I'm not teaching you a theory about grit. I'm handing you what 40 years of it looks like.
In 1983, my wife Kim and I started a church with 35 people in a Holiday Inn in St. Peters, Missouri. No building. No budget. Nothing but a calling and the decision to keep moving forward.
Twenty years later, we were in the middle of a $24 million construction project when everything stopped. The finances slowed down. The city opposed us. The labor unions opposed us. It was one of the hardest seasons of my life.
One day my pastor visited and walked the unfinished building with me. He asked, "Are you scared?" I said yes. And he told me, "I've been through this before. Everyone feels that way. I was scared too."
That conversation gave me what I needed to keep going. Because grit isn't pretending you're not afraid. It's having something on the inside, and the right people beside you, so fear doesn't get the final word.
Forty years later, that congregation has grown to thousands, and I've spent those same decades coaching leaders across the country who are learning what I had to learn: how to build the inner strength that keeps you in the race.
"I didn't build this toolkit to motivate you for a weekend. I built it because grit is a skill, and skills can be learned. If you'll do the work, you won't quit. You'll finish."
David Blunt. Founding Pastor, Church on the Rock. Leadership Coach. Author.