[MUSIC PLAYING]
ADI IGNATIUS: Hi, I am Adi Ignatius, editor-in-chief
of Harvard Business Review, and welcome to HBR Quarantined.
This is episode 2 of our show, which streams live on LinkedIn
each Monday at 12 noon Eastern standard time,
and is then available on HBR's LinkedIn page
and on our YouTube channel.
My co-host on the show is Josh Macht,
who is my longtime friend and colleague who
heads product innovation at Harvard Business Publishing.
We created this show to connect with the millions of you who
are stuck at home.
We try to tee up questions about work, about resilience,
and about what's next in the world of business
as we continue to confront the global COVID-19 pandemic.
So this is week eight in working from home for the two of us.
We have a guest today who we'll go to in a second, Angela
Duckworth, who is a professor of psychology
at the University of Pennsylvania
and author of the bestselling book Grit:
The Power of Passion and Perseverance.
But before we go to Angela--
oh, and by the way, we're going to interview her.
We're also going to give anyone who's watching a chance
to ask questions as well.
So put your questions in the comment box,
we'll try to get to as many as possible.
But Josh, before we do that, I want to ask you, week eight,
how resilient are you feeling?
To be honest-- well, just [INAUDIBLE],,
I've always viewed you as the only extrovert in our company,
so I was particularly worried that you would be the first one
to crack out there.
JOSHUA MACHT: I don't know that I've cracked.
I mean, I'm really looking forward to today's conversation
for sure.
Last week was feeling the slog.
And then of course, here in New England at least,
the weather started to change, Adi, and it just--
it's sort of amazing and a little scary.
I saw on Instagram that someone said that Americans have grown
bored with COVID, so it's over.
And that kind of scared me.
Going out, you really saw a lot of people.
But that aside, there's definitely
something about the weather that's helped.
So I was feeling it last week.
I don't know-- where's your mood right now?
ADI IGNATIUS: Yeah, I mean, I feel like my life
is sort of a cycle of sleep, and then waking.
And I know that's the normal cycle of life,
but there's something that seems tyrannical in that rhythm
right now.
I guess because it's just thing after thing after thing.
I did play tennis the other day, and I wore a surgical glove
on my left hand.
And it made me think of my uncle, who
was a surgeon out in California, and also a tennis player.
And I'd always imagined him as a kid
wearing his scrubs and his surgeon's gloves,
so trying to do a little bit to not get so crazy.
JOSHUA MACHT: Yeah.
The tennis helps.
I played a little bit of tennis this weekend with my daughter,
and that felt like a little--
almost normal.
A little bit.
ADI IGNATIUS: Well, and I have to say, episode 1 I thought
went well.
Judging from the response of my family members and your family
members, I think our fake TV show was actually a big hit.
JOSHUA MACHT: I know.
I [INAUDIBLE] family members.
I don't know, I think they made all the positive comments
for sure.
But you know what, Adi, I have to ask you,
because they have asked me, and a lot of people
have asked, what is the deal with the wallpaper behind you?
The people want to know!
ADI IGNATIUS: Ah, the wallpaper.
So OK, little story.
Remember when everybody was buying toilet paper and paper
towels?
We were late, and the only thing that
was available at that point was wallpaper.
So we put it everywhere.
It's on our walls.
It's in our bathroom.
Two of our kids are wrapped up in it.
The dog, of course.
So--
No, the wallpaper-- so I'm dining out on the fact
that HBR interviewed Tory Burch recently,
and I had the wallpaper in the background,
and she stopped and said, you know,
that's really good wallpaper, so.
JOSHUA MACHT: Oh, no.
Oh, no.
Now you're insufferable.
That's not--
ADI IGNATIUS: I'm insufferable about my wallpaper.
JOSHUA MACHT: Yeah, that's not--
OK.
ADI IGNATIUS: All right, so we're
going to be talking about resilience today,
and perseverance and grit.
And so we're going to show you our weekly TikTok clip that
will maybe get at the idea of the challenge of trying
to stay resilient while working from home.
Engineer Dave, roll that clip.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC - A-HA, "TAKE ON ME"]
[DOG BARKING]
[END PLAYBACK]
So that is HBR has a TikTok page, has a TikTok account.
That's our own Paige Cohen, who is
trying to show how she's trying to make it through her week
eight.
So--
JOSHUA MACHT: We had to look around and see--
when that dog yipping, I had to see if my dog--
I had like post-traumatic stress--
I was like, is that my dog?
Thankfully, it wasn't, though.
ADI IGNATIUS: So week eight, you haven't eaten the dog.
That's good.
JOSHUA MACHT: Yeah.
[INAUDIBLE]
ADI IGNATIUS: You haven't cracked.
JOSHUA MACHT: Yeah.
No, I haven't.
I'm showing grit and determination.
ADI IGNATIUS: All right, so let's bring in our guest.
So as I said, our guest today is Angela Duckworth.
She's a professor of psychology at the University
of Pennsylvania, author of the book Grit:
The Power of Passion and Perseverance.
It's a hugely successful book.
It's sold hundreds of thousands of copies.
She has a TED talk that's been viewed 20 million times.
So let's just jump right in.
Angela, thank you for being here.
And I guess my first question is,
how are you holding up personally,
and are you as gritty as you thought you were?
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: [CHUCKLING]
Thank you for having me.
I'm holding up OK.
My lifestyle hasn't changed all that much, honestly.
I'm used to rolling around in my pajamas
slash yoga wear slash athleisure,
and reading all day, taking Zoom calls.
That's me personally.
Obviously, the world is falling apart
in pretty much every dimension, so that's not lost on me.
But I can't say that I'm personally suffering
as much as most people.
JOSHUA MACHT: Oh, that's good.
That's really good.
But I'm curious, Angela, because there's no question
that I think a lot of people-- well,
there's just a slew of mental health issues
that are obviously coming up for folks that we read about,
and I think we all feel.
I'm curious from your point of view,
the whole notion of perseverance,
which is core to your ideas.
How are you rethinking that in light of what
we're living through right now?
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: It's a timely question.
I don't know that the current crisis makes me rethink things
in a fundamental way.
I think the psychology of resilience,
and how the body and mind deal with adversity,
the principles that not only myself, but lots of scientists
have been working on for years, I think are--
they're playing out the way we think they would.
So when you experience an adversity, a challenge that's
threatening-- so not a good thing, but a bad thing that's
new that could do you harm, you have a kind of response
which is partly your body.
We all feel stressed.
You can feel it--
your sleep is disrupted.
In acute periods, it's like you can feel muscular tension.
Your heart rate might be elevated.
Your mind gets focused on threats.
You keep thinking about them.
That's actually, I think, the thing to know--
and maybe here's where psychological science can help.
This is not a bad response to adversity.
It's part of resilience is to actually
have all of those reactions.
I think what's important is, how do you manage them?
In a way, how do you optimize them?
And also, how do you make sure that you
learn something in all this?
I think that's the other big lesson,
is that if you don't learn something in this crisis,
then you weren't paying attention.
JOSHUA MACHT: Yeah.
For sure.
It's exhausting too, having all those emotions.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: It is exhausting.
Especially, though, I think if you
have this secondary response, which is, oh my gosh,
I shouldn't be having those emotions,
or I don't want to feel these emotions.
I think, actually, you double the work when
you layer upon the stress response
like a meta response, which is that you're not supposed
to have the stress response.
You're supposed to have the stress-- you are supposed
to be stressed right now.
If you're not stressed, you're not alive.
JOSHUA MACHT: [CHUCKLES]
ADI IGNATIUS: So your whole story is about resilience.
Your whole research is about resilience.
I want to--
I mean, this is a big moment.
This isn't a minor setback that a few of us
are facing that we'll bounce back from.
This is a kind of "once every century" sort of event.
You think of world wars, you think of depressions, you
think of pandemics, things that shape entire generations.
So I guess based on your research and your understanding
of human nature and our ability to bounce back,
how is COVID-19 likely to shape the generation that's
coming of age now in terms of their expectations
and their resilience?
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: You know, I just finished
teaching a class for undergraduates called
Grit Lab, which I launched this semester not knowing,
by the way, of course, that we were
going to be in the middle of a pandemic
in the middle of my class.
But I said to my own students, you're living through history.
And there's an opportunity here, if you think about stories
that you want to tell your grandchildren,
about the pandemic of 2020 and how you managed it.
You might tell a story that begins
with like, well, at first, I was just totally sideswiped.
I couldn't get my life together.
All my routines fell--
I wasn't myself.
I'm not proud of that.
But here's what I'm really proud of, which is how I responded,
and how I learned and grew through these weeks.
And I think that's actually what Victor Frankl, who
of course wrote Man's Search for Meaning
about his experience in concentration camps,
said that this is one of the major ways
that we achieve meaning in life, is our response to adversity.
And that turns this narrative into an opportunity
to demonstrate and to develop character.
JOSHUA MACHT: Hm.
That's interesting.
So Angela, I wonder if you want to talk about or follow
this woman who all of a sudden became a Twitter
sensation, because she basically went online and said,
I've had enough.
I'm not going to be homeschooling or teaching
my first grader these math worksheets.
And all of a sudden, it erupts.
Now-- so she quits.
She essentially-- it seems to be saying not what you're saying,
She says, I'm not doing it anymore,
and the world applauds.
Interesting coda is that she ends up later that day
announcing that she is at Guggenheim
for a book on resilience.
But I'm just curious, what about that emotion of wait,
no, no more?
How do you fit that into the narrative here?
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: You know, when a working professional--
in this case, a very accomplished scientist-- says,
no, I am not going to be spending six hours a day
sitting next to my first grader on video calls in distance
learning, you could say that's a failure of resilience.
I don't think it is.
And I think to understand why some things look
like they are failures but they're not,
you have to understand the nature of goals.
What a goal is is nothing more and nothing less
than a desired future state.
And these can be really specific, trivial goals,
like I have a goal of being on this video conversation
because it's important to me to communicate
a little bit about my science.
When I said that goal, like it's a goal
to be on this video conversation,
and then I said "because" it's important to me
to communicate about the psychology of resilience,
that's a higher-level goal.
And human beings have goals that are nested in hierarchies.
You can imagine visually a pyramid.
And I don't know this scientist personally,
but I imagine that there is a higher-level goal that
is more important than be on this video first grade class.
Maybe the higher-level goal is, make
sure my kid develops into a great person.
And when you understand that people have hierarchies
of goals, then you can understand
that when they disengage or quit on a goal,
it may be because there's a higher-level goal that
is better served by some alternative means.
So maybe she's letting her kid do something else that's
better with their time.
And maybe she has even higher-level goals,
like keep my family and my sanity intact.
And anyway, I could discern a little bit
of that in what I saw from this narrative on Twitter.
And I think when we understand that goals are hierarchical,
it also gives us permission to disengage
from goals that are not serving our higher-level purpose.
JOSHUA MACHT: Yeah.
I can tell what you're saying.
A little bit liberating, and it feels like that's
what she tapped into.
The freedom--
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: I think so.
JOSHUA MACHT: And everyone collectively wanted
to say, enough with this.
Let's focus on what really matters.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: Exactly.
And when you phrase like what really matters,
you're implicitly talking about the higher-level goals,
so I completely agree with that.
ADI IGNATIUS: Now, before I ask my discussion,
I want to remind the people who are viewing that you can
raise your own questions about grit, and perseverance,
and anything else in the comment box.
And if you just joined us, we are here
with Angela Duckworth, who is the Character Lab
CEO, and the author of the bestselling book Grit.
So Angela, so Josh and I went online
and took your grit scale quiz.
I scored a 3.3.
Josh scored a 4.4.
JOSHUA MACHT: Yes!
ADI IGNATIUS: Is he 1.1 better than me?
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: Well, let me ask you a question, Adi.
What were the items on the grit scale where
you think that it docked your score, that you didn't quite--
quote unquote-- do as grittily as Josh?
ADI IGNATIUS: Well, it's interesting.
I took it right after that to see if it was easy to game,
and I got a 5.0.
So turned out yes.
If you, for some reason, want to game the grit scale--
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: Please don't use this in HR.
Go on, yeah.
ADI IGNATIUS: Yeah, do not use this-- yes.
JOSHUA MACHT: Or you didn't want to beat me.
OK.
ADI IGNATIUS: So I did actually technically beat Josh.
And frankly, it was pretty gritty of me
to go back and take it a second time.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: It is.
It is.
I commend you.
JOSHUA MACHT: True [INAUDIBLE].
ADI IGNATIUS: I think it was--
I think I was acknowledging that maybe I'll
sometimes change perspective.
I think it was something like that that docked me those
points that Josh-- who was lying, probably,
when he took the test--
didn't really admit to.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: So I'll let you in on a little secret.
It's not a secret, but it may not be well-known.
So I developed the grit scale in my first year, I think,
of graduate school.
And the questions on the grit scale that are about passion
are the product of a first-year graduate student.
So what I was really trying to get
at was having some consistent higher-level goal, or focus,
that gives meaning and purpose to everything else you do.
So for example, I'm a psychologist,
and I have experienced the entire pandemic
as a psychologist.
Everything to me, I'm interpreting,
trying to understand what people are really
motivated by, how our attention might be biased, et cetera.
And that is what I was trying to get
at with the passion subscale.
Not that you aren't flexible in your thinking,
but more that you have some kind of throughline
to what interests you, to what you're committed to.
So now understanding that, Adi, that
was the spirit of the questions, which I may not
have worded the best way.
Do you feel like you have that consistency of passion,
that you love what you do, and that in a way,
you can see the world through this lens that is somewhat
consistent over time?
ADI IGNATIUS: When I find it, you can't take me off it.
When I find something and I am devoted to it,
you cannot take me off it.
It just bothered me that there was some writing
that Josh was 1.1--
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: [CHUCKLES]
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
JOSHUA MACHT: We know I'm just [INAUDIBLE] for everyone
on this, but I'll tell you.
So Audi and I have been playing tennis forever.
And it's amazing.
And we're pretty evenly matched, but we're
competitive-- as you can see-- about everything,
including the grit scale.
And if he ever goes down by a game or two,
this guy has like a crazy determination.
Like I can't-- it's just the will, and you feel it.
So there's definitely--
ADI IGNATIUS: I've coined a term for it.
I call it grit.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: Well, I think it is part of grit, absolutely.
By the way, we're talking about resilience.
That's completely appropriate given the pandemic.
But there is another half of grit,
which is this passion piece.
Loving what you do is not the same thing as resilience.
Being so captivated by it that you think about it
after 5:00, and before 9:00, and on the weekends, and the like.
So that's not just resilience, when I say grit.
But let's talk about this response that you have.
I actually think the phrase that comes to my mind
is it's the "I'll show you" response.
It's like, when somebody tells you that you can't win,
or that you shouldn't apply for this thing,
or the odds are against you, or you lose the mat,
it's this kind of fiery, fists clenched,
"I'll show you" response that I--
I mean, I remember reading Michelle Obama's biography--
autobiography, I guess-- her memoir recently,
and she had the "I'll show you" response.
I was like, yeah!
Go, girl!
There's so many grit paragons for whom
that is a visceral, reflexive response to being told,
you can't do this.
ADI IGNATIUS: Mm-hm.
So we've got some questions coming in from the audience,
so I'm going to just go to some of those now.
There are a bunch.
So here's Katie from New York, who is asking Angela,
how do you keep going when you feel like you
have exhausted your resilience?
How do you pick it up?
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: I think this question
is related to the experience of burnout
that honestly, I think most of us
have experienced in some way, shape, or form.
Maybe not for an extended period of time.
But the phrase "burnout" actually
is really illuminating as to what it is, really,
because the experience of burnout
is this feeling like you have given 11 out of 10, if you
will, and that you're getting back very little,
so you can't keep going.
And it is characterized by a state of exhaustion,
a sense of helplessness.
And then also sometimes this feeling of being-- it's
called depersonalized, like not connected to the people
that you usually feel connected to.
In your work, in particular.
And my suggestion is, first of all, burnout is a real thing.
It's not a figment of your imagination.
Like I said, most of us have experienced this.
And then if you understand that the experience comes
from some perception that you're giving it everything
and you're getting back almost nothing,
then you have to change either the numerator
or the denominator there.
You might actually have to work less.
You might have to actually give less.
Or you might need to have some way to get back more.
So I'll stop there because I know there are other questions,
but I think burnout is real.
I think that it's the understanding in your head
that you're giving everything, you're
not getting back very much.
And you got to change either how much you're giving,
or how much you're getting back.
JOSHUA MACHT: Yeah, that's a real feeling
of diminishing returns that I think a lot of people get to.
And you're right, taking the foot off the gas
and just finding ways to shift into something else,
I think that's really good advice.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: And if life really
is a marathon-- which I think it is-- and not a sprint,
then that's what the highest performers do.
They're not grinding 24/7.
They don't overtrain.
ADI IGNATIUS: So we have a question
from Ramola in Johannesburg.
The question is, how can I discuss resilience
with my team virtually, given the circumstances?
But I to expand that a little.
You wrote an article, Angela, in 2018
for Harvard Business Review with Tom Lee called
"Organizational Grit."
So maybe maybe the question to take
is, what's the secret to creating
a culture in which an institution collectively
has this sense of drive and perseverance?
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: When I wrote that article with--
full disclosure, my cousin Tom, who made me write the article,
because he's--
ADI IGNATIUS: Yes, we knew.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: He was like, you're
going to write this article, and I'm your cousin,
so you're going to say yes.
But it was a lot of fun.
And it helped me articulate what I
think is true, which is that if you look
at a gritty individual, they have a very
aerodynamic hierarchy of goals.
What they do during the day, these low-level goals,
they match up really nicely with mid-level goals,
and an ultimate top-level-- like I know what I'm doing.
It's all part of an aligned goal hierarchy where like,
this is who I am.
Now, that's also true at the macro level
when you think of an organization.
A great organization-- whether it's
a private sector company, or a nonprofit, or a government--
they have a clarity about what their mission is.
And this is why I think companies
have mission statements.
And then they have strategic plans
that get you to that mission.
And then they have tactical objectives,
like KPIs, et cetera.
And I think if you want to maintain or even
build that kind of clarity during a crisis, like COVID--
I know you've recently spoken to Tory Burch,
and I remember having a conversation with her
about grit a couple years ago.
And I asked, how often as a leader do
you have to remind people of what the mission is,
and how the strategy lines up to the mission,
and how the KPIs line up to the stra-- she's like, every day?
Every few hours?
So I think maybe one of the big lessons
is that in addition to being a great role model,
in addition to having that clarity in the first place,
really appreciating that, in a way,
motivation for an organization is like a half-filled helium
balloon.
You got to keep batting it back up in the air.
Don't be so naive as to think that, well, you
had the annual meeting, or you even had the weekly phone call.
I think people need constant reminding of how their part
fits into the greater whole.
JOSHUA MACHT: Right.
Yep.
ADI IGNATIUS: Now, here's a question.
This is, I guess, a pushback a little bit.
This is from Tina from Melville, New York, who asks,
isn't it healthy not to be gritty all the time?
That perhaps balance is the key to a healthy and wholesome
life?
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: So I'm going to agree
that balance is the key to a happy and wholesome life.
I think if you--
I'm going to give you my response,
but you're also probably going to roll your eyes.
So my response is that I don't think
grit is grinding all the time.
I hope I'm gritty, I try to be gritty, and I like grit.
So what do I do?
I slept late today.
I went for a run yesterday-- socially distanced with a mask
on and all that.
But I don't think that-- the word "grit" sounds masochistic.
But really, all it is is trying to be
committed to things in the long run, and to work towards them.
But if it really is a long run, that
means that there's got to be balance,
there's got to be forgiveness, there's
gotta be self-compassion, there's
got to be sleeping late occasionally.
And I think that's the message.
So the John Wayne, kind of true grit,
it's not about punishing yourself.
It's maybe not the right-sounding word.
JOSHUA MACHT: But one thing it also
is about, as you say, having direction, and purpose,
and knowing where you're going.
I just find right now, with so much uncertainty,
and you've got to believe we've all have a lot of anxiety--
or at least some low level of anxiety--
how do you create that direction and purpose
when you're thinking, where does all this go?
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: Yeah.
I'm going to-- before I give you a solution, let me just say,
that feeling of like, whoa, like I--
for so many people also, given the current economic situation,
what they do for a living, like they literally can't do.
So yesterday, I was talking to a restauranteur in Philadelphia
named Marc Vetri.
He's on the board of my nonprofit.
And for somebody for whom their top-level goal is
to help the world through food, or run the world's greatest
restaurant, you really want to stop
and just say like, hey, that must be really difficult.
It's different for professors, or writers, or journalists,
who can kind of pivot in a less dramatic way
and still be useful.
So I want to just pause and say, I
think it's really hard to have a top-level goal
and then not be able to work toward it in the way
that you're used to.
And then the next thing I'll say,
after fully acknowledging how challenging that is--
especially for really gritty people--
I think that if you ask the question like, OK,
given the uncertainty, given that we don't know what the end
date is for all this, if I really
think about my top-level goal, it's probably
something very abstract.
And that's generally true.
So for my top-level goal, it's use psychological science
to help kids thrive.
I had lots of random assignment studies
that were supposed to launch this spring.
None of them happened because kids are not in school,
and schools have better things to do other than mess with me
and my logistics for research.
So the question is, OK, if that's my top-level goal
and my immediate strategy is thwarted,
then how creative can I be?
And that's part of the reason why
I'm doing video conversations like this-- and frankly,
a lot with parents and teachers--
because I'm trying to find alternative means.
And honestly, some restauranteurs
are doing similar things.
They're trying to help the world through food,
and they can't do it through their in-person restaurant.
So not only are they doing take-out,
they're cooking and feeding health workers,
or they're doing videos on Facebook
to teach people how to cook.
So I would say that having real clarity
about the abstract mission statement for your life
is empowering, because even in a time like this where
9 out of 10 doors are closed to you,
there might be one that you didn't even
think of before that enables you to keep
working toward that mission.
JOSHUA MACHT: Mm-hm.
ADI IGNATIUS: So I want to go to another question
that the audience has raised.
This is from [INAUDIBLE] from London.
And really, it's going back to the topic of children.
How do we make sure our kids develop grit?
There's some kids who are born--
just the moment they're born, it's clear who they are,
and what they want to do, and what their passions are.
And there are others who are late bloomers, or who
are hardworking and smart, but don't
have that sort of passion thing to drive them
that you talk about.
So how do we help our kids find all of that?
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: Well, one thing
I will just say about kids and how they--
sometimes I used to joke with my husband,
they just hatch, and you're like, wow, who are you?
And they do seem to come with their own set of goals
and preferences.
But it's not strictly true.
Actually, if you look at the development of interests
and ability, it's a process.
And nobody's really born wanting to be--
even Kobe Bryant wasn't born to play basketball.
It evolved very quickly.
So how, as a parent, do you support this process?
I think there's two things I would say.
First is that it's really important,
I think, to be observant of what your kids are attracted to,
and to nurture those interests.
And I think for those listeners who
are privileged and able to afford their kids of lots of--
that's great, and it's certainly not
true of most kids and most families.
But yeah, if you notice, as I did,
that my daughter Lucy, when she was younger,
she just was weirdly reading cookbooks.
And that's kind of weird, right?
Why are you really a cookbook when you're eight?
And she'd have all these YouTube videos up on the iPad
after I got it back, and they would be like,
how to make unicorn cupcakes, et cetera.
As a parent, you observe that, and then you encourage it,
and you create opportunities for them to get--
go deeper.
But the second thing I would just say
is that the whole experience of childhood
is basically a trial and error discovery
and development of interests.
So one thing I see privileged parents do too much
is kind of narrow the corridor.
It's like, oh, you played soccer for three years,
and now I've got the whole rest of your life mapped out,
and it's all soccer.
And really, what kids need is the freedom
to be able to detach from things, and they're like,
oh, I don't want to bake anymore.
I want to do soccer.
It's like, I don't want to do soccer anymore.
I'm going to try writing.
And I think this experience of trial and error sampling
should help kids actually eventually specialize.
But in science, we would call it sampling before specialization.
And when you look developmentally
at world-class performers, they tend
to have sampled before they specialized.
ADI IGNATIUS: So we're going to go
into our weekly segment called "Here Today or Here to Stay?"
And Angela, you can play along if you want to.
But really, just to talk about a phenomenon that
has dominated our lives in these past couple of months,
is it just temporary, is it going to stick around?
So all right, so Zoom connections.
We're all on Zoom, or Webex, or whatever platform,
talking to friends, talking to family,
talking remotely to the office.
We have our nightly quarantine-y calls with our loved ones.
So the question is, is that here to stay or not?
I'm guessing maybe not.
It's wonderful.
It's also exhausting.
And it's particularly exhausting at the end of a long day.
We've learned scientifically, it is actually exhausting.
That when you're physically with people, you can look away,
and there are various body language paradigms
you can adopt.
You are sort of required to look right at the camera
to show that you're paying attention here.
It is literally exhausting.
So I have a feeling as nice as this has been, as nice as it's
been that we've had a way to connect during the quarantine,
I think this is not here to stay.
Josh?
JOSHUA MACHT: So I think--
I mean, I kind of get what you're saying, but I think--
at least what I'm finding is that it
is nice to be connected to people in ways
that I hadn't been in the past.
So I get what you're saying.
If I'm able to see and spend more time with my mother
in person, maybe then you don't need
as many Zoom calls or FaceTime.
But I feel like wanting to keep those connections is going
to be really, really important.
And I think using that technology is actually
going to stick around more than we might imagine right now.
ADI IGNATIUS: Angela, hear today or here to stay?
JOSHUA MACHT: Yeah, tiebreaker.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: I think it's here
to stay maybe more for work.
And then I would imagine we're going
to go back to wanting to actually touch, and hug,
and clink glasses with people socially.
So I think the Zoom cocktail party is not going to last,
but I think the Zoom conference meeting with your colleagues
in Louisiana will stay.
JOSHUA MACHT: Well, so you did a really good job of agreeing
with both of us, I think.
[CHUCKLING]
And of course, [INAUDIBLE] but we can't live with that.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: Oh, was this just a binary--
like you have to choose one or the other?
Oh, it's that kind of thing?
Then I'm going to say that it won't last forever.
ADI IGNATIUS: Well, well, well, there you have it.
JOSHUA MACHT: Well, [INAUDIBLE] is not as greedy as I am,
so I think [INAUDIBLE] feel better,
and I think the audience [INAUDIBLE]..
ADI IGNATIUS: So Angela Duckworth,
thank you for being with us.
ANGELA DUCKWORTH: Thank you.
ADI IGNATIUS: This is episode 2 of HBR Quarantined.
Josh, you want to take it out?
JOSHUA MACHT: Sure.
I want to say thank you so much to our guest,
and to Adi, and to all the people
who make this show possible.
Scott LaPierre, our senior producer, Dave Di Julio,
our broadcast, director Karen [INAUDIBLE],,
Enrico Cripps, our design, and Kelsey Gripenstraw and Emily
[INAUDIBLE] for audience engagement.
Our co-producers Andy Robinson, Ellie Honan,
Dustin [INAUDIBLE],, and of course,
our great theme music from Holy Fang Studios and Oliver
Ignatius.
I also want to say, please come back next week.
We're going to have Arianna Huffington on.
We're going to have a wide-ranging conversation,
probably a lot about sleep.
I've seen somewhere someone said that if you
are having a good night's sleep now,
you're probably a sociopath.
I don't know if that's exactly true.
We'll probably ask her that.
We're going to ask her about all those wacky dreams you're
having too.
At least I want to push you on that one.
So really looking forward to it.
I hope you enjoyed this show.
Looking forward to seeing you all next week.
ADI IGNATIUS: See you next week.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JOSHUA MACHT: So now can she tell
us who actually is grittier?
It was obviously me.
ADI IGNATIUS: Yeah, but I think she
conceded that since you can game the test, it's really not--
really doesn't say everything about the character
of a person.
Pretty clear about that.
JOSHUA MACHT: Yeah.
ADI IGNATIUS: I don't know.
That was good, though.
I thought she was fantastic.
JOSHUA MACHT: Yeah, she was amazing.
It was really good.
DAVE DI JULIO: It really was.
JOSHUA MACHT: Yeah.
We didn't get to talk as much with you, Dave, this week.
DAVE DI JULIO: I know.
I kind of miss my little-- well, at least we're still on, so.
Yeah, I was going to say, happy Star Wars Day.
May the 4th be with you.
ADI IGNATIUS: You know, my wife is
running at the stairs saying, you know you're still on.
And--
DAVE DI JULIO: I know, it's just like everybody--
yes, we're still on.
ADI IGNATIUS: This is our special behind-the-scenes
coverage for people who cannot get enough of our fake TV show.
DAVE DI JULIO: Like Ellie keeps on saying,
still live, still live.
Yes, Ellie.
This is on purpose.
SCOTT LAPIERRE: It's by design, actually, yeah.
We're that good.
JOSHUA MACHT: This is our overtime,
if you still have questions.
DAVE DI JULIO: Yeah.
It actually happened last week.
It was a mistake--
I didn't end the broadcast, which is crazy.
I never make mistakes.
But I didn't end it, but we got a great response from people
saying, oh, it's kind of nice to see the folks after the fact.
So we are purposely keeping this live.
It's not a mistake, folks, so stop texting me.
My phone is going crazy.
ADI IGNATIUS: But I do urge people, if you're still on,
send us your ideas for who we should have in the future.
Send us your comments on what you think about the show, what
you think about our guests, and we
will read all of your comments and take them to heart.
We probably--
JOSHUA MACHT: Do we go off half a reel?
ADI IGNATIUS: What?
Yeah, I think we may actually have to say a real goodbye.
JOSHUA MACHT: Real goodbye.
Not the--
DAVE DI JULIO: How about we do a real goodbye,
and I'll do Oliver's music when--
ADI IGNATIUS: Could we get Oliver's music?
JOSHUA MACHT: Yeah.
ADI IGNATIUS: If you're wondering,
Oliver Ignatius is my son, and he wrote the music,
and he is a musician and engineer,
so let's roll it one more time.
DAVE DI JULIO: All right.
So long, guys.
See you next week.
JOSHUA MACHT: See you, everyone.
ADI IGNATIUS: All right.