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The Right Kind of Stubborn

paulgraham.com · 1,966 words · saved by 9 readers

July 2024 Successful people tend to be persistent. New ideas often don't work at first, but they're not deterred. They keep trying and eventually find something that does. Mere obstinacy, on the other hand, is a recipe for failure. Obstinate people are so annoying. They won't listen. They beat their heads against a wall and get nowhere. But is there any real difference between these two cases? Are persistent and obstinate people actually behaving differently? Or are they doing the same thing, and we just label them later as persistent or obstinate depending on whether they turned out to be right or not? If that's the only difference then there's nothing to be learned from the distinction. Telling someone to be persistent rather than obstinate would just be telling them to be right rather than wrong, and they already know that. Whereas if persistence and obstinacy are actually different kinds of behavior, it would be worthwhile to tease them apart. [1] I've talked to a lot o

The Right Kind of Stubborn --> July 2024 Successful people tend to be persistent. New ideas often don't work at first, but they're not deterred. They keep trying and eventually find something that does. Mere obstinacy, on the other hand, is a recipe for failure. Obstinate people are so annoying. They won't listen. They beat their heads against a wall and get nowhere. But is there any real difference between these two cases? Are persistent and obstinate people actually behaving differently? Or are they doing the same thing, and we just label them later as persistent or obstinate depending on wh

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