Jeremy Mercer ❖ Online

Grit is Good

February 19, 2013

My latest piece for Ode Magazine (now The Intelligent Optimist) is about the role persistence plays in our lives. Did you know that persistence is a better indicator of success than IQ? And that you can build your neural persistence pathways to make it easier to persist in the future? Seriously, this is heady and uplifting stuff.

If you want to read article, you can visit The Intelligent Optimist website right *here*.

But, I’ll be honest, it will be somewhat frustrating because the magazine has changed its Internet policy and it now only lets you read the first part of the article. To read the entire thing, you need to sign up for a free digital issue, which is somewhat complicated and something of a time suck. So, because, dear reader, I care for your time, I’ve also uploaded the PDF of the article which you can download and read at your leisure. Just click here: Persistence

A final, melancholy note about the persistence article. This essay marks the last time I will be working with my editor James Geary. James is an incredible journalist – he used to be the editor of Time Europe and then moved on to write superb magazine articles and books. He’s also an incredible person – dizzyingly interesting, a wonderful family man, a truly kind soul. Over the past four years, he’s given me the meatiest of subjects – altruistic economics, boredom, persistence – and the perfect combination of time, space, and editorial insight to bring those subjects to life. It’s the happiest and best journalism I’ve ever done.

Alas, a gem like James catches the eye and he was recently recruited to be deputy curator at Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism. Chapeau for James, but, also, a touch of selfish regret on my part because this means I no longer have the privilege of working with him. The truth is, Harvard is lucky to have him.

Related Categories: New & Notable.

6 Responses to Grit is Good

  1. Sarat says:

    Hi,

    Thanks for the great article on the Power of Persistence. The “True Grit” questionnaire at the end is awesome. Much gratitude for putting the article in its entirety for download on your website.

    I have an Intelligent Optimist subscription but found that I didn’t have that issue from Dec 2012 when I wanted to check out your article again.

    Thanks again!
    regards,
    Sarat

  2. Ulrich says:

    Hey just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The text in your content
    seem to be running off the screen in Safari. I’m not sure if this is a formatting issue or something to do with web browser compatibility but I figured I’d post to let you know.

    The design look great though! Hope you get the issue fixed
    soon. Cheers

  3. I seldom comment, but i did some searching and wound up here Grit is Good | Jeremy Mercer ❖ Online.
    And I actually do have 2 questions for you if you don’t mind. Could it be only me or does it look like a few of the remarks appear as if they are coming from brain dead visitors? :-P And, if you are posting at other sites, I’d
    like to follow anything fresh you have to post.
    Could you list of the complete urls of all your
    social sites like your twitter feed, Facebook page or linkedin profile?

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