Grit: Why Effort and Hard Work Make All the Difference

“Effort counts twice.”

Anyone out there ever read Angela Duckworth‘s book, Grit, or watched her Ted Talk on the same subject? Those of us on the team here at CivvieSupply are big fans of her work and her ideas.

Duckworth defines "grit" as "a combination of passion and perseverance for a singularly important goal," and she has found through her extensive research that grit is "the hallmark of high achievers in every domain." 

A core part of her thinking is that the wins in life don’t all just go to those with the most natural-born skill or talent. Instead, based on her research, she has come up with a "mathematical" formula showing the ingredients involved in achievement. She believes that “Talent x Effort = Skill,” and then “Skill x Effort = Achievement.” In other words, those who achieve the most are those who WORK the hardest and have the most grit, because “effort counts twice” in the formula for achievement, more than talent alone or skill alone. The effort makes the difference.

Those of us who have served in the military, or have worked through tough family situations, or have perhaps worked in fast-growing companies all know this to be true. You can start with giftedness, or an initial skill set, or a group of good teammates; hell, you might even get lucky on some level at some point and that luck starts you rolling in a good direction. That's all great. But, in the end, it is the effort that makes the difference. More important than what you have is what you do with what you have. The application of that effort to the raw materials of talent and skill is the key factor in achievement.

The best leaders know this to be true, which is why they work the hardest, like COL Hal Moore did as he worked hard to get to know all his junior leaders and spent hours late into the night studying his enemies' tactics. (COL Moore is a hero of ours here at CivvieSupply, by the way, which is why we include the picture of him here as he was depicted by Mel Gibson in We Were Soldiers.) He was already a brilliant student of history and a skilled leader, but he continued to work harder than anyone else around him, promising — and keeping his promise! — that he would be the first and last boots on the ground in the Battle of Ia Drang. COL Moore had grit because he was passionate about his people, and he always gave his best efforts for them.

Here in our company, we make the cultivation of grit, and the application of our best effort to every task we do, a key part of our ethos. Our mission is to make the finest heritage-oriented and legacy-focused patriotic and military apparel in the country, and we will persevere through all challenges as we seek to accomplish the mission, because grit is in our DNA. 

CivvieSupply is about to start a new chapter as we continue to grow. Here is our pledge that we promise you can count on in the days to come, though: We are going to continue giving our VERY best effort for the customers that we love, every single day. It is our great dream to help every American patriot show the world his or her pride in heritage and in legacy, and we won’t stop giving our very best effort until that’s happened.

So thanks, Professor Duckworth, for teaching us that “effort counts twice.” We won't ever stop giving our best effort, and we won't ever stop building CivvieSupply until we've achieved our dream of making the finest gear for patriots in the country.

#flagsforward,

Franklin (Brother #1)