“Perseverance and passion for long-term goals is a better indicator of future earnings and happiness than either IQ or talent.”
–Jenny Williams, What is Grit
Jeff Haden in his article, Want to Raise Successful Kids? Science Says Teach Them Any 1 of These 7 Things, mentions successful entrepreneurs like Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos and how they weren’t born successful. Haden mentions that they all learned to become leaders.
We have all heard the old saying that “leaders are not born, they are made” but we must take a second and ask ourselves, as parents and educators, if we are teaching the leadership skills that they will need to be leaders in 2019 and beyond.
Winfrey, Jobs, and Bezos are geniuses in their own way. They all were able to build billion-dollar enterprises that influence society today. We sometimes forget that it took more than their ‘book smarts’ to build their empires. They also had to have GRIT!
Jenny Williams in her article, What is Grit?, defines GRIT as “a distinct combination of passion, resilience, determination, and focus that allows a person to maintain the discipline and optimism to persevere in their goals even in the face of discomfort, rejection, and a lack of visible progress for years, or even decades.” We have to teach our kids to develop their passion and in those moments when they want to give up, this is when the real learning begins!
We as parents and educators have to also practice what we teach. We have to share with our kids our moments of perseverance that challenged us and how we pushed through. We have to let them know that we have failed, but we learned from it and became better for it (If you haven’t recognized the lessons in your failure, take a moment to reflect to see what it is)
During our Youth Leadership Academy, I share with our students the many times that I failed in the process of creating iMar Learning. But, with every failure, we kept learning and moving forward. We are primed to have our most successful year in 2019 because of our GRIT!
I challenge you to share your moments of perseverance with your children or students and help them to begin to develop GRIT in 2019. You never know, you might be speaking to the next Oprah, Bezos, or Jobs!
Contact us today to schedule a chat session to see if one of our Career Coaches have the answer you have been seeking!
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