“We think there is plasticity in that circuitry. If you experience adversity—something pretty potent—that you overcome on your own during your youth, you develop a different way of dealing with adversity later on. It’s important that the adversity be pretty potent. Because these brain areas really have to wire together in some fashion, and that

In our family, we live by the Hard Thing Rule. It has three parts. The first is that everyone—including Mom and Dad—has to do a hard thing. A hard thing is something that requires daily deliberate practice. I’ve told my kids that psychological research is my hard thing, but I also practice yoga. Dad tries to get better and better at being a real

In their own eyes, they were never good enough. They were the opposite of complacent. And yet, in a very real sense, they were satisfied being unsatisfied. Each was chasing something of unparalleled interest and importance, and it was the chase—as much as the capture—that was gratifying. Even if some of the things they had to do were boring, or

Are you a psychologically wise parent? Use the parenting assessment on the next page,

“With everything perfect,” Nietzsche wrote, “we do not ask how it came to be.”8 Instead, “we rejoice in the present fact as though it came out of the ground by magic.”

Mindsets have been shown to make a difference in all the same life domains as optimism. For instance, if you have a growth mindset, you’re more likely to do well in school, enjoy better emotional and physical health, and have stronger, more positive social relationships with other people.

How do grit paragons think about setbacks? Overwhelmingly, I’ve found that they explain events optimistically.

David Yeager recommends reflecting on how the work you’re already doing can make a positive contribution to society.

“focus on your weaknesses” and “concentrate one hundred percent.” Given the choice between doing deliberate practice in math versus entertaining themselves with social media and gaming websites, they elected to do more deliberate practice.