What's most important in life? Your GPA or having GRIT?

Success, perseverance, persistence and passion look different for everyone. Yet, why is it the case that everyone believes that there is a short cut to finding your ‘sweet spot’ or zone in life? Is it really possible to figure life out when you are 15, 25 or 55? Isn’t it more likely that this is an ongoing adventure that redefines itself multiple times over the journey of what we call life?

I will always remember my dad’s adage that the difficult we can do in a few days but the impossible might take a little longer. Little did I realize as I watched my dad go from being an Air Force Aviator that flew all over the world to a caring husband who watched his lady slowly die a thousand times over 5 years to someone that literally lost his mind that he was the embodiment of grit, tenacity, perseverance and hope!

I was recently reading an article by David Brooks published in the New York Times about understanding grit and success in life. It was almost as if he was speaking totally against our present day system of assessing what makes a person more likely to make it in life. Does it really matter that I had a 2.5 or 4.5 GPA in High School or College? Brooks was quick to show that it’s really not possible to be great at everything so someone who gets the perfect score on standardized testing isn’t necessarily the real genius!

It was through reading Brook’s article that I was introduced to Angela Lee-Duckworth and her recent book on Grit. She shared her life story of being raised in a rather typical Asian Family setting where success and perfection were the standard raised before her. Her dad was rather slow to give her accolades or a word of praise. So this pushed her to pursue initially what she thought was the definition of success, working as a consultant in New York making way too much money. Yet, for whatever reasons this definition of success wasn’t for her and pushed her to teach in low-income neighborhood schools.

Her journey took her from New York to Chicago and back to graduate school to pursue understanding what really matters in life. What’s the key determinate factor that makes one person, regardless of IQ, pursue their dreams and make them happen versus another person who would appear to be a genius type that ultimately drops out of life? Or more importantly what has to happen for what appears to be the average type of person to see them keep pursuing their passions in life until they make it happen?

Duckworth studied students that entered into West Point Academy to see what was it that made some drop out before the end of their basic training and why others seemed to thrive off of the insane pressure and testing. Clearly these students all had to have high intelligence scores and be very involved in their community and are capable of getting the attention of their State Senator. Yet, the obvious results were that there was a significant amount of students who dropped out and didn’t ‘cut the mustard’!

What I find as fascinating is that Duckworth ending up receiving a special award and grant designed only for the genius types yet her passion was for those that don’t fit this typical grid in life. My dad was the one who grew up in a tough neighborhood, had his parent’s marriage end in divorce only to be raised around the stereotypical step-dad whose only goal in life was to demean my dad and make sure he failed.

My dad became a person that never complained or made excuses about his past! It wasn’t until my dad’s dementia had literally taken his ability to think and reason from him that a close friend from his Air Force days came for a special visit. It was over breakfast that I listened to Bill Dettmer sharing his story of how my dad’s leadership grit influenced him. I listened to a story I had never heard about how my dad’s tenacity for life had influenced this friend to not drop out of the Air Force because he didn’t make it as a pilot. I was in tears as I realized the type of person my dad was in relationship to his peers who usually were more interested in their own success then the success of others.

The good news through Brooks or Duckworth is that you don’t have to be a genius in life to make your dreams become a daily reality. Yet, the real news is that life isn’t going to ever be easy and dealing with failure becomes more important than your GPA or what letters you have next to your name. The real message is that perseverance, passion, having firmness of character and an indomitable spirit is the essence of what will make your life the best!