Staying Human with Dr. Vivek Murthy
Sep 1, 2026 · 1 hr 6 min · 13 segments
Angela Duckworth changed the way millions of people think about achievement with her bestselling book *Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance*. Yet ten…
Vivek MurthyHostAs somebody who grew up very, very, very concerned with achievement, daughter of immigrant parents, and then, you know, Somebody who grew up to be a woman, a psychologist, who for her job studies achievement.
You simply cannot do anything worthwhile and challenging without a lot of grit.
And I know that some people disagree, but I'm like, show me the author of The musician, the artist, the physician, the teacher, the CEO, show me the person who has done something really, really great, who has not done that with passion and perseverance over the long term.
They're like, oh, well, then you have to force yourself to work for hours and hours and hours over years and years and years.
And in fact, when I was a young psychologist, I would be speaking to senior psychologists and they were like, oh, you're studying just the extreme things outlier tale in the distribution of willpower, you know, more than nine out of 10, 10 out of 10, let's call it grit.
I think that when you work that hard at something in your life, When you think about your work, not just between nine and five, but you find yourself voluntarily, and maybe sometimes involuntarily, thinking about it on a Saturday, on a Sunday, in the shower, while you're brushing your teeth.
When you're willing to do the easy parts and the hard parts, I don't think it's because you are willing yourself to do so against some impulse not to.
The brain, as you know, has a prefrontal cortex that is able to suppress impulses.
As somebody who grew up very, very, very concerned with achievement, daughter of immigrant parents, and then, you know, Somebody who grew up to be a woman, a psychologist, who for her job studies achievement.
You simply cannot do anything worthwhile and challenging without a lot of grit.
And I know that some people disagree, but I'm like, show me the author of The musician, the artist, the physician, the teacher, the CEO, show me the person who has done something really, really great, who has not done that with passion and perseverance over the long term.
They're like, oh, well, then you have to force yourself to work for hours and hours and hours over years and years and years.
And in fact, when I was a young psychologist, I would be speaking to senior psychologists and they were like, oh, you're studying just the extreme things outlier tale in the distribution of willpower, you know, more than nine out of 10, 10 out of 10, let's call it grit.
I think that when you work that hard at something in your life, When you think about your work, not just between nine and five, but you find yourself voluntarily, and maybe sometimes involuntarily, thinking about it on a Saturday, on a Sunday, in the shower, while you're brushing your teeth.
When you're willing to do the easy parts and the hard parts, I don't think it's because you are willing yourself to do so against some impulse not to.
The brain, as you know, has a prefrontal cortex that is able to suppress impulses.
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