Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

GeekWire
, October 13, 2013, 
http://www.geekwire.com/2013/advice-amazon-founder-jeff-bezos-proud-choices-gifts
.
asks the same questions
:
Hester Lacey, “The Inventory,” published weekly in the 
Financial Times
.
“I love what I do”
:
Hester Lacey, journalist for the 
Financial Times,
in an interview with the author, June 2, 2015.
fits their personal interests
:
Mark Allen Morris, “A Meta-Analytic Investigation of Vocational Interest-Based Job Fit, and Its
Relationship to Job Satisfaction, Performance, and Turnover” (PhD dissertation, University of Houston, 2003).
happier with their lives
:
Rong Su, Louis Tay, and Qi Zhang, “Interest Fit and Life Satisfaction: A Cross-Cultural Study in Ten
Countries” (manuscript in preparation).”
perform
 
better:
Christopher D. Nye, Rong Su, James Rounds, and Fritz Drasgow, “Vocational Interests and Performance: A
Quantitative Summary of over 60 Years of Research,” 
Perspectives on Psychological Science
7 (2012), 384–403.
very real constraints
:
See Cal Newport, 
So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You
Love
(New York: Hachette Book Group, 2012). Cal points out that getting very good at something and therefore making yourself
valuable to others often precedes identifying what you do as your passion.
“strength of [our] interest”
:
William James, 
Talks to Teachers on Psychology; and to Students on Some of Life’s Ideals
(New
York: Henry Holt and Company, 1916), 114.
“engaged” at work
:
Gallup, 
State of the Global Workplace: Employee Engagement Insights for Business Leaders Worldwide
(Washington, DC: Gallup, Inc., 2013).
food could be this good
:
Julie & Julia,
dir. Nora Ephron, Columbia Pictures, 2009.

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“I 
was 
hooked, 
and 
for 
life”
:
Marilyn 
Mellowes, 
“About 
Julia 
Child,” 
PBS, 
June 
15, 
2005,
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/julia-child-about-julia-child/555
.
“I could really fall in love with”
:
Rowdy Gaines, Olympic gold medalist swimmer, in an interview with the author, June 15, 2015.
“I’m glad I went this way”
:
Marc Vetri, chef, in an interview with the author, February 2, 2015.
writing a cookbook for Americans
:
Julia Child with Alex Prud’homme, 
My Life in France
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006).
“zero interest in the stove”:
Ibid., 3.
“to find my true passion”
:
Mellowes, “About Julia Child.”
“No Career Direction”
:
“Fleeting Interest in Everything, No Career Direction,” Reddit, accessed June 17, 2015,
https://www.reddit.com/r/jobs/comments/1asw10/fleeting_interest_in_everything_no_career
.
“They’re holding out for perfection”
:
Barry Schwartz, Dorwin Cartwright Professor of Social Theory and Social Action at
Swarthmore College, in an interview with the author, January 27, 2015.
around middle school
:
Douglas K. S. Low, Mijung Yoon, Brent W. Roberts, and James Rounds. “The Stability of Vocational Interests
from Early Adolescence to Middle Adulthood: A Quantitative Review of Longitudinal Studies.” 
Psychological Bulletin
131 (2005):
713–37.
with the outside world
:
Much of the content in this chapter on the development of interests comes from an interview between the
author and Ann Renninger, Eugene M. Lang Professor of Educational Studies at Swarthmore College, on July 13, 2015. For an in-
depth review, the interested reader is referred to K. Ann Renninger and Suzanne Hidi,