Have you ever struggled to put a toddler to bed? Did you lose the battle? Yeah, I know how you feel. Hopefully this blog post will be encouraging to you. Some of that toddler’s determination is exactly what we as parents strive to nurture in our children.
Meryl Streep said, “What does it take to be the first of anything? It takes grit, and it takes grace.” Grit, tenacity, resilience, determination, stubbornness, doggedness whatever you call it, we want to cultivate it.
I am the one person I know who has been down in a tennis match 6-0, 5-0 and has come back to win. I wish I could tell you I did so because I had hope, I knew I could do it, I saw victory in the middle of defeat. That wasn’t it.
I was playing in a real tournament for the first time when I was about 12 years old. I loved tennis (still do) and had been playing for a while but had never actually registered as a competitor. My dad thought it would be a good experience. My mom was befuddled by the ten dollar registration fee, “Why does it cost ten dollars when the balls, a t-shirt, and the court time are not even included? What does the ten dollars cover?”
Of course I laugh now as I watch people who spend tens of thousands of dollars yearly on their children achieving USTA rankings, traveling to God knows how many cities for sanctioned tournaments, and enrollment into elite tennis academies. But for us, at that time, $10 was the family conversation and quite frankly it was getting on my nerves. Initially, to be a part of the hustle and bustle of dozens of girls heading out to different courts was exciting. Yet, my mom’s complaints dominated my thoughts. In my match, I found myself down 6-0, 5-0. Ugh. How could I go home now? It had only been 25 minutes. I just had to stretch out the match. So, I tried to make each point last longer, just keeping the ball in play. I was thinking that if the ten dollars bought an hour or two of activity not 30 minutes, then it would be justified. Apparently, I was a “girl math prodigy.”
I never once thought “I can win this thing.” I didn’t look that far into the future. I simply wanted to stay on the court. I kept hitting one more shot. The match was a fight to the end and somehow as we completed the final point and jogged to the net to shake hands I was the winner.
At that stage, I didn’t care that much about the victory as I knew I had uncovered something deep inside me that I would never lose. I learned that I didn’t know how to give up.
Although my stick-to-it-iveness is not always convenient, persistence is the single factor for any success I have personally enjoyed in my career.
I started my company, SourceHarbour, in 2003. At that time, we had only $4,000 worth of revenue and were being sued by a $1.8B company. The company leaders spent $500,000 suing us because we “were putting them out of business”. Talk about a bad day!.
By the end of the week, my legal bill was over $25,000. I called my investors back east and let them know what was happening. Immediately, they all told me to give up and to tend to my family. They did not care about their financial loss as their investments had been small. They knew we had done nothing wrong. The more supportive they were and the more they cared more about me as a person, the more I wanted to fight to save the company and the less I wanted to toss in the towel.
Three months later the lawsuit still consumed us and finally settled leaving me with a $384,000 legal bill. Remember, at that time our company had only $4,000 of revenue!
We survived. The real victory was that we went on to build SourceHarbor into a company that served thousands of clients across fourteen countries. When I finally sold it years later, it was the best performer in my key investor’s portfolio. And personally, the sale afforded me six years off to do the job I loved, stay-at-home mom.
In sum, grit, tenacity, perseverance, resilience and success all come less from vision and more from the desire and ability to stay the course, to continue with a deliberate practice.
Remember that toddler? My daughter did not sleep through the night for her first fourteen months. They say the definition of colic is crying inconsolably for three hours or more a day for six days a week. Well, she cried closer to six hours a day which meant that I cried for three! So, there I was a thirty-two year old with colic. I remember arguing with her, “This is not what I had planned as a mother! We are supposed to be at the park, feeding ducks, smelling flowers…” I was SO frustrated. If you had told me then that those tough fourteen months would feed into a practically perfect next twenty-four years, I would not have complained. Lucky me, she’s never given me a minute of trouble since.
Savannah was so determined to succeed in school and attend a small liberal arts school that she only befriended the smartest kid in her grade. When that person changed schools or moved away or got distracted by social temptations, Savannah “best friended” the next smartest kid. Her grit carried me and my sons through years that should have been filled with turmoil. It is not a coincidence she excelled at Vassar College, Meryl Streep’s alma mater.
Visually, we were able to enjoy the beauty of her stick-to-it-ness one memorable evening. In the seventh grade, Savannah was selected for the role of Marie in the Nutcracker. This was my favorite season of the year as we knew most of the families of the fifty ballerinas who performed throughout the six shows. It served as a recital in some ways for dozens of young girls. Additionally, it was an incredible production which brought in a few professional ballet dancers from classical ballet companies around the country for premier and partnering roles. On this particular Friday evening, the theatre was packed yet there was a problem. The production manager had spent the day in the hospital and no one else was trained in his responsibilities such as opening and closing curtains, dimming and brightening lights, and ensuring the correct music is played and well timed. “Should we cancel the show?” Everyone wondered but decided the show must go on!
When it came time for Savannah’s solo she was ready and poised. She had rehearsed for five hours a day for months. The music started but it was the wrong music. The last minute fill-in person had made a mistake. Savannah danced. Her leaps were flawless, her smile was electrifying, her performance was stunning. Savannah’s solo morphed into a dance where fifteen other party girls were to follow her lead. They did. It was seamless even though it began with the wrong music. Most of the six hundred people in the audience never noticed any problem. I, however, will never forget when the professional visiting dancer said to me after the show that he had never seen anything like it. Most people would have gotten frustrated, stalled, waited for the music to get changed and in doing so would have brought all the attention to the problem. Not Savannah. The same baby who refused to go to sleep at naptime became the girl who refused to let anything get in the way of her special moment.
What about my tennis opponent? She is a superstar who went on to become the captain of her Ivy League tennis team and is now an executive at the Tennis Channel. Many years after our first encounter, I ran into her and she graciously credited our match as playing a role in her success. Which leads me to an exercise I want you to do. Have you ever been defeated, rejected, cut from a team, denied acceptance to a fellowship, university, etc.? Please write that person or institution a letter and begin with “Thank you for being a part of my grit story.” Continue to admire their work or whatever it was about them that made you want to apply in the first place, wish them well, and share the hope your paths will again someday cross. Then dig deep and commit to improving, growing, and living your best life.
