Can't do sh*t without GRIT

Welcome to the title of my upcoming book. I invite you to ponder it’s meaning for a moment.

Have you ever had a great idea or dream, but for some reason the idea has remained stuck in your head, and you haven’t been able to bring it to life?

Or have you ever started something and not finished it? Perhaps you ran out of resources, time, motivation, energy?

I have found that the reason we accomplish some goals over others, comes down to our grit levels. The reason some of us can achieve our dreams, and others never get close, depends on how gritty we were.

If you want to meet the most amazing writers and artists of our times in one place, just visit a graveyard. There lay a plethora of dreams slain.

Grit researcher and Ted speaker Angela Duckworth states that grit equals passion and perseverance. Her research found that being talented didn’t necessarily equate to success. In fact if someone possessed more grit than talent, they were more likely to succeed in achieving their goal.

This makes entire sense, otherwise why would so many talented humans die without releasing their work? The answer is simple, they had talent but they didn’t possess grit (or enough of it).

By her own admission, Angela Duckworth acknowledges there is further research that is needed to really get to grips with grit.

For my part, I have become obsessed with understanding grit and specifically HOW to cultivate it. This has led me on a path of discovery and research, where I’ve been able to conclude that grit can indeed be learned, built and exercised.

Grit as a skill will become critical to master in our homes, classrooms and boardrooms, if we are to adapt to digital disruption and uncertainty. It’s a mystery why we are not teaching grit in our schools, when the success of wellbeing, results and innovations depend on it.

Simply put, if you don’t learn how to become grittier you and your ideas will simply perish. You WILL be left behind as we move into unprecedented times.

What will this mean? Putting it bluntly, you will likely lead a life that is any or all of the below:

• time-poor
• resource-poor
• spiritually-poor
• emotionally poor
• results-poor
• health-poor

Then you will pass this habitual pattern of behaviour to your off-spring and they will yield similar results. This is how learned behaviour works. Until such time, that someone in your lineage will develop grit to break the pattern.

As a daughter of Indian immigrants who settled in the UK, I faced early discrimination, racism and violence from neighbourhood gangs. These gangs hated us because of our brown skin colour. We owned a little shop, and our windows would be smashed frequently by drunken thugs and our walls spray painted with offensive slogans.

I may have admired the artistic form of the graffiti, had it not been sprawled with ‘paki go home’.

Go home where exactly? I’m born and bred in England. England is my home.

It was in this hostile environment that I have traced the birth of my own grit muscle, which I would later learn to exercise and grow quite unconsciously.

Despite those beginnings I am thankful for unknowingly possessing grit. My grit would serve me to survive the early hostility in my childhood, excel at school, and become a serial entrepreneur, going from broke to rich to broke to rebuilding wealth again. I worked diligently with the mindset of an immigrant, because I was the daughter of one and became one myself when I relocated abroad..

Harvard Business Review released a viral article discussing the ‘Immigrants mindset,’ and how adopting such a mindset in business could catapult success (link below).

Other buzzwords and articles, have suggested that large corporations need to work like a ‘start-up’ to become more agile and succeed in changing times.

I’d like to offer an alternative view. What does an immigrant mindset and a start-up mentality have in common? The answer is grit. For all those immigrants fleeing war-torn countries, crossing oceans with babies strapped to their bosom, don’t tell me they don’t possess grit. It is their grit that helps them survive and rebuild their lives despite danger and hostility from their host nation.

For all those start-ups who have limited funds and time to get their ideas off the ground before their last dime runs out, and their kids go hungry. Don’t tell me they don’t possess grit. It is grit that gets their ideas placed on our shelves, in our social feeds, into our consciousness , etc.

• GRIT is what gets products and services noticed.
• GRIT is what propels families to flee their war-torn country and live in a foreign lands rebuilding from zero.
• GRIT is what Usain Bolt has in abundance to become the fastest runner in the world.
• GRIT is how Novak Djokovic beat Roger Federer during 2019 Wimbledon.
• GRIT is how a hungry street child in India manages to find a scrap of food to survive the day.
• GRIT is how Skip Arcamedes came back to win a gold medal after breaking his back
• GRIT is what kept J.K Rowling writing her Harry Potter series, despite her relative poverty as a single mum.
• GRIT keeps Apple products in our pockets and in our brains.
• GRIT gets you employed.
• GRIT gives you the pay rise you deserve.
• GRIT is how Oprah became Oprah.
• GRIT is how you lose weight.
• GRIT is how you run a marathon.
• GRIT is how you and your kids will survive AND thrive in the future.

So if we all need higher dosages of grit, how do we learn it and put it to use?

My upcoming book Can’t do sh*t without grit, explores 4 specific personas or energies that we need to ‘step into’ at various times to propel our ideas.

Meet the Sage, Robot, Warrior, and Wizard

The Sage- Our inner sage is responsible for our mindset and setting goals we are passionate about. The sage’s job is to keep our thoughts in check. For our thoughts, lead to feelings, which leads to emotions, which leads to our actions. They are our inner mentors. We must have a healthy relationship with our sage. We must check in with our sage daily.

The Robot- Our inner robot is responsible for taking persistent actions. They allocate time to actions. They ensure we are managing our productivity and efficiency levels and not getting distracted. They keep showing up and doing the macro-micro tasks no matter what. They are our time-keepers.

The Warrior- Our inner warrior is responsible for being resilient and persevering in spite of it all. They house our ‘fighting spirit,’ they help us go the extra mile when we feel we can go no further. They are our strength and our action-takers.

The Wizard- Our inner wizard is our resourceful energy. They are creative, they find a way. They tap into solutions and make the best out of what we have. They direct us to finding answers, people, ideas that can help move the needle for us. They are our inner trouble-shooters, strategists, and creative source of ideas.

The above x 4 personas all show up for someone who already possess grit. Indeed those successful people we read about, will have developed a healthy relationship with their inner sage, warrior, robot and wizard in pursuit of their goals.

For the rest of us, perhaps we are sitting in one of those personas and not awakening the others. Perhaps one is dominant and the others silent. One without all, won’t get the job done.

The good news is, there are tools, techniques and hacks to step into each of the x 4 personas, whenever we need to call upon it.

For our corporate teams, we need a mix of sages, wizards, robots and warriors to lift ideas off the ground with speed. This is how Apple gets a new product/service into our lives every year. Instead of waiting to cultivate all x 4 energies in each individual team member. They bring these personas together, and churn out innovations at the speed of light. This is the fast-track way that companies can get things done.

As an individual, we can learn how to step into a particular persona when we need to call upon it. For example for my upcoming book, I need to step into the robot, and set a daily schedule with no disruptions to get the writing done by my deadline.

There are times when I don’t feel like writing, and I call upon my robot to remove distractions and get to work. When doubt or disdain creeps in, I call on my inner warrior to be resilient. My wizard remains by my side, as I try and find the words to make my point land in a powerful way. Other times I check into my inner sage to remind myself why I’m even bothering writing this book.

Then my inner Sage gives me all the reasons in a verbal vomit:

“You are writing this book to help humanity”

“ You are writing this book for our children as they will need to rescue the planet we destroyed for them”

“You are writing this book to help all those people who will lose their jobs to robots”

“You are writing this book for the struggling artist who doesn’t think they are good enough”

“You are writing this book for the employee who hates their job”

“You are writing this book for people with body issues and eating disorders”

“You are writing this book for single parents to get back on their feet”

“You are writing this book to encourage socially conscious businesses to get their ideas into the market”

“You are writing this book for teachers to become grit advocates, and then teach our children how to become grittier”

“Most of all you are writing this book for anyone who has a dream”

And with those wise reminders from my inner sage, I return to my writing. As I have already understood, that you can’t do sh*t without GRIT.

Written by Dee Allan-The Gritty Girl, International Speaker, Writer and Entrepreneur.