Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance book club questions

1. 1.

   Duckworth argues that passion is not excitement but durable commitment to a top-level goal. What is your top-level goal right now, and how long have you been working toward it?

2. 2.

   The talent myth gives people a narrative for why they stopped. Where have you told yourself a talent story that may have actually been a persistence story?

3. 3.

   Deliberate practice requires working at the edge of ability and tolerating failure. What would that look like in the skill you most want to improve?

4. 4.

   Duckworth's four assets of grit are interest, practice, purpose, and hope. Which of the four is the weakest link for you personally?

5. 5.

   The hard thing rule requires everyone to practice something difficult. If you applied this to a child or team you lead, what would you require -- and would you do it yourself?

6. 6.

   Duckworth distinguishes between a fixed identity and a growth one. Where in your life are you still carrying a fixed-identity label you absorbed early?

7. 7.

   Hope, in Duckworth's model, is the belief that effort leads to growth. When has that belief been hardest to hold, and what restored it?

8. 8.

   Grit requires consistency of interest over years. Is there anything you have been genuinely interested in for more than a decade, and have you pursued it with sustained effort?

9. 9.

   The book suggests culture shapes grit: some environments make perseverance easier. What does your current environment do -- build grit or erode it?

10. 10.

    Duckworth is careful to say circumstances matter too. Where has lack of access, discrimination, or circumstance made persistence harder, and how do you think about that honestly?

11. 11.

    Purpose -- the sense that your work matters to others -- sustains effort. How would you rate the purpose you feel in your current work, and what would raise it?

12. 12.

    Duckworth's Grit Scale has been criticized for measuring what you have already done rather than predicting future performance. Does that limitation change how you read the book's claims?

How to run the discussion

• Pick six to eight, not all of them. An hour of real discussion covers fewer questions than anyone expects, and racing the list is what makes a book club feel like homework.
• Open with what people noticed, not what they concluded. Asking for a verdict first hardens opinions before anyone has heard each other.
• Let the disagreement run. The questions below that split a room are the ones worth the time; the ones everyone answers the same way can be skipped.
• Ask the quiet person a specific question. A direct, narrow question is far easier to answer than an open invitation to contribute.