Is grit the true secret of success?
Grit and perseverence, however you call them, are important aspects to success, but not THE secret to success.<p>If you look at the subset of people who enjoy &quot;success&quot; in life, a large number of them will display those qualitites, no doubt. But some of them could have attained it by sheer luck, filial connections, or others.<p>Now, if you look at the complementary subset (people who do not enjoy &quot;success&quot; in life), I guarantee you will find plenty of gritee people in there, in addition to people who display personal qualities not conducive to success (which by no mean excludes them from enjoying success in live, given the proper circumstances - see previous paragraph).<p>That&#x27;s the aspect I do not enjoy about those &quot;secret to success stories: no one ever considers the people who did everthing rigth, but did not succeed. It happen much more often than we think. No one cares for the losers, whatever the cause, alas. This is the &#x27;survivorship paradox&#x27; described by Cicero... Taleb called it the Silent cemetary evidence.<p>One more aspect, if I may: when can one determine someone else is a &quot;success&quot;, or a &quot;failure&quot;? People certainly are entitled to more than one shot at success, and negative results are certainly a valid way to pinpoint your path towards success.<p>So, grit is not THE secret path to success, but if your goal is to be successful, then internalising a gritee spirit certainly demultiply the possibilities to enjoy success.