational informative emails to you once a week. If you want to get on that email list, it’s obviously free, just to go to feelgoodenglish.com, look for the bear and

sign up. But first let’s learn about Grit: The power of passion and perseverance

“What struck me was that IQ was not the only difference between my best and my worst students. Some of my strongest performers did not have stratospheric IQ scores. Some of my smartest kids weren’t doing so well. And that got me thinking.

So there is some good English here. First she says, “What struck me.” “To strike”, past tense “Struck” is to hit, it’s when you hit somebody or maybe a car strikes a building. But here when you are talking about a person and what struck her, talking about what surprised her, she was hit by a revelation. So what struck her was that IQ was not the only difference between my best and my worst students. She continues, “Some of my strongest performers did not have stratospheric IQ scores.” The stratosphere is a layer around the earth, before you get to space is the stratosphere many miles above earth.

But what would a stratospheric IQ be? Well just a really large IQ, because the stratosphere is large, right? And this is kind of the foundation of her research, she realized it wasn’t just IQ that differentiated, made different, the strongest performers from the not so strong performers in her classes.

“After several more years of teaching, I came to the conclusion that what we need in education is a much better understanding of students and learning from a motivational perspective, from a psychological perspective. In education, the one thing we know how to measure best is IQ. But what if doing well in school and in life depends on much more than your ability to learn quickly and easily? “

So she taught for several more years and she came to the conclusion that what we need in education is a much better understanding of students and learning from a motivational perspective, from a psychological perspective.

This is exactly how I approach English education as well; after many years of teaching I’ve realized the hardest part about becoming fluent in English is not perfecting your grammar or learning all of the slang and idioms that native speakers use, mastering phrasal verbs, all secondary, but the primary challenge is staying motivated, continuing to push through the difficult times when you don’t feel fluent, when you are embarrassed, when you’re tired, when you are bored.

“My research team and I went to West Point Military Academy. We tried to predict which cadets would stay in military training and which would drop out. We went to the National Spelling Bee and tried to predict which children would advance farthest in competition. We studied rookie teachers working in really tough neighborhoods, asking which teachers are still going to be here in teaching by the end of the school year, and of those, who will be the most effective at improving learning outcomes for their students?”

So some more good English here, she uses her research team and herself went to West Point Military Academy, they tried to predict which cadets would stay in military training and which would drop out. West Point Military Academy, obviously a school where they train people to be in the military; a very high end, prestigious academy. Prestigious means “well respected”.

And they tried to predict which cadets, cadets would be students in this case, in the military the students would be called cadets, kind of trainees, which would stay in military training and which would dropout. Phrasal verb for you, “Dropout”. What does “Dropout” mean? Do you know “Dropout”?

“Dropout” means “To quit”. When we’re talking about a class or a course, usually in school, we use the phrasal verb “drop out”; “A high school dropout”, maybe you have heard that expression. She talks about the National Spelling Bee where they tried to predict which children would advance farthest in competition. Spelling Bee is a spelling competition.

Spelling Bee, B-E-E, I have no idea why they call it a Spelling Bee by the way; bee like a little insect that buzzes. So they tried to predict which children would advance the farthest in competition, the Spelling Bee.

They also study rookie teachers working in really tough

neighborhoods. Asking which teachers are going, are still

going to be here in teaching by the end of the school

year. And of those who will who will be the most effective

improving learning outcomes for the students.

A rookie is a beginner, a new teacher or a new athlete. We often use this with sports, if you are a rookie, it’s your first year. So rookie, first year, new person, employee, or teacher, or athlete. And they wanted to see which ones would stick through until the end of the year, tough neighborhoods, difficult neighborhoods, tough students. And which ones would improve outcomes for their students; outcomes are results. Who would get through tough years as a teacher, because obviously being a teacher is difficult and being a teacher in a tough neighborhood is even more difficult. Which teachers would be able to stick through the year and do well as well?

“In all those very different contexts,one characteristic emerged as a significant predictor of success. And it wasn’t social intelligence. It wasn’t good looks, physical health, and it wasn’t IQ. It was grit.”

So in all those very different contexts, one characteristic emerged as a significant predictor of success. Emerged, appeared. She says it wasn’t social intelligence, it wasn’t good looks or physical health, and it wasn’t IQ.

All of these things that we assume predict success in many different situations, how smart you are, how good you look, how healthy you are, are actually not what she found to be the most significant predictor of success.

What was the most significant protector of success? It was grit. What the hell is grit? Let’s find out.

“Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years, and working really hard to make that future a reality.”

Here we go, the most important part of this talk, grit. G-R-I-T. Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Grit is having stamina, grit is sticking with your future day in day out, meaning every day. Not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years and working really hard to make that future a reality. Grit is living life like it is a marathon and not a sprint.

This is what makes the difference, being able to persevere for very long term goals.

Most of the big things we want in life, the big dreams we have, the big goals we have, take a lot longer than we often think. We want to experience the results, to reap the rewards you could say, to benefit from the rewards very quickly, we are very impatient. We want quick results. However, the most important things, the biggest dreams and goals take a long time. Grit is being able to stick with your future, to keep those goals in mind as you struggle day to day, month to month, year to year, working hard to get there. It is being able to look at life like a marathon, and not a sprint. A marathon is a very long run and can take hours. You go slow and steady, versus a sprint, sprint is to run really fast. At business sometimes you will hear about a “sprint”, especially in the tech world, working really fast to get quick results.

Most things in life, most significant things in life take a long time, they are a marathon. We have to keep that in mind. And like I have on my website a quote from Carol Dweck, “We have to work hardest for the things we love most.” If we want a spectacular life traveling the world doing whatever we want, it is going to take a lot of work and many years to get there, it is going to take grit.

“To me, the most shocking thing about grit is how little we know, how little science knows, about building it. Every day, parents and teachers ask me, “How do I build grit in kids? What do I do to teach kids a solid work ethic? How do I keep them motivated for the long run?” The honest answer is, I don’t know. I don’t know.”

And unfortunately, the most shocking thing to Angela even being somebody who studies grit, motivation, perseverance, is she doesn’t really have the answer. How do you build this quality in children? How do you develop this characteristic in children? How do you make them see things as “long term”, and keep them motivated and teach them how to get through tough times and know the value of hard work? It’s not easy.

Believe me, as a teacher I know as well, it is very hard to keep students motivated; it’s hard to keep myself motivated sometimes. How do you develop this quality? If you have never experienced big success and you have heard from other people that it takes a long time, you might get there one day, just keep working hard, how do you keep the hope alive that you need? How do you stay motivated and passionate about whatever you’re doing when it takes so long to get there? And that’s what she is getting at, that’s what she is saying here, she doesn’t have the exact answer for this.

“So far, the best idea I’ve heard about building grit in kids is something called “growth mindset.” This is an idea developed at Stanford University by Carol Dweck, and it is the belief that the ability to learn is not fixed, that it can change with your effort. Dr. Dweck has shown that when kids read and learn about the brain and how it changes and grows in response to challenge, they’re much more likely to persevere when they fail, because they don’t believe that failure is a permanent condition.

So have you heard of growth mindset before? I have done an episode on growth mindset. If you haven’t heard it yet I strongly recommend you check it out. And this idea was developed at Stanford University by Professor Dr Carol Dweck and it is the belief that the ability to learn is not fixed, that it can change with your effort. So what does this mean? Often kids think they are either good at something or not, they are

either smart or dumb. If they’re not good at something they need to change what they’re working on because they will never get good at that. So they give up quickly, they lose hope, they get discouraged, disappointed. Carol Dweck has done research to show that if a kid

perseveres and keeps working on something, their brain literally expands in that area and gets better at doing that. Just because you’re not good at something in the beginning doesn’t mean you can’t get better at that and even physiologically, our brain changes and grows in response to specific challenges.

So when kids learn they say, “Wow if I just keep working hard and I learn how to enjoy the challenge, my brain will change, my brain will get bigger like a muscle.” They start believing that even if they fail it is not a permanent condition, they fail now but they can succeed later.

We can’t let our feelings of failure stop us and keep us from improving, grit will get you through this. Long term thinking, power through these feelings of inferiority and know that you are improving, your brain is growing through these challenges. And if you continue to work on it, get through the struggle, you will see improvements.

Patience is big here, you have to be patient. Don’t let social media, saying “it is so easy to get here, success comes fast, here is the secret”; don’t let that discourage you from keeping your eye on the long term goal, it takes grit.

Hope you enjoyed this lesson, go back and repeat this, learn this English deeply, hear Angela’s voice through the TED Talk, hear my voice again, connect these words and meanings to the content here. If you would like a transcript to this episode you can get it at feelgoodenglish.com. Also, like I mentioned earlier I recommended reading more about the growth mindset.

There is a book called Mindset, it is a fantastic book especially if you have children or if you are still in school yourself, a very important read. And actually there is a full book on grit, written by the speaker in this TED Talk. It is also a fantastic book. And there is a lot more to learn from the book, the TED Talk is just quite short but the book Grit is great, grit is great. You can actually find both of these books on my website, there is a link where you can download one of them for free as an audio book, very cool full audio book if you are interested in using audio books. Go to

feelgoodenglish.com/grit and you will see this episode and you will find a link where you can download the audio book for free. Cool eh? And until the next episode keep fighting, keep using your grit, keep getting through the hard days knowing that in the end you will have some lovely days sitting on