SUMMARY: One of the core tenants of the American Dream is the belief that individuals from all walks of life can make it big. Millionaire tech entrepreneur Jason Ford has done just that, but believes he and other successful people end up receiving a lot of help they often do not acknowledge. Ford gives his humble opinion on how community, race and privilege make a big difference in whether we get to the top.
SUMMARY: What makes a person successful? For Professor Angela Duckworth, the answer is grit, an intangible trait that motivates passion and perseverance. In a study at West Point, Duckworth found that grit mattered more for success than leadership ability, intelligence and physical fitness. Now, she hopes to introduce grit to classrooms across the country. Economics correspondent Paul Solman reports.
ROBERTO DIAZ, CEO, Curtis Institute of Music: As the sound opens, we have to have the vibrato open more.
PAUL SOLMAN (NewsHour): World-renowned violist Roberto Diaz. Diaz now heads the tuition-free Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, the hardest college in America to get into, where he's taught for years.
But what sets Diam and his students apart?
ROBERTO DIAZ: What we do here is teach students how to work and motivate themselves over a very long period of time.
PAUL SOLMAN: That pretty much defines grit, the catchword concept of psychologist Angela Duckworth and subject of her new book, “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.”
ANGELA DUCKWORTH, Author, “Grit”:Nobody gets to be good at something without effort, no matter what your aptitude is. And grit is about the effort part of the equation, right? Grit says, you know, whatever your talent is, you're going to have to invest effort in order to develop skill.
PAUL SOLMAN: For years now, Professor Duckworth has been on a mission, to teach grit to those who lack it. When she began her career as an inner-city teacher.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: It struck me that the gap between my highest-achieving and my lowest-achieving kids was yawning. How can we get kids to do better, and in particular the kids who I could tell from interacting with them had the aptitude, had the talent, to learn what I was asking them to learn, but weren't?
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
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