Angela Duckworth changed the way millions of people think about achievement with her bestselling book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. Yet ten years later, she’s come to believe that grit and willpower are only part of the story.

In this conversation, Angela joins Vivek to explore a powerful question: How much of who we become is shaped not just by what’s inside us, but by the people, places, and circumstances around us?

Drawing from her new book Situated, Angela shares what she’s learned about creating environments that bring out our best—from the objects within arm’s reach to the friends, mentors, workplaces, and communities we choose. She and Vivek also talk candidly about ambition, parenting, and the difference between pursuing something out of fear versus genuine purpose. They also talk about why success and achievement can feel empty when we’re chasing it for the wrong reasons.

Together, Angela and Vivek ask: What does it really mean to succeed? How can we shape our lives around what matters most?

About Angela

Her books

Situated: Find the People and Places that Bring Out Your Best

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perserverance

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How many of us have felt the deep need to belong, but weren’t sure where to start?

In this episode, recorded live at WBUR in Boston, Vivek sits down with the Harvard professor, author, and friend for a wide-ranging conversation on building community. Robert Putnam saw America's social fracturing coming decades before anyone else did. His book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, put a name to the collapse of community life in the U.S, tracking the disappearance of the bowling leagues, church groups, and civic clubs that used to hold neighborhoods together. More recently, his ideas have reached a new generation through Join or Die, a documentary that has screened hundreds of times in communities across the country.

Putnam traces his own lifelong preoccupation with connection back to a lonely childhood in Port Clinton, Ohio, and a mother who refused to let it stay that way. He unpacks “social capital” — what it is, and why it matters for both our health and our democracy. Bob also offers wisdom and hope from the last time America clawed its way back from a time of strikingly similar isolation, inequality, and division during the Progressive Era. From that history, he shares three lessons for us all today today, as we seek to build more connection in our lives.

Putnam also opens up about his wife Rosemary, one of the most talented “social capitalists” he knows, and reflects on what he holds onto — quite literally, in old photographs — when he needs to remember what matters most.

Join Or Die Documentary: https://joinordiefilm.com/

Bob Putnam: http://robertdputnam.com/

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Ten years ago, Vivek and Maya Shankar met in a meeting at the White House; he still doesn't remember what the meeting was about, but he remembers being struck by her brilliance, and even more by her warmth. They stayed in touch, became close friends, and now, a decade later, Maya has traded her work as a cognitive scientist and White House advisor for a new mission: helping people understand why change is so hard, and how to come out the other side whole. She's the host of the hit podcast A Slight Change of Plans and the author of the instant New York Times bestseller The Other Side of Change.

In this conversation, Vivek and Maya talk about why uncertainty can feel worse than bad news itself, and why anchoring our identity in our "why" rather than our "what" can carry us through loss and reinvention. They dig into the mental spirals we all fall into — and the small shifts in perspective that can break them — plus the crucial difference between guilt and shame, and why community and service are often the surest way out of both. Maya also shares deeply personal stories from her own life, including experiences she writes about for the first time in her book, and what she's come to believe change reveals about who we really are.

It's a conversation about the hardest parts of being human: uncertainty, identity, rumination, and shame. It’s also about the quiet, durable hope that even unwanted change can show us who we're capable of becoming.

. . .

Every episode offers a reflection question inspired by the conversation. Share your thoughts and ideas with us at hello@stayinghuman.us, on our Substack, or leave us a message at 1-833-74-HUMAN.

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