GRIT
So I should really kick off this blog post by being honest with everyone. I started writing this almost 2 weeks ago and kept putting it down or getting distracted by something else. In short, sticking with tasks through completion is an ongoing challenge for me . . . even as I write about the importance of GRIT.
Every time I hear GRIT, my stomach growls. Anyone else? When you begin framing yourself as a "founder", you inevitably start looking for other stories, hopefully, successful ones, that reflect your own. Google search after Google search churns up articles about outstanding female entrepreneurs who succeeded against all odds. The recurring theme in these tales is the ever-present GRIT that these leaders have. This character trait isn't taught in books and is crucial to execution. I have discovered that it is also one that you fall in and out of favor with on a regular basis. It is what helps drive focus and pushes you through, especially when you realize the hill is much bigger than you originally projected. It is an essential skill for a female to navigate these male-dominated industries. The recurring theme in many of these stories was that the women had to work to prove themselves over and over while their male counterparts are often times blindly trusted. While men have to have some level of GRIT to get their start-up going, they are often starting from the first step while we are on the ground. I have to remind myself regularly that I am not going to get it right all the time, and that just trying and testing new ideas is part of the journey. That’s how we create right? I had a conversation with someone the other day about how amazing it is that someone discovered how to make coffee from a bean. As legend tells us, a starving healer who had been exiled discovered the “healing properties” of the beans when he tried eating them, but they tasted horrible so he roasted them; still bad. He then tried boiling them which resulted in a brown liquid that he deemed a miracle drug. If this tale is true, without the grit of a starving healer, our mornings would look very different . . . or mine certainly would.
This journey makes you reframe the founders of some of these unicorn companies and realize that even though we love to vilify them in the media or attribute their success to luck and good timing, which is also true, it was about GRIT. They kept pushing even when it would have been easier to stop.
I am thinking that I need GRIT and a little side of crazy to push GATSBY out of the nest!! A good bowl of hot grits can’t hurt either😉
-A