Grit: Why Success Is Rarely About Talent Alone

In modern society, success is often attributed to intelligence, talent, and privilege. Yet research, real-world leadership experiences, and elite performance in sports consistently reveal a deeper truth: long-term success is powered not by brilliance alone, but by endurance.

Grit — defined as passion and perseverance for long-term goals — has emerged as one of the strongest predictors of sustained achievement. From marathon runners to startup founders, from frontline workers to CEOs of global corporations, those who remain committed during adversity outperform those who rely only on motivation or talent.

When NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang addressed Stanford students in 2024, he offered a controversial but powerful insight: people with high expectations often possess low resilience. According to Huang, greatness is not built in comfort but forged through pressure, hardship, and repeated setbacks. This philosophy reflects the same principle observed in psychological research on grit and in endurance sports such as long-distance running.

Understanding Grit: More Than Motivation

Grit is not temporary enthusiasm. Motivation fluctuates with mood, environment, and external rewards. Grit, in contrast, represents sustained effort and consistent interest over extended periods.

Psychological research describes grit through two core components: perseverance of effort and consistency of interest. Together, these traits allow individuals to stay committed to long-term objectives even when short-term progress slows or setbacks occur.

Highly gritty individuals do not avoid difficulty. Instead, they develop tolerance for discomfort and uncertainty. This explains why many high achievers are not necessarily the most intelligent people in their fields, but rather the most persistent.

Running as a Living Model of Grit

Long-distance running offers a powerful metaphor for grit.

During the first kilometers of a marathon, energy is high, and optimism dominates. However, beyond the halfway point, physical pain increases and mental resistance appears. This is where runners face a critical decision: surrender or persist.

Elite runners succeed not because they avoid pain, but because they learn how to remain functional within discomfort. They train their minds as much as their bodies. Over time, repeated exposure to discomfort builds mental toughness, emotional regulation, and confidence in one’s ability to endure.

Business leadership follows the same psychological pattern. Initial excitement fades when markets fluctuate, competitors emerge, and unexpected failures occur. Entrepreneurs who survive long-term treat setbacks as part of the training process rather than as signals to quit.

Pain, Pressure, and Character: Lessons from NVIDIA’s CEO

Jensen Huang openly embraces hardship as a development tool. Inside NVIDIA, he refers to difficult projects as “pain and suffering” — not negatively, but as character-building experiences.

His leadership philosophy highlights three important principles. First, lower expectations increase resilience. When leaders anticipate struggle instead of comfort, they respond more effectively to setbacks. Second, character outweighs intelligence. Technical knowledge can be learned, but emotional endurance is cultivated through repeated exposure to difficulty. Third, great organizations are shaped by pressure. Innovation, discipline, and excellence rarely emerge from comfortable environments.

This mindset aligns strongly with grit research, reinforcing the idea that long-term business excellence depends more on psychological stamina than raw intellect.

Grit in the Workplace: Performance, Retention, and Engagement

In organizational settings, grit has proven to be a powerful predictor of employee performance and long-term commitment. Employees who possess higher levels of grit tend to remain focused on long-term objectives even when daily tasks become repetitive or stressful.

Rather than seeking immediate rewards, gritty employees develop internal motivation anchored in purpose and professional identity. This leads to greater consistency in effort and higher quality output over time. Managers often observe that such individuals are more willing to take responsibility, persist through difficult projects, and maintain productivity under pressure.

Retention is another major benefit of grit. High employee turnover is costly for organizations, both financially and culturally. Gritty employees demonstrate stronger loyalty and are less likely to resign during periods of difficulty. They view challenges as part of career development rather than as reasons to leave.

Engagement is also deeply influenced by grit. When individuals believe their work contributes to long-term goals, they become emotionally invested in organizational success. This emotional investment fosters teamwork, accountability, and organizational citizenship behaviors that strengthen company culture.

Ultimately, workplaces that recognize and cultivate grit experience more stable teams, stronger performance continuity, and healthier organizational climates.

Leadership and Organizational Culture

Leadership behavior plays a decisive role in shaping grit within organizations. Employees take cues from how leaders respond to failure, stress, and uncertainty.

In high-grit cultures, leaders encourage learning rather than blame. Mistakes are treated as feedback opportunities instead of personal failures. This approach reduces fear and increases experimentation, which is essential for innovation and growth.

Moreover, leaders who demonstrate perseverance during a crisis send powerful psychological signals. When employees observe consistent leadership behavior during adversity, they develop confidence in organizational stability and direction.

Just as elite sports teams design structured endurance training programs, successful companies intentionally design environments that reward effort consistency, adaptability, and long-term commitment.

Grit During Crisis: Lessons from the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic created unprecedented disruption across industries. Businesses faced operational shutdowns, remote workforce transitions, supply chain instability, and financial uncertainty. Employees experienced isolation, emotional strain, and job insecurity.

Organizations that survived and adapted most effectively demonstrated collective grit. Leaders prioritized transparent communication, emotional support, and strategic flexibility. Rather than waiting for conditions to stabilize, they redesigned workflows, adopted digital tools, and invested in employee well-being.

Professionals with high grit adapted faster to remote work, acquired new skills, and maintained productivity despite uncertainty. Similar to endurance athletes adjusting pace during extreme weather, gritty individuals modified strategies while maintaining long-term focus.

The pandemic confirmed that resilience is not optional; it is a core survival skill in volatile environments.

Grit and Gender: Empowering Female Achievement

Research highlights the critical role of grit in supporting female academic and professional success. Women often encounter additional challenges, including leadership bias, career interruptions, and social expectations that create uneven professional landscapes.

Studies show that women with higher grit levels demonstrate greater professional confidence, stronger persistence in leadership pathways, and improved coping strategies under pressure. Grit enables women to navigate complex social and organizational barriers while maintaining long-term career goals.

In entrepreneurship and corporate leadership, gritty women are more likely to sustain business growth, remain engaged during adversity, and overcome structural obstacles that might otherwise limit advancement.

Importantly, grit functions as a psychological equalizer. It provides individuals from underrepresented or disadvantaged backgrounds with tools to compete more effectively in demanding professional environments.

Benefits of Grit: Beyond Productivity

The advantages of grit extend beyond performance metrics.

Individuals with higher grit levels report better emotional regulation, stronger stress management abilities, and higher overall life satisfaction. Grit contributes to mental stability by reinforcing purpose and self-efficacy — the belief that one’s actions can influence outcomes.

Unlike short-term motivation, which depends on external rewards, grit creates durable internal motivation grounded in identity and long-term meaning.

When Grit Becomes Dangerous: Avoiding Toxic Persistence

Although grit is powerful, excessive or misdirected persistence can become harmful. Toxic grit occurs when individuals ignore physical and psychological limits, glorify exhaustion, and reject recovery.

Sustainable grit includes balance. Elite athletes schedule rest days to prevent injury. Effective leaders must adopt similar strategies by encouraging recovery, promoting mental health, and preventing burnout within teams.

Healthy grit is not about endless suffering; it is about intelligent endurance.

Running Your Business Like a Marathon

Sustainable business success resembles a marathon strategy rather than sprint tactics.

Successful organizations manage pacing by avoiding overexpansion without sufficient infrastructure. They prioritize consistent execution instead of chasing rapid but unstable growth. Recovery and renewal are integrated into organizational design through training programs, team support systems, and leadership development initiatives.

Small daily improvements accumulate into powerful long-term advantages.

Building Grit: Practical Development Strategies

Grit can be intentionally developed through daily practice. Redefining failure as feedback helps individuals reframe challenges as learning opportunities. Practicing controlled discomfort — such as tackling difficult tasks or engaging in physical training — strengthens mental tolerance.

Identity-based goals encourage individuals to see themselves as resilient professionals rather than short-term performers. Tracking progress reinforces momentum, while surrounding oneself with persistent peers creates social reinforcement.

Like endurance training, psychological resilience grows gradually through repetition and consistency.

Conclusion: The Long Road Advantage

Success is rarely dramatic. It is repetitive, uncomfortable, and often invisible to outsiders.

It is waking up early without applause.
It is continuing after failure.
It is choosing consistency over comfort.

Grit is not about being the fastest.
It is about being the one who does not stop.

As Jensen Huang emphasized, pain is not punishment — it is preparation.
And as scientific research confirms, character outlasts talent.

Those who remain in the race eventually cross the finish line.

Authored by:

Dr. Alireza Sarmadi
Family Physician

References:

- Journal Articles & Academic Papers:

Duckworth, A. L., Peterson, C., Matthews, M. D., & Kelly, D. R. (2007). Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(6), 1087–1101.

Credé, M., Tynan, M. C., & Harms, P. D. (2017). Much ado about grit: A meta-analytic synthesis of the grit literature. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(3), 492–511.

Eskreis-Winkler, L., Duckworth, A. L., Shulman, E. P., & Beal, S. (2014). The grit effect: Predicting retention in the military, the workplace, school and marriage. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 36.

Alan, S., Boneva, T., & Ertac, S. (2019). Ever failed, try again, succeed better: Results from a randomized educational intervention on grit. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 134(3), 1121–1162.

Kannangara, C. S., Allen, R. E., Waugh, G., et al. (2018). All that glitters is not grit: Three studies of grit in university students. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1539.

Sharkey, J. D., You, S., & Schnoebelen, K. (2018). Relations among school assets, grit, and student engagement. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 47(4), 803–815.

Duckworth, A. L., & Quinn, P. D. (2009). Development and validation of the Short Grit Scale (Grit-S). Journal of Personality Assessment, 91(2), 166–174.

Suzuki, Y., Tamesue, D., Asahi, K., & Ishikawa, Y. (2015). Grit and work engagement: A cross-sectional study. PLOS ONE, 10(9), e0137501.

Killgore, W. D. S., Taylor, E. C., Cloonan, S. A., & Dailey, N. S. (2020). Psychological resilience during the COVID-19 lockdown. Psychiatry Research, 291, 113216.

Disabato, D. J., Goodman, F. R., Kashdan, T. B., Short, J. L., & Jarden, A. (2019). Different types of well-being? A cross-cultural examination of grit and life satisfaction. Journal of Positive Psychology, 14(3), 1–12.

- Videos / Talks / Public Speeches:

Duckworth, A. (2013). Grit: The power of passion and perseverance [Video]. TED Conferences.

https://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_grit_the_power_of_passion_and_perseverance

Huang, J. (2024). Keynote speech at SIEPR Economic Summit, Stanford University [Video]. Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.

(Official event recording reference – NVIDIA CEO keynote)