Entrepreneurial success often depends on having the right combination of personality and abilities. Among these, grit—the combination of persistence and passion toward long-term goals—has been hailed as a must-have trait, symbolizing the heroic nature of entrepreneurship. However, recent research suggests that the relentless pursuit encapsulated by grit can have its downsides, including burnout and depression. In this article, I explore grit’s nuances and limitations and argue that resilience, forged through pain and suffering, is more crucial for entrepreneurs.
In This Post
Grit: The Backbone of (Entrepreneurial) Success
Grit is often celebrated as the secret sauce to success. Defined by psychologist Angela Duckworth and colleagues in 2007, grit encompasses the perseverance to achieve long-term goals combined with a passionate commitment.
In their study, grit accounted for an average of 4% of the variance in success outcomes across various domains, including education, military academy retention, and performance in the National Spelling Bee.
In a TED talk that gathered over 13 million views, Duckworth shares a crucial realization: intelligence wasn’t the only factor separating her best and worst students. This observation sparked her curiosity about the role of perseverance and passion, or “grit,” in achieving long-term goals.
She embarked on a quest to understand what makes people successful in various demanding environments, from military academies to public schools. Her research across diverse settings revealed that grit emerged as a significant predictor of success, outweighing IQ and social intelligence.
It wasn’t long before the entrepreneurship ecosystem applied the grit theory to entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurs with grit exhibit an unwavering focus, dedicating years, if not decades, to their vision. This steadfast approach allows them to navigate the ups and downs of building a business, making grit a celebrated trait in the entrepreneurial community.
The Dark Side of Grit: Burnout and Depression
While the virtues of grit are widely extolled, its limits are less frequently discussed. Persistent dedication without balance can lead entrepreneurs down a path of burnout and depression. The story of Ryan Caldbeck, former CEO of CircleUp, illustrates the peril. Caldbeck’s relentless pursuit of success, a manifestation of grit, culminated in severe burnout, highlighting that even the most celebrated qualities have their shadow side.
Caldbeck’s narrative shows that his relentless commitment to his role and company, despite professional and personal challenges, pushed him into a state of chronic stress, eventually leading to his decision to step down as CEO of CircleUp.
His journey underscores the importance of recognizing the limits of persistence and the potential consequences of pushing oneself too hard without adequate self-care or awareness of one’s mental and emotional needs.
I described the deep roots of such behavior and how it leads to entrepreneurial burnout in the article above.
Why Resilience Trumps Grit
Resilience, the ability to recover from setbacks and adapt to change, emerges as a more critical trait for entrepreneurs. Unlike grit, which emphasizes persistence in the same direction, resilience allows for flexibility and adaptation. This trait enables entrepreneurs to pivot in response to new information, learn from failures, and continue moving forward, albeit on altered paths.
Resilience matters in success. I don’t know how to teach it to you expect hoping suffering happens to you.
Jensen Huang – NVIDIA (Source: Stanford SIEPR)
Great entrepreneurs know the value of resilience. In a keynote at Stanford, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang shared counterintuitive advice for improving chances of success, emphasizing the unexpected value of having low expectations. Huang pointed out that while Stanford graduates naturally harbor high expectations due to their exceptional backgrounds and education, their mindset can lead to a decrease in resilience—a critical component of success.
He argued that resilience, more than intelligence or achievements, fosters greatness. This resilience often stems from experiencing setbacks, suffering, and challenges, which refine character and determination.
Huang’s assertion that resilience is cultivated through experiences of pain and suffering finds support within academic circles. Martin Seligman’s research on positive psychology and learned optimism provides evidence that resilience is bolstered by facing and navigating challenges, reinforcing the notion that encountering difficulties can lead to significant personal growth and increased psychological stamina.
On one end are the people who fall apart into PTSD, depression, and even suicide. In the middle are most people, who at first react with symptoms of depression and anxiety but within a month or so are, by physical and psychological measures, back where they were before the trauma. That is resilience.
Martin Seligman – University of pennsylvania (source: Harvard business review)
However, Huang’s affirmation that pain and suffering promote success via resilience is a dangerous shortcut. Seligman’s work with the US Army demonstrated that “building mental toughness” is crucial to fostering resilience.
He described four steps in the process:
- Separating emotions from adversity: Seligman and his team taught soldiers to dissect their reactions to stressful events. By identifying and challenging their negative beliefs about adversities, soldiers can alter their emotional responses and develop a more resilient outlook. For example, falling out of a three-mile run doesn’t mean the soldier is a failure.
- Identifying Thinking Traps: Soldiers are taught to recognize and avoid common cognitive distortions or “thinking traps,” such as overgeneralizing, catastrophizing, or black-and-white thinking, that can exacerbate stress and impede problem-solving. For example, concluding that a soldier is not fit for the job because he struggled to complete exercises one day.
- Challenging Deeply Held Beliefs (“Icebergs”): The program encourages soldiers to identify and examine their core beliefs or “icebergs” that may contribute to disproportionate emotional reactions to challenges. For example, “asking for help is a sign of weakness.”
- Minimizing Catastrophic Thinking: Soldiers learn techniques to counter catastrophic thinking by evaluating a situation’s worst-case, best-case, and most likely outcomes. This practice helps to put fears into perspective, reduce anxiety, and facilitate more balanced and effective responses to stress. For example, a soldier receiving a negative evaluation may believe that he won’t be recommended for promotion (worst case), that the report was a mistake (best case), or that he’ll receive a corrective action plan (most likely case).
Seligman’s work with the army underscores the broader applicability of these resilience-building techniques, offering insights that can benefit individuals and organizations outside the military context. It also clarifies that, unlike Jensen Huang, not everybody will emerge from suffering with a positive outlook.
Does Resilience Lead To Entrepreneurial Success?
A survey of 500+ entrepreneurs in the tourism sector in Spain points to a correlation between resilience and entrepreneurial success.
The authors measured resilience across three dimensions: hardiness, resourcefulness, and optimism. Each plays a distinct role in how individuals manage stress and overcome adversity.
Hardiness is characterized by a combination of commitment, control, and challenge. People who exhibit hardiness are likely to remain engaged (commitment), believe they can influence outcomes (control), and view stress as a growth opportunity rather than a threat (challenge). This trait helps individuals persevere in the face of stress and adversity, maintaining performance and well-being. In entrepreneurial contexts, hardy individuals are likely to persevere through business downturns and failure.
Resourcefulness involves the ability to effectively and creatively use the resources at one’s disposal to solve problems and manage situations. It includes adaptability, problem-solving skills, and the ability to think creatively under pressure. In entrepreneurship, resourcefulness can translate to innovative product development, efficient use of capital, and effective management strategies that navigate the company through challenges and leverage opportunities.
Optimism is the tendency to expect positive outcomes and believe that the future holds favorable possibilities. It is associated with a general expectancy that good things will happen. Optimistic entrepreneurs are likely to take calculated risks, motivated by the belief in successful outcomes. This can lead to greater resilience in facing setbacks, as optimistic individuals typically maintain motivation and continue to pursue goals despite obstacles.
“Entrepreneurs who have resilience are willing to work hard to achieve their goals, to adapt to changes in order to take advantage of the new situation and are able to learn from their mistakes.”
Juan-Carlos Ayala & Guadalupe MAnzano – Journal of Economic Psychology (2014)
Ayala and Manzano find that resilience is correlated with entrepreneurial success measured as sales growth over five years.
I looked at the paper’s methodology section, the study appears robust. In particular, their sample contains real entrepreneurs, not freelancers—a major issue in entrepreneurship that I denounced in my 2022 academic article.
While the correlation coefficients are weak for hardiness and optimism, and moderate for resourcefulness, this study contributes to our understanding of resilience in entrepreneurial processes.
Resilience Is The Sign of True Champions
Roger Federer, in his Dartmouth commencement speech in June 2024, emphasized the importance of resilience in becoming a champion in tennis—and beyond, in ordinary life.
He highlighted that perfection is impossible, noting that even though he won 80% of his 1,500+ matches to reach one of the top palmares in the sport, he won only 54% of his points. This lesson taught him not to dwell on each mistake but to move forward quickly.
The best in the world are the best because they lose again and again and have learnt to deal with it.
Roger Federer – Tennis champion (Source: Dartmouth)
Federer underscored that resilience is about mastering the ability to overcome hard moments, as true champions are defined by their capacity to recover from losses and setbacks. He encourages embracing each failure as a learning opportunity, accepting it, crying if needed, and then moving on with a smile, ready to face the next challenge with intensity and focus.
Conclusion: tl;dr
Grit and resilience both play critical roles in the entrepreneurial journey. However, the flexibility and adaptability offered by resilience may prove more valuable than grit’s unwavering persistence. By understanding the limitations of grit and embracing the lessons learned through adversity, entrepreneurs can cultivate a more balanced and sustainable path to success.
