Shirley and Horace are quite different people who have come together to understand resilience, grit, perseverance…you get the idea.

Shirley, also known as Leyla, is a free spirit and dilettante who is still deciding what to do with her life. Along the way, she has lived in a number of different countries, studied medicine and public health, and tried to indulge her creative side while starting programs in international wellness and human rights.

Horace was a competitive athlete in high school and college. In graduate school he studied History and there learned that his future lay in business. After working as a management consultant serving Fortune 500 corporations, he learned that entrepreneurship was his truest calling. He still runs, still competes and is still learning.

In addition to our regular series—This Day in History—we post on Tuesdays and Fridays of each week. Our posts cover a wide range of topics and issues related to resilience including psychological resilience, entrepreneurial resilience, and achievement (see the video below for more on grit and achievement).

For Black History Month (February) our twice weekly posts will focus on black entrepreneurs. We will also post an inspirational item from Black culture.

Angela Duckworth, PhD. on Grit and Achievement