The New Builders

CHAPTER FOURMore than Grit

In her New York Times bestselling book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, psychologist and researcher Angela Duckworth described this key ingredient for success. Grit, in Duckworth's telling, is the “tendency to sustain interest in and effort toward very long‐term goals.” It is passion and persistence applied to long‐term ideas without specific regard or concern for rewards along the way. It's an internal, self‐generated, and self‐motivated belief that one can and will be a success. That you will do whatever it takes to turn your vision into reality.

Entrepreneurs have a certain drive and motivation that sets them apart from others. Business owners, especially women, immigrants, and people of color, persevere against incredible challenges due to their passion and belief about what they are doing. It's almost universally not ego‐driven, in the sense that entrepreneurial drive is not typically the result of true hubris (though hubris sometimes accompanies it). It's more of a raw sense of determination and belief in one's own abilities.

The kind of grit required to build a business is almost maniacal in its focus and obsessive in its pursuit. New Builders possess this self‐assuredness and determination in spades. It's something we celebrate in American culture – that anyone can come from any circumstances to rise above and become successful – and that has particular meaning in the world of entrepreneurship, which places tremendous value on ...