# Dr Emily - You're Full of Grit

An episode of [The Imperfects](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1476501557), 14 Jun 2026, 1 h 15 min.

Audio: https://enrichment.soundstack.com/4vjqq8/episode.flightcast.com/dxb1bxjwp6mhhy2uupyp8w8g.mp3

Do you think you have grit? 💌Join 8,000+ people getting our takeaways and favourite moments from this episode in our weekly newsletter - http://bit.ly/45NyQDy Research has shown that the most common characteristic of elite performers and high achievers is grit. Understood as the passion and perseverance for very long term goals, Grit is not about natural ability or talent, but rather how we choose to grow. Your favourite resident psychologist, Dr Emily Musgrove, is back in the studio this week to talk about how you can become a grittier person! We also look inward, as Josh asks how to maintain grit when it feels like your inner critic is overwhelmingly loud. Dr Em, so great to have you back. 0:00 – Down with the nonchalance! 5:43 – Talent vs Excellence 10:40 – Interested in finding your interests 16:42 – For the non-naturals in the room 24:22 – Effort is essential for excellence 32:17 – Practicing, kindly 35:01 – Hope is earned 42:06 – The good and bad criticism 53:45 – Encountering pain and discomfort 59:54 – For the greater good 1:06:09 – The dark side of perseverance If you want to watch this full episode on YouTube, click here - https://youtu.be/JmcLV7DGL4k 🫖Imperfects episodes mentioned on this episode • Dyson Heppell - Whatever It Takes… To Forgive - https://bit.ly/4egeneO • Nedd Brockmann - The Man, The Myth, The Neddgend - https://bit.ly/4egfATo • Dr Emily - Hope - https://bit.ly/43YalTr • Bri Lee - Babies+Climate=Anxiety - https://bit.ly/4xlrYdl • How I Built ‘Dis’ - The Resilience Project Story - https://bit.ly/4aH0dSP 📚Things to read • Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth - https://bit.ly/4vzoe6o • Self-efficacy, by Albert Bandura - https://bit.ly/4fx4KdW • Master of Change, by Brad Stulberg - https://bit.ly/4xCbUEv • Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise, by Anders Ericsson - https://bit.ly/3Q9cIje 📺Things to watch • THE GAP, by Ira Glass - https://bit.ly/4xjkuHL ⭐️Things to donate to • JMB Foundation - https://jmbfoundation.org.au 🩷To host your own Vulnerabilitea House, purchase here - http://bit.ly/4lyuuWz 🩵To purchase our journal (or your novel) My Imperfect Life, click here - http://bit.ly/4lyuuW 🩵To join our subscriber community, A Little More Imperfects, follow this link - http://bit.ly/4mqunxu 🩷 AND you can subscribe to A Little More Imperfects through Apple Podcasts too, here - http://apple.co/theimperfects The Imperfects is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment. The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you’re struggling, please see a healthcare professional, or call lifeline on 13 11 14. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Dr Duckworth has found the most common characteristic amongst elite performers, high achievers, very successful people is this characteristic of grit.
[0:11] Grit.
[0:12] Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals.
[0:17] This is actually not about natural ability.
[0:19] This is about how we grow.
[0:22] So we have to uncover our interests in order to become gritty at something.
[0:28] As soon as I pursued public speaking as a career, I felt like in Star Wars when the Millennium Falcon goes into light speed and I just felt myself taking off.
[0:37] Just because I was being so gritty at something I was so interested in.
[0:41] Talent is in some ways useless if we're not putting in the hard work.
[0:48] Sometimes it's very hard to maintain grit because the critical voice jumps in really quickly saying you're not good enough at this.
[0:54] And I just don't think I've got that in me to face that amount of negativity for six months.
[1:03] I guess this kind of great question we have is like, can I have this voice?
[1:06] Am I willing to have the pain and still head in the direction that's deeply meaningful to me?
[1:13] It's like in childbirth where it goes from the worst pain.
[1:17] Yeah.
[1:17] I mean, why am I telling you this?
[1:19] Yes, I know.
[1:20] Translating giving birth.
[1:21] Let me tell you what, Em.
[1:22] Hardest thing I've ever done.
[1:25] Quick, is anyone here a doctor?
[1:27] Yes, her name is Dr. Emily and she's a psychologist.
[1:32] Please welcome to The Imperfects our very own psychologist.
[1:39] God, the glee that everyone must feel when you update your podcast app and it's a Dr. Emily Monday.
[1:47] It's like, yes!
[1:48] It's like, oh, yes, it's already come round again?
[1:52] Today is the day.
[1:54] Yeah, it's here.
[1:55] Here you are.
[1:57] M's here, I should say, not it's here.
[1:58] No, yes.
[1:59] Yes.
[1:59] It has a name.
[2:04] Dr. M. Yeah.
[2:05] We are graced by your presence once again.
[2:07] It's a pleasure to be here.
[2:08] How have you been?
[2:09] I'm very good.
[2:10] Yes, I'm feeling excited about life.
[2:12] Great.
[2:12] About life?
[2:14] Yeah.
[2:15] What do you find most exciting about life right now?
[2:17] Oh, I love doing this, I have to say.
[2:19] Yeah.
[2:20] Yeah.
[2:20] You have to say.
[2:23] Contractually.
[2:25] Oh, it actually really ties into what we're going to talk about today, but we'll come to that in a minute.
[2:28] But actually, yeah, I love researching.
[2:32] I love learning.
[2:33] It makes me feel really excited.
[2:34] And I've also realised too that we don't really like earnestness.
[2:41] as a culture and I really am feeling so earnest about life.
[2:47] Can you explain a bit more?
[2:48] What do you mean?
[2:48] Well, I think, you know, this is probably going off scripted.
[2:52] No, I love this.
[2:52] I love this.
[2:53] Yeah, there's like there can be this attitude of like nonchalance.
[2:56] Yes.
[2:57] Yeah.
[2:57] Like I don't care or whatever.
[2:58] That like I'm unaffected.
[3:00] Yeah.
[3:00] And it's almost like as a result –
[3:02] we don't allow for like for being earnest and for like leaning into things that we love or that we feel excited about or feel enthusiasm for and i have just decided that i'm i'm really leaning in and nonchalance can take a backseat can yeah get fucked
[3:24] Or whatever, I don't care.
[3:25] Yeah.
[3:26] Okay, let's get to it, Em.
[3:28] This is exciting.
[3:29] I can see on your iPad a big word at the top and it's very exciting.
[3:35] Now, as some people know, most people know, you usually look back at a previous episode of ours at an interview we've done and you'll find a moment that one of our guests spoke about and you'll expand on it in a clinical sense.
[3:48] Which episode are you looking back on today?
[3:49] Yeah.
[3:50] I wanted to look back at Dyson Heppel, yes, and a football player, his episode, because I felt like there were moments there that really exemplified the topic of grit.
[4:03] Grit.
[4:03] Which is what I wanted to explore today.
[4:05] Grit is not a topic that I've heard spoken about that much, like particularly from like a psychological point of view.
[4:12] That's exciting.
[4:13] There's a world in which it could have been the grit project.
[4:15] Really?
[4:16] What this?
[4:17] Yeah.
[4:17] No, no.
[4:18] The Resilience Project.
[4:18] Yeah.
[4:19] The Grit Project.
[4:20] Yeah.
[4:20] Ah, interesting.
[4:21] Doesn't sound as good.
[4:22] I don't think that it was like it's a get a grit.
[4:24] Yeah.
[4:25] Grit by C. Yeah.
[4:28] All those things.
[4:29] Yeah.
[4:30] Anyway.
[4:30] Okay, the clip.
[4:31] Yes.
[4:32] So I'll play this and hopefully it makes sense.
[4:38] I remember coming up the race and 90,000, just the roar of the crowd.
[4:42] And I just remember the energy just running through my body and going, this is why I play, you know.
[4:46] This is why I've done all that work to get back to a point where I can just feel so much love and passion towards footy again.
[4:55] And I ended up having like the game of my life.
[4:57] Seriously, I was kicking snags from outside 50s.
[5:00] And I can't kick over a jam tin, boys, I'm telling you.
[5:02] So just for non-footy fans, he's not kicking sausages.
[5:05] A snag is like a good goal.
[5:08] That's true.
[5:09] Strange turn of events.
[5:12] God, I lost his mind a little bit.
[5:13] This is like grabbing sausages from the stands.
[5:17] But yeah, just that game in itself and just having so much fun, you know, and we ended up getting a nice win and sharing some beautiful moments with our fans after the games and doing a lap around just like,
[5:28] absorbing everything and going, this is just incredible.
[5:32] I've got chills.
[5:33] It's pretty special and probably really validating for you to have that loyalty, to stick it through.
[5:40] Yeah.
[5:43] Okay, so what is it about that clip and grit that made you lean forward?
[5:50] Well, first of all, you know, I think it would be really worthwhile to go back and listen to the whole episode because I think it's a great example of the concept of grit.
[5:59] And, you know, there were a couple of things that he mentioned in there around, you know, like all this hard work.
[6:05] And here he was playing and experiencing the passion of what he loves.
[6:10] And that they're two enormous components of grit.
[6:15] So I have to start this episode by bowing down to the researcher behind Grit, who is Dr. Angela Duckworth, an incredible researcher who has a book called Grit.
[6:30] And all of the concepts that I will mention today are really based upon a lot of her work.
[6:37] And she defines grit as having passion and perseverance for long-term goals.
[6:45] Yep.
[6:46] We have these two components here.
[6:47] We have passion.
[6:48] So this is kind of this deep interest engagement with something that's meaningful to us.
[6:53] And we also have perseverance.
[6:56] And when we combine the two, we can see an experience of being gritty.
[7:01] So perseverance really is around our capacity to keep showing up.
[7:06] our capacity to day in, day out, keep doing the hard work.
[7:12] It means that, you know, when you fall off the horse, we get back up again.
[7:16] It doesn't mean that we don't experience disappointment or failures or difficult times.
[7:22] It means really that we just keep going despite that difficulty, despite that hardship that's there.
[7:30] Yeah.
[7:31] Yeah.
[7:32] It makes me think of the phrase like sticking with it.
[7:35] 100%.
[7:35] This is going to be very good.
[7:38] So this is really about how we have stamina, how we stick to goals, how we stick to long-term goals in particular, and how we have a sense of passion and interest in the thing that we're pursuing.
[7:55] I'm reticent to jump into quickly because I know you've got so much to talk about.
[7:59] But the thing that immediately comes to mind for me is particularly if I've got like an idea I'm working on that I'm like excited about doing and I've been excited about for a while.
[8:10] But the moment I hit an obstacle or I hit like a tough bit or it gets hard, I'm like, maybe I should just move on to a different idea.
[8:17] Maybe I should do something new and go to the new idea where it's all fun and exciting as opposed to pushing through the hard bit in the hope that it will pay off later.
[8:28] Yeah, I think that's a very common experience.
[8:31] Yeah.
[8:32] And to me, just like one incredible characteristic for someone to have.
[8:36] Like I feel like if you look at really successful people, I just feel like grit would be a very common characteristic amongst highly successful people.
[8:44] That is absolutely spot on.
[8:46] And that is exactly what Dr Duckworth has found.
[8:49] And that is that the most common characteristic amongst elite performers, high achievers, very successful people is this quality or characteristic of grit.
[9:00] It's actually what can predict and often determine success over other factors like IQ and other influential environmental factors.
[9:12] So this quality here actually is really around how we pursue excellence and how we can be our best selves, really.
[9:24] This is so interesting because it's like it's something that I've sort of noticed over the years where often the smartest or funniest person isn't the most successful.
[9:33] Yes.
[9:34] It's the person with the most stamina and grit.
[9:36] Yes, yeah.
[9:37] Yeah.
[9:38] Yeah, and what's so fascinating to me is this distinction between talent and excellence.
[9:46] And she really outlines that talent is,
[9:51] is in essence the rate at which we improve at something when we try.
[9:59] Now, if you have a natural talent for something, you're going to improve quickly.
[10:04] If you don't have a natural talent at something, you might improve a little bit with practice.
[10:09] And that can be, you know, obviously we really want to acknowledge that obviously we're going to be more talented in some things than others, but that effort...
[10:20] counts so significantly to transform that talent into skill and that skill into achievement.
[10:30] And I think that what's so powerful about this concept is that grit is not something that we're born with.
[10:38] It is something that we can develop.
[10:40] And that's why it's so powerful.
[10:42] Wow.
[10:43] I know this is probably the last bit we're talking about, but how do we develop it?
[10:46] Or do you want to get to that later?
[10:47] Yeah, well, there's actually kind of quite a number of characteristics of grit that I think are really important to help us uncover how to be grittier.
[10:56] So for whatever a lot of people ask me, like, who are not sure what they want to do, what should I be doing and how should I go about it?
[11:03] And I always feel like what you should be doing is finding what you are naturally very good at, really skillful at, and then applying grit to that.
[11:12] Yeah.
[11:12] Being gritty at what you are naturally really good at.
[11:14] Yeah.
[11:15] And bring the perseverance to that.
[11:17] Yeah.
[11:17] Yeah, absolutely.
[11:19] So I think that actually highlights the first, you know, what Duckworth highlights is one of the first characteristics of grit, and that is interest.
[11:30] So we have to uncover our interests in order to become gritty at something because if we're not interested in the thing,
[11:43] and we apply immense effort, do you have a sense of what that kind of results in?
[11:47] Totally.
[11:48] Do you have any experience of that, of noticing that?
[11:51] So, I mean, the example I have just from my life is that –
[11:55] Like I had this vision in my mind in my 20s of like everyone, all my contemporaries, everyone I knew was just taking off in their careers and everyone was just like – in my mind they were like flying past me.
[12:06] I had no idea.
[12:07] I was being gritty as a primary school teacher and then as a cricket coach and it was just not really getting me.
[12:13] Like I was going okay but not really.
[12:15] And I kind of lose interest in both topics and setbacks would be – a setback career-wise with cricket or with primary school teaching, I'd just kind of go, yeah, I don't even know if I –
[12:24] I had a very wondering eye for other things that might be out there.
[12:27] And then as soon as I pursued literally public speaking as a career, I felt like in Star Wars when the Millennium Falcon goes into light speed and I just felt myself like – I felt myself going – just like taking off and like just because I was being so gritty at something I wasn't actually naturally.
[12:43] I found something.
[12:44] Oh, I'm good at this.
[12:44] Yes.
[12:46] And it wasn't hard.
[12:47] It was hard.
[12:48] Grit was hard but it was like –
[12:50] But the interest, I was so interested in it.
[12:53] I was so interested in public speaking that it just – the skill of it and the art of it that I just – it was – and then I think like more recently there's something like I tried to take up golf.
[13:03] A whole lot of our friends are playing golf.
[13:06] And I thought because I'm good at cricket, I'll just be good at golf.
[13:09] Yeah.
[13:10] And I wasn't automatically good.
[13:11] And I thought, that's okay.
[13:12] I'll practice lots.
[13:13] And I practiced lots for about three or four months.
[13:16] And then I just thought, when I have time, I much prefer practicing running.
[13:22] And I just found my interest in golf just dropped off.
[13:25] Well, my ability to be gritty dropped off because I'm not that interested.
[13:28] I'm interested in hanging out with people I like for four and a half hours and having a drink with them afterwards.
[13:32] But the actual golf bit, hard to be gritty at because I'm not interested in
[13:37] Exactly.
[13:38] That's the key is that it's hard to persevere when I don't have the same kind of investment, sense of pleasure, engagement with this thing.
[13:48] It's really interesting though, and I see this a lot, this is in therapy, that actually for a lot of us, it's really hard to identify our interests.
[14:00] And that sounds like a really strange thing to say.
[14:02] Yeah.
[14:03] But it's really hard to identify what I feel really strongly about, what lights me up, what brings vitality, that actually that can feel really hard to decipher, particularly when we have been told what to like or we have expectations from others about what we should pursue.
[14:24] Yeah, because it's like sometimes what you naturally have interest in doesn't align with what you want to have interest in.
[14:30] Yes.
[14:31] And that can take a long time to get that alignment right because you keep going for the thing that you really want to be interested in because it's like the cool thing to like or the thing that maybe like family expects of you or friends do or whatever.
[14:47] Yeah, to finally go like, I actually like pottery.
[14:53] So when it comes to uncovering our interests, what the research says is that at its heart, we need to what's called sample widely.
[15:04] So we need to try a lot of things.
[15:08] And it really deeply speaks to also how we parent kids and even when we reflect upon our own childhoods, this idea of trying heaps of different activities because we only gain interest from experience.
[15:25] The analogy that kind of comes to mind is like...
[15:30] Like imagine that someone says maybe you'd be really good at rock climbing.
[15:35] I'm like, oh, yeah, that could be interesting.
[15:38] And so then I go and ask a whole lot of people like what's rock climbing like.
[15:41] I go and watch stuff on YouTube.
[15:43] I maybe look at the wall.
[15:44] I really like a journal about it.
[15:48] I really kind of deeply think about it.
[15:50] I am not going to know if I'm interested until I try it.
[15:55] Yeah.
[15:56] And this is the same for, you know, for anything.
[16:00] And this is the same with our kids is that we don't want to specialize.
[16:05] We want to have like to be a jack of all trades before we become a jack of one.
[16:11] Yeah, I think about this quite a lot weirdly.
[16:15] I think about like, is there a skill in me that I've never been exposed to that I'll never know?
[16:21] Can I question something?
[16:25] Maybe not an assumption, but something's been asserted.
[16:27] Because I think it, and I don't want to be too confrontational, but I think I...
[16:34] I think Hugh and Ryan, you're both extremely skillful, talented people at things.
[16:40] Like I think you both have natural aptitudes for stuff.
[16:43] Like you're- Coming from Mr. Cook anything or make anything.
[16:47] Yeah, okay.
[16:50] No, but I've – and therefore, I think potentially you're used to the feeling of being good at something and then having the inspiration come after the talent verifies that you've got a natural aptitude for things.
[17:04] But I wanted to question whether –
[17:10] waiting to be talented at something might mean you never do anything at all.
[17:15] And that the difference between talent and interest.
[17:17] Yeah.
[17:18] Cause it feels like a dangerous road to go down waiting for the talent thing to happen.
[17:24] That's a really important point.
[17:26] And actually, I guess I would really encourage to move away from the notion of natural ability and actually really come into what do I love and then how do I apply myself to this love.
[17:44] And there's so much stuff there.
[17:45] There's our own stories that we tell ourselves about our capacity for change and growth.
[17:52] There's the stories that we tell ourselves about failures that I've had, that this doesn't work out for me.
[17:58] We can also bring in the notion of a fixed or a growth mindset.
[18:03] And they can take us in one or another direction.
[18:07] So with a fixed mindset, we believe that our ability is fixed and not changeable.
[18:13] And in a growth mindset, we hold a belief about ourselves and the world that I can enact change and I can grow and develop skills.
[18:22] So there's a whole lot of things that play into how I might pursue an interest.
[18:30] But I want to acknowledge that really for a lot of people,
[18:37] there can be this big failure story that really gets in the way of pursuing something.
[18:42] Because when we pursue something, it brings with it a risk.
[18:46] And here is a risk of failure.
[18:49] And so in order to avoid that feeling, we actually avoid the trying part.
[18:55] But I get what you're saying, Josh, about the sense of there being some people that are so overtly naturally talented at something that it can make you feel left behind or lost or unanchored in some way.
[19:10] Yeah.
[19:10] And I feel like I know people in my life who feel like they don't have any interests because they feel like they're not naturally good at...
[19:19] It's not like there's a deep lack of confidence in them.
[19:23] They're confident, thriving people.
[19:25] But there are, like I remember being at a party once and he was a bit of an unpleasant character, to be honest, but he was a very dominating character in this conversation and he was talking about what he's like naturally, like I think he was saying he's a really good golfer or something.
[19:42] He's like he's always had that.
[19:43] And then...
[19:43] He pointed at someone and was like, what's your hobby?
[19:46] What are you into?
[19:47] And they were like, I didn't have one.
[19:50] I don't have an hobby and felt really shit about it and felt really inadequate because they didn't feel like they had a natural –
[19:59] talent off the shelf of like golf, cooking, running, gardening, like one of the ones that we consider acceptable.
[20:08] I'm picturing this man wearing his golf clothes and a glove and his putter at the party.
[20:13] He was crazy.
[20:14] Now he's the president of the United States.
[20:16] Can you imagine?
[20:18] Yeah.
[20:20] But, yeah, so I just wondered with the talent, like to put it in my own case, and I think here you'll probably disagree with this, but...
[20:29] When it comes to like I love woodwork and love doing things with wood, I actually don't think I'm naturally that gifted at it.
[20:36] But for some reason I just really enjoy the way that you can – that wood's very forgiving as a thing to work with, that you can kind of make mistakes and fix them and it's a sort of intellectual problem on how you work with it.
[20:50] I don't think I have that much natural ability with it, but I think I've gotten a lot better at it purely because I'm –
[20:55] There's something about it that draws me back to it.
[20:58] Yes.
[20:59] That I love.
[20:59] Yeah, but I think that is the key point in here is that this is actually not about natural ability.
[21:05] This is about how we grow and how we can become good at something.
[21:14] And that is often driven by our interest and what might feel even like there might be an ease with which you do the woodwork, for example.
[21:22] Yeah.
[21:23] When you're doing it, you've chosen it, you love it, maybe you get into the flow state when you're doing it.
[21:29] Yeah, I think there's a bit of that.
[21:30] Yep.
[21:30] Even if I'm not that great at what I'm like.
[21:33] Yep.
[21:33] But you might have, like when we think about this idea of like a long-term goal, you might have a goal to create something with the woodwork and that that's the longer-term goal and what allows you to get there is the interest and then this next characteristic which I want to look at, which is the practice.
[21:51] Mm-hmm.
[21:52] But I do really want to really kind of declutter that this is not about finding your natural talent, but actually really looking at what am I deeply interested in?
[22:04] And with practice, I can get where I want to be.
[22:08] It's such a good distinction that because I think it's like it could be easier to interpret this as like, what's the thing that I'm going to become successful at?
[22:17] Or what's the thing that I'm going to have a career at or earn money from or whatever?
[22:21] It could be knitting.
[22:22] And you just like you love doing it.
[22:24] And the more you do it, you get better and better and you stick with it.
[22:27] And you just I guess the better you get, probably the more you enjoy it and the more you can try different patterns and different things.
[22:33] Like that's great.
[22:34] Yeah.
[22:35] Yeah.
[22:35] So my Millennium Falcon was a bit of a missteer in the wrong direction as far as like...
[22:40] Oh, no, not necessarily.
[22:41] I don't think so.
[22:42] I think this is the thing is that we're all going to have individual experiences and we're going to bring with us our context.
[22:49] And to be honest, it's not an even playing field.
[22:53] We're never starting from an even playing field based on socioeconomic status, our family background, a whole host of factors that are going to influence our capacity to really kind of harness this grit characteristic.
[23:08] Mm-hmm.
[23:09] So some of us are going to have natural talents that we can turn into skills and turn into big achievements.
[23:18] But we can also have little ones.
[23:20] They don't have to be the big like Michael Phelps, you know, at one extreme of the spectrum.
[23:29] But there's something...
[23:31] so significant about how we cultivate this capacity to be resilient and to endure when things feel hard.
[23:40] Yeah.
[23:40] I will come to what we can kind of term as the dark side of grit in the second part of this, because I think that's really worthy of mentioning around when it's time to let go.
[23:50] I want to mention that.
[23:52] Get ready to do a Darth Vader reference for that one.
[23:54] Thank you.
[23:56] But...
[23:58] If we just stay here in terms of what's helping us move forward with endurance and resilience and this passionate interest.
[24:07] First of all, the first characteristic is interest and we need to uncover what that is.
[24:12] I guess the key message in there is,
[24:15] Try, do, discover, be curious.
[24:19] The second characteristic of grit is practice.
[24:24] And the thing that is undeniable in all the research that we know about excellence is that effort is
[24:34] And practice is an essential ingredient to excellence.
[24:40] And so what I really want to emphasize is that talent is in some ways useless if we're not putting in the hard work.
[24:48] Like it remains kind of like untapped until we bring the practice and the effort to this.
[24:54] Right.
[24:55] I mean, the person coming to mind, I can't believe I haven't thought of him until now.
[24:59] I mean, you could have easily played a clip from Ned Brockman's episode.
[25:02] A hundred percent, yeah.
[25:03] Like, Ned Brockman, the man who ran across Australia, it's like, I've never seen grit like that.
[25:10] That is someone who is, like, almost inhuman in his level of grit.
[25:14] Yes.
[25:15] And we could even unpack those characteristics for him there.
[25:18] So he obviously has a passion for running.
[25:21] Mm-hmm.
[25:21] or an interest for running, he's putting in the hours.
[25:25] That's the practice.
[25:26] Like no man or woman ever has before.
[25:29] Yeah, yeah.
[25:30] And I think what I want to mention when it comes to practice is that we actually need to practice in a very particular way to cultivate more excellence.
[25:40] And you may all be familiar with the 10,000-hour rule.
[25:44] Is Malcolm Gladwell come up with that or is that?
[25:47] No, it's Anders Ericsson.
[25:48] Okay.
[25:49] And it's kind of become popularized as this thing of like, well, if you do 10,000 hours of this thing, then you're going to be a master of it.
[25:57] You're going to be excellent at it.
[25:59] But what he really identified is that we need to practice in a very particular way for 10,000 hours to be really effective.
[26:08] Right.
[26:09] And so the first thing is that the practice has to be deliberate.
[26:12] Right.
[26:13] It has to have a goal in mind.
[26:15] So let's just say I'm planning on, maybe I'm running.
[26:20] That's my practice is I'm running every day.
[26:23] But do I have a goal?
[26:24] Maybe I'm training for a marathon.
[26:26] Like that's the long-term goal.
[26:28] How am I creating goals to meet that larger goal?
[26:32] We have to have a goal in mind with the practice.
[26:35] So that's the direction.
[26:36] So to give us a different but similar example, say you want to become a painter.
[26:42] Yep.
[26:43] Like an artist, you want to become a painter.
[26:45] So the difference would be instead of just going to a studio every day and just painting whatever with no goal in mind, it's like I'm going to have an exhibition and I'm going to paint for that.
[26:55] Yes, exactly.
[26:56] Or I want to know how to draw a face in a particular way.
[27:00] That's my goal, right?
[27:02] That's the first thing.
[27:03] We have to have a goal in mind.
[27:05] Mm-hmm.
[27:06] The second thing is we have to give it our all.
[27:09] So we go all in on the practice.
[27:11] So I'm really engaged in this particular practice.
[27:15] So in contrast, it might be like I'm going to go for a run today and I'm just going to do a little slow jog and then that'll be me done.
[27:25] Okay.
[27:25] That's not deliberate practice.
[27:27] It's practice, but it's not deliberate practice.
[27:30] Okay.
[27:31] It might be really helpful in a whole host of other areas of my life.
[27:34] Yes.
[27:35] I don't want to be discouraging of us doing something rather than nothing.
[27:39] But as far as becoming a master?
[27:41] Yes, exactly.
[27:42] As far as creating excellence, we need to have a goal in mind and we need to concentrate, like this concentrated effort here.
[27:48] Okay.
[27:49] And the third thing is we need to get immediate feedback.
[27:53] So we seek consultation from others.
[27:56] We seek out constructive criticism.
[27:58] Maybe we get stats on our phone, for example, about how we went at that practice.
[28:05] Having supervisors and mentors is really, really important.
[28:08] And obviously when we think about athletes, they've got coaches and those coaches are giving them immediate, in-the-moment feedback about how you did at that stroke, for example.
[28:18] And so it's those three things that create confidence
[28:22] a deliberate practice where the 10,000 hours becomes really relevant.
[28:27] Right.
[28:28] So it's kind of like it's for an actor.
[28:31] So I'm just giving like creative examples, but like for an actor, it's not as helpful to do 10,000 hours of monologues in a room by yourself.
[28:41] Yep.
[28:42] But if you were doing them and sending them to an acting coach or in a class or something, that's the feedback.
[28:48] Yes, exactly.
[28:49] That's intentional.
[28:49] Exactly.
[28:50] Yeah.
[28:50] Yeah.
[28:50] I'll give you an example for myself and that is that for anyone that is training to be a psychologist or probably in many other professions also, you have to do videotaped sessions where you video yourself with a client and then your supervisor reviews it and gives you feedback.
[29:09] It's deeply uncomfortable and anxiety-provoking.
[29:15] But that is the greatest place for change.
[29:19] Right.
[29:20] Is it not just the feedback itself but the knowledge that you're being observed and assessed that plays into it?
[29:27] I'm sure it does.
[29:28] Yeah, because I was just thinking in the context of like…
[29:31] Us doing a live show, for example, I feel like I progressed a lot in my ability to do that.
[29:40] And it wasn't like I was – I guess there was feedback because we'd all talk about the shows afterwards and stuff.
[29:45] But there's something about the knowledge that a lot of people are watching and can provide feedback and judge.
[29:51] what I was doing made me just really switch on and concentrate what I was doing.
[29:55] So I couldn't, you could never drift, you could never go for the equivalent of the run and see what happens.
[30:01] Yeah, the kind of mindless practice.
[30:04] Yeah, it was extremely concentrated regardless of whether I got feedback that night or not.
[30:08] Yeah.
[30:08] Yeah.
[30:09] That's a great example.
[30:10] And I guess even using that word that we actually become really mindful of our practicing rather than being on autopilot and just going through the motions.
[30:19] Mm-hmm.
[30:19] Yeah.
[30:20] We had an extraordinary moment in here yesterday where, in going through my favourites in my photo album, we discovered there's a picture of myself and Bridget's mum, our producer and mum, in my favourites album, which surprised all of us.
[30:33] I'm not surprised.
[30:35] I'm trying to work out how this has to do with anything.
[30:37] Ryan and Ted can't look through your favourites.
[30:40] And I was like, I don't know if you can.
[30:41] Let me have a quick look.
[30:42] And I looked at it and it's just all, well, a lot of it's just sprinting, man, and ass track.
[30:46] because every time I do a session, I film it to send to my coach because I feel like if he hasn't seen it, I might be practicing the right thing here, but I've become quite obsessed with knowing that what I've just done was the right thing, and if it wasn't, don't make that mistake again next time.
[31:02] And so I just was thinking about that because I think that's such an important element of being gritty is making sure your practice is good practice.
[31:12] Yeah, yeah.
[31:12] And this is the importance of not only quantity of practice, but the quality of the practice.
[31:19] And so once again, if this is about kind of pursuing your form of excellence or your form of greatness, that if we need to be really intentional about how we go about it.
[31:31] Yeah, yeah.
[31:33] The way in which you practice and get feedback, as someone who's very quick to self-judge and criticise, I feel like sometimes it's very hard to maintain grit because the critical voice jumps in really quickly saying, you're not good enough at this, you're not progressing fast enough, all those kind of things.
[31:54] So how do you practice kindly?
[31:59] Yeah, I think this is absolutely a crucial part of resilience really and how we get through really difficult times because our minds are like these meaning-making machines that are giving us constant commentary on our performance and...
[32:18] And, you know, some of us may have, for example, a louder critic and it might be critical about particular things, for example.
[32:27] And there will have been, as always, some kind of learning history or childhood experiences that have told you, you know, certain things that you want to believe to be true.
[32:37] So absolutely, I want to acknowledge that our minds have a big piece to play in the pursuit of achievement.
[32:47] Yeah.
[32:47] Yeah.
[32:48] And what's interesting about the research is that consistency matters more so than intensity.
[32:56] So if we look at the greats, they may have practised every day, but they weren't necessarily giving 10 out of 10 for every practice.
[33:08] And I think this is the thing that shows up so often in terms of even like small goals is, okay, so my mind's got a lot to say today.
[33:18] What's one small thing I can do?
[33:20] How do I break it down to even smaller, really achievable goals?
[33:25] And this actually comes, really kind of comes back into the, one of the other characteristics of grit and that is hope.
[33:33] Yeah.
[33:35] And so hope is a fundamental part of being gritty.
[33:42] And hope is actually kind of in this context different to what we might often believe it to be.
[33:47] Hope in this instance is really the belief in my ability to create change.
[33:55] So the belief that I can grow, that I can pursue this, that I have agency.
[34:05] And often I think those internal beliefs can really get in the way of cultivating a belief that I can do something.
[34:12] Does that make sense?
[34:13] Yeah.
[34:13] Yeah.
[34:14] We had Bree Lee on the podcast earlier in the year and she said something which has stuck with me a lot since then, which is that hope is earned.
[34:27] And it's sort of like earned through doing things to then sort of like prove that you think I'm getting that right.
[34:35] And I was like, oh, yeah, of course, you can't just have hope without doing anything.
[34:40] It's like you've got to do the thing and then it's like you can kind of like, yeah, you earn the hope.
[34:45] And that can apply, obviously, in so many different ways.
[34:48] But in terms of grit and in terms of like being hopeful for your personal future in a particular field –
[34:56] Like I know that personally, like I've had firsthand experience of that where it's like I can just like hope in the abstract that I'll be a successful comedy man.
[35:07] But it's not until I actually put in the hard work, do the thing, prove to myself that I have got some ability, then it's like, oh, okay, now I actually feel hopeful.
[35:20] Yes.
[35:20] Yeah.
[35:21] And it's such a big difference because before you actually do the thing, it's sort of like the hope can also feel a bit delusional.
[35:31] Yeah.
[35:32] Yeah, it's not anchored to anything.
[35:33] No, yeah.
[35:34] And in that context, it might even be, and I've done an episode on hope where we really talk about that hope is very active as opposed to a passive experience.
[35:42] Should have quoted you instead of Brie Lee.
[35:45] No, that's spot on.
[35:45] Yeah.
[35:47] But that's the difference in some ways between being optimistic and being hopeful and that optimism might be just this lens with which I view things positively and it might be more passive, whereas hope is really active and absolutely comes from experience.
[36:04] So, you know, when we think about this characteristic here, hope is essential to cultivating grit.
[36:12] Part of this comes down to...
[36:17] A researcher, psychologist, Albert Bandura, he's very well known in the psychological profession, and he has a number of different theories.
[36:27] One of them involves the theory of what's called self-efficacy.
[36:31] So self-efficacy is basically our belief in our ability to do things.
[36:37] And he describes there being four components of self-efficacy.
[36:40] So in essence, four components of having agency.
[36:45] So I can do things.
[36:46] I can create things.
[36:47] I can create change.
[36:49] Okay.
[36:50] There are four characteristics of self-efficacy in accordance with Bandura's model.
[36:56] And the first one is that we have in some ways our physical needs met.
[37:00] So we have our needs met for food, water, shelter.
[37:04] Yeah.
[37:05] That's the baseline.
[37:07] We have to be physically well in order to have a sense of agency.
[37:11] The second condition is actually our self-talk and this capacity to give yourselves pep talks, to be a cheerleader, to be on your own side in that way.
[37:23] So this is this internal self-talk here, not in terms of being positively toxic, for example,
[37:31] But being realistic, like something like even phrases that you might say, Emily, this is hard, but you've got this.
[37:39] So this kind of cheerleading statement here that this is hard, but I know you can do this.
[37:44] Yeah, you've done this before.
[37:45] Yeah, totally.
[37:46] So this kind of internal narrative of almost like the internal mentor that you can do this.
[37:53] That's the second condition.
[37:54] The third condition is having a model for this pathway.
[37:58] And so for, you know, in many instances it might be that there's someone that you admire that has shown you this pathway and,
[38:06] For any minority group, it's seeing someone achieve something, you know, that you haven't seen before.
[38:12] It might be that you're the first person in your family history to go to university, for example, but you've witnessed someone lead the path there or find...
[38:23] One of the most amazing examples of that this year was like earlier in the year, Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl.
[38:29] Yes.
[38:30] And all the Puerto Rican families and kids watching him in the Super Bowl.
[38:35] Yes.
[38:35] And it's just like they're like crying.
[38:37] I'm getting like shivers thinking about it, but they're all like crying.
[38:40] I can't believe what they're saying.
[38:42] Yes.
[38:42] Yeah, that is absolutely spot on.
[38:45] This model here that if you can do that, so can I.
[38:49] And that's kind of generating such hopefulness.
[38:52] Mm-hmm.
[38:53] And really kind of strengthening this belief that this is possible.
[38:58] So that kind of keeps us driving forward.
[39:00] Yeah.
[39:01] Yeah.
[39:02] And the last one, and I really love this one, it feels so important, and that's this notion of little victories.
[39:08] Yeah.
[39:09] That in order to keep going, we need to get some runs on the board.
[39:13] Like you need to have a little win.
[39:16] That really we need to kind of feel a sense that my action is kind of creating something here.
[39:24] Like there's some kind of momentum.
[39:26] So it's not about the big victories, but actually like many, many, many little tiny victories that you get along the way.
[39:35] And that might look, you know, when we think about how we can keep going when times are feeling really hard and maybe you're feeling really, really overwhelmed.
[39:43] You've got a huge amount on your plate.
[39:45] We need to slow it down.
[39:48] And I remember when I was in high school studying, I used to always draw myself like, oh.
[39:55] tick boxes.
[39:56] So it would be like
[39:58] read the first two paragraphs and then I'd draw a little box and when I'd done it, I'd tick it off.
[40:04] Yeah.
[40:04] And the ticking off of this tiny, minuscule, probably very trivial goal of two paragraphs.
[40:10] It's a small one.
[40:11] I was like, that's my small victory.
[40:13] And we can do this with so many aspects of the goal that we're trying to pursue.
[40:19] I went through a phase of doing something and then putting it in my to-do app.
[40:25] Yes.
[40:25] And then ticking it off.
[40:26] Yes.
[40:27] Yes.
[40:28] Yeah.
[40:28] Because it just was so nice to see the little animation when the thing happened.
[40:33] And I think what I would really encourage with that is also to pause and to soak in the little victory.
[40:40] This is so crucial, I think, in my opinion, is celebrating the small wins that we don't quickly move on to the next thing because that kind of keeps us in this really unrelenting cycle.
[40:53] But how do you pause and go, yeah, nice job, Emily?
[40:57] Like that is, you worked for that.
[41:01] Would it be worth having like just a little collection of party poppers on your desk?
[41:05] Everything you do, just hit a party popper.
[41:07] A little celebration.
[41:09] Yeah, yeah.
[41:10] Funny in an open plan office.
[41:12] Jenny's had a win.
[41:18] Just go to the bottom of my inbox.
[41:21] Can I, and you don't have to answer this, Josh, but I'm interested to know, just hearing all that stuff, as someone who I see myself as your biggest fan and so in awe of you and all your talents, but I wonder if so, I'm just interested to know how you felt listening to self-efficacy as a, I just wondered...
[41:41] Um, yeah, I mean, the whole thing, I find this an interesting conversation because I was going to make a joke at the start, but I kind of stopped myself from doing it.
[41:49] I was going to make a joke that I'm gritless because I feel like I am in many areas.
[41:56] I see that a lot.
[41:57] It wouldn't have been a funny joke.
[41:59] No.
[42:00] Yeah.
[42:00] It's so interesting.
[42:01] I really, I do not see you as a gritless person.
[42:04] Like that isn't the opposite of what I see.
[42:08] Mm.
[42:08] Yeah, and maybe I'm not.
[42:10] Well, that's the self-efficacy thing.
[42:11] Like I just like this little belief there and even your ability to have greed.
[42:15] Yeah, I have very, very low.
[42:19] I'm shocking at celebrating the little.
[42:21] I was focusing on the little wins bit.
[42:23] I'm terrible at celebrating little wins.
[42:25] I don't think I ever do.
[42:27] What do you think you'd have to open up to to pause to celebrate it?
[42:31] Yeah.
[42:43] The area that I think I'm worst at having any kind of compassion or self-efficacy is probably fitness and exercise.
[42:55] And I think, and I'm not sure if this counts as a little win, but say I...
[43:07] put on my runners and went for a walk around the block and that was it.
[43:14] I would feel like,
[43:16] I would feel really pathetic for celebrating that as a win.
[43:20] It would feel like there's a lot of comparison there of like this is not good enough.
[43:25] Like that you think this is good shows you how bad you are, I think.
[43:30] Yeah.
[43:31] In the case of exercise.
[43:33] I think I'm good in other areas of like things I'm more interested in, I think, like cooking or cooking is a good one.
[43:42] in that like I've gotten a lot better at like if I cook something and I'm trying to think what an example would be, but I made a peach tart tart tart.
[43:53] And it was a little bit I went, I tried to, I'm like, I'm going to add all the spices myself.
[44:01] I'm just going to make it up and sort of do the recipe by feel.
[44:04] And it was pretty good, but the spice was not quite right and it was a little bit too much.
[44:09] But I was really proud of myself for the win was that I went off script and did it myself because that's the only way I'm going to learn to get that right rather than just following a recipe.
[44:19] So I'm really good in that aspect of going well done to you for giving it a crack and next time you'll know to back it off a little bit or you've learned something there and that's a really good thing.
[44:31] But when it goes into an area like exercise, there's zero self-efficacy whatsoever.
[44:37] Actually makes me think of a, there's an old Ira Glass, who's an American...
[44:45] God of podcasting and radio.
[44:47] He does This American Life.
[44:49] This American Life, one of the most influential voices in podcasting radio in the last 30 years, 40 years.
[44:57] There's a video that I saw years ago that someone had taken a speech of his and turned it into a – we'll put a link to it.
[45:05] But it's about – he says, everyone I've ever known that's really good at something –
[45:10] went through a long period of not being very good at it and that they would make, and he's talking about creative fields, and they would make things and they would look at it and say, it's just not quite good enough.
[45:22] It's got something but it's not there and it's not as good as the things I want to be.
[45:27] And he's like every single person that gets good goes through that period and his advice to everyone is just to keep going.
[45:34] Yes.
[45:35] Like don't stop.
[45:36] Yeah.
[45:36] Keep going.
[45:37] Yeah.
[45:38] But I feel like a lot of the areas that I care about, to be good at it, you require that ability to be able to tell it's not good enough.
[45:47] Like that judgment and that criticism is an integral part of becoming good at the thing.
[45:53] And I've always found it very hard to keep the voice that's saying what you've done there is.
[45:58] in a negative example of the tart that I made would be, this is not good enough.
[46:04] This is proof you can't do it.
[46:06] Like that's the negative voice.
[46:08] But I've found it very hard to keep that for my whole life, to keep that voice at an appropriate volume because I know that it's also necessary to be better at it.
[46:18] Yes.
[46:19] And I'm just wanting to add there too, like an invitation to wonder whether your inner critic is a good enough judge of your ability.
[46:28] Mm.
[46:29] Yeah.
[46:30] And your practice.
[46:31] For what it's worth, I don't think it is.
[46:33] Uh-huh.
[46:36] So if we are living by our internal critic's judgment, Mm.
[46:45] I'm not sure if it's as good of a spokesperson for your actual abilities, for example, or your output.
[46:54] And this is why having feedback from someone else is actually really, really important because they will be able to see what you're not seeing, for example, and that in some circumstances we might be better to pay attention to
[47:12] what other people are telling me I'm good at or where I can improve on things than to listen to that inner critic because that inner critic has an origin and a function and a purpose.
[47:25] And in a lot of circumstances, the function is to protect me from further pain.
[47:32] And that might mean that I will stop doing this.
[47:34] What you said then about protecting you from more pain I think is it, is the thing especially with exercise.
[47:40] So I've got a – there's a charity at the Melbourne Marathon this year.
[47:45] It happens every year but my friend of mine who was punched many years ago and now needs permanent care, there's a foundation called the J&B Foundation.
[47:57] They do a run or there's a group of people that compete in the Melbourne Marathon and it's a big fundraiser for them.
[48:03] And a friend of mine, Tom, as happens with life, people just drop off and stop doing it and it's been a long time and there are less and less people.
[48:10] And a friend of mine, Tom, is trying really hard to get as many people to do it this year.
[48:14] He's been messaging a lot to try and get people to commit to doing some form of 5K, 10K, 21K.
[48:22] I'd really love to do, for many reasons, because it's the person I would want to be, to do the 10K in that.
[48:30] But I think the reason why I'm finding it really hard to commit is because all I see is like months of not physical pain but emotional pain of like this voice just getting louder and louder for months.
[48:44] And I like – I just don't think I've got that in me to face that amount of negativity for six months in the lead up to that.
[48:54] Yeah, it feels really hard, Josh.
[48:58] So, yeah, I think the voice is protecting me from that.
[49:06] Yeah.
[49:10] What would happen if it could sit here alongside you rather than be in the driver's scene?
[49:14] What would happen?
[49:18] I mean, it's less...
[49:21] It's less overpowering, I guess.
[49:25] But I guess it's still there.
[49:28] Yeah.
[49:29] And you don't want to hear it.
[49:30] I get that.
[49:31] Yeah.
[49:31] I don't want to.
[49:33] I feel like I'm doing really well in so many aspects of my life and that critic's gone, basically.
[49:41] But I just don't want to have to face it again.
[49:43] Yeah.
[49:43] Yeah.
[49:44] Yeah, of course.
[49:45] So, yeah, it's a challenge for me at the moment.
[49:49] And I think at the moment I'm considering a win would be to walk the 5K.
[49:54] But I know I would feel like a failure for doing that.
[49:57] So it's a difficult situation.
[50:01] Yeah.
[50:02] Yeah, it is.
[50:02] Especially when you're tired with...
[50:06] with what contributing and doing means.
[50:11] It's not just the individual goal of competing or getting fit enough to run the distance.
[50:19] It's letting down a friend.
[50:23] How would you be letting them down if you still didn't?
[50:27] Well, I mean, I guess I wouldn't be letting them down, but by still doing it, I guess that's true.
[50:32] But...
[50:35] Yeah, I guess doing the 5K walking, it would still be contributing and that wouldn't be letting them down.
[50:41] You're right.
[50:41] Yeah.
[50:42] And I think this is what is so, so tricky in this work of living is that the voice of the critic is so hard to hear and deeply painful.
[50:58] But, you know, if we do listen to it,
[51:02] it's like it has a grip on our choices.
[51:06] And that I guess this kind of great question we have is like, can I have this voice and still head in the direction that's deeply meaningful to me?
[51:15] So am I willing to have the pain if it's on track to what I value?
[51:22] Because the difficulty is that if I listen to it and it keeps me safe from exposure, when that race is done and I haven't been there, is that me acting in accordance with what I deeply value and what is deeply meaningful to me?
[51:46] And that then, the shame that shows up then, is really hard to be with.
[51:53] Yeah, and I think it also fuels the voice.
[51:56] Exactly.
[51:56] The critic as well.
[51:57] Yeah, and actually kind of becomes self-perpetuating and strengthening as it goes.
[52:01] Yeah.
[52:02] So this kind of question, am I willing to have the pain knowing that it's on track?
[52:09] And so any time, like when we think about this role of the critic, any time you like put your head above the parapet, it's going to have a lot to say because this is too risky.
[52:17] Get back down there.
[52:19] And it's going to have a whole host of stuff to say.
[52:21] But can I stick my head out?
[52:23] And it can say what it wants to say and you can say, but this is on track.
[52:29] Yeah.
[52:30] And there's a whole lot of things.
[52:31] This is really, there is no silver bullet in talking about this.
[52:35] This is like really hard work.
[52:38] And if anyone is listening who really strongly identifies with this, I really invite a gentle compassion to how hard this is.
[52:49] But can we keep this greater purpose in mind, I guess?
[52:54] Yeah.
[52:55] Maybe.
[52:57] But it's, yeah, it is tremendously hard.
[53:00] Yeah, yeah.
[53:00] It's a generous thing to share because I think when you're thinking about grit, it's, I think people will go straight to the image of someone being outrageously successful because they never gave up.
[53:11] Yeah.
[53:12] But I think the other side of it is like, that's really challenging for a lot of people.
[53:17] Yeah.
[53:17] It's an incredible example.
[53:19] Yeah.
[53:19] And so in some ways this is the little victories part is really, really important because it tells us that, yeah, I can do, I can do.
[53:28] And look, maybe it's not, maybe it's not the 10K, but I've still walked, literally walked in the direction of what I value.
[53:35] And so, yeah, the mind's going to come up with some stuff about the fact that, you know, you're a loser, you didn't run, blah, blah, blah.
[53:41] But how would my mate feel about the fact that I showed up?
[53:44] Mm-hmm.
[53:45] Because knowing you, Josh, I know that that is really important to you.
[53:49] Yeah.
[53:50] Yeah, yeah.
[53:51] Like how you show up as a friend, for example.
[53:53] That to me is like extreme levels of grief, like doing something that brings up all those negative feelings but doing it feels very gritty.
[54:01] Yeah.
[54:01] Yeah.
[54:02] Yeah.
[54:04] Sorry to do this again, but there's like a Marcus Aurelius quote, the Stoics.
[54:07] Yes, great.
[54:07] Right.
[54:09] the blazing fire makes light and flame of everything that's thrown into it, which I kind of think they're like, there's a lot of...
[54:21] obstacles and a lot of, and I think I was thinking because an episode a while ago we referenced that I said the flame, I was thinking about it because I said I thought my flame would burn out with parenting a neurodivergent child, which made it brighter.
[54:34] But I feel like whilst it would be difficult and it would be a fire raging, it would even make light and flames and going through it all.
[54:44] Yeah.
[54:45] Yeah, yeah.
[54:46] And that's the beauty about being able to stay with the difficulty is that when I get through that, I've now got this great piece of evidence to say that I can do this again.
[55:01] And, you know, in some ways the heart of becoming gritty is really kind of emotion regulation, like being able to really be open to and encounter pain and discomfort provided, always provided, this is in service of what I value.
[55:21] You know, there's so much here about really kind of really around discomfort and that grit means that we have to face discomfort.
[55:29] And that's the hard work.
[55:31] That's the perseverance part that we're enduring despite, in spite of or alongside of the pain.
[55:39] feels like slightly different things where it's like what Josh is talking about is facing the discomfort in order to do something that he's not necessarily interested in, even though it would ultimately would align with the person he wants to be, but the actual activity is not something he's interested in.
[55:54] Um,
[55:57] And maybe that's the thing with a lot of people with exercise.
[56:00] It's like I'm so envious of people who love exercise.
[56:05] It's like I can't even imagine.
[56:07] I mean, I guess once you find the thing you like, but the grit of that versus the grit of like following the interest that you really are interested in, they feel like slightly different things.
[56:19] Yeah, that's true.
[56:21] No doubt it'll take a huge amount of grit though.
[56:23] If Josh is going to do that, that will take.
[56:25] A hundred percent.
[56:26] I think the notion of making, like, for example, we know that public commitments are really good for keeping us on track.
[56:32] So, you know, this is why we know that keeping your goals secret sometimes don't necessarily always result in you actually doing the thing.
[56:42] So, you know, it might be that you want to say to people around you, like, I'm committing to this.
[56:48] There's going to be a time when I want to quit.
[56:50] There is going to be a time when I'm going to say that this is too hard and I want to stop.
[56:54] And not having got to that hard bit yet, I'm going to ask you now, help me not quit.
[57:01] So you get like your cheerleaders on board here.
[57:04] And it's almost like, you know, in advance, I'm going to hit this hard bit.
[57:09] Help me when I get there.
[57:12] It's like in childbirth, and I'm going back a while here in my memory, but I remember being told in all the training that there'll be a part, there'll be a moment where it goes from the worst pain.
[57:22] Yeah.
[57:22] I mean, why am I telling you this?
[57:23] Yes, I know.
[57:24] The man's planning giving birth.
[57:26] Let me talk it through.
[57:27] Hardest thing I've ever done.
[57:29] Watching Penny go through that, you wouldn't believe it.
[57:32] My God.
[57:33] There's a part, isn't there, where it goes from a heart you've ever done to a whole new, there's a moment where it shifts and you're like, what the fuck is this?
[57:41] And that's the moment that I had an epidural.
[57:43] It is, genuinely.
[57:45] Hugh's got this.
[57:47] I was saying something.
[57:54] But to go back to your point, to re-emphasise what you're saying was that I was told that there'll be a moment when you need to like hold Penny and say, give all the encouragement you want that she needs in that moment.
[58:06] Turns out that's the last thing Penny wanted was me saying anything, but I remember being told like you need to be as supportive as possible in this moment.
[58:13] I
[58:14] 100% spot on.
[58:15] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[58:18] Yeah, and then so then it also points to who we're around.
[58:22] Like who that grit is often determined by the company that we keep, the environment that we work in.
[58:30] Is this environment encouraging of growth?
[58:33] Is it like enthusiastic or is it saying something like,
[58:38] Oh, mate, that looks – I don't know why you're bothering.
[58:42] Like if it was me, I'd just tap out now.
[58:46] And you're like, yeah, yeah, okay, that's true.
[58:49] So we have to think about who is around us, what's the environment we're sitting in, and can I actually spend more time around the people that are like true believers?
[59:01] I think that makes an immense difference.
[59:03] Yeah.
[59:03] Yeah.
[59:04] So have we –
[59:05] I feel like the three of us have jumped in with so many different examples and thoughts and questions here.
[59:09] I'm worried we'll deride you a little bit.
[59:12] But in getting to the, like, about how we become more, was there, like, step-by-step things you want to talk to?
[59:18] Or is that?
[59:19] So I haven't come to the last.
[59:20] So we've basically got four characteristics that help us become gritty.
[59:24] So the first is we have to have an interest.
[59:26] Yep.
[59:27] We have to be interested in what we're doing.
[59:29] Mm-hmm.
[59:30] The second one is that we need to practice deliberately.
[59:33] So that 10,000-hour rule, intentional quantity and quality of practice.
[59:39] The third one is hope.
[59:41] So that was kind of the self-efficacy beliefs part.
[59:44] And the fourth one is purpose.
[59:47] This is a whole like 20 series episodes of things.
[59:53] Do you need all four?
[59:54] Yeah.
[59:55] Yeah.
[59:56] Okay.
[59:56] They're like the really common characteristics of being gritty, of having this particular kind of way of being in the world.
[1:00:05] And the purpose is really around almost stepping out of yourself and how is it that I'm contributing to the world?
[1:00:18] What is something that's bigger than myself here?
[1:00:20] Yeah.
[1:00:23] That contribution, that sense of purposefulness that is outside of my own instinctual desires or needs, that there is this reason for being here and my reason, like even, for example, in making the peach tatatun, that there will have been a purposefulness to that.
[1:00:41] Josh, do you have a sense of what that purpose is there?
[1:00:43] Yeah, yeah.
[1:00:44] Well, the purpose was to do it with my oldest son and then create a special moment for the family.
[1:00:52] Yeah.
[1:00:52] So a contribution to the greater good.
[1:00:54] Yeah.
[1:00:54] So we can see that there is when we're engaged with purposefulness, it helps us keep going.
[1:01:01] But if there's no attachment to purpose, and particularly if there's no attachment to values, for example, then we can just get really overwhelmed, burnt out, and kind of on this unrelenting treadmill of hard work.
[1:01:16] And what I really love in the purpose work is the distinction between having a job, having a career, or having a calling.
[1:01:26] Mm-hmm.
[1:01:27] So a job is you go in nine to five, you do the thing, you come home.
[1:01:32] It's kind of like a little bit of a going through the motions.
[1:01:34] You don't think about it when you get home.
[1:01:35] It's just like leave it at work.
[1:01:38] The career is where you have goals and there is some sort of pursuit and you might experience some fulfillment.
[1:01:48] A calling is this sense of purpose that I have been called by a higher power to be on this earth, to do this thing, to make this contribution in some way.
[1:01:58] So these are these kind of three categories.
[1:02:00] But what feels so important about these three ways of being is that it's not about being the best in the world at something, but how you show up to the world.
[1:02:12] So for example, you could be a crossing guard at a school.
[1:02:17] And it might be like a go in.
[1:02:20] It's not hugely effortful necessarily.
[1:02:22] I go in and I'm here for like six hours a day or something, three hours a day.
[1:02:27] But what I know is that I've been called to this because how I show up to this job is that I help these children cross the road safely and I bring a sense of joyfulness when I say good morning.
[1:02:37] And that's my calling there.
[1:02:39] Amazingly, that's what I want to do when I'm in my 80s.
[1:02:41] Yeah, me too.
[1:02:42] Really?
[1:02:42] Right, yeah.
[1:02:43] Really.
[1:02:43] Yeah, so what does that tell you about purpose there?
[1:02:46] Like that desire there, what does that speak to?
[1:02:49] I like saying hello to people.
[1:02:50] Yeah, me too.
[1:02:53] You can't think of any other way to do that.
[1:02:58] I've just seen, I just think when I see a good one, who's like there's a guy on Alexander Parade.
[1:03:04] There's two of them, actually both of them, because it's like a double.
[1:03:07] We can do that together.
[1:03:08] We could work either side of the road.
[1:03:10] Yeah, and the two of them bring sight.
[1:03:12] They're just so joyful and happy to chat to everyone that goes through, not just the kids, everyone on their way to work.
[1:03:18] Yeah.
[1:03:19] And I just think what a wonderful opportunity to just provide happiness to people's day.
[1:03:24] Like surprisingly, I've been.
[1:03:26] Get them when they're not expecting so much joy.
[1:03:28] It just looks like the best job.
[1:03:30] Yeah.
[1:03:30] And so that's an example of engaging in something that is larger than myself.
[1:03:36] And there are so many other like incredible examples that we can see.
[1:03:40] Like in some of the research, there's examples of, you know, like a hospital janitor that is going in and doing the job.
[1:03:48] But when they're doing the job, they're bringing with it such intention to make this room clean for the people that are suffering.
[1:03:56] Mm-hmm.
[1:03:57] So it doesn't actually have to have anything to do with the specific thing you're doing, but that you're bringing this intention that there's something really purposeful about this job I'm doing.
[1:04:08] Yeah.
[1:04:09] So you can bring it to all.
[1:04:10] What you're saying is that it's not about moving from having a job to a calling.
[1:04:14] It's about bringing a sense of how you turn up to each of those three things.
[1:04:17] It's how you show up to what you're doing.
[1:04:19] Awesome.
[1:04:20] And the framework, the lens with which you bring an attitude, really.
[1:04:25] Yeah.
[1:04:25] And I guess like what you're talking about before with modelling, there's also the potential knock-on effect of showing other people what's possible.
[1:04:35] And like kind of, you know, I think in more recent years of me making things outside of the podcast, it's like it's often I think like, yes, I want to like make people laugh and I want to like spread joy.
[1:04:48] But also I get really excited when someone says like, I make films because I saw you making videos.
[1:04:56] Yeah.
[1:04:56] It's like that feels like just like, oh.
[1:04:58] Yeah.
[1:05:00] That is so powerful.
[1:05:01] Yeah.
[1:05:02] And so meaningful.
[1:05:03] Yeah, absolutely.
[1:05:04] Absolutely.
[1:05:05] So that's, you know, that's this kind of last component here of the characteristics of grit.
[1:05:12] So just as a reminder, we've got you have to have an interest.
[1:05:14] You have to deliberately practice.
[1:05:16] You have to engage or we have to kind of cultivate a sense of purposefulness and we need to bring hope on board.
[1:05:22] Yeah.
[1:05:24] Yeah.
[1:05:25] So good.
[1:05:26] Brilliant.
[1:05:26] I do want to mention, though, that there is, of course, like this dark side to perseverance, basically, or to grit.
[1:05:33] Dun, dun, dun, dun.
[1:05:37] And the obvious thing that stands out to me is when we don't stop, when maybe there might be an invitation or a signal, some sort of sign that it's time to put the pen down.
[1:05:52] Like when you put in so much grit but it's like it ain't working.
[1:05:57] Yes.
[1:05:58] And you should just.
[1:05:59] Or it's having a negative impact on relationships.
[1:06:01] Yes, exactly.
[1:06:02] So, you know, and this is why I think in my opinion it's really important that when it comes to persevering.
[1:06:08] on a goal, with a goal, is that it absolutely has to be tied to your values because otherwise what's really kind of what's this in service of?
[1:06:18] But, you know, there will be many circumstances where maybe you've been working really hard, like you've been putting in the hours, you've been working so hard on this thing and it's just not happening.
[1:06:31] And, you know, grit might say you just keep on going.
[1:06:36] It might say that.
[1:06:39] But we have to be really wary of the cost of keeping on going to both our sense of selves and our relationships around us.
[1:06:49] Yeah, I had that when we did the episode on how I built this, which is when I talked about how I built the Resilience Project.
[1:06:54] I had so many people messaged me saying, needed that episode so badly.
[1:06:57] I'm six years into this and it hasn't worked yet, but I'll keep going because of that.
[1:07:00] And part of me was thinking, oh, I'm not sure that wasn't the message.
[1:07:06] So this is probably exactly what you're talking about here.
[1:07:08] Yeah, yeah.
[1:07:09] And I think it's a really hard call because for many people, when you've put in all of this hard work, letting go just brings up so many things.
[1:07:20] It opens you up to grief.
[1:07:23] Failure.
[1:07:23] Yeah, exactly.
[1:07:25] And so it makes sense in some circumstances that we're like, I'm not willing to face that.
[1:07:29] I'm just going to keep on going.
[1:07:31] Yeah.
[1:07:31] But meanwhile, like my relationships are crumbling.
[1:07:34] Maybe I haven't made any money.
[1:07:36] I'm in financial crisis, but I'm not willing to let go of this thing.
[1:07:41] And so it really requires a lot of attunement to how this is working for me.
[1:07:50] In some circumstances, it might be like a question that can be helpful is, am I just delaying the inevitable here by keeping on going?
[1:07:59] And this is a really relevant question for retirement.
[1:08:02] Like, I'm going to retire in two years, provided I have enough financial security here.
[1:08:11] am I persevering actually just because I want to delay letting this part go?
[1:08:17] And actually is this a moment really for me to choose something that's worthwhile for me?
[1:08:24] But letting go of a dream is incredibly difficult.
[1:08:29] Yeah.
[1:08:29] Yeah.
[1:08:30] That would be quite sad for some people.
[1:08:34] And I think my, you know, in exploring that,
[1:08:38] you know, yes, we really need to hold that so gently and I think we need to give it space to grieve that kind of loss there of letting this go.
[1:08:48] But in doing this work, what feels really pertinent is that whilst that goal might not have worked out, maybe that career trajectory didn't work out, but what were the values that were underlying that pursuit today?
[1:09:04] And how can I meet these in another way?
[1:09:08] And so let's just say you have a creative pursuit and you've been going at it for years and years and there's like this niggling kind of story, thought in the back of the mind that I'm like, this is actually not going to happen for me.
[1:09:24] When we turn towards that and recognize this is not going to happen for me in this way, yes, here is grief.
[1:09:31] But how else can I show up to the values that were part of this pursuit?
[1:09:37] So if it's creativity, for example, there are numerous pathways in which I can still engage in this.
[1:09:43] If it's maybe it's in being an athlete, for example, how do I pursue the values that sit underneath this in another way?
[1:09:54] The values are never gone.
[1:09:56] We can just reorient ourselves in a different direction.
[1:09:59] Yeah.
[1:10:00] Yeah.
[1:10:01] So what is the difference between grit and resilience then?
[1:10:04] So in the research, it suggests actually that resilience is part of perseverance, but grit has to involve the passion.
[1:10:13] So without the passion, it's not grit, it's just perseverance and perhaps resilience to keep going, like your capacity to keep enduring.
[1:10:21] Yeah.
[1:10:21] But what kind of creates excellence or what moves us in the direction of, you know, being the greatest that we can be is the absolute crucial part of passion.
[1:10:35] So we can hold and cultivate resilience to get through life, absolutely, and to get through life in a way that feels meaningful and full of vitality and joyfulness, for example.
[1:10:47] But in terms of pursuing something for over a long period of time, we absolutely need the passion part.
[1:10:58] The giving up on your grit in a certain area, I think –
[1:11:04] It also, it feels like that would be more painful if you feel that life is about winning.
[1:11:12] And that like, it's not for me anyway, I'm starting to feel like it's not about winning or being the best at something.
[1:11:20] It's about winning.
[1:11:22] my ability to change, grow, learn, be curious, and that if you've actually done grit the way you've said you have, then what an amazing thing to have been doing for a long period of time, regardless of the outcome.
[1:11:37] Yeah.
[1:11:38] I think that's a great catch in there.
[1:11:39] Yeah.
[1:11:40] This is not necessarily about outcome, but it's kind of how we keep going.
[1:11:45] Yeah.
[1:11:45] Yeah.
[1:11:46] Yeah.
[1:11:47] And I think what there's mentioning in what you've just said, Josh, is also that when we hold really tightly to an identity, we're not going to be able to do that.
[1:11:58] Like, I don't know, being a writer, for example, if I hold so tightly to that as my identity and if my books don't sell, then what happens to my sense of self-worth in there?
[1:12:11] So we want to kind of hold these identities really kind of loosely.
[1:12:16] There's a great analogy about the notion of like self-concept as being a house with many rooms.
[1:12:23] And if we have, I think it might be Brad Stalberg, who's a researcher that talks about this, that if I place all of my furniture and I live only in one room, if that room catches fire, I have nothing else, right?
[1:12:42] So there will be times when we're pursuing excellence where we might have a lot of our energy, a lot of our time spent in that room, but we also spend time in the other rooms as well.
[1:12:52] Because if this one burns down, I've still got other parts over here that are really important to me that tell me I'm worthwhile, that feel engaging.
[1:13:01] So it's like at times, again, when we pursue excellence, we're going to have more eggs in that basket, but at least we've got other eggs in the other ones.
[1:13:10] Diversifying your identity.
[1:13:12] Yes.
[1:13:13] Yeah.
[1:13:13] Because the more strongly we hold on to one self-concept, the more dangerous that is for long-term wellbeing.
[1:13:20] Yeah.
[1:13:21] That's awesome.
[1:13:22] Awesome.
[1:13:23] There's a lot to think about, Em.
[1:13:24] Thank you so much.
[1:13:25] I feel like it's such a desirable characteristic and one that we all associate with success, but I think what I take from today, it's not necessarily about being successful or not.
[1:13:34] It's about following through and working hard through something that you love doing.
[1:13:39] Yeah.
[1:13:40] And that contributing to a sense of self-belief.
[1:13:45] Yeah.
[1:13:45] Yeah.
[1:13:45] and contributing to making the world a better place.
[1:13:47] 100%.
[1:13:48] That's fine on.
[1:13:49] So, yeah, that's a thing.
[1:13:50] I feel like we jumped in way too much.
[1:13:52] We derailed you a little bit there.
[1:13:54] No, it was great.
[1:13:55] I think your insight into childbirth was really fascinating.
[1:13:57] Yeah, I'm happy to talk you through more afterwards.
[1:14:00] That's totally fine.
[1:14:02] But thank you, Em.
[1:14:03] That's just so incredible.
[1:14:04] Oh, thanks for having me.
[1:14:06] Yeah, we can't wait to have you back in a month's time.
[1:14:08] Yeah, I'll be there.
[1:14:09] See you soon.
[1:14:10] Thank you.
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[1:14:25] And while you're there, you'll be able to see the names and faces of all the incredible people who helped make this show.
[1:14:29] A show made on the lands of the Wurundjeri, Woiwurrung people, and we pay our respects to elders past and present.
[1:14:36] The Imperfects is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment.
[1:14:42] The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you're struggling, please see a healthcare professional or call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

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