#126: Grit—The Single Quality That Will Determine Your Long-Term Success as a Freelancer

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia.

Hey there. Thank you for joining me for episode 126 of the High Income Business Writing Podcast. My name is Ed Gandia and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to take their writing businesses to the six figure level or the part time equivalent. As a quick reminder, you can find the details show notes to this episode by going to b2b launcher.com 1:26 I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about success, just success in general, however you define success. And I like to think of success as in a very holistic way. And when I think about this stuff, I often think about the difference between people who succeed over the long haul and those who drop off somewhere along the way. And I've just been infatuated with this idea for as long as I can remember. And I think it stems from the struggles that I faced when I was a kid and what I did to overcome the odds. So for many years I had very low self confidence. I didn't think that I was good at much. I certainly wasn't good at sports. I wasn't an athlete. I wasn't nearly as smart as most of my friends. And I just felt that nearly everyone else was better than I was. I spent a big portion of my childhood just accepting these things as truth. And to add to all this, and I think this was a big part of it, English was my second language and that was always in the back of my mind. I just felt disadvantage and I felt like other people had it better and you know, they were smarter, they were better, you know, better looking, whatever, better at sports, better at this, better at that. But halfway through high school, I realized that this wasn't true. You know, most of my peers weren't any better than I was. And it just, I remember waking up to this fact and I remember exactly when it hit me. It was kind of in a strange place and I was studying for a social studies test or something and I just remember thinking, wait a minute, why do I feel this way? This guy is not any smarter than I am. I mean, look what he did. I could have done that. It just hit me that maybe, just maybe these beliefs were just in my head. They were really weren't a good reflection, an accurate reflection of truth. And within a few short months, I went from basically a C or B minus average to getting into the National Honor Society. The Last semester of my senior year in high school, I started weight training. I got into the best shape of my life. I got into a great college, I got all A's and B's in college. I landed a great job out of school, despite coming into getting out of college during a bad recession. And I worked my way up in very challenging sales situations. Looking back at all this, it just seems so unlikely. In fact, I've yet to take an IQ test for fear that a low score would impact the self confidence that I've been able to build up over the years. I still feel like it's, it's somewhat fragile. And my fear is that, oh my gosh, what if, what if I take that and I'm even less smart than I think I am, you know. But I think this experience got me really interested in the study of success. And ever since then I've been fascinated by why some people do consistently well again over the long haul, because I'm not interested in overnight kind of luck. And why others seem to struggle despite the fact that they're smarter than average, maybe have more financial resources than the average person, they have better skills, they have a great personality, they're great looking or what have you. In my work as a business building coach, being able to identify people who have what it takes and those who don't have some of the critical attributes needed to succeed, that's a very important thing to have because you have to be able to identify that and then work with that person and be honest with them and show them how they can overcome these obstacles. And you need to do that early on. So you need to be able to basically assess and then work around that, work with that person on these limitations. And after working with more than 300 freelancers at all levels of their business, in all different stages, from newbies to six figure earners, I've reached some very interesting conclusions. For instance, I constantly talk about the importance of taking action. You've probably been listening to the show. If you've been following my stuff, you know, I'm always emphasize action, taking execution, but not just any level of action to make it as a solo professional or to get to the next level of success. Once you're an established freelance writer or copywriter, you have to take massive action. I've talked about that before. I've also talked about, in and written about the importance of focus, of commitment and belief. And I'm always reminding new and aspiring freelance writers and copywriters how hard it is to get your business off the ground. And how most aspiring freelancers never make it. In fact, I'm often criticized for blurting out this basic truth. Some of my peers criticize me for being so honest about this, and others think that it's demotivating for aspiring freelance writers to hear that. But I speak openly about these things and about the nature of the challenge, because I know that if it were me on the other end, I'd want to know the truth. I would want to know that it's going to take an incredible amount of work and focus, and most importantly, that it's going to take a heavy dose of grit. Grit. That's such a fascinating word and encompasses so many of the ingredients needed to succeed in an endeavor that's just filled with obstacle after obstacle. And that, my dear listener, is what I'd like to talk about today. The Critical Role of grit in Freelance Success Regardless of where you are, whether you're an aspiring freelancer, you're relatively new, you're established and trying to get to the next level. You are doing very, very well, and you're looking to change your business evolve in some way. In fact, for the first time in my podcast, I'm going to dedicate a full month to this topic that's going to be the theme for the month of May. I feel that it's really that important. If I have to choose, grit is the one quality I would want to have above any other. I would trade all the money, all the resources and connections and skills and knowledge that I've acquired over the years for a strong amount, a heavy amount of grit. Because with a heavy dose of grit, I'm confident that I'd eventually get all that back. So who needs grit, and where do you need it in your freelance business? Well, you definitely need a good amount of grit if you're trying to launch a freelance writing or copywriting business. You definitely need it if you're an established freelancer and you're trying to break out of a plateau of income or client quality. And even if you're happy with status quo, let's just say that you're fine where you are. You still need to be gritty, because change is inevitable, and the ability to change, adapt, and evolve requires a gritty personality. For years, I've talked and written about all these critical success factors in freelancing, but it wasn't until I came across Angela Duckworth's book titled the Power of Passion and Perseverance that I found a much more elegant way to describe what you need to do well on your own as a self employed freelance professional. In fact, I can't recommend Duckworth's book strongly enough. It's an eye opening book for me. It's tied together and confirmed so many of the things that I had noticed in my work as a freelancer and in my work as a business building coach for freelance professionals. This is not a feel good kind of book. Okay. I need to let you know that if you haven't read the book, if you're not familiar with it, you need to understand that this is a work that's backed with a heavy amount of research. Duckworth is an academic and professor of psychology, but this is not. It has a practical, a very, very practical edge to it. This is definitely something you can read, you can highlight, you can apply, and it can help you in your business and in your life right away. Essentially, grit encompasses all the key ingredients you need to not just achieve success as a freelancer, but also sustainability success over the long haul. That's so important because I think achieving some level of success is a lot easier than sustaining that success over the long term. We're going to have some case study episodes this month featuring freelance writers and copywriters who, in my mind, have a high level of grit. These people have pushed past big obstacles and setbacks to achieve success. But today I mainly just want to introduce a topic and I want to do that by summarizing some of my biggest takeaways from Duckworth's book. Plus, I'll give you a link to a test you can take to determine how gritty you are right now. But don't worry, because if you don't score as high as you were hoping, Duckworth's book is filled with advice on how you can increase your level of grit because fortunately, this is something anyone can improve. It's not an inborn quality that you're stuck with. One of Duckworth's biggest findings is that grit isn't just about perseverance. And that was surprising for me because when I thought of grit, one of the first words that came to mind was perseverance, doggedness. Grit involves two other elements. It involves passion and it involves purpose. People who have passion, an intrinsic drive for an activity or initiative can persist longer than people who are relying purely on willpower. But better yet, people who have purpose. So an important why, right? A good reason, strong reason, why they're doing what they're doing. They can persist even longer than those who just have passion. And that, to me, is key. You may be passionate about your work, but let's say that you hate marketing your services, which is essential to your success as a freelancer. Well, if you have a clear purpose for doing the work you do, for being self employed, that can help you overcome some of the areas in which you're weak. Right? Because then marketing, self promotion, those in a way are obstacles to you. And being gritty will help you overcome those. Grit is also more about stamina than intensity. That was another big takeaway for me because it's so true when you think about it. It's the classic turtle and hare metaphor. Slow and steady wins the race. Sure, we can go about the problem in a frenzied, full steam ahead kind of way. And you know, we can talk about hustle. And the whole concept of hustle is just being glorified in a big way out there by some big time gurus. But eventually we all run out of steam. Okay, let's face it, many of us have tried that approach and we know that it's short lived. You know, we're better off taking small, incremental, purposeful and consistent steps over time. In fact, Duckworth explains that many of the most important human achievements are the aggregate of countless ordinary individual elements. So doing them consistently, doing them correctly over time produces excellence. It's not the, you know, overnight thing, it's the slow and steady. You know, you, you fall down, you get back up, you keep at it over and over again. That's what creates that exponential, the exponential results that we eventually see. And of course we automatically think, wow, that person was so lucky, or what a great overnight success. Well, we didn't see the years of that slow and steady, that boring, laborious work. Another takeaway that I found interesting is that enthusiasm is common, but endurance is rare. In my coaching work, I come across a ton of enthusiastic writers and copywriters. They want to go freelance where they're already freelancing, but they want to break out of an income plateau. And I love to see their enthusiasm, but what I really look for is their ability to stick to a plan even when their actions and hard work aren't producing immediate results. Because honestly, I can't instill that in them. Like, they have to come with a certain amount of that endurance. I can't give them that. When I see someone get discouraged early because of a setback or lack of visible results, that's a bad sign of things to come. I'm not saying you shouldn't get discouraged. It's normal to feel disappointed. It's normal to have thoughts about quitting and Going home early. Believe it or not, I have them all the time. But the person who gets back up and keeps going, that's a person who's much more likely to succeed. So consistency of effort over the long run is absolutely paramount. Here's another great takeaway from the book. We as a society are infatuated with talent. We view natural talent as a key ingredient to success. But history is filled with countless examples of men and women who accomplished impossible feats. Yet when you study them, you realize they had very average talent or very average intelligence. And the problem with this obsession we have with talent and just natural genius is that it gives the impression that everything outside of talent and genius, including grit, is not important. So rather than going after goals that we're passionate about, we instead waste time and energy trying to identify where we may have a natural talent. And then we limit our pursuits to things that lend themselves to those natural inclinations. This is one of those findings that fires me up because as I mentioned earlier, I realized early in life that passion, focus, perseverance and purpose were all I needed to reach big goals. And my years in sales were very helpful to help me come to these conclusions. They really confirmed that belief and they helped me see that so much more was was possible. Because I was put in situations where I had no choice. You know, I had to dig myself out of that hole. Writing didn't come naturally to me. In fact, I was a really bad writer all the way through school. And it wasn't until my senior year of high school when I had to write a series of short essays as part of my college applications and applications for a series of scholarships that I badly needed, that I started learning and developing a skill, a writing skill. I then honed those writing skills further in college. I had no choice again. I had to write essays, term papers, and so forth. But I still struggled. I mean, I was lucky enough. I remember one time I had a roommate who's an excellent writer. He really helped me through this. I struggled. I struggled, especially the first two years of college. It took a ton of practice, a lot of hard work. It took help from friends, my roommate, teachers, professors, and eventually I became fairly good at it. Eventually when I went out into the. Into my first job. In my second job, I started writing my own sales and marketing materials to help me in my sales jobs. And, and I studied and practiced the art of copywriting for years until I eventually became a full time freelance writer and copywriter. But the bottom line is that it didn't come naturally. This wasn't something I was born with. It's not something looking back into my childhood. It came There are other things that came natural to me, but writing was not one of them. I had to develop that. Here's another great takeaway. We get grittier as we age. And this was a very interesting finding for me from reading Duckworth's book. Because although it makes perfect sense, Duckworth's theory is that as we age, we get better at dusting ourselves off after disappointment. We mature. We become more adept at identifying what's truly important, what isn't important, so we have better focus. I also think that, generally speaking, our confidence goes up with age. We're more comfortable with ourselves, we're more comfortable with our abilities. We have more clarity, we understand our priorities better, and we start realizing that our time on this earth is limited. So we take more chances and we go after things we may have avoided in the past. And frankly, I don't know about you, but the older I get and I'm still relatively young guy, but the older I get, the less I care about what other people think. Especially when I stumble. I used to be really concerned about that. Now I frankly, I don't care too much. I really don't. And every year that goes by, I care less and less about what other people think. Here's another interesting insight. When you think of yourself as someone who can overcome adversity, you're much more likely to behave in a way that confirms that self concept. In fact, selfishly, that's one reason why I'm thinking and talking a lot about grit this month in the podcast in the blog. Because being much more aware of my ability to endure and persist when it comes to things that I'm passionate and purposeful about, that helps me sustain and improve my grit. So I think it's important to give this issue some thought on a regular basis. For instance, you could think back to times in your personal, professional life when you've exhibited a heavy dose of grit. When you rose to the occasion, you know, you really weren't prepared for that. But you had no choice. You really had to step up to the plate, rise to the occasion, make something happen. Despite the fact that you were scared like you haven't been ever before. You know you can relive those experiences and identify what drove you. You know, what. What was it that got you there? What? What was it that forced you to make things happen? To step up to the plate? In fact, this can be a great journaling exercise. I know that for me, reliving these experiences through journaling has been very powerful. A very encouraging insight that I also wanted to point out from the book is that grit is more plastic than you might think. It's not, again, a genetic thing. Now, there are some, as Duckworth explains, there are some genetics involved, but like so many things in life, environment plays a massive role on your level of grit. And she explains, a grit requires four key psychological elements. Number one, interest. So enjoying the work, obviously. And that makes sense, right? And you got to be interested in something in order to. To be gritty about it. Number two, practice. So consistent work towards mastery. Number three, purpose. By purpose, she means something that's driving you, that's much deeper than just mere intention or interest. So that goes way beyond interest. And number four, hope. When I say hope is not the hope, that just depends on luck, but instead it's about adopting an attitude of, hey, I resolve to make tomorrow better because it's within my power to do so, because I can make tomorrow better. And she explains that you can grow grit from the inside out by discovering, developing and deepening your interest, acquiring the habit of discipline, cultivating a sense of purpose and meaning towards your work, and teaching yourself to hope because you can actually make a dent on the universe. One quick point on developing your interests and passions that I wanted to point out. Duckworth's research shows that passion for your work is a little bit of discovery, followed by a lot of development and then a lifetime of deepening. She adds that the process of interest discovery can be messy, serendipitous, and inefficient. And if you think back at anything you've accomplished in your life that required grit, it probably wasn't planned, it was messy, it was serendipitous, it was inefficient. You know, one of the things that I try to do in my coaching and in my training is to make that process as efficient as possible, less messy than it should be. But that aspect of serendipity is something that I can't give you. And the serendipity comes from you doing what I strongly always encourage you to do, which is taking consistent action. Get out there, knock on doors, make things happen, you know, maintain that discipline, because that's when the serendipity comes into play. So again, I can make it a lot less messy. I can make it a heck of a lot more efficient. But the serendipity that's gonna come from your daily steady action, from the habits you create, from getting out of your comfort zone and knowing that you know what? I don't know, but I need to get out there. One of my criticisms of the current millennial generation, and I'm not, I don't mean to pick on millennials, but it's a big problem right now, is the percentage of kids living at home with their parents in the basement because they have no job. And at least in my experience, and again, I don't want to label a whole generation, but my experience has been in talking with many of these young men and women, in talking with the parents of many of these young men and women, is that they're looking for perfection. Until they find the perfect fit, they're not going to get out there and get it done. And I argue that just getting out there, period, and not waiting for perfection, just knocking on doors, just trying stuff and sticking with it and see where it takes you, that's when the magic happens. That's when you find eventually perfection. It's not going to happen on a computer screen. It's not going to happen on its own. It's not going to fall in front of you. It's just going to take getting out there and many times doing things that are not glamorous and aren't really going to feel that great. But that's when things really begin to take shape. Duckworth also had a just a wonderful quote from Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. He says that one of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves. And Duckworth adds that you can't figure out which interests will stick and which won't. You have to experiment. At the end of the day, here's a big discovery for me. Freelancing has made me grittier. It really has. Going out on my own has been one of the hardest things I've done professionally. In fact, it has been the hardest thing I've done professionally. And I had done quite a bit until that point. I had been out for a while in very demanding sales territories and situations that, honestly, I was scared to death to be in. But I'm not alone. Many of my peers feel the same way. Going out on their own, building, growing a freelance business was the hardest thing they had ever done. Now, when I say hardest thing, that doesn't mean that to struggle or that it's arduous, that it's not fun. It simply means that this business has required me to reach deep down inside and become my very best. It has required a heavy amount of grit, and it has enabled me to become even grittier than I was Before I went solo. When you work for someone else, there's a lot of margin, a heck of a lot more margin than when you're out on your own. You have room to give just 80% and skate by on 80% performance. You're shielded from the daily realities of your employer struggles because more likely there's a team of people of which you're a part of, of course, that split the burden. Everyone does their part to keep the organization moving. So if you're not performing at 110%, it's okay. You'll probably still be fine. Now, of course, you could always get fired or laid off, so that that's the risk. But it's not like being out on your own where the whole thing is always, every minute of the day, dependent entirely on you. So in a traditional work situation, if someone's not doing their best, the organization can keep moving anyway. It's not the end of the world. But when you're out on your own, again, it's all dependent on you. Obstacles come your way, and it's up to you to push through them. And to do that effectively and consistently, you need to be a gritty person. There's just no substitute you can make. You can't make that up with talent. You can't make it up with charm. Only a good amount of grit will do. But again, the good news is this is not necessarily an inborn talent. You can become grittier. You can do that. It's within your power. It's not outside of your reach. So before we end, I have a couple of recommendations. The first one is to take Angela Duckworth's Grit Scale test to get an idea of where you are right now. And I included a link to that in the show notes, page B2B. Launcher.com forward/episode1 26. In case you're wondering, I am certainly not the grittiest person out there. So I scored a 4.3, which is in the 80th percentile, certainly not 90th, not 95th. And you know what? I can live with that. I think that's about right. I'm not the grittiest person out there, but I do feel that I have above average grit today. The second recommendation is to read Duckworth's book again. Grit. The Power of Passion and Perseverance. Every freelancer aspiring, new, established everyone should read it and you'll learn why grit matters and how you can become a grittier person. And even more importantly, if you have kids, how you can raise gritty kids. When I think about what I want my kids to have. For years I boiled it down to the fact that I wanted them to be healthy, happy and self confident. After reading this book, I've determined that I wanted to be healthy, happy and gritty. So again, we'll continue addressing this topic during the month of May here at High Income Business Writing, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this issue. I'd love to get your take on this issue of grit and how important it is to freelance success and the role that it's played in the success of your own business. So feel free to comment and give me any feedback@bwinglauncher.com forward/episode126 that's it for today. Thanks for listening and have an awesome day.

The High Income Business Writing Podcast is a production of B2B business launcher. Learn more at B2B launcher.com.

Thanks for listening and have an awesome day.

The High Income Business Writing Podcast is a production of B2B business launcher. Learn more at B2B launcher dot com.