Grit.
Can you think of a word more American than this one?
All about passion, perseverance, and stamina, grit is the very essence of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.
And when it comes to dealing with money, grit is one of the most important qualities you can have.
Financial grit means being able to ride the wave of your investments in a fluctuating market.
It means having the wherewithal to endure long-term debt payoff.
It means maintaining the self-discipline needed to work towards savings goals instead of spending when it feels good.
In other words, financial grit can lead to financial success.
Why Them And Not You?
How many millionaires have you heard of that grew their wealth though surprisingly simple ideas?
How about the people you work with who have gotten promoted before you without having nearly as much talent or intelligence?
What about those seemingly normal people like Mr Money Mustache who retire at the crazy early age of 30 while making humble salaries?
These people certainly aren't under any delusion that they're smarter or better than you – well, at least most of them aren't.
When I was young, my Dad had a way of slipping deeply insightful things into our normal chats about life.
He told me that no matter where he worked, he was never the smartest person in the room – and he was ok with it.
He said it didn't matter because there was never anyone who worked harder than he did.
He had a pretty hard go of it too, being lied to by his bosses, treated poorly, thrown under the bus and even laid off. It never really mattered because he never quit.
My dad is by far, the grittiest person I know. It's no coincidence that he's also very successful.
Grit Beats All
There are a lot of people who talk about money that seem infallible – they make no mistakes, can accurately predict the future and are happy to share that wisdom for three easy payments of $19.95.
We here at Listen Money Matters certainly don't pretend to be that knowledgeable and instead, constantly discuss our failures and focus on not giving up.
Learning from someone's mistakes can sometimes be more instructive than learning from their successes.
During my recent and terribly dramatic burnout, a friend emailed me a link to the TED Talk called The power of passion and perseverance. The speaker is Angela Lee Duckworth, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.
The video was incredibly motivating and really hit home – I think I may have even shed tear while I watched it. It was exactly what I needed at the time. To hear someone explain that no matter what had gone wrong, I could pull out of the tail spin through sheer grit.
The TED Video when you get a minute
The Growth Mindset
How? With the help of something called a "growth mindset," or a personality that thrives on challenges.
A fixed mindset fears failure and thus avoids challenges. A growth mindset cares more about learning than anything else — because without a challenge there is no growth.
Applying this growth mindset to money means you can deal with failures because you'll see them as both an inevitability and an opportunity to learn. And thus, you can begin to form grit.
Fail Fast
You fail, analyze what went wrong, and move on to the next thing. Don't dwell on your failures for any longer than it takes to cull lessons from them. Failure is not permanent.
In the 10 years since college I've run a negative budget more times than I can possibly count.
I often find it ironic that I run a personal finance website and podcast yet at some point in time I've managed to contradict everything I teach on the show. I'm far from perfect.
That said, I've somehow been able to grow my net worth pretty quickly, in a very short period of time.
And I didn't do it by living in a hovel eating ramen and never going out. I took time to travel and have drank enough beer and cocktails for three lifetimes (and the NYC area isn't cheap).
There are over 450 hours of podcast episodes on this site basically documenting me being an idiot and saying stupid things.
However, the one thing that sets me apart is that I'm persistent – I've got grit
Test Your Grit
Go ahead. It will only take a couple of minutes.
Not too shabby.
Down in the Details
Gritty people have four things in common: they're interested, they practice, they have purpose, and they have hope.
Grit might sound like a dominating personality trait, but you must understand that you can have grit in one area of your life but not necessarily all the others. You'll still have to build grit if you lack it in your finances.
The key is a goal you care about so much that it gives meaning to almost everything you do.
"And grit is holding steadfast to that goal. Even when you fall down. Even when you screw up."
Find Your Own Source Of Grit
The purpose of this email really isn't to motivate you. You've got to motivate yourself. Any motivation you get from this article will disappear during your next bathroom break at work while you're stalk people on Facebook.
The purpose is to remind you, as well as myself, that success is measured by how far you go and not how fast you start.
I may measure my budgeting success monthly or my marriage health weekly but when it comes to financial and life success, I measure it in decades.
Like investing, personal finance is a marathon, not a sprint.
When the market tanks or you blow your budget, do you give up and sell your investments or do you double down an keep going?
What's your source of grit? Reply to this email.
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