Are you gritty? Your personal success — and that of your law firm — depends on it.

Dr. Angela Lee Duckworth gave a TED Talk in 2013 about grit as the key to success. As she defines it, grit is “passion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years, and working really hard to make that future a reality.”

Duckworth, a psychologist and MacArthur Foundation Genius Award winner, has been studying grit and its importance in achieving success for more than a decade. She has researched grit extensively, studying it primarily in schools and universities. And what she has discovered is this: a person’s success is not predetermined by talent, IQ, or looks. It is determined by grit.

And one of the most important parts of having grit is enduring failure. No one likes to fail, yet we will all experience failure, both in our personal and professional lives.

Standing firm against failure makes you gritty.

Wading through hundreds of “no’s” to get to a few “yes’s” makes you gritty.

Belief in yourself above all evidence to the contrary makes you gritty.

And all of these things are necessary to build a thriving legal practice.

Here is Dr. Duckworth’s TED Talk: