Book Review

GRIT: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

Author: Angela Duckworth Reviewer: Malcolm Gladwell

In this instant New York Times bestseller, pioneering psychologist Angela Duckworth shows anyone striving to succeed—be it parents, students, educators, athletes, or business people—that the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a special blend of passion and persistence she calls “grit.”

Why do some people succeed and others fail? Sharing new insights from her landmark research, Angela explains why talent is hardly a guarantor of success.

Angela has found that grit—a combination of passion and perseverance for a singularly important goal—is the hallmark of high achievers in every domain. She’s also found scientific evidence that grit can grow. Angela gives a first-person account of her research with teachers working in some of the toughest schools, cadets struggling through their first days at West Point, and young finalists in the National Spelling Bee. She also mines fascinating insights from history and shows what can be gleaned from modern experiments in peak performance. Finally, she shares what she’s learned from interviewing dozens of high achievers—from JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon to Seattle Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll.

Winningly personal, insightful, and even life-changing, Grit is a book about what goes through your head when you fall down, and how that—not talent or luck—makes all the difference.

Neil Patel

Business Review Site

Reviewer: Adisa Hudson

Link https://neilpatel.com/ About the Site Neil Patel is the co-founder of NP Digital and Subscribers. He also co-founded Crazy Egg, Hello Bar and KISSmetrics. He helps companies like Amazon, NBC, GM, HP and Viacom grow their revenue through digital marketing. The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he is one of the top 10 marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant companies. Neil is a New York Times bestselling author and was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama and a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations.

Song Review

Tales of America

J.S. Ondara

Oroni Tendera

Startupmagazine.co.ke Jan/Feb 2020 The debut album Tales of America by 26-year-old Kenyan J.S. Ondara bursts out of nowhere into the folk-rock scene of the motherland of folk. Ok not quite, but as good as out of nowhere. After all, the young singer with his tenor voice, which occasionally turns into a falsetto, has already been heard in bars and at “Open Mic” events. A green card lottery won the 20-year-old, who taught himself to sing as well as play the guitar, access to the Promised Land, to Minneapolis in the state of Minnesota, where one of his two role models, Bob Dylan, spent the last ten years of his singing life. His other role model was Jeff Buckley, who was tragically killed at a young age after his debut album Grace. The newcomer from Kenya has yet to achieve the fame of his role models. Whether he will succeed will be seen, since the quality of Tales of America is quite ambivalent.

The credit side of the album includes “American Dream” with African folksong echoes and its subliminal longing for the land of his fathers. The straight guitar and bass-accompanied “Torch Song” also belongs to the credit side, at least before J.S. Ondara turns into a tremulous falsetto singing with a rather uncertain intonation. “Television Girl” goes through as a skillfully staged folk ballad, in which even the falsetto succeeds harmoniously. With a lower voice, J.S. Ondara’s exotic solo piece “Turkish Bandana”, strongly enriched with reverb, proves its chocolate side, which skillfully includes the falsetto. “Good Question” also belongs to the category of successful songs.

With a rather hesitant, flickering voice the other songs on the debut album don’t cut off so favorably. A clearly positive exception is “God bless America”, the last song on the album, which contributes conciliatorily to forget those songs which are vocally partly close to the annoying, in view of the successful songs as a probably avoidable by-catch of a successful fishing.

J.S. Ondara has potential. One can only wish him for a successful future