Willpower Expert: The Secret To Effortless Discipline - Angela Duckworth

1. 0:00 – 2:12

   How Has Angela’s Worldview Changed?

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      People of the UK and Ireland, if you want to come and see me live, tickets are very limited for my live tour this October, but they are still available. Dublin is already sold out. However, if you're a fan of Modern Wisdom, if you love psychology, philosophy, human nature, personal development, and you want to hear stories that I definitely can't tell on the internet, then come and see me live this October. chriswilliamson.live has got all of the tickets. Dublin is completely gone, but there are limited tickets everywhere else. I'll see you soon. chriswilliamson.live. You wrote one of the defining personal development books of the decade. What-

   2. ADAngela Duckworth0:31

      And I wrote it 10 years ago

   3. CWChris Williamson0:32

      ... what's changed in your worldview since then?

   4. ADAngela Duckworth0:36

      Well, as a psychologist, I really did spend the first half of my career trying to understand the importance of individual effort to achieving excellence, and I wrote a book about it. And I recently reread that book, and I wanted to know whether I'd changed my mind. I mean, you know, I continued to do science. Other scientists get, and people keep saying... And you know what? I don't disagree with a word in Grit. I really don't. Other people can, but I, I don't. I feel like there is a final common path to becoming great that requires consistency over time, and that's the message of Grit. Um, and you know, the reason I, I embarked on this in the first place is that I knew that I had achieved what I had achieved through effort and not through natural talent.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:19

      Hmm.

   6. ADAngela Duckworth1:19

      So there was a personal dimension, and it was my vocation, my calling as a scientist. But as a scientist, I continued to ask the question, you know, like what else, what else is there? And also, where does this come from, right? So your DNA will incline you to be grittier-

   7. CWChris Williamson1:36

      Mm

   8. ADAngela Duckworth1:36

      ... or less gritty. But we also know that it's not just your DNA. So I also wanted to know, like why would somebody be passionate and persevering? And this curiosity inevitably leads you outside of the mind of a high achiever and into their situation. It leads you naturally to like who's around them, what's around them, where are they? And so this second book is about everything that inclines a person to devote individual effort, and also everything that makes individual effort pay off.

2. 2:12 – 9:03

   When Does Grit Stop Being Useful?

   1. CWChris Williamson2:12

      When does grit stop being useful? What are the limits of grit?

   2. ADAngela Duckworth2:18

      You know, I think the, um, personal reason why I wrote this second book, um, uh, is, is that as somebody who has gotten very far in life through her own effort, she has asked the question, you know, when is it not paying off? And I will tell you, um, when you are trying hard and you're not making the progress you want, well, if you're me at a certain age, you just try harder.

   3. CWChris Williamson2:43

      Mm-hmm.

   4. ADAngela Duckworth2:43

      Right?

   5. CWChris Williamson2:44

      Mm-hmm.

   6. ADAngela Duckworth2:44

      I mean, wake up earlier, uh, grind harder, and then stay later, right? And then-

   7. CWChris Williamson2:49

      But that's the assumption, right?

   8. ADAngela Duckworth2:50

      Well, that's-

   9. CWChris Williamson2:50

      If, if I'm trying hard, if I think I'm trying hard and I'm not getting results-

   10. ADAngela Duckworth2:54

       Yeah

   11. CWChris Williamson2:54

       ... it must be that I think I'm trying hard, but I'm not trying hard enough.

   12. ADAngela Duckworth2:56

       And then I can try harder, right?

   13. CWChris Williamson2:58

       There you go.

   14. ADAngela Duckworth2:58

       I mean, it's kind of like natural. You're like, oh, then, you know, do 20% more, right? You know, you're not getting where you are. Like, turn up the volume, right?

   15. CWChris Williamson3:05

       It's like a inverse Parkinson's law. Not that work expands to fill the time given for it-

   16. ADAngela Duckworth3:08

       [laughs] Yeah

   17. CWChris Williamson3:09

       ... but effort expands to make something happen.

   18. ADAngela Duckworth3:11

       Right. And sometimes that works, right? 'Cause sometimes you aren't at 100%, and sometimes like yeah, like you know, you're lifting weights and you just like exert a little more effort, and yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson3:19

       Yeah.

   20. ADAngela Duckworth3:19

       So I feel like this trick that we learn, you know, try harder, is not wrong but it's incomplete. And I think the limits, I mean, you asked me like what are the limits? When you are trying hard and then harder and you're not making progress, you have to do something that was not natural for me, which is to ask whether the situation itself was not the right situation. You know, to me it felt like first of all, I, I don't know that it would occur to me. Like, you know, I always look inward, right? It's like, you know, what can I do? I don't want to look outward. That was reflexive to me.

   21. CWChris Williamson3:53

       Yeah.

   22. ADAngela Duckworth3:53

       Um, and it also felt kind of, yeah, like well, I'll use the word cowardly. You can use the word. Like it just felt embarrassing and shameful. It just felt like being a loser-

   23. CWChris Williamson4:01

       Mm-hmm

   24. ADAngela Duckworth4:02

       ... to, um, you know, ask whether-

   25. CWChris Williamson4:04

       What? You're saying that you can't do it on your own?

   26. ADAngela Duckworth4:05

       Right.

   27. CWChris Williamson4:05

       Oh, you need a helping hand.

   28. ADAngela Duckworth4:07

       Right.

   29. CWChris Williamson4:07

       You need this crutch in order to be able to get across the line.

   30. ADAngela Duckworth4:10

       Exactly. In like every dimension-
3. 9:03 – 11:33

   Should You F**k Your Feelings and Just Work Harder?

   1. CWChris Williamson9:03

      about-

   2. ADAngela Duckworth9:03

      Yeah, if you had to like give a one-liner-

   3. CWChris Williamson9:05

      Mm-hmm

   4. ADAngela Duckworth9:05

      ... for the personal advice that is given for the last 10, like what's your perspective on like what is, what is that message?

   5. CWChris Williamson9:11

      Fuck your feelings, just work harder.

   6. ADAngela Duckworth9:13

      Just do it.

   7. CWChris Williamson9:13

      Fuck your feelings, just work harder.

   8. ADAngela Duckworth9:15

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson9:15

      Yeah. That's, that's been-

   10. ADAngela Duckworth9:15

       By the way, I'm trying to curse less, so you're like a terrible influence on me.

   11. CWChris Williamson9:18

       I'm sorry, I'm British.

   12. ADAngela Duckworth9:19

       It's gonna be dropped. [laughs]

   13. CWChris Williamson9:20

       I'm, I'm, I'm afflicted, I'm afflicted with British. Um-

   14. ADAngela Duckworth9:23

       Yeah, that's okay. It sounds a lot better with your accent, so like I think you can say-

   15. CWChris Williamson9:26

       Thank you. It is more refined

   16. ADAngela Duckworth9:26

       ... anything you want.

   17. CWChris Williamson9:27

       Yeah, the cussing thing I do need to, I do need to dial it back. Yeah.

   18. ADAngela Duckworth9:30

       There is research actually that shows that like it is actually just a sign of being sincere because like you're not editing.

   19. CWChris Williamson9:35

       Mm. Mm-hmm.

   20. ADAngela Duckworth9:35

       So, you know.

   21. CWChris Williamson9:36

       Meanwhile, your prefrontal cortex is stepping in to avoid you from-

   22. ADAngela Duckworth9:39

       I just, I work a lot with children and parents, and so like that's a totally different context.

   23. CWChris Williamson9:42

       Speed run their development. Speed run their education.

   24. ADAngela Duckworth9:45

       [laughs]

   25. CWChris Williamson9:46

       They're gonna start using it when they grow up.

   26. ADAngela Duckworth9:47

       You're like, "You're gonna get there anyway."

   27. CWChris Williamson9:47

       Hey, you're an adv- You're, you're a precocious developer here. I see that your language has come on since you're-

   28. ADAngela Duckworth9:51

       Yeah, since you're a prodigy, you're gonna be... But like, so the last 10 or 15 years, I agree. There's, th- I think there are two messages, honestly.

   29. CWChris Williamson9:57

       Mm-hmm.

   30. ADAngela Duckworth9:57

       I think there's one which is like, just do it.
4. 11:33 – 18:51

   Discipline: Is It Willpower or Engrained?

   1. CWChris Williamson11:33

      You think people with discipline or high willpower are actually more disciplined, or do they, have they just designed lives that required less of it?

   2. ADAngela Duckworth11:43

      So I think one of the, like, signal discoveries the last 20 years is that we assume that people who go to the gym, like, and they go for the run, and they get their work done, and they're not procrastinating, and they control their temper, and they have five-year goals, but they actually break down those five-year goals into, like, one-year goals, and they make progress on them. They return emails. Like, we think of those people as having enormous willpower. And I think- 20 or 30 years ago, that's what scientists would also say. I think the fact that people have willpower, I mean, willpower is a thing. I mean, there is a part of your brain at the front that is able to suppress or elevate impulses for the rest of your brain. Like, you can will yourself to do things. But the discovery is that highly successful people are not using willpower. Highly successful people are doing exactly what you said, which is they're arranging their lives so they don't need to use willpower. I mean, it's, it's kind of the opposite of, like, brute force and being, like, a general, right? You know, Sun Tzu said you don't win a war through brute force. You do it strategically, and you do it ... The law is really the law of least effort, right?

   3. CWChris Williamson12:48

      Mm.

   4. ADAngela Duckworth12:48

      So, like, how can you set up a situation where you think, "I want to go to the gym"? It's like, well, for me, I'll tell you, it's, like, this trivial. If I have my gym clothes out, right, the night before, I mean, I keep my gym clothes in the fourth drawer of my bureau. It's not that hard to reach into the fourth. Like, it's not like I have to climb a ladder, right? So in the morning I could reach into the fourth drawer of my bureau and pull out a top and a pair of shorts, and I'd be ready to go to the gym. It would take me, I think, three seconds and almost no calories, right? So how can that make a difference to whether I go to the gym or not? If the night before I reach into the fourth drawer and I take out the shorts and the top and I lay it on top of the bureau, I will tell you, it makes a huge difference. It makes an enormous ... Especially when I'm traveling, by the way, because when I'm home, I have a routine. But, like, the difference is that first of all, it's a visual cue, right?

   5. CWChris Williamson13:44

      Mm.

   6. ADAngela Duckworth13:44

      Like, our attention is just whatever we see, right? There's an expression, "What you see is all there is." If I see it, I think, "Oh, right, I could go to the gym." And that micro friction, the micro friction of, like, I could open the drawer, I could, like, I could hunt around, I could, like, find it, is enough to make the difference. And so to me, the, the insight is yeah, don't wait for willpower. Like, that's the worst way to change human behavior. Again, I think I speak on behalf of Angela Duckworth, and I speak on, on behalf of scientists who study this. Like-

   7. CWChris Williamson14:17

      Mm

   8. ADAngela Duckworth14:17

      ... everyone I know. And also, if you're going to take the message of the last 10 to 15 years, it's like it's all in your mind, it's your mindset and so forth, what books do you need to have visible? What, what quotes do you have? Do you ... Who do you need to be around to give you the thoughts that you want to give you the behavior you want? Like, that's the three boxes model. The situation is box one, your thoughts are box two, and your response to your thoughts is box three.

   9. CWChris Williamson14:41

      Mm. That's interesting. Is that ... So that's the big change, you think, over the last couple of decades? The-

   10. ADAngela Duckworth14:45

       For me, I think my, um, you know, I sound like a politician when I say, like, well, I don't ... It's not a contradiction, it's conviction.

   11. CWChris Williamson14:52

       Your academic diplomacy is showing.

   12. ADAngela Duckworth14:54

       I [laughs] it's, it's, it's really like I'm, I'm, I'm trying to be honest in a way that doesn't sound like I, you know, am making it up because it, it is truth. You know, when I was in graduate school, like, the very first thing you learn is about the power of the situation. There is a book that I don't think a lot of people have read, but some people have read. I know Malcolm Gladwell read it, and it changed his life. Uh, the book is called The Person and the Situation, and it is not a bestseller. It is written by two academics who never went on podcasts, right? They are Dick Nisbett and Lee Ross, and every graduate student in psychology has to learn what's in that book. And what's in that book is that people have the experience of being intentional, goal-directed, right? Why'd you do that? Like, why did you drink that? Why did you say that? What, you know, what was in your mind, right? And that's only partly true. The book about the person and the situation is really about the power of the situation over the person. The book mostly talks about how whether you're altruistic or com- You're gonna make me curse. Or not altru- Like, a total fill in the blank. Do it.

   13. CWChris Williamson16:01

       Asshole.

   14. ADAngela Duckworth16:02

       Okay. Whether you are one or the other-

   15. CWChris Williamson16:03

       You could have said that. You could have said that in front of a kid

   16. ADAngela Duckworth16:05

       ... I could have said that, but look, I'm trying to-

   17. CWChris Williamson16:06

       You can't call the kid an asshole.

   18. ADAngela Duckworth16:07

       [laughs]

   19. CWChris Williamson16:07

       That's slightly different.

   20. ADAngela Duckworth16:08

       Yes. I don't do, I don't do that either.

   21. CWChris Williamson16:10

       Yeah.

   22. ADAngela Duckworth16:10

       Um, that one I don't have a problem with.

   23. CWChris Williamson16:12

       Mm-hmm.

   24. ADAngela Duckworth16:12

       Um, but it, it's, it's very mu- Okay, so here's a, here's a, a study that is highlighted in The Person and the Situation that, again, like every graduate student in psychology learns. It's called the Good Samaritan study, right? And it actually literally takes place at a seminary. So these are people who are going to go into the ministry, right? It's their job to be altruistic. They're nothing like the-

   25. CWChris Williamson16:33

       Predisposed to be lovely.

   26. ADAngela Duckworth16:35

       Yeah. And that's like, they're predisposed and, uh, and it's, like, all they think about, right? So in the Good Samaritan study, they, they basically have in one condition, um, uh, uh, somebody who's, like, obviously homeless and, and suffering, right? And, uh, and you know, they're, they're there. In the other condition, that's also true. Um, but in one condition, these Good Samaritans, right, these seminarians are, like, rushing to get to a next appointment, right? Like, you give them a phone call and they're supposed ... And another one, they don't. It's a trivial situational feature. It shouldn't affect their character, right? You didn't make them more altruistic by, like, calling them and saying like, "Oh, you have to be in this place at 2:00." But it has a massive effect on whether they stop and help the person who needs help. So this is the kind of thing that all graduate students in psychology learn about, the hidden power of situations. We feel like we're intentional, but we're much more reactive.

   27. CWChris Williamson17:31

       Mm.

   28. ADAngela Duckworth17:31

       Okay, you learn about that in graduate school, so I can't lie and say that I never knew about the power of the situation. But I do think that connecting this to excellence, like connecting this to agency, there are philosophers who have pointed out that the agency of the individual is located within. There are not many philosophers who say that you have agency over your circumstances, that whether you choose to have water next to you or whatever you're not trying to drink, soda, whatever, like, is up to you. I think that to me was an insight that I hadn't fully appreciated when I started out.

   29. CWChris Williamson18:09

       It's a feedback mechanism as well, presumably, that you can engineer more agency, which means that you can engineer further, which means more able to, to, to, to, to, to-

   30. ADAngela Duckworth18:17

       I think there are many examples of positive feedback cycles, and in a way when we're talking about like a strength becomes more of a strength, right, and a weakness becomes more, that's also a positive feedback cycle.
5. 18:51 – 24:29

   How Does Environment Impact Success?

   1. CWChris Williamson18:51

      What are the environmental similarities that you discovered when studying world-class performers?

   2. ADAngela Duckworth18:57

      Well, since we are in Austin, I will tell you that, um, the signature example of grit would be Michael Phelps, right? 365 day a year swimmer for a 20-year career, right? Um, and, uh, I had dinner with Michael Phelps' coach, Bob Bowman, who is a coach here now at UT Austin. Um, and to me, the story of Michael Phelps is a perfect illustration of how grit is essential and how grit is not enough.

   3. CWChris Williamson19:30

      Hmm.

   4. ADAngela Duckworth19:30

      And here's why. You can be as gritty as Michael Phelps. I really don't think there's anybody who's worked harder than Michael Phelps, and he's actually said that himself. He's like, "I'm not gonna brag about a lot of things, but I will say that I don't think anybody swam harder than I did. Like, nobody practiced and trained..." And it's not just the physical, by the way, but mental. Something that Bob mentioned kind of like parenthetically last night. It's like it's not just the mileage that he put into the pool and how, how mu- He would mentally visualize every competition.

   5. CWChris Williamson20:00

      Hmm.

   6. ADAngela Duckworth20:00

      But not just what Bob asked him to do, which is to like imagine how you want the race to go, but he imagined all the ways the race could go and then like what he would do so that he was completely able to be, like, in the moment.

   7. CWChris Williamson20:12

      Hmm.

   8. ADAngela Duckworth20:12

      But then when you ask the question like, well, would Michael Phelps have become, you know, arguably the greatest athlete ever, right? Because he's, he's certainly the most decorated Olympic athlete by a stretch, right? Nobody's gonna approach this, uh, record that he has of 28 medals, 23 of them gold across a 20-year career. Um, but you could also ask the question, was he situated, right? And absolutely. Okay, so let's consider that Michael Phelps was born 10 minutes a- Well, well, he was actually born an hour away from where Bob Bowman, I think the greatest swimming coach in history-

   9. CWChris Williamson20:41

      Hmm

   10. ADAngela Duckworth20:41

       ... happened to be, and he was, um, then moved to be only 10 minutes away because Michael's sisters wanted to swim, and they wanted to swim where all the best swimmers were. So they started going to the North Baltimore Aquatic Center, and that is where the best swimmers were, so the best team, and also the best coaches. Like, the kind of youth aquatic center that, like, actually recruits nationally for coaches, which is why Bob Bowman moved from California to Baltimore. So it was a situation. He also had his mom. So he had ADHD as a diagnosis as a nine-year-old, I think, and he had this mom who was so situationally wise. She understood that in certain situations, Michael was a pain in the ass. Look, you're go- You know, by the end of this podcast, I'm just gonna be dropping F-bombs. But he was a pain in the ass. Letters home, you know, teachers saying like, "This kid doesn't have potential." Like, he, he's also a disruptor. But she knew that in the right situation he would have complete focus-

   11. CWChris Williamson21:40

       Mm-hmm

   12. ADAngela Duckworth21:40

       ... and total effort. So that's the pool. I think these features of a situation, Baltimore Aquatic Center, a team of athletes who even at ages like nine, 10, 11 were used to the kind of practice that elite swimmers do.

   13. CWChris Williamson21:57

       Hmm.

   14. ADAngela Duckworth21:57

       A coach who ends up being, you know, in the storybooks as, like, one of the greatest coaches ever. You cannot explain Michael Phelps' achievements without talking about his situation. And then if you just look at, you know, subsequent things, I think Michael actually did have a lot of situational agency. When Bob Bowman moved from Baltimore, Michael Phelps had the good sense to follow him, right?

   15. CWChris Williamson22:21

       Hmm.

   16. ADAngela Duckworth22:21

       Like, he knew that he couldn't be the swimmer that he could be with Bob unless he was with Bob, right? So I think there is a story that is not often told. You show me the paragon of grit, and if you keep looking, you will also find a situation that was their ally.

   17. CWChris Williamson22:38

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   18. ADAngela Duckworth23:43

       Yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson23:43

       'Cause usually people think about the athlete as being the once in a generation talent.

   20. ADAngela Duckworth23:47

       Yes.

   21. CWChris Williamson23:47

       But what Michael Phelps identified was that he would only be what he could be if he was around this particular guy.

   22. ADAngela Duckworth23:53

       This particular arguably once in a generation coach.

   23. CWChris Williamson23:55

       Also, what's kind of interesting, you know, you- the word is situation. When people think about situation, it's kind of amorphous. It, it's, like, big, it's ephemeral. But he'd found this singular, this one linchpin That because he would have left his teammates, he would have left his home, he would have left his routine, his car. The j- what, what the, maybe the new pool's a little bit longer or colder or wider or something. Maybe the chlorine's slightly different, or maybe he can't get the same kind of food, or the raw milk that he was drinking on a weekend isn't available, or he's not got his friends or his girl or whatever. It's like his situation was a guy.

6. 24:29 – 28:29

   The Most Underrated Environment Design Hacks

   1. CWChris Williamson24:29

      So how have you come to think about this? 'Cause look, I, I, I really appreciate you saying, uh, asking me for critique at the top. It seems like your career in academia has made you sort of wanting to, to hear things.

   2. ADAngela Duckworth24:40

      It's all good.

   3. CWChris Williamson24:40

      I was a little bit worried when I was like, "Angela Duckworth's next book's gonna be about situation and environment design." I was a little worried when I first thought about that because I'm like, as a, with a productivity background and, like, spending a lot of time with David Allen's Getting Things Done and e- environment design, like, you know, you don't want to be distracted by your phone, don't have it next to you on the table. I'm like, "Don't."

   4. ADAngela Duckworth24:57

      Yeah, like-

   5. CWChris Williamson24:58

      It can't be. It can't, it can't be. And what I'm keen to do is to everyone now understands that your environment sort of can influence you. I want to move past, like, don't have the chips in the house if you're doing a week of fucking chips.

   6. ADAngela Duckworth25:08

      Yeah. Yeah, you're like, "Uh, this I know." Or, yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson25:10

      Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, that's great.

   8. ADAngela Duckworth25:12

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson25:12

      Um, but I want to go to, I want to get really deep on the environment design stuff. What is the-

   10. ADAngela Duckworth25:18

       Yeah

   11. CWChris Williamson25:18

       ... the cutting edge shit that makes the biggest difference that people don't already know? People know that they shouldn't live that far from their fucking gym, right? People know that they should-

   12. ADAngela Duckworth25:25

       By the way, they don't necessarily do anything about it, right?

   13. CWChris Williamson25:29

       Oh, that's good.

   14. ADAngela Duckworth25:29

       So, like, before we just skip over, like, "Oh, everybody knows that, like, you know, what's within your reach is what you're going to eat." Like, everybody knows that. How many people put that into practice? When I wrote the chapter on, like, set up your space, I was like, blindingly obvious, but nobody's doing it. But I agree with you. There are also chapters on everybody knows it's important, but they don't think it's possible. I mean, there's other things, but before we skip past, like-

   15. CWChris Williamson25:55

       Yep, yep, yep

   16. ADAngela Duckworth25:55

       ... what's within reach, and I, I'll just say, I think in my research-

   17. CWChris Williamson25:59

       Yes

   18. ADAngela Duckworth25:59

       ... by the way-

   19. CWChris Williamson25:59

       Yes

   20. ADAngela Duckworth26:00

       ... when I ask Americans, like, "What's the best way to control your behavior?" They say it's to control the situation. Ask the same Americans, "What do you do?" They say they use willpower.

   21. CWChris Williamson26:09

       Why?

   22. ADAngela Duckworth26:10

       Well, then I asked follow-up questions. [laughs] I said, "Why?" And one of the most common responses was, "I want to be the sort of person who can do what they want because of their will, not because they need the situation." They don't want the situation to be a crutch.

   23. CWChris Williamson26:24

       Right.

   24. ADAngela Duckworth26:24

       I think it is a kind of a mark of character. Like, you don't want to be the kind of person who needs to take GLP-1s or to like, you know, y- you want to be the sort of person who doesn't need that, right? So I think that, that to me is at least part of the answer. But you asked the question, like, what's not obvious, right?

   25. CWChris Williamson26:39

       Yes, yes, yes.

   26. ADAngela Duckworth26:39

       So let's get to that. Here's something that I think is not obvious. I think it is not obvious that by and large, you'll be more successful achieving your individual goals if you do it as part of a group. And I'm not talking about just sort of like, oh, being specifically on a swimming team or a... I'm literally talking about like a, so somebody's trying to run a marathon, someone's trying to be a better public speaker, entrepreneur, start a company, become a better marketer, right? If you ask the question, could I find other people who don't necessarily work with me on my project but are just striving for the same goals, also trying to run a marathon, also trying to go to the gym more, also trying to f- found a company, but maybe a different company, right? Research shows, and I think this is countercultural, research shows that you'll be more successful on average if you do that in a flock, like as part of a tribe. And the reason why I say it's countercultural is that DIY is the prevailing c- like DIY as an expression, do it yourself, was introduced more than fifty years ago, but it's now fifty times more common. And when I see young people in particular, the things that they try to do, they try to do with their own individual effort.

   27. CWChris Williamson27:50

       Hmm.

   28. ADAngela Duckworth27:50

       It doesn't necessarily occur to them to find, you know, other aspiring writers, like other aspiring whatever it is. And that to me is an insight that if I could go back in time, I, I think of young people that I've advised.

   29. CWChris Williamson28:04

       Mm-hmm.

   30. ADAngela Duckworth28:04

       And like I'm trying to help them with their time management and their confidence and so forth. How often did I say, "Who else do you know that is trying to, like, be a graduate student?" Right? And how often did I say, like, "Let's help you find a group"? Because it's easier in some ways if you're a swimmer because you join a team. I think it's less obvious but just as transformative to do that for like quite literally any individual personal goal you have.

7. 28:29 – 35:41

   Why Groups Make Goals Easier

   1. CWChris Williamson28:29

      What like? What are some of the, uh, non-obvious goals that people have used groups to help them with?

   2. ADAngela Duckworth28:34

      So, um, one of the, um, uh, you know, examples that I found in my research on this was, um, there was a group of surgeons, all right? And it, it wasn't necessarily they were trying to be better surgeons, but surgery is like an all-consuming thing. What they really wanted to do, they were all young men. They were just finishing, I think, like the part of their specialized training. So they're all going into orthopedic surgery. They met at a conference, um, because, you know, uh, that's what they did for their li- uh, but they had a dinner, and they said that they had a different goal other than being world-class surgeons, which they all, by the way, ended up being. Like, they're all chaired professors at like the best hospital systems in the country. They had another goal. They wanted to be good fathers, and they wanted to be good husbands. Um, and they wondered how they would do that, right? And they were living in different cities. They had their own lives, and at this point, they're strangers, right? But they decided to have dinner at the next conference and the next one, and then they decided to have a group text thread. And you ask these men, who are now at retirement age, "How different would your lives be if you had tried to become world-class orthopedic surgeons and achieve this other goal of being men?" You know, being men who showed up for their family, and so what's the road not taken? And each of these men will say that the road not taken is not the, the best road, that they are, that their lives were transformed. And then they gave examples, you know. They've seen each other through true tragedy and every possible, um, you know, personal struggle, and it was because they had this group. And it really was nothing more or less than a group text thread and then getting together a few ti- you know, with some increasing frequency, right? So now not just at conferences and so forth. When I think about my own career, like when I interviewed them, I was like, "Oh, what about me?" Like, I don't have that. And I will tell you that I have room to grow too because I have collaborators. I have a team that works in my lab. I don't have what these men have. Like, I don't have this like group of people who are sort of struggling with the same, um, professional and personal challenges. You know, it is essentially creating Alcoholics Anonymous for yourself. Like it's creating a mutual aid society, which is how Alcoholics Anonymous sometimes calls them. So it's like, I don't have that, and I think, I think it would even for me at 56, um, and a lot to be grateful for, I think it would transform my life, and I'm actually trying to start one. I like actually reached out to these women who were like, "What?" Like all in their 50s, actually one in their high 40s, um, or maybe she's 50. And I said like, "I interviewed these surgeons. I want to try to do what I'm, what I'm trying to do, but I would like to try to do it like somehow in some kind of fellowship or community with you."

   3. CWChris Williamson31:20

      Do you want to make the Avengers Assemble of high-powered lady academics?

   4. ADAngela Duckworth31:24

      [laughs] They are really high-powered, I have to say. They-

   5. CWChris Williamson31:26

      Oh

   6. ADAngela Duckworth31:27

      ... I, I think, I think it's very important if you're gonna de- decide to like start a group, right? You can join a group. If you can find a group, I think you just join a group, right?

   7. CWChris Williamson31:33

      Mm-hmm.

   8. ADAngela Duckworth31:33

      Like you're trying to marathon and you just find the local running club. There are apparently over 60 in Philadelphia. So like there's got to be a running club wherever you are, and there's probably a group of people who like want to write a book or whatever. But if you're trying to find a group like these orthopedic surgeons could not find a group that they could just join of like other elite orthopedic surgeons who cared about family and so forth, well, then they start one, right? If you're gonna do that, I think you should probably look for two things. I do think stage of life. Like the difference between a mentor-

   9. CWChris Williamson32:02

      Yeah

   10. ADAngela Duckworth32:02

       ... and a peer is that a mentor is above you. They are farther than you. They're above you, and honestly, they're usually older than you. So I think finding somebody who's at the same stage of life and then who are really like like-minded. And so yes, you won't be surprised that the women that I reach out to are all like very accomplished women, and they're all around my age.

   11. CWChris Williamson32:22

       You know what it makes me think about? It makes me think about the difference between reading fiction and nonfiction with the mentor versus peer relationship. So in a mentor relationship, it's largely one, unidirectional, right? The advice is gonna come-

   12. ADAngela Duckworth32:33

       Yes, it's asymmetric

   13. CWChris Williamson32:33

       ... it's gonna come from them to you. But in the same way as reading fiction can often teach you more stuff than reading nonfiction does because you understand the protagonist's motivations-

   14. ADAngela Duckworth32:43

       Empathize, yeah

   15. CWChris Williamson32:43

       ... and, okay, well, what does that mean? And it causes you to reflect. It's more indirect. In the same way, when you've got a peer group, indirectly the advice that you need to give somebody reveals something about yourself to yourself. So-

   16. ADAngela Duckworth32:55

       Which is by the way, part of the magic of AA, right? Alcoholics Anonymous as they say, like you only keep it when you give it away. I mean, there is something in the advice giving-

   17. CWChris Williamson33:03

       Mm

   18. ADAngela Duckworth33:03

       ... that is self-awareness-

   19. CWChris Williamson33:06

       Well, I mean how-

   20. ADAngela Duckworth33:07

       ... creating

   21. CWChris Williamson33:07

       ... y-y-you mentioned before about the identity element of personality, right? How I, I am the sort of person that goes to the gym.

   22. ADAngela Duckworth33:13

       Yes. Yeah.

   23. CWChris Williamson33:13

       I am the sort of person that does the thing. Like it is hard to proselytize about this thing that somebody else should be doing without it at least-

   24. ADAngela Duckworth33:22

       Without doing

   25. CWChris Williamson33:22

       ... somehow throwing into sharp contrast the fact that you're not doing it yourself.

   26. ADAngela Duckworth33:26

       I actually did do a random assignment study where we asked people to give advice. Ask kids, right? Like, you know, how do you not procrastinate? Like or, uh, and so that was the whole intervention.

   27. CWChris Williamson33:34

       Advice giving as an intervention.

   28. ADAngela Duckworth33:36

       Exactly. And-

   29. CWChris Williamson33:37

       Bingo

   30. ADAngela Duckworth33:37

       ... you know, yeah. Their grades went up.
8. 35:41 – 39:22

   Why Modern Life Is Making Us More Isolated

   1. ADAngela Duckworth35:41

      That's-

   2. CWChris Williamson35:41

      It's hilarious. Um, I, uh, Andrew Yang in the American Time Use Survey came up with four stats that I thought were fascinating. Between 2003 and 2024 the amount of time that Americans spent attending or hosting a social event declined by 50%. Among young people aged 15 to 24 they spent 70% less time attending or hosting parties in 2024 than in 2023. Men who watch television now spend seven hours doing so for every hour they spend hanging out with another person outside of the house. And number four, this was the most insane. The average female pet owner spends more time with her pet than all humans put together.

   3. ADAngela Duckworth36:21

      Oh God. [laughs] Right. Well, I didn't know about sp- I think I knew about the first three of those stats. I didn't know about the fourth one. But like this is the painting of the, you know, this is the picture, right, of like modern American life. And one reason I wrote a book on the situation is that I don't think the default settings of the modern world are good. I really don't. I think this trend toward isolation, towards being on your phone all the time, you know, being in some little segregated part of the world where, like, you only interact with people who are basically agreeing with you, like, I, I, I don't think it's good. And so if you're going to change your life, and if you believe the science that says to change yourself, you change your situation, the imperative is even more urgent is what I'm saying.

   4. CWChris Williamson37:05

      Isn't it interesting that you've had to sneak this pro-social thing that has happened for the entirety of human history and is the single best intervention according to the Harvard Longevity Study people in making you live longer.

   5. ADAngela Duckworth37:19

      Relationships.

   6. CWChris Williamson37:20

      It'll improve your performance, so maybe you should do it.

   7. ADAngela Duckworth37:23

      [laughs]

   8. CWChris Williamson37:23

      You know what I mean?

   9. ADAngela Duckworth37:24

      Well, yeah.

   10. CWChris Williamson37:24

       We have to sneak it into the meritocracy somehow.

   11. ADAngela Duckworth37:26

       You know, I, um, am not a great commentator on, like, how, you know, my work fits into the rest of the world, partly because, and if you knew me well, you would really believe me. I know what I know, and I really don't know most things.

   12. CWChris Williamson37:39

       Anything else.

   13. ADAngela Duckworth37:40

       Oh my God, like current events, like basic world history. So, so I can't necessarily fit my work, but I am a studier, I am a student of human excellence. And so, you know, you could say like, "Oh, the only way that somebody's gonna listen to you talk about relationships is because, like, they think it'll help them achieve more in this meritocracy," and you may be right, but I only know what I know, and I am a psychologist who studies high achievers.

   14. CWChris Williamson38:01

       Hmm.

   15. ADAngela Duckworth38:02

       And I can say as a [laughs] student of high achievers that their relationships, their mentors, which we haven't talked about too much, but their peers, like they are arguably more important than their physical environment, but I don't want to discount the physical environment either.

   16. CWChris Williamson38:16

       Wow. Somewhere along the way, low energy just gets accepted as a part of getting older. Turns out there's a reason for that. As we age, our mitochondria, the parts of our cells that power us, become weaker and make less energy, which is why I'm such a huge fan of Timeline. They've developed this that helps to clear out your damaged mitochondria so your cells can actually renew themselves. Timeline is backed by over a decade of research and has more than 50 patents, and is the number one recommended mitochondrial supplement on the planet. This isn't just theory. In clinical trials, people saw mitochondrial renewal increased by more than 40% in just 16 weeks, along with improvements in their overall energy. I've been using it for over two years since my doctor recommended it to me way before I partnered with Timeline. And eat your heart out, Martin Shkreli, 'cause they've just dropped the price, and it now starts at $99. Best of all, there is a 30-day money-back guarantee, plus free shipping in the US, plus they ship internationally. And right now you can get that $99 price with an additional 20% off by going to the link in the description below or heading to timeline.com/modernwisdom using the code MODERNWISDOM at checkout. That's timeline.com/modernwisdom and MODERNWISDOM at checkout.

9. 39:22 – 46:37

   Do You Really Need a Mentor?

   1. CWChris Williamson39:22

      Okay. Hit me up about mentors. What did you learn about mentors?

   2. ADAngela Duckworth39:25

      So you can, uh, you know, dig up stats on, like, you know, your likelihood of becoming them. For example, an award-winning scientist is like two times to four times larger if you're mentored by an award-winning scientist. And you know, the, the, the kind of, oh, a mentor makes a difference. I don't really know that there are a lot of people who need convincing. Like how many people would say, you know, it doesn't matter if like Oprah Winfrey is going to mentor you as you try to make your way, like in media, or like it doesn't matter whether you have an editor if you're a writer. Like I think the intuition that mentors matter is common. What is rare, I think, is the idea that you can proactively be a mentor magnet. You can, you can attract mentors. And I will tell you that not every high achiever, but most that I have studied, is a mentor magnet. And what am I talking about? The sort of person who other high-achieving people who are farther down the path want to mentor. And you know, not everyone is equally mentorable. So what are these people like? Like let me give you a very specific example. I think, I think the situation is so abstract, honestly, that like, you know, you don't know what to do with it because it's like everything. Um, so let me be concrete. I got a email in my inbox on May 13th, 2013 from Cody Coleman. I wrote about him in Grit. I also wrote about him in Situated, and he's the only person I put in both books. I wrote about him in Grit. Why? Because in that early email in 2013, he introduced himself as somebody whose life could only be explained through passion and perseverance. He was born to a mother who was serving time in jail, so he was literally born in a prison outside of Trenton, New Jersey. And from those inauspicious beginnings, you know, a, a childhood of just sheer chaos, right? Like the police, police were being called like, you know, every other week because of, you know, domestic disturbances. There was a menagerie of cats and dogs. He has severe asthma. He could hardly breathe. His grandmother was taking care of him, but she was basically losing her mind. So, you know, he, these are not the circumstances that you would think... And then one day he'll graduate from MIT.

   3. CWChris Williamson41:29

      Prototypical excellence.

   4. ADAngela Duckworth41:31

      I mean, this is the thing. He had this, this remarkable escape from, from poverty. So when he emailed me, he said, "I watched your TED Talk, and I think, I think you have explained a lot about my life, and I would like to talk to you." Right? So he basically was asking me for a curiosity conversation. I think that's, that's the term that is used for like, "I'd like to learn something from you," right? Um, and again, not a term... Well, not again. It's a term that I want to just hasten to say like I didn't come up with it, but I think it's a perfect description. So in that email he expresses curiosity. Um, he also expresses preparation because he wasn't writing me something that like took two seconds. Like he had watched what I had wr- he had read a little bit of what I had written. And then he signed off with something that I think is signature to mentor magnets. He said, "If there's anything that I can do that might be helpful in any way, like I would love to do that," right? And by the way, he was something like 20 or 21 years old when he wrote this. It's not Shakespeare. It was just sincere. And he signed his name. And you know what? Of all the emails in my inbox, I replied to that one. So who is this person who's prepared, who has something to say, who wants a few minutes of my time, who is offering to be helpful? So to be a mentor magnet is to be the sort of person where, you know, the universe does reach out to you because you're mentorable. What happens next? So I meet Cody. I find out about his story. I write about it in Grit. Um, by the way, he continues to live, so I can tell you what happened to him. So after he, uh, reached MIT and he graduated with a four nine out of five, he went to Google. From there he went to Stanford. Uh, he got his PhD at Stanford in computer science. He was the third Black recipient of a PhD in computer science in the university's history. And now he's the CEO of an AI startup that according to Forbes Magazine, you know, may be valued at a billion dollars like at some point in the future. So why does he play a role in this second book? He gave a TED Talk himself, it turns out, years after I gave mine, and he gave it in Palo Alto to a Stanford audience. And because it was a Stanford audience, he had no problem like putting graphs up on the PowerPoint slide behind him. So he has a graph up, and there's a gray line that's gently sloping upward, upward, upward. And he says, "That's what most people think. You know, you meet me here and you think like, you know, he did better and better. He went to MIT and so forth. Like, that's not my life. This is my life." And there's a red exponential curve, right? Talk about the Matthew effect. When there is a flywheel, when good begets better and better begets best, you actually get exponential growth. This is what he said. "I think of my life in five-year chapters. In each chapter, my situation was better than the last, and you can only explain my exponential improvement, not linear, but exponential if you really understand my situations and how each one," right? So-

   5. CWChris Williamson44:30

      Hmm

   6. ADAngela Duckworth44:30

      ... from his high school to MIT, from MIT to Google, from Google to Stanford, now to like San Jose, Silicon Valley, that the opportunities multiplied and the support multiplied. So, so I think, I think you can be a mentor magnet. What did Cody not do? He didn't email me and ask me to be his mentor. Mentor magnets do not email people and say, "Hi, Chris. Could you be my mentor? Hello." You know, like they don't do that. They ask for a short conversation. They offer to be helpful. They express gratitude. And very often that will lead to another conversation. What they also do, by the way, is work with you on something. So mentor magnets have a habit of asking whether they can contribute to a project that the mentor is already working on. When Cody reiterated his offer to help, I initially thought no, and then I realized I had a project that was ongoing where I was trying to teach little kids to be gritty. And I thought, "Oh, this is perfect. I'll have Cody Coleman record a video about how from very humble beginnings he got to where he got through passion and perseverance." So we worked on that project for about three months, which is about... You know, that's why I call them mentors for a season. Like you, you go from a mentor for a reason, could I have a c- short conversation, to a mentor for a season.

   7. CWChris Williamson45:47

      Hmm.

   8. ADAngela Duckworth45:47

      He did that, and then he continued to just be like a grateful, curious, wonderful person. When I read his PhD dissertation, which was on AI, and I didn't understand the math, so I pretty much skipped to the acknowledgments. I was like, "Oh, I know I'm not gonna understand this." His acknowledgments are three single-spaced pages. He thanks by full name over 200 people. Like, you know, dozens of teammates or fellow student. Like there were 17 administrators of the computer science department at Stanford that he m- thanks by full name. Cody Coleman is a paragon of grit. Cody Coleman is a mentor magnet, and Cody Coleman is a perfect example of like, yes, you need grit, but you also need to have the agency to navigate into better and better situations.

10. 46:37 – 53:03

    Can Grit Lead to Burnout?

    1. CWChris Williamson46:37

       What's the relationship between grit and your new insight around situations and burnout?

    2. ADAngela Duckworth46:44

       So having experienced burnout, and I'll be, I'll be honest, um, when I used to teach burnout, because burnout, you know, burnout is a, a word that a psychologist named Christina Maslach coined. She was studying burnout. It has a very specific definition. Depression is, you know, you're depressed. You know, it, it's pervasive. Burnout is specifically about work, right? So, so when you experience this trifecta of exhaustion and also like a weird sort of dissociation or like I'm not really present, um, and finally like a kind of a helplessness, right? This is the trifecta of burnout. That's what burnout is. It's an emotional state characterized by I'm exhausted, I feel strangely not connected to my work anymore, and also nothing I do is working and I have no agency, right? So that's what burnout is. I would stand up in front of PowerPoint slides and I would tell my MBA students, for example, and my undergraduates about burnout and the psychology of burnout and Christina Maslach's research and, you know, what we know about burnout. It was completely abstract to me. I could've been talking about Mars. I'm like, "You know, Mars is a planet," right? And then I experienced burnout in my own life. Um, I mean, if I'm completely honest, I experienced burnout while I was writing this book. Um, and why, right? Well, first what, right? So like I was experiencing exhaustion, um, this weird sort of like I'm sort of doing this and I'm doing it seven days a week and I'm doing it from before dawn to after midnight, but it's also I'm kind of like the opposite of the flow state. I'm just like, I'm like weirdly not in the moment, right? And a real f- feeling of sort of like helplessness. Like I work harder and harder, nothing's happening. So I was experiencing this emotional state of burnout. What I think was happening is what we were talking about at the very beginning of this conversation. It wasn't going well. I just tried harder, and it still... Like, I just kept digging the hole deeper. And I think the danger of only thinking that grit is your superpower and also being ashamed or negligent of, you know, the, the, the change in situation that would make things better. Like-

    3. CWChris Williamson48:51

       Hmm

    4. ADAngela Duckworth48:52

       ... I think, I think what happened was I should have asked for help. And I'll tell you, I asked for it too late. I also did... You, you said, like, "Let's not talk about the physical situation. It's kind of obvious." Here's something that wasn't obvious. I was working at home seven days a week in my pajamas. Like-

    5. CWChris Williamson49:05

       Hmm

    6. ADAngela Duckworth49:06

       ... I literally think-

    7. CWChris Williamson49:07

       You'd voluntarily gone back into COVID

    8. ADAngela Duckworth49:09

       ... it was exactly. It was actually an extension of the pandemic lifestyle. Everybody else went back to, like, civilization. I decided to stay. You know, I thought it would be better for concentration.

    9. CWChris Williamson49:16

       Self-imposed misery.

    10. ADAngela Duckworth49:17

        It was, it was awful because I was, like, socially, you know, I was put in solitary confinement by, by choice, but I didn't ask for help early enough. I didn't ask for help often enough. I didn't put myself in the company of other people.

    11. CWChris Williamson49:30

        What would the help have looked like?

    12. ADAngela Duckworth49:33

        Well, I had a person that, um, I met three years into writing this. By the way, this book took five years to write, right?

    13. CWChris Williamson49:41

        Congratulations.

    14. ADAngela Duckworth49:42

        [laughs] Yeah. It's, uh-

    15. CWChris Williamson49:44

        On being sane

    16. ADAngela Duckworth49:45

        ... I, you know, I may live a shorter life because of it, but it took five years to write. But of course, you know, the research took longer, but the hard part for me was the writing. Three years into it, when things are going terribly, right? I'm not sleeping. I mean, the stress levels were like, I had cortisol just, like, coursing through my body. So I would go to sleep. I- it came to the point where I would go to sleep at 10:30, and my body's fight or flight response would wake me up at 11:30, and then I would just be awake all night. Um, and then start the next day exhausted, but also trying to work harder, right? So-

    17. CWChris Williamson50:18

        I've been there

    18. ADAngela Duckworth50:18

        ... y- have you been there?

    19. CWChris Williamson50:19

        Mm-hmm.

    20. ADAngela Duckworth50:19

        Have you experienced burnout, by the way?

    21. CWChris Williamson50:21

        Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    22. ADAngela Duckworth50:21

        Okay, well, if I finish the story, will you tell me yours?

    23. CWChris Williamson50:24

        Sure.

    24. ADAngela Duckworth50:24

        Okay.

    25. CWChris Williamson50:24

        Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I, I... You get your-

    26. ADAngela Duckworth50:26

        Well, I'll say, you want to tell yours now

    27. CWChris Williamson50:26

        ... you get your, you get your rock bottom out-

    28. ADAngela Duckworth50:28

        Okay

    29. CWChris Williamson50:28

        ... and I'll get mine out too.

    30. ADAngela Duckworth50:28

        All right, I'm gonna get... Okay.
11. 53:03 – 57:02

    The Best Way to Recover From Burnout

    1. CWChris Williamson53:03

       While you're on a roll, let's say that there is someone who is burnout or burnout adjacent.

    2. ADAngela Duckworth53:08

       Yeah. Yeah.

    3. CWChris Williamson53:09

       Uh, what does the science say and/or your personal experience about recovering from burnout?

    4. ADAngela Duckworth53:16

       So Christina Maslach is exactly the person to follow. And by the way, over the arc of her long career, I read one of the last, you know, academic... She's emeritus now, right? Um, now retired from Berkeley. And, and just on this note here, and then we'll talk about, like, what's the prognosis, right? Like, what's the prescription and what's the prognosis? And then I do want your personal story of burnout. But she said in one of the last academic articles of her, um, career while she was still active at Berkeley, like, people always think that the problem with burnout is the person, and they try to fix the person. Maybe the manager tries to fix the person who's burned out. Like, what can I do t- you know, this person's burned out.

    5. CWChris Williamson53:53

       Hmm.

    6. ADAngela Duckworth53:53

       I need to fix them.

    7. CWChris Williamson53:53

       Hmm.

    8. ADAngela Duckworth53:54

       She said, "It's almost always that you have to fix the situation." And I am quoting, like, nearly verbatim. I'm not saying that because I wrote a book called Situated. So what's the prescription and what's the, um, what's the prognosis? The first thing that I think that Christina Maslach would say is that when there is a mismatch between the person and their work situation, that can create burnout. One of the ways that's mismatched is workload. Like, you're doing too much, right? Like, you're working 60 hours. You can only really handle 55 or... She was like, "That's only one." And then she names five others, by the way. Like lack of autonomy, like misalignment of values, um, you know, uh, a system that, you know, for you doesn't feel like it's a fair system. Like- There are many ways that your work situation can be a mismatch, and overload of work hours is only one, and maybe not even the most common. So the first thing about the diagnosis before you get to the prognosis and the prescription is you should try to figure out what the mismatch is, and I will direct you to her work, not mine. Then what is the prescription and what's the prognosis? The prescription is actually to make situational changes, and if you're a leader, you can try to change the situation for others. And if you're a, a employee, if you're not in charge, I do think you have to look at what's wrong and in one way or another, and sometimes it does include leaving the position, but not always. Like, okay, lack of autonomy, like how do I find autonomy? I mean, I don't have like a one-liner sort of like, "Oh, do this," because it depends. But you have to fix the mismatch. I mean, that's the key insight. The situation has to change. You cannot will yourself to not be burned out.

    9. CWChris Williamson55:34

       Mm.

    10. ADAngela Duckworth55:34

        You cannot think yourself out of burnout. You have to change the situation. And the prognosis is good. Burnout to me is not like a characteristic of a person, like their height, you know? Like-

    11. CWChris Williamson55:46

        Mm

    12. ADAngela Duckworth55:46

        ... there are burned out people. Like the sort of... Like, it's an emotional state, like joy or pride or fear or depression.

    13. CWChris Williamson55:54

        Yeah.

    14. ADAngela Duckworth55:54

        Like, it, it has, it has a, a reality and it can feel like forever, but I was burned out and I'm not burned out now. I may be burned out in the future, but it's not permanent.

    15. CWChris Williamson56:08

        I've learned from over 1,000 podcast episodes, the easier that you make your health routine, the more consistent you'll be. It's like golf, right? You want to keep it simple and not mix a bunch of pills. You want the eye of the tiger, not the DUI of the tiger. That's why I'm such a huge fan of AG1. One scoop contains 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics, and whole food source ingredients in a single daily drink, and that's why I've been taking it every single morning for nearly five years now. And they've taken it a step further with AG1 Next Gen, backed by four clinical trials. In those trials, it was shown to fill common nutrient gaps, improve key nutrient levels in just three months, and increase healthy gut bacteria by 10 times, even in people who already eat well. Plus, if you're still unsure, they've got a 90-day money-back guarantee, so you can buy it and try it every single day for three months, and if you don't like it, they will give you all of your money back. Right now, you can get 20% off a welcome kit and that 90-day money-back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to drinkag1.com/modernwisdom. That's drinkag1.com/modernwisdom.

12. 57:02 – 1:06:11

    Chris’ Experience With Burnout

    1. CWChris Williamson57:02

       The fascinating thing I've sort of come to learn about burnout, at least my particular, uh, variant of it, was mine was-

    2. ADAngela Duckworth57:11

       Yeah, tell me. Can you tell me your... Yeah

    3. CWChris Williamson57:12

       ... yeah, mine was, mine was b- b- brought on by getting ill. So I lived in a house that had toxic mold, and for someone that has-

    4. ADAngela Duckworth57:18

       How old were you? Like, what was-

    5. CWChris Williamson57:19

       Uh, it was three, two years ago. Three years. Started living in the house f- four years ago and then moved out about two and a half years ago when I found out. So I had a good bit of time, and my, my time under tension-

    6. ADAngela Duckworth57:29

       Mm

    7. CWChris Williamson57:29

       ... as bodybuilders say, was significant. And if you have the wrong polymorphisms, you can't... Your detox pathways don't work in the right way. And I lived in the house with another guy. He was fine. I was whatever the opposite of fine was.

    8. ADAngela Duckworth57:40

       And it was like a fungus or something that was growing.

    9. CWChris Williamson57:42

       Y- yeah, bingo.

    10. ADAngela Duckworth57:42

        Yeah.

    11. CWChris Williamson57:42

        It's the same stuff that, I mean, th- this country's w- wonderful in many ways, but your building materials are wood, and that's not-

    12. ADAngela Duckworth57:48

        Yeah

    13. CWChris Williamson57:48

        ... a house is... A building is not supposed to be made out of wood. It's supposed to be made out of brick, like a civilized society.

    14. ADAngela Duckworth57:54

        Ah. I will ask my, uh, real estate developer husband. [chuckles]

    15. CWChris Williamson57:56

        It's just-

    16. ADAngela Duckworth57:57

        Like, yeah, because then it absorbs the water-

    17. CWChris Williamson57:58

        ... why wood? It's organic.

    18. ADAngela Duckworth58:00

        And then it gets wet.

    19. CWChris Williamson58:00

        It's organic material.

    20. ADAngela Duckworth58:01

        Yeah. Right.

    21. CWChris Williamson58:01

        And it gets wet and hot and wet and hot, and then it gets encased in insulation, and then it gets-

    22. ADAngela Duckworth58:05

        And it never dries out

    23. CWChris Williamson58:06

        ... bits of plasterboard clad over the... Well, even if it does, there's like little microbes that are in there, and you just need one water leak and everything's now ruined. And it's like-

    24. ADAngela Duckworth58:12

        Okay, so then what happened? Right, so-

    25. CWChris Williamson58:13

        So anyway, I, I go through that and my capacity gets limited.

    26. ADAngela Duckworth58:16

        No, no, but wait, can you be more vivid? Like, what happened? Were you, like, short of breath? Were you... Like, what, what happened?

    27. CWChris Williamson58:20

        Oh, oh, I c- you, if you want the... L- allow me to bring you down the rabbit hole.

    28. ADAngela Duckworth58:23

        Yeah.

    29. CWChris Williamson58:24

        The m- first thing that I noticed was a significant decrease in energy. So I was getting very tired on a nighttime. I used to be a club promoter, so being up until very late was kind of par for the course for me, and by 6:00 or 7:00 or 8:00 PM it would feel like gravity was four times as heavy as it should be.

    30. ADAngela Duckworth58:41

        Wow. Okay.
13. 1:06:11 – 1:09:40

    Why Alignment Changes Everything

    1. CWChris Williamson1:06:11

       thing.

    2. ADAngela Duckworth1:06:11

       I mean, I'm not gonna disagree with your story. It's not your s- it's not m- you know, it's not my place to disagree with your story, and I don't disagree with your story.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:06:17

       Disagree with whatever you want.

    4. ADAngela Duckworth1:06:17

       But I do wanna say that the grit muscle, like, one of the things that I have known, not just since writing this book, but I do elaborate on it in this book, is that I don't think the grit muscle is a voice that says, "Just do it." It's really not. Michael Phelps didn't just do it. Like, he didn't just, like, force himself to... Nobody loves swimming more than Michael Phelps. He still does, by the way, right? So the self-talk is not just do it. It's very rarely just do it, right? Occ- uh, oc- occasionally you do have to just say like, "Okay, right now I'm gonna tell myself to just do it." But talk about exceptions to the rule. I mean, the, the, the complaint I have about, like, the grit muscle, and I can be blamed for this, like, one word, you know, it does sound like, you know, white-knuckle it, but it's really the- This is interesting. This is important. I can do it, and I know what to try next, right? If you have those thoughts-

    5. CWChris Williamson1:07:14

       Much closer to alignment.

    6. ADAngela Duckworth1:07:15

       It's all about alignment. Actually, what I did this summer, instead of like ruthlessly promoting myself for book tour, which would've been maybe something I should have done, was I went to... So in the book I talk about this Professor James Gross at Stanford, who is the intellectual progenitor of this idea of like the situation leads to the thoughts and, and the response. Or he's, you know, we all think this in social science, but he kind of laid it out in this really nice framework. And this summer I spent a sabbatical working on alignment. So to me, what alignment is is that internally you're aligned. Like, I want to do this. Why? Because it's interesting and it's important, and I can do this and I know what to try next. You know what misalignment looks like? Well, it's important but it's not interesting, or it's interesting but I can't do it, or I think I could do it but I don't know what to try next, right? So, so if you want a picture of the mental life of a paragon of grit, it's a bunch of arrows that are all pointing the same way, right? And that's not just Stuart. Just Stuart is like, "I, you know, I'm gonna like force this arrow another way," right? The reason why we met and spent a sabbatical together is that this second book is about aligning all the arrows outside of you. Like I don't know if you took physics, but in physics, you know, there are a bunch of diagrams with arrows, right? And the arrows are forces, right? And you learn to draw the arrows and you subtract them and you're like, what's the net force? You're like, how about friction, right? But you know what makes something go fast? It's when all the arrows are pushing the same direction.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:08:46

       Mm.

    8. ADAngela Duckworth1:08:47

       And that's true internally and externally. All I'm saying in this book is line up the arrows. Don't ignore the arrows. Do you have peers? Do you have mentors? Like what is your physical space?

    9. CWChris Williamson1:08:58

       Mm.

    10. ADAngela Duckworth1:08:58

        Where do you live, right? So that's lining up the outside arrows. And the reason why we're meeting to talk about alignment is that we think that a life well lived, we think if you go all the way back to Aristotle, like what is the good life? It really is about alignment. Because now like if I'm aligned with you, right, like my internal arrows are aligned, like my external arrows like are getting... But also like my goals are aligned with your goals. They don't have to be the same goals, but they're in alignment. Like to me that is like, that is what the good life is. Like that's what Aristotle meant for us.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:09:31

        Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

    12. ADAngela Duckworth1:09:31

        So, so alignment is to me what this book is about externally, but it's sort of, you know, a, a bigger concept even than that.

14. 1:09:40 – 1:12:42

    How Angela Redesigned Her Environment

    1. CWChris Williamson1:09:41

       Let's do some environment stuff. What did you, after doing all of this research, it's gonna be one of the most applicable ways, uh, places that you've gone to. What have you changed environmentally beyond gym kit is out?

    2. ADAngela Duckworth1:09:54

       So I've had a fascination with quotes, right? And there are certain poems that I'm, you know, trying to commit to memory, um, including, you know, If by Rudyard Kipling and my current one that I'm trying to memorize is called Pity the Beautiful. Um, Pity the Beautiful, the, anyway, the dolls and the dishes. Anyway, so, so, so I could, I could tell you the, my favorite quotes like Nelson Mandela, um, "I never lose. I win or I learn." Right? So I have long wanted to memorize certain quotes, but I have changed, which is I write them down on... I, I print out poems and I paste them on the wall and I write down quotes and I like usually on two-by-two Post-it notes. Like I was gonna try to get them like needle pointed or whatever and I, anyway, so it's just like, I'm just gonna write it down on a Post-it note. And I put them at eye level and I swear to God, when I leave my office, the last thing I see is Nelson Mandela, right? And you know why that's important? Because I want to say to myself, I never lose. I win or I learn. I believe that, and yet I feel like a loser when I lose, and so I need to see the two-by-two Post-it note. So like some of the people I study, including Cody Coleman, Cody Coleman has Post-it notes everywhere, literally. Like you know, the Post-it note on his mirror, the Post... Uh, so I become like the people I study. I'm decorating my personal space, not just what I'm taking out. And you said like what's obvious. It's like people know they shouldn't have Halloween candy around. They should, you know, you don't want to drink Diet Coke, don't have Diet Coke, right? Like that's kind of obvious. I'm not saying people do it. But I think what you put into your physical environment-

    3. CWChris Williamson1:11:27

       Mm

    4. ADAngela Duckworth1:11:27

       ... is what you put into your head, and what you put into your head is what you do.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:11:31

       Mm-hmm.

    6. ADAngela Duckworth1:11:31

       So that's been the most recent change.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:11:34

       Yeah. Your body is made up of everything that you put into your mouth and your mind is made up of everything that you put into your eyes and ears.

    8. ADAngela Duckworth1:11:40

       Yeah.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:11:40

       And yeah, curating that's interesting. Jared, have you ever considered you might have a drinking problem? I don't consider a lot, Chris. Well, you drank an entire case of Athletic Brewing Co. last night. But they're non-alcoholic. And that's not a problem? Sorry man. I kept chugging waiting for the regret to creep in. Never happened. Didn't you end up going home with that chick with the lazy eye? Eye didn't seem lazy to me. See, most people like Jared don't actually want to change what they drink. They just don't want the next day to be a complete write-off, which is why I'm such a huge fan of Athletic Brewing Co. They make the best NA brews on the planet so you can still have something cold and tasty just without the usual trade-off. You can find Athletic Brewing Co.'s best-selling lineup at grocery or liquor stores near you or best option, get a full variety pack of four flavors shipped direct to your door. Get 15% off your first online order by going to the link in the description below or heading to athleticbrewing.com/modernwisdom using the code MODERNWISDOM at checkout. That's athleticbrewing.com/modernwisdom and MODERNWISDOM at checkout. Near beer terms and conditions apply. Athletic Brewing Company fit for all times.

15. 1:12:42 – 1:24:29

    Does Removing Friction Make Life Weaker?

    1. CWChris Williamson1:12:43

       So I've been thinking about the aversion some people have to relying on environment.

    2. ADAngela Duckworth1:12:49

       Yeah.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:12:49

       In your opinion, if you remove too much friction from someone's life, does it make them weaker?

    4. ADAngela Duckworth1:12:55

       I think if you remove all friction then yes, right? Because like a muscle, right? Like we, we adapt, right? So the reason our muscle grows is that the challenge exceeds its capacity and then it rips a little bit and then we like repair it and that's how we work. So I think a life of no friction would be, uh, you know, a, a life of weak character. So I, I agree with that. But what I want people to do is make hard things easier. Like I talked to Alistair Brownlee in my research for this, right? He's a very gritty person. I don't think you can become, like, one of the world's greatest triathletes-

    5. CWChris Williamson1:13:31

       Mm-hmm

    6. ADAngela Duckworth1:13:31

       ... without a lot of grit. And his dedication to his training is famous, right? So nobody is going to talk about, like, winning triathlons without doing the hard work, right? But Alistair Brownlee tried to make hard work as easy as possible. Like, he literally bought a house that was close to where he could swim and where he could run. I mean, he could be gritty and just be like, "Well, I'm just gonna, like, drive to the tri-" Like-

    7. CWChris Williamson1:13:56

       Yeah. Yeah

    8. ADAngela Duckworth1:13:56

       ... no, but he wanted to make it easier, right? Like, he does my gym trick of, like, putting out the clean clo- He was like, "Oh, by the way, it has to be dry." I mean, maybe somebody who works out that much, like, you know, he has to run the laundry a lot. Like, it has to be clean and dry, and the kind of thing you want to get into.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:14:10

       Mm-hmm.

    10. ADAngela Duckworth1:14:10

        So I think imagine having a world-class coach and a bunch of peers who are also trying to train for a triathlon, maybe not on a team, but just, like, they're also trying to... Like, you trade tips, you're friends. Um, you've got all of these physical things around you, the training clothes, right? All of that makes doing the hard thing easier.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:14:30

        Mm.

    12. ADAngela Duckworth1:14:30

        And it still leaves the hard thing, right? It's just like being on Bob Bowman's swim team, right? Like, if you sign up for this swim team, you will train harder than maybe any other swim team, but you just go, and it's all there. So, so I think that's the lesson. I will never back down because I think it's the law of psychology that you don't improve in human skill without resistance, right?

    13. CWChris Williamson1:14:55

        Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    14. ADAngela Duckworth1:14:55

        So you can't take the hard work out of excellence.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:14:57

        Mm-hmm.

    16. ADAngela Duckworth1:14:57

        But you can make hard work easier, and you do that by setting up your situation.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:15:02

        Yeah. So three things come to mind. The first one is life requires quite a lot of effort, and I think it should be reserved for the places where you don't get to choose how much effort you need to apply, if that makes sense. Second one is one reason why it's less sexy or less well promoted to try and make life easier or to have the peer group thing is that it makes for a really shit movie.

    18. ADAngela Duckworth1:15:27

        [laughs]

    19. CWChris Williamson1:15:28

        Makes for a, makes for a horrendous movie.

    20. ADAngela Duckworth1:15:30

        Mm.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:15:30

        What you want is the protagonist to be brushing up against friction all the time.

    22. ADAngela Duckworth1:15:35

        And then that makes them the hero, right?

    23. CWChris Williamson1:15:36

        Of course.

    24. ADAngela Duckworth1:15:37

        Because if it's a situation that makes them less the hero-

    25. CWChris Williamson1:15:37

        If Rocky was him with a bunch of peers and a lovely mentor-

    26. ADAngela Duckworth1:15:41

        Ah, right

    27. CWChris Williamson1:15:42

        ... and he'd laid his clothes out and everything was done, so, okay, well, we've removed a lot of the dramatic tension, which is e- exactly what makes for a good movie, and I think we've kind of imbibed the story of the hero.

    28. ADAngela Duckworth1:15:53

        Yeah.

    29. CWChris Williamson1:15:53

        And we're now li- trying to live it that way.

    30. ADAngela Duckworth1:15:55

        Yeah. Yeah. That's so actually insightful. In the last chapter-
16. 1:24:29 – 1:27:54

    When to Push Harder and When to Change Direction

    1. ADAngela Duckworth1:24:29

       for it.

    2. CWChris Williamson1:24:30

       How do you know when to work harder on yourself and when to change your circumstances?

    3. ADAngela Duckworth1:24:34

       I'll say this. I think if you wanna work harder, let's say you gave me an A and B choice, right? A, work harder, B, change your circumstances, right? I'm gonna say that they both end up with change your circumstances, and here's why, right? I think to answer your change of cir- Like, if you feel burned out, then you probably are trying really hard. If you recognize this feeling of like exhaustion or whatever, like, oh, it's like helplessness, then you probably are just like you were and just like I was, like digging yourself a deeper hole. And absolutely that is like the canary in the coal mine. Change your circumstances. Like you need more support and probably s- you know, an adjustment of challenge for the time being.

    4. CWChris Williamson1:25:12

       Mm-hmm.

    5. ADAngela Duckworth1:25:13

       All right. That's choice B. So that's when you... But what about working harder? And you made the argument that like maybe that's the modal thing. Like maybe that's most of the time what people need to do. They need to like push harder on their ass. I think you still end up with change the circumstances, and here's why. So say you realize, like, you know, I've been giving 70% at work, and if I'm honest, like that's what's holding me back, right?

    6. CWChris Williamson1:25:34

       Yeah.

    7. ADAngela Duckworth1:25:34

       So now you decide you're gonna give 100% or even like 75%, right? As a behavioral scientist, I will say if you're giving 70 Try for 75, not for 100. But anyway, leaving that aside. So then if you accept this, you know, three box framework of all of human behavior, they're like, "I want more effort in box three. That's my response. I want to come into work and be 75, if not higher." Then you have to ask the question, what thought will make me do that, right? I've told you that I don't think the thought is just do it. I think you have to think that your work is more interesting, important, that you can do it, and you know what to try next. I think that's the only way to sustain a higher level of effort.

    8. CWChris Williamson1:26:11

       Mm.

    9. ADAngela Duckworth1:26:11

       But the reason why I say that you eventually get back to circumstances is like, what books do I need to read? What podcasts do I listen to? What people do I need to be with? Like what mentors do I need? What conversations do I need? What's my physical space need to be so that I can have those thoughts that will get me to work harder?

    10. CWChris Williamson1:26:28

        Mm.

    11. ADAngela Duckworth1:26:28

        So eventually, I think, whether it's getting a coach, a therapist, a mentor, a peer group, a change of your situation in any way, like eventually that's where you end up anyway. Even, I mean, if you're smart about it, even if the answer is like work harder, because this is not just to do once. If you only have to work harder like today at 4:00 in the afternoon once, then maybe you could just use willpower.

    12. CWChris Williamson1:26:53

        Mm.

    13. ADAngela Duckworth1:26:53

        Go for it. It'll be tiring, but you can do it.

    14. CWChris Williamson1:26:55

        Mm.

    15. ADAngela Duckworth1:26:55

        But if you have to do it every day at 4:00 and every week and then every year, there's no way you can do it by just forcing yourself.

    16. CWChris Williamson1:27:03

        Right. So in, in your opinion, it's less situation specific and it's more like iteration specific. If this is a one-off, then maybe you can just put foot, foot on the gas pedal.

    17. ADAngela Duckworth1:27:14

        All I'm saying is that willpower is this thing that you can use when you really need to.

    18. CWChris Williamson1:27:18

        Mm.

    19. ADAngela Duckworth1:27:19

        And you can do it once. I think anybody can do it. By the way, we're better at it than animals. Like we're better at it than dogs and chimpanzees. Like you can put animals through like the same kind of tasks that you put young children, and human beings are better at delaying gratification, better at forcing ourselves to do things that we don't want to do in the moment.

    20. CWChris Williamson1:27:36

        Mm.

    21. ADAngela Duckworth1:27:37

        But all I'm saying is that you're right. Like it's, if it's iterative-

    22. CWChris Williamson1:27:40

        Mm

    23. ADAngela Duckworth1:27:40

        ... if you have to do this again and again and again, and the path to excellence is consistency, right? Like that is the, the seminal insight of grit. The path to excellence is consistency, and the path to consistency is a situation that sets up consistency.

    24. CWChris Williamson1:27:53

        Yes. Yes,

17. 1:27:54 – 1:39:11

    How to Engineer a Culture of Excellence

    1. CWChris Williamson1:27:54

       yes, yes. So you spent some time at Oxford, right?

    2. ADAngela Duckworth1:27:57

       I did, two years, and I actually started speaking with a faux British accent because of the power situation.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:28:02

       And look at-

    4. ADAngela Duckworth1:28:02

       I was like, "Cheers." Da da like, "Oh," you know, trousers around the ankles. And I, I, you know, the power situation is very strange.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:28:08

       Look at how far you've fallen.

    6. ADAngela Duckworth1:28:09

       [laughs]

    7. CWChris Williamson1:28:12

       So unfortunate. Uh, [laughs] um, so I have got this new live show which I'm about to go on tour with, and one of the things that I talk about, because I'm going back to the homeland, the UK and Ireland to-

    8. ADAngela Duckworth1:28:23

       Oh, you're gonna start in the UK? Is it June?

    9. CWChris Williamson1:28:25

       Uh, I... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    10. ADAngela Duckworth1:28:26

        Yeah.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:28:26

        And, uh, I'm talking about tall poppy syndrome. And-

    12. ADAngela Duckworth1:28:29

        Hmm. This is a Brit- ex- unpack this for me, but this is the British sort of like-

    13. CWChris Williamson1:28:32

        It is, it is

    14. ADAngela Duckworth1:28:33

        ... kind of like-

    15. CWChris Williamson1:28:33

        An, an inflection. Um, and it actually came from New Zealand and Australia originally.

    16. ADAngela Duckworth1:28:38

        Oh, really? Okay.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:28:39

        Interestingly enough.

    18. ADAngela Duckworth1:28:39

        That's like the origin story is-

    19. CWChris Williamson1:28:40

        Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um, but it comes across. It, it's, it's a situation in which, um, a person who becomes conspicuously successful or, or, uh, wealthy or sta- high status or whatever, um, is derogated by people around them. And interesting-

    20. ADAngela Duckworth1:28:54

        This is a British thing there, right?

    21. CWChris Williamson1:28:55

        Very, very, very.

    22. ADAngela Duckworth1:28:56

        Yeah, you're British, right?

    23. CWChris Williamson1:28:57

        It's kind of like if-

    24. ADAngela Duckworth1:28:57

        Hence the poppies, like

    25. CWChris Williamson1:28:58

        ... if we, if, if football didn't exist, it would be our national sport. Um, that's like kind of how central it is. A deviation, it's typically sort of preceded with a deviation from the norm that-

    26. ADAngela Duckworth1:29:09

        Hmm

    27. CWChris Williamson1:29:09

        ... uh, somebody decides to do something-

    28. ADAngela Duckworth1:29:10

        So kind of conformance sort of thing

    29. CWChris Williamson1:29:11

        ... that's a little bit different.

    30. ADAngela Duckworth1:29:11

        Yeah.
18. 1:39:11 – 1:41:13

    What’s Next For Angela?

    1. CWChris Williamson1:39:11

       I'm interested in, uh, obviously you've been through the burnout thing. New book, congratulations. It's very, very wonderful and you've taken a, a topic that's important and made it interesting and, and-

    2. ADAngela Duckworth1:39:20

       I hope so

    3. CWChris Williamson1:39:21

       ... accessible. What are you going to curse yourself with after this?

    4. ADAngela Duckworth1:39:25

       [laughs] Um, not another book. Um, I'll tell you what I think is on the horizon for me as a research scientist and, um, uh, and I did put my heart and soul into this book, but I am a scientist, so I think the seismic changes in technology, phones, social media, AI, everyone's talking about it, but as a behavioral scientist, I can't say that I have seen anything that's changing the way we spend time, the way we do or don't socialize-

    5. CWChris Williamson1:39:56

       Hm

    6. ADAngela Duckworth1:39:56

       ... the way we exercise, the way we do everything, religions, uh, that's greater than the things that are happening right now-

    7. CWChris Williamson1:40:05

       Wow

    8. ADAngela Duckworth1:40:05

       ... with AI, with screens, or... Human life doesn't look like it did 50 years ago or even 20 years ago. So I'm gonna study that. I won't write a book about it, but, uh, I feel like I've done my work. I've done the inside game of success, and now I've done the outside game of success, and now I just wanna understand, you know, how in this new, you know, world, um, people can be successful.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:40:27

       Unreal. Angela Duckworth, ladies and gentlemen. Where should people go to check out everything you're doing?

    10. ADAngela Duckworth1:40:31

        I have no idea. [laughs]

    11. CWChris Williamson1:40:33

        Like you are-

    12. ADAngela Duckworth1:40:33

        I'm not very good at influencing

    13. CWChris Williamson1:40:35

        ... you are horrendous at infl-

    14. ADAngela Duckworth1:40:36

        Tell me.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:40:36

        I don't know where to send people.

    16. ADAngela Duckworth1:40:38

        I'm a terrible influencer.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:40:38

        What, have you got a website? What's the website?

    18. ADAngela Duckworth1:40:39

        Uh, I have a website.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:40:40

        Okay.

    20. ADAngela Duckworth1:40:40

        I have a website. It's angeladuckworth.com.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:40:42

        Wonderful, and the book is called?

    22. ADAngela Duckworth1:40:44

        Situated.

    23. CWChris Williamson1:40:45

        Fantastic, and it is available?

    24. ADAngela Duckworth1:40:47

        It is available everywhere.

    25. CWChris Williamson1:40:48

        Fantastic.

    26. ADAngela Duckworth1:40:48

        [laughs]

    27. CWChris Williamson1:40:49

        That's it. All right.

    28. ADAngela Duckworth1:40:50

        You did it.

    29. CWChris Williamson1:40:50

        Appreciate you. Goodbye, my beauties.

    30. ADAngela Duckworth1:40:51

        Thank you. That was so fun.

Episode duration: 1:41:13