Is Grit the Secret of Success?

What does it take to do really well in life? The answer, says psychologist Angela Duckworth, is not innate（天生的） talent but grit – something she learned the hard way（好不容易才学到）

这篇文章总共有十五段，向我们讲述了Grit：the Power of Passion and Perseverance一书作者Angela Duckworth博士本人对父亲教育方式的反思，对自己育儿方式的思考，以及解读了grit对成功的非凡意义。相对于个别单词和表达方式，本文中的一些经典句子以及其带来的思考才是精华。大家在阅读的时候可以根据自己的程度进行取舍。

看看这段TED视频，有助于大家对Grit这一理念的理解。

https://www.ted.com/talks/angelaleeduckworthgritthepowerofpassionand_perseverance?language=zh

原文链接: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/may/07/is-grit-the-true-secret-of-success

[1]

When Angela Duckworth was growing up, her dad often applied(应用) the word genius to his daughter. He did it at random（随机的） moments, over dinner, watching TV or reading the newspaper, and the sentence was always the same: “You’re no genius!” Duckworth’s older sister and brother got it too. For Duckworth’s mother, an artist, the disparagement （蔑视）was adjusted to（调整）fit（符合）: “You’re no Picasso!” This approach（方式） to raising children seems inauspicious（不吉利的） but, in a funny way, it has worked pretty well. Duckworth, now 45, doesn’t recall how she answered her father, but her book Grit is her considered (经过深思熟虑的）reply.

金词：

approach [ə'prəʊtʃ] n.方法

approach to doing sth 做某事的方法

approach to raising children 育儿方式

同义词：

means 方式 （注意，这不是复数）

method 方式

way 方式

avenue 方法

[2]

Subtitled The Power of Passion and Perseverance, the text is the fruit of years studying the psychology of success. Swimmers, chefs, army cadets, telesales executives … Duckworth examines them all, and what she finds is that natural talent – the genius prized（珍视） by her father – does not make humans disposed（有某种倾向） to succeed so much as the qualities（品质） she sums up as “grit”. These include the commitment to finish what you start, to rise from setbacks, to want to improve and succeed, and to undertake sustained and sometimes unpleasant practice in order to do so. She calls the people whose inspiring（鼓舞人心的） tales she recounts（叙述） “grit paragons”（毅力典范）. But the most persuasive（有说服力的） grit paragon, the one whose story is implicit（含蓄的） rather than directly told – the book is social science not memoir（回忆录） – is Duckworth herself.

金词：

disposed [dɪ'spəʊzd] adj.有…倾向的

be disposed to do sth 有做某事的倾向

commitment [kə'mɪtm(ə)nt] n. 承诺

setback ['setbæk] n 挫折

sustained [sə'steɪnd] adj. 持久的

paragon ['pærəg(ə)n] n. 模范

金句

These include the commitment to finish what you start, to rise from setbacks, to want to improve and succeed, and to undertake sustained and sometimes unpleasant practice in order to do so.

these指代上文提到的qualities

这些品质包括：

a. 有始有终 to finish what you start

b. 百折不挠 to rise from setbacks

c. 有上进心 to want to improve and succeed

d. 为了成功，排除万难，坚持长期练习

to undertake sustained and sometimes unpleasant practice

[3]

Every family has its funny sayings, the private lore and logic（逻辑） that its members must negotiate. “At one level, you’re a kid and you accept it,” she says of her father’s sniping（诽谤，这里指不断说Angela不是天才这件事）, but she did register（表达；表示） an emotional reaction: a silent, internal clench（捏紧；收紧）. “Instead of feeling discouraged（沮丧的）, I felt the opposite.” Her voice brightens. “I had the sort of … I’ll show you … response.” The reaction has been Duckworth’s life’s work. She went to Harvard, where she founded a nonprofit summer school for low-income middle-school pupils. She left Harvard with the Fay prize for best female student, passed [McKinsey’s notorious selection process ][1]（麦肯锡出了名严格的选拔过程）before swerving（突然转向） to teaching – “Couldn’t you at least be a senator（参议员）?” her dad pleaded（恳求） – and from there research psychology, and [Character Lab][2], a nonprofit she co-founded to advance（推进） the science and practice of character development.

金词：

register ['redʒɪstə] vt. 表达；表示

a. 登记；记录 — 出国留学时要到警察局登记，用这个词

b. 挂号邮寄 ： register this letter

c. 流露：Her face registered shock. 她面露惊慌。

d. 表达；表示： register a protest 表示抗议

e. 达到；取得： Language registers human thought in words.

[4]

All along, she challenged（挑战） her father, who worked as a chemist at Dupont. She recalls an argument, when she was 17, about the meaning of life. “I said, ‘I think the meaning of life is to be happy.’ He looked at me surprised and puzzled. He said, ‘Why would you want to be happy? I want to be accomplished（功成名就的）.’” Duckworth claims “a rebellious（叛逆的） streak（倾向）”, but hers is not a classic tale of rebellion（叛逆）. It’s much smarter than that. She has scientifically dismantled （拆解）her father’s premise（前提）, his coveting（垂涎） of genius, by proving the idea itself to be mistaken. And she has done it all while achieving everything – and more – he could have hoped for. Three years ago, she won a [MacArthur fellowship][3],（麦克阿瑟奖学金） commonly known as “the genius grant（奖学金）” – thereby proving him wrong on his terms and hers.

金词：

accomplish [ə'kʌmplɪʃ】vt.完成；实现

accomplished [ə'kʌmplɪʃt; ə'kɒm-] adj.功成名就的

accomplishment  [ə'kʌmplɪʃm(ə)nt; ə'kɒm-] n.成就

finish  ['fɪnɪʃ] vt.完成；结束

finished  ['fɪnɪʃt] adj.完成的 （也有完蛋了的意思，比如 you are finished）

金句：

She has scientifically dismantled （拆解）her father’s premise（前提）, his coveting（垂涎） of genius, by proving the idea itself to be mistaken.

Angela博士用科学瓦解了她父亲的假设，证明父亲这种艳羡天才的观念本身就是有问题的。

coveting 在这里是动名词

proving是现在分词做方式状语， by doing sth 通过做某事

例子：We scientifically improve our English by reading English articles everyday.

[5]

Or did she? Is it possible that her father’s relentless（无休无止的） disparagement instilled（逐渐灌输） in Duckworth the impetus（动力） to succeed? “That is an excellent question,” she says, and immediately begins to improve it. “I mean, the question is, would I have done so well – so far as I’ve done – if my dad was just, like, ‘You’re great’!” She replies that she cannot know the answer, she can only reason. “I do think that whatever ambition I may have had natively（天生地） was amplified（放大） by my father’s clear valuing（重视） of it. I knew that was what my dad really cared about.”

金句：

I do think that whatever ambition I may have had natively（天生地） was amplified（放大） by my father’s clear valuing（重视） of it.

Angela博士认为无论她与生俱来拥有什么样的雄心，这心都被父亲的热望放大啦。

I do think that 主句

whatever ambition I may have had natively 是从句主语

was amplified by 是从句谓语

my father's clear valuing of it 是从句宾语

it指代的是ambition

[6]

It is tempting（吸引人的） to think that Duckworth’s father – her parents were Chinese immigrants – used criticism（批评） to motivate his children. But Duckworth laughs at this idea. “Oh my God, my dad, I just don’t think he thought about it. My dad was not super-intentional（有意识的） in his parenting（育儿）. He was very self-absorbed(固执己见的；专注于自己的事情的）. I won’t say mean or selfish per se（本质上）, but very self-absorbed. I think he was just thinking out loud.” She came to understand “you’re no genius” as a self-rebuke（自责）. “He was thinking about the fact that he never won a Nobel prize in chemistry, which is hard to win when you’re really working on car paint refinishing. When I was little, he was still climbing up the corporate ladder （企业阶梯，指的是按部就班地升职）and he wasn’t the man he wanted to be. And so he, I think, was feeling this inadequacy（能力不足） which he projected on to（把自己的感情投射到某人身上） his children. You know: you’re no genius, you’re no nobel laureate（诺贝尔奖获得者）.” She always knew her parents loved her.

金句：

My dad was not super-intentional（有意识的） in his parenting（育儿）. He was very self-absorbed(固执己见的；专注于自己的事情的）. I won’t say mean or selfish per se（本质上）, but very self-absorbed. I think he was just thinking out loud.” She came to understand “you’re no genius” as a self-rebuke（自责）.

Angela博士觉得，父亲教育自己的方式并不是有意为之。他只是个非常固执己见的人，他本质上不是刻薄或者自私，但他的确是个只专注于自己世界的人。他心直口快，想到哪儿说到哪儿。所以，那句 ”你不是天才“其实是父亲对他自己说的，是自责。

[7]

This year her father turns 84. He has Parkinson’s disease（老年痴呆症） and lives with Duckworth’s mother in an assisted living facility, a 45-minute trip from Duckworth’s home in Philadelphia. It was there that Duckworth drove when she finished the book. “He likes to look outside, so I wheeled him to a window.” Feeling a little afraid, she drew up a chair next to him, and opened Grit. Over several visits, she read and read, pausing to give her father a sip of water or if he fell asleep. “He seemed to be listening,” she says. Didn’t he say anything? Well, she says, now and then she asked what he thought and, “He sort of said ‘wonderful’.” But there is a hole in her comprehension, a rare moment of inarticulacy（拙于辞令）. “I’m not 100% sure he’s saying that because he knows exactly what I said or because he remembers that this is the sort of thing you say,” she admits. Then she says, “He may even have uttered（喃喃自语） ‘it’s wonderful’.”

Angela博士出版了她那本著名的Grit之后，第一件事情就是读给父亲听。彼时，父亲已经84岁高龄，且患有老年痴呆症。Angela博士把父亲的轮椅推到窗边，然后一页一页读给父亲听。最终，父亲好像还是说了一句：

你的书写得真棒。

[8]

I am confused as to whether he said “wonderful” or not. By now, their relationship feels like a long conflict（冲突）, and this – the reading – is the final frontier（前线）. So it really matters. The next day I email Duckworth to check and she replies that she is “not entirely sure”. She thinks he said it – the asterisks（星号） are hers and might indicate strength of thought（思考的力量）, or simply emphasise that this is only a thought. Ever the scientist, she adds, “I didn’t video or audio tape reading it to him.”

[9]

It is odd（奇怪的） to picture（想象） Duckworth, mild-mannered and sweet, sitting next to her father – “his own daughter telling him things that are not altogether complimentary（赞赏的）”. But there was some closure（终结） for her, she says. “The one thing my dad has always been is brutally（残忍地） honest.” She gives a small laugh. “Or let’s say unedited(未编辑的）.” His honesty brought advantages: as a child, Duckworth “always felt she knew him” and even though her mother was a saint, and “growing up you would think I should be super close to her … Strangely I felt closer to my dad.” It was his honesty that gave her the courage to read to him. As she says, “I’m still my father’s daughter.”

金句：

It is odd（奇怪的） to picture（想象） Duckworth, mild-mannered and sweet, sitting next to her father – “his own daughter telling him things that are not altogether complimentary（赞赏的）”. But there was some closure（终结） for her, she says. “The one thing my dad has always been is brutally（残忍地） honest.” She gives a small laugh. “Or let’s say unedited(未编辑的）.”

想象这样一副图景：温和甜美的Angela博士坐在父亲身边，读着自己出版的著作，而书中的理念简直就在赤裸裸地打父亲的脸。很奇怪吧。但是，对于Angela博士来讲，这是人生某个阶段的结束。她笑道：“我爸爸总是那么残忍地诚实，或者说说话直来直去。”

大乐乐点评：

Angela博士是否感觉在和父亲漫长的天才战争中取得了胜利呢？其实，这场斗争，无所谓谁胜谁负，只关乎我们想向我们的孩子传达怎样的人生观价值观，关乎我们不用自己的人生来框定下一代。

[10]

Duckworth is a mother as well as a daughter, and in their house, Amanda, 15, and Lucy, 14, hear a lot about grit. “I have gotten the complaint（抱怨） that I talk about grit all the time,” Duckworth says.Maybe the word will function for them as genius did for Duckworth, and provoke（激起） a quiet, internal rebellion. “Hmm. ‘I’m going to be mediocre（普通的） just to show you’,” she muses（沉思）. “I can imagine that might happen, but neither of my girls are all that rebellious, thank God.” The nearest either comes in the book is when Lucy, then four, tries to open a box of raisins. It’s too difficult and she walks away. Duckworth tells her to try again. Lucy declines（拒绝）.

金词：

拒绝的艺术

decline [dɪ'klaɪn] vt. 婉拒

refuse [rɪ'fjuːz] vt. 拒绝 refuse to do sth

reject [rɪ'dʒekt] vt.排斥；断然决绝

deny  [dɪ'naɪ] vt. 否定；否认

[11]

“I don’t know if it was rebellion,” Duckworth says. “But she had a pronounced（明显的） aversion（厌恶） to things that were hard.” She describes another time, when Lucy was at maths club. “Watching her through the crack（裂缝） of a door, doing these worksheets. She really didn’t like effort. By the way, most animals don’t like effort.” Eyeing（盯着） the raisin box, peeping（偷窥） through a crack in the door – what a watchful parent Duckworth is. “I was observing them from the get-go(开端）,” she says. She mentions the marshmallow test（著名的棉花糖实验）, which looks at delayed gratification（延迟满足）. “I did all those things. I was studying them but I was also trying to raise them.”

[12]

To avoid some of the mistakes of her own upbringing（成长）, Duckworth teaches her children grit. With her husband, Jason, she has developed “the Hard Thing rule”. Each family member must choose a discipline（领域） – for Jason and Duckworth their work, for the girls an interest – and apply themselves to it. No one may quit until the activity has run its course.To anyone who has tried to persuade children to attend a club against their will, that rule itself sounds like a Hard Thing. Does Duckworth find it difficult to navigate（操纵） between her belief that a child should persist（坚持） at a task and the child’s right to choose? “It’s not like we haven’t had fights and tears about ‘I hate this’ and ‘I don’t want to do it’,” she says. Occasionally（偶然地） Duckworth shoots back（反击）: “Fine! If you’re not going to practise then I think we should just call it quits!”

[13]

But neither daughter has capitalised （利用）on these outbursts（爆发） to liberate（解放） themselves from their obligations. “In these tough moments, they have never said, ‘OK, I’m done.’ I don’t want to take credit for it necessarily because maybe they would have been like that without me saying these things, studying these things, but they really are learning to do things and they are learning to do them well, and they are learning to struggle（奋斗） a bit, and they are learning to have bad days and wake up the next day. I would be surprised if my girls ended up as（最终成为） women without grit. I really would.”

金词：

obligation [ɒblɪ'geɪʃ(ə)n] n.义务；职责

responsibility [rɪˌspɒnsəˈbɪlətɪ] n. 责任；义务

obligation更偏向于职责，而responsibility则更宽泛一些

金句：

But neither daughter has capitalised （利用）on these outbursts（爆发） to liberate（解放） themselves from their obligations.

但是Angela博士的两个女儿从来因为这种情感的小爆发而停止练习。

大乐乐点评：

Angela博士制定的家规非常棒：就是每个家庭成员每年都要挑战一样技能，比如Angela博士和她老公的任务就是做好工作，而他们的女儿则要选择一个兴趣点，比如弹钢琴。尽管中间有些小摩擦，小放弃，但是一家四口都在默默地用grit这个概念引导自己，没有人轻易放弃。

[14]

If her father is unedited, Duckworth is the opposite. Her most overused（过度使用的） phrase is “I will say that …” as if what she voices （表达）is the result of a private（私人的）, mental conference（内心小剧场，在这里指Angela博士措辞十分谨慎）. And while the concept of genius doesn’t figure much（扮演重要角色） in her life, she occasionally experiences “a marvelling（令人惊奇的）, awestruck（令人敬畏的）” sensation（感觉）. It can happen when she hears Adele singing. But never in regard to her daughters.

[15]

“No,” she says firmly. Though she is “not afraid to say things”. Lucy, for instance, was up till after 11pm last night trying to make flour for macaroons（马卡龙）. “I won’t hesitate to say, ‘That’s incredible（不可思议的） to me how interested you are in baking,’” Duckworth says. “But I think the thing that’s most useful to emphasise is this admiration（赞赏） for an interest and an admiration for the things they have done.” Occasionally, she tells her daughters, “You really have a knack（窍门） for this!” The praise is so moderated（温和的） it feels a little faint（模糊的）. Maybe life in a gritty house can be tough. “I get tired,” she says. “Striving is exhausting. Sometimes I do say things like ‘I wish I were not quite this driven to be excellent.’ It’s not a comfortable life. It’s not relaxed. I’m not relaxed as a person. I mean, I’m not unhappy. But … it’s the opposite of being comfortable.” “Not unhappy” – the phrase brings to mind Duckworth’s conversation with her father at 17, when she argued for happiness, he for accomplishment. If he was not the man he wanted to be, it is irresistible（不可抗拒的） to wonder if she is the woman she wants to be. But the point of grit, true grit, is that no one ever gets there.

读完本文，有兴趣的同学可以去看一本书

https://www.amazon.com/Grit-Passion-Perseverance-Angela-Duckworth-ebook/dp/B010MH9V3W/ref=sr11?ie=UTF8&qid=1492228783&sr=8-1&keywords=grit

大乐乐正在努力录制这本的原版书课程，争取在五月初和大家见面，有兴趣的同学不妨先一点一点读起来。