There are a lot of factors that influence success. Some extremely smart people use their brains to be successful. Other people work really hard and become a success. Other people just flat get lucky and achieve success.
When you look at these factors, you can’t really control how lucky you get and you can’t really control your IQ. However, you can control how hard you work. There’s a word for those that work hard, endure well, and stick with something. It’s called Grit.
It’s amazing how many people fail in their careers because they just decide to give up. We don’t hear about a lot of those stories since no one wants to read a story about someone who gave up. However, almost every career success story has at least one and usually many examples where that person had to grit their teeth and overcome what seemed like an insurmountable obstacle. It wasn’t about how smart they were. It was about how much grit they had to overcome the challenges in their way.
This should give hope to everyone in their career. While I think that some people are born to naturally have grit, I think that anyone can develop grit.
What do you think about the importance of grit in career success? Is it more important than IQ? Is there something else that you think is more important than grit?