My dream course for every university is Failure 101, where you would sign up and set out to fail.
Can Character be Learned?
Setup
When we look for attributes of strong leaders, we look for creativity and curiosity, integrity and empathy, diligence and discipline. Ideally, a great leader embodies all of these attributes, which collectively describe their character, and these leaders invariably point to influences including parents, teachers, mentors, and to critical episodes, including failures. This suggests that we can study and then reverse-engineer the development of great leaders. Leading-edge psychologist Angela Duckworth, whose best seller Grit explores how passion and perseverance lead to high achievement, and Jackie Bezos, fierce advocate for childhood development and youth leadership, discuss what we know about paragons of character, and how we may be able to put that knowledge to use.
- 2018 Festival
- Society
Big IdeaThere isn’t a moment of life where children are not learning. There is not a moment in life when they aren’t imitating. There is not a moment in life when they are not generalizing. They are figuring things out. And when they see you talk a certain way, act a certain way, flinch or not flinch with people who maybe aren’t the same color as you, maybe of a different social class — everything that you can imagine that you would care about bringing out in your kids, they are watching from the earliest days.Angela Duckworth
Learn More
Additional Information
Resources
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perserverance
Explore More
Society
In today’s world, we tend to switch jobs more frequently than previous generations, and are more likely to have multiple jobs. Side gigs where we express passions or find mean...
Finding ways to ground ourselves on a planet too often in turmoil can foster the resilience we need to function at our best. By maintaining close personal ties, learning new s...
Philosophers throughout history have debated what it means to live a good life, and it remains an ongoing and unresolved question. Deep personal relationships, fulfilling work...
You may have heard of Dry January and mocktails, but what is being "sober curious" really about? Sans Bar's Chris Marshall explains the growing movement and shares how he's b...
The United States is a more secular society than many, and the percentage of people who don’t identify with organized religion is rising. Some of the impacts from that shift m...
About two decades ago, NPR host Mary Louise Kelly had her first child and went down the extremely common yet commonly daunting life path of balancing a demanding career with a...
Everyone has a story to tell – and sharing them reminds us of our common humanity. Few know this better than StoryCorps CEO Sandra Clark. Over the last 20 years, the organizat...
It's been a big year for Patagonia, as it celebrated a 50th anniversary and legally restructured to commit all profits to environmental causes. What can be learned from the co...
Artificial intelligence is clearly going to change our lives in multiple ways. But it’s not yet obvious exactly how, and what the impacts will be. We can predict that certain...
Advocates, healthcare providers, legislators, researchers, and venture capitalists are bringing the unique health needs of women to light – from vigorous policy debates on iss...
Actor Rainn Wilson had his dream job on the hit TV show “The Office,” but was still being kept up at night by anxiety, depression, and life’s big unanswerable questions. He we...
Lisa Damour is a clinical psychologist, author, and a senior advisor to the Schubert Center for Child Studies at Case Western Reserve University. We caught up with her about h...
How do we describe the Republican Party today, and what are the dynamics that will shape its future?
In their new book, co-authors and Stanford professors Rob Reich and Mehran Sahami argue that big tech’s obsession with optimization and efficiency has sacrificed fundamental h...
How can we unlock the power of entrepreneurship to widen access to health care, close gender disparity, and increase prosperity in the global South? Hear from expert voices an...
Acclaimed authors and experts Annie Murphy Paul, Sheena Iyengar, and Keith Sawyer explore the multifaceted nature of decision-making, choice, and creativity. Through their uni...
From Washington to Biden, presidents have changed America — and the world — for both better and worse. If the American presidency is the ultimate test of leadership, what does...
Over the past decade, levels of anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide have increased dramatically, but the causes are more nuanced than the headlines suggest. This sessi...
Philosophical and religious teachings regarding wealth can feel both archaic and strangely relevant to our age of economic upheaval. How can we reconcile these ideas about wea...
Even at a time of intense partisan polarization, it is still possible to get things done in Washington. Hear from Representative Jason Crow (D-CO) and Representative Tony Gonz...