Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Michael Phelps won 28 Olympic medals, 23 of them gold. Natural talent helped. So did extraordinary grit. But #1 New York Times bestselling author Angela Duckworth says there was another crucial factor: his situation.
From age 11 to 31, Phelps trained with coach Bob Bowman, whom he met because he happened to grow up 10 minutes away from a premier youth aquatic center. Phelps himself is emphatic about how much that relationship mattered: without Bob, he says, his story would have been “100 percent different.”
Angela’s new book, Situated: Find the People and Places That Bring Out Your Best, is out next Tuesday! In the hotly anticipated follow-up to Grit, she builds on her groundbreaking research to reveal another side to high achievement: perseverance matters, but so do the situations that help us sustain it. And by changing our situation, we can change what we're capable of.
Angela is a MacArthur Genius and a pioneering psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania. A Lavin Exclusive Speaker, she gives practical, research-backed keynotes on grit, achievement, and how we can bring out the best in ourselves and others.
Learn more about her and her new book on our website at the link in bio!
Michael Phelps won 28 Olympic medals, 23 of them gold. Natural talent helped. So did extraordinary grit. But #1 New York Times bestselling author Angela Duckworth says there was another crucial factor: his situation.
From age 11 to 31, Phelps trained with coach Bob Bowman, whom he met because he happened to grow up 10 minutes away from a premier youth aquatic center. Phelps himself is emphatic about how much that relationship mattered: without Bob, he says, his story would have been “100 percent different.”
Angela’s new book, Situated: Find the People and Places That Bring Out Your Best, is out next Tuesday! In the hotly anticipated follow-up to Grit, she builds on her groundbreaking research to reveal another side to high achievement: perseverance matters, but so do the situations that help us sustain it. And by changing our situation, we can change what we're capable of.
Angela is a MacArthur Genius and a pioneering psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania. A Lavin Exclusive Speaker, she gives practical, research-backed keynotes on grit, achievement, and how we can bring out the best in ourselves and others.
Learn more about her and her new book on our website at the link in bio!
