A Personal Story

My daughter, a collegiate soccer player, recently called me with some tough news. After months of grueling recovery from surgery on a torn tendon in her left ankle, her doctor suspected the same issue in her right. She had, “won the ankle injury lottery in the worst way possible.”

The frustration in her voice was palpable. The momentum she had fought so hard to rebuild was gone. The path forward, once a straight line back to the field, was now clouded with uncertainty. It was one of those moments every parent dreads—seeing your child face a setback that feels profoundly unfair. But it also became a powerful life lesson, the kind you can’t learn from a textbook. It got me thinking about the one quality that truly defines us in these moments: grit.

What is Grit, Really?

We throw the word “grit” around a lot, often mistaking it for simple toughness. But it’s more than that. Angela Duckworth, in her groundbreaking research, defined it as the combination of passion and perseverance toward long-term goals. It’s not just about enduring hardship; it’s about having a clarity of purpose that fuels that endurance.

From my perspective as a leader, this is the critical distinction. Grit isn’t just about having the talent to succeed or the luck to avoid failure. Plenty of people have those. Grit is the sustained, focused effort applied over time, driven by a deep sense of meaning. It’s the conscious decision to keep going when it would be far easier to stop, not because you’re stubborn, but because you believe in where you’re going. In a world where giving up is all too convenient—and often encouraged as the path more traveled—choosing to persevere is a radical act.

I saw this firsthand growing up as the son of immigrants. For my parents who immigrated from the Philippines, grit wasn’t a concept to be studied; it was a daily necessity. They arrived with no safety net and no backup plan. Pushing forward wasn’t a choice; it was the only option. Their perseverance was forged in the simple, non-negotiable reality of survival, teaching me that the deepest forms of grit often come from a place of profound necessity. There is no doing hard in life without grit.

Grit in Leadership and Business

Organizations face their own version of a torn tendon. A product launch fails. A key customer churns. A quarter ends in the red. These are the moments that test a company’s character. But the real test often comes when things are going well. This is the core of the innovator’s dilemma: the gravitational pull toward what is already successful, which prevents companies from discovering their next, necessary engine of growth. It takes organizational grit to fight that inertia and venture into the unknown. Look at Netflix. They could have remained the king of DVDs-by-mail, but they had the grit to cannibalize their own successful business to lead the streaming revolution. Then they did it again, risking billions to become a creator of original content. Each pivot was a bet against their own proven success, driven by a gritty vision for the future.

In my career as a CTO, I’ve seen this play out time and again. The teams that survive and ultimately thrive aren’t always the most brilliant, but the most persistent. Whether it was navigating massive industry transformations, driving digital adoption, or preparing for the disruption of AI, the journey was never a straight line. There was always resistance and the temptation to revert to the old playbook. The successful teams were the ones who could absorb the blows, learn from them, and maintain their conviction. They had the grit to stick with the vision through the messy, uncomfortable, and often frustrating process of making it a reality.

Grit as a Cultural Superpower

When grit is embedded in an organization’s DNA, it becomes a cultural superpower: resilience. A culture of grit normalizes setbacks. It reframes them not as catastrophes, but as learning opportunities. It creates an environment where people feel safe to fail, as long as they fail forward.

To get past a dip, you have to empower everyone to be a problem-solver. There’s no room for bureaucratic project managers who simply pass messages along. You need a team culture built on customer empathy, deep subject matter expertise, and first-principles thinking. When people are equipped and trusted to solve problems, they don’t just manage the work—they own the outcome. This is the engine of a gritty organization.

This is what separates the sprinters from the long-distance runners in the corporate world. A team that panics at the first sign of trouble will burn out. But a team that views challenges as part of the process builds a sustainable advantage. Their resilience compounds over time, allowing them to outlast competitors and navigate market shifts that would cripple more fragile organizations.

Where Grit is Forged

Grit isn’t an abstract virtue; it’s a muscle built in the face of real adversity. There are a few arenas where it is tested in its purest form. The first is in a health crisis. As I wrote about previously, watching a friend battle cancer is a profound lesson in perspective. For someone facing a devastating diagnosis, there is no option but to push forward through pain and uncertainty. It is the ultimate test of will, where perseverance is not for a promotion or a product launch, but for life itself.

The second is in the trenches of a startup. I’ve seen it countless times: a company is about to run out of money. The metrics are flat, investors are hesitant, and payroll is looming. This is the moment that separates enduring companies from footnotes in history. When Airbnb’s founders were deep in debt, they famously designed and sold cereal boxes named “Obama O’s” and “Cap’n McCain’s” to keep the company alive. That wasn’t a glamorous strategic pivot; it was pure, unadulterated grit.

The third is during a large-scale transformation. The truth is, most transformations fail. The inertia of “the way we’ve always done things” is a powerful force. Pushing through requires weathering setbacks like deep-seated employee resistance, the failure of a new technology platform, or a key project that goes off the rails. Sticking with the vision when everything and everyone is telling you to revert to the comfortable norm is the very definition of organizational grit.

These are just a few examples. Where have you seen true grit? In a family member, a colleague, a historical figure, or maybe even in the mirror? Recognizing it in others is the first step to cultivating it in ourselves.

The Sickness of Entitlement

If grit is the superpower, then entitlement is the kryptonite. It is a true sickness in any organization or individual. Entitlement is the belief that you are owed success, that the path should be easy, and that struggle is an injustice. It’s the counter-emotion to grit. Where grit sees a challenge as an opportunity to prove oneself, entitlement sees it as an unfair burden. It replaces the drive to earn with the expectation to be given. This is why one of the most important things you can do for your kids is show them what hard work and grit look like. They see what you do far more than they hear what you say. When they see you push through, they learn that they can, too.

The Gift of Setbacks

It’s a paradox, but the very challenges we try to avoid are the ones that forge the strength we need. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang told a group of Stanford Business School students, “I wish upon you ample doses of pain and suffering.” It sounds harsh, but his point was profound: greatness and character aren’t formed when things are easy. They are formed by people who have suffered and persevered.

Easy paths don’t build grit; they don’t have to. Setbacks are crucibles. They strip away the non-essential and reveal what people and organizations are truly made of. They are the antidote to entitlement. My daughter is learning this right now. This painful, frustrating journey is forcing her to dig deeper than ever before. She is discovering a reserve of strength and determination she might never have known she had. In the same way, leaders and teams only discover the depth of their own grit when faced with real adversity. These moments, as difficult as they are, are a gift.

The Power to Get You Through

As my daughter begins her long road back—again—I’m reminded that her resilience is the real victory. The strength she is building today will serve her long after her soccer career is over. I told her these are stories she will share to her teams when they need to get through tough times. She just doesn’t know it yet.

The same is true for all of us. I encourage you to cultivate grit in yourself and in your teams. It will be the one true differentiator when industries shift, strategies fail, and the path forward is anything but clear.

Innovation, talent, and strategy can take you far. But grit is the superpower that gets you through.