That's indeed a fascinating subject, worthy of an article itself.

Yours is an excellent way of looking at effort, and it's especially useful for kids.

When exposed to new problems, children who are praised for their persistence tend to choose more difficult problems to solve, instead, children who are praised "because they are smart" end up performing worse on the problems they solve.

We are obsessed with the Hero's Journey narrative, most movies and stories follow the same pattern. But still, we are not usually looking for it in the people around us.

There could be many reasons for this, one is that most people in the world tend to settle for being average or they just keep failing.

Starting a new company is a perfect example, we can support new startups, but still, we know that over 90% of them will fail. So I can understand the initial disbelief.

When I went back to your comment, it reminded me of a study they did on why MIT alumni are so successful (Their companies make more money than the world's 10th-largest economy). The study concluded that it is because of the entrepreneurship culture they have there, where you're basically seen as a loser if you don't create a company.

In those environments, failure is normalized, which makes people more daring.

There you have in your comment the foundation of a great institutional culture.