Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

sole meunière
bringing with it the certainty of the years you’ll spend in the kitchen . . . slipping
into the water at your first swim meet and getting out with the foreknowledge that you’ll one day be an
Olympian . . . getting to the end of 
The Catcher in the Rye
and realizing you’re destined to be a
writer. But a first encounter with what might 
eventually
lead to a lifelong passion is exactly that—just
the opening scene in a much longer, less dramatic narrative.
To the thirty-something on Reddit with a “fleeting interest in everything” and “no career direction,”
here’s what science has to say: passion for your work is a little bit of 
discovery
, followed by a lot of
development
, and then a lifetime of 
deepening
.
Let me explain.
First of all, childhood is generally far too early to know what we want to be when we grow up.
Longitudinal studies following thousands of people across time have shown that most people only
begin
to gravitate toward certain vocational interests, and away from others, around middle school.
This is certainly the pattern I’ve seen in my interview research, and it’s also what journalist Hester
Lacey has found in her interviews with the “mega successful.” Keep in mind, however, that a seventh
grader—even a future paragon of grit—is unlikely to have a fully articulated passion at that age. A
seventh grader is just beginning to figure out her general likes and dislikes.
Second, interests are 
not
discovered through introspection. Instead, interests are triggered by
interactions with the outside world. The process of interest discovery can be messy, serendipitous,
and inefficient. This is because you can’t really predict with certainty what will capture your attention
and what won’t. You can’t simply 
will
yourself to like things, either. As Jeff Bezos has observed,

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“One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to 
force
an interest on themselves.” Without
experimenting, you can’t figure out which interests will stick, and which won’t.
Paradoxically, the initial discovery of an interest often goes unnoticed by the discoverer. In other
words, when you just start to get interested in something, you may not even realize that’s what’s
happening. The emotion of boredom is always self-conscious—you know it when you feel it—but
when your attention is attracted to a new activity or experience, you may have very little reflective
appreciation of what’s happening to you. This means that, at the start of a new endeavor, asking
yourself nervously every few days whether you’ve found your passion is premature.
Third, what follows the initial discovery of an interest is a much lengthier and increasingly
proactive period of interest development. Crucially, the initial triggering of a new interest must be
followed by subsequent encounters that retrigger your attention—again and again and again.
For instance, NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins told me that it was watching space shuttle launches
on television in high school that initially inspired his lifelong interest in space travel. But it wasn’t
just 
one
launch that hooked him. It was several shown in succession over a period of years. Soon
enough, he started digging for more information on NASA, and “one piece of information led to
another and another.”
For master potter Warren MacKenzie, ceramics class in college—which he only took, initially,
because all the painting classes were full—was followed by the discovery of 
A Potter’s Book
by the
great Bernard Leach, and then a year-long internship with Leach himself.
Finally, interests thrive when there is a crew of encouraging supporters, including parents,
teachers, coaches, and peers. Why are other people so important? For one thing, they provide the
ongoing stimulation and information that is essential to actually liking something more and more. Also
—more obviously—positive feedback makes us feel happy, competent, and secure.
Take Marc Vetri as an example. There are few things I enjoy reading more than his cookbooks and
essays about food, but he was a solid-C student throughout school. “I never worked hard at
academics,” he told me. “I was always just like, ‘This is kind of boring.’ ” In contrast, Marc spent
delightful Sunday afternoons at his Sicilian grandmother’s house in South Philly. “She’d make
meatballs and lasagna and all that stuff, and I always liked to head down early to help her out. By the
time I was eleven or so, I started wanting to make that stuff at home, too.”
As a teenager, Marc had a part-time job washing dishes in a local restaurant. “And I loved that. I
worked hard.” Why? Making money was one motivation, but another was the camaraderie of the
kitchen. “Around that time I was sort of a social outcast. I was kind of awkward. I had a stutter.
Everyone at school thought I was weird. I was like, ‘Oh, here I can wash dishes, and I can watch the
guys on the line [cooking] while I’m washing, and I can eat. Everyone is nice, and they like me.’ ”
If you read Marc’s cookbooks, you’ll be struck by how many friends and mentors he’s made in the
world of food. Page through and look for pictures of Marc alone, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find
many. And read the acknowledgments of