Why Grit Alone Isn’t Enough

“Houston, we’ve had a problem.”

The famous incident of Apollo 13.

The spacecraft shudders. A loud bang. Alarms blare. Lights flicker. The oxygen tank has exploded. Inside Apollo 13, three astronauts float in the silence of space. Utter darkness.

Commander Jim Lovell, played by Tom Hanks, doesn’t panic. He doesn’t bark orders or try to fix it himself. He simply radios:

“Houston, we’ve had a problem.”

In that moment, high above Earth, surrounded by failure, pressure, and the unknown, he does something that every Veteran-turned-entrepreneur should study closely:

He names the problem. He trusts his team. He opens the door to help.

Now imagine you're back on Earth.

Running a business. You’ve hit a wall. Sales stall. Cash is tight. You’re burned out and white-knuckling your way forward because that’s what you were trained to do.

But listen,

• You’re not in combat anymore.

• Grit alone isn’t enough to save the mission.

At times, Veteran entrepreneurs hit failure not because they lack discipline, but because they confuse endurance with leadership. They carry too much. They isolate. They avoid asking for help.

Apollo 13’s crisis

Lovell didn’t rewire the ship alone. He leaned on his crew and let Houston run the playbook. His job? Command the outcome – not control every switch.

In space, there was no time to "figure it out on the fly." Apollo 13 didn’t survive on willpower. It survived on checklists, playbooks, and rehearsed systems. Flight controllers on Earth used rigorous Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to simulate, test, and adapt solutions that brought the crew home.

The mission was never “stay on course; it was “get home alive.” That meant scrapping the original plan, conserving power, and letting go of control.

The crew of Apollo 13 survived because mission control – hundreds of miles away – thought through what they couldn’t see. That’s what outside perspective offers.

Lovell’s calm admission wasn’t weakness; it was command. It was the turning point that saved their lives.

Sometimes, we do everything right. We follow the checklists. We plan for contingencies. We carry the weight.

And still, the system fails.

That’s not a reflection of your character. That’s the nature of growth. Of leadership. Of entrepreneurship.

What matters is not perfection. It’s adaptation.

When Lovell called mission control, he wasn’t giving up. He was unlocking the second half of leadership: collaboration, humility, and systems thinking.

In your business, the mission might change. Your “right” call might still end up being the “wrong” one. Then we pivot. We learn. We reassess. And if we’re honest, we rewrite the way we lead. That’s wisdom.

And when you do finally say, “We’ve had a problem,” make sure you’re not the only one in the cockpit.