We just don’t pay enough attention to how important grit is in creating success.
The generally agreed consensus is that we are exposed to somewhere around 5,000 commercial messages a day. Now, that number is broadly defined to include such things as logos on clothing and trademarks on every product in the grocery store, in addition to radio, TV and Internet ads, billboards and the like. But no matter how you define it, it is a very big number.
How many of those messages would you say could serve as life-guiding mantras? Not many, right? IBM’s “think” would be one. And Apple’s response: “think differently” would be another, but after that? It becomes pretty slim pickings.
One that I think makes the list, especially because it seems to be the governing philosophy of every successful entrepreneur I know, is (Nike’s) “Just do it.”
What is intriguing to me is the “it” doesn’t matter when it comes to successful entrepreneurs.
- “It” could be getting underway.
- “It” could be figuring out a way to circumvent a seemingly impossible obstacle.
- “It” could be determining how to respond when a far larger competitor entered their market.
No matter what the “it” is, the best entrepreneurs analyze the problem; make what they think is the best decision possible to attack it, and get to work.
They just do it.
There is no endless pondering of “what ifs.” There is no analysis paralysis. They just get underway and continue to work until the problem or challenge is solved.
In other words, they demonstrate girt.
Angela Duckworth, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who studies why people succeed, defines grit “as working assiduously toward a single challenging superordinate goal through thick and thin, on a timescale of years and even decades.”
I think that is right, and the best entrepreneurs exhibit this characteristic in the proverbial spades.
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When you look at the technological marvels that have changed, and are changing, our life—the Internet 20 years ago; self-driving cars and Artificial Intelligence-based assistants (and everything else) 20 years from now, just to pick a handful—it is easy to conclude that smarts is the most important trait someone needs to be successful.
And given a choice between being not smart and smart, I am going to choose smart every time.
But while it requires some degree of intelligence to spot a need in the marketplace, and even more intelligence to figure out how to fill that need successful, simply spotting a problem and figuring out a solution (on paper) does not make you a successful entrepreneur. If all you do is think, all end up with is thoughts.
You need to make that solution a reality, to prove that your insight was correct, in the real world. And invariably, making that solution happens requires grit.
Luck is good and being optimistic is better. But grit is absolutely mandatory.
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