Every business hits stretches where something isn't working, and the founder faces the hardest judgment in business: do I push through, or do I change course? Persevere too long on a losing idea and you pour good resources after bad. Pivot too quickly at the first resistance and you abandon things just before they would've worked. There's no formula — but there are better questions.
Grit and stubbornness look identical from the inside; both feel like determination. The difference is evidence. Perseverance backed by signs of progress — improving numbers, encouraging customer response, a clear reason it's just taking time — is grit. Pushing on with no evidence, purely because you don't want to admit it isn't working, is stubbornness wearing grit's clothes.
So when you're stuck on the pivot-or-persevere question, get honest about the data rather than the feeling. What is actually telling you this will work, beyond your wish that it would? If the honest answer is "nothing yet," that's worth sitting with.
Conviction is valuable. Conviction immune to evidence is dangerous.
Making clear-eyed decisions under uncertainty is part of the leadership thread in the Scale course.
Free first step: the free Business Stage Assessment.
Annie
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