We've all seen the quotes that tell us success in this business is about persistence:
What's the difference between a published writer and an unpublished one? The published one didn't quit.
Never, never, never, never give up. (Churchill)
Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. (Edison)
Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go much further than people with vastly superior talent. (Sophia Loren)
I could go on and on with those, and in truth I do love to refresh myself from time to time with why it's important to have strength of purpose. But, today, via Booksquare, comes an article on grit as a factor in success.
Young Tom Edison didn't start out a superstar. His early teachers called him “addled.”
For decades, laws, governments, even popular will were stacked against the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela. No way, people thought, would they ever change the way things were.
And so it was for Sister Mary Scullion, the scrappy nun from Northeast Philly who had a radical idea 30 years ago. In a nation as prosperous as ours, she thought, it was unacceptable to have even one homeless person on the street. Today, the programs she developed are a national model.
Is it all-brains-all-the-time that separates these achievers from the pack? Or is something else at work?
The difference likely is something Angela Lee Duckworth calls “grit,” which she defines as “tenaciously pursuing something over the long term.” That “something” can't be something easy. To pass the grit test, the thing being chased must be “the highest challenge.” It's all about passion.
Read the rest of the article here: Got grit? A Penn researcher who studies high achievers says it isn't I.Q., grades, or leadership skills that leads to success. It's good, old-fashioned stick-to-itiveness.