Brilliantly put Jessica. I have been having conversations with other solo-preneurs lately because we all are in similarly sinking boats. I, like many people who grew up in the late 60’s, was taught to work hard and good things will come to you. The truth that you hit on here is that in REALITY- one can work one’s ass off and still never really get to the goals that we are aiming for. GRIT is a nice idea to help focus people who inherently have a low-level of it (a solid nod to A. Duckworth for her research into GRIT), but as you say, for those os us who started out inherently gritty…. We need something other.
Inspiration, creativity, community… all these are things that can help us move forward when pure hard work isn’t enough.
Understanding how the system works is another area that, again as you point out the TED talks miss quite often… when we understand the system and what it really is asking from us, then at least we have a smidge of a chance at success.
One of the key ideas about understanding the system (at least the one we have here in the US and most of the western world), is that the system wants to be fed 24/7. It doesn’t care about humanity or connections or community. It’ doesn’t care about quality of life or happiness so much as it is a fire raging in a furnace of INDUSTRY and we are the coal feeding the flames.
ONCE WE UNDERSTAND THAT AT LEAST RIGHT NOW IN HISTORY WE ARE RUNNING TOWARDS SOMETHING THAT CONSUMES US WITHOUT END, THEN WE CAN CHOOSE TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT.
Sorry for shouting but watching whole communities and segments of our humanity burned up through false ideas about success and meaning and “winning”, really gets me going.
Thanks for your post, thanks for stirring me up and inspiring me to do more to create change and choice and love and all the good stuff in the world.
