Steve Jobs has grit
Jonah Lehrer reports in the Boston Globe on a surprisingly reliable trait of success:
In recent years, psychologists have come up with a term to describe this mental trait: grit. Although the idea itself isn’t new – “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration,” Thomas Edison famously remarked – the researchers are quick to point out that grit isn’t simply about the willingness to work hard. Instead, it’s about setting a specific long-term goal and doing whatever it takes until the goal has been reached. It’s always much easier to give up, but people with grit can keep going. — The truth about grit, boston.com, August 2, 2009
The article says that people with great focus are often great achievers. But what the article doesn’t mention is that, when pursuing a goal for which their own skills are inadequate, great achievers often call upon others and in turn help them to become great achievers as well, one person of great focus in turn focusing the efforts of others towards a goal whose ambition lies beyond any of them separately.