Today I want to talk about persistence
There is a little plaque sitting on the desk in front of me. I gave it to my wife (who would sometimes fall into a bit of a funk while doing her writing), but it’s message applies to everyone. It simple says:
NEVER
NEVER
NEVER
GIVE UP
I have a theory about success. It is very close to what Winston Churchill said about success, which is: Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
Mine is: Success is failing until you don’t.
Some people see failure as a bad thing. It isn’t. Failure is just one step on the road to success.
If you look at all of the great minds, the great inventors, theorists, and scientists, there are very very few who got it right on the first try. They Failed, some of them many times, before they got it right. Yet we would never dare to call Einstein or Franklin or Edison or Da Vinci a failure.
The only time you truly fail is if you give up.
Success means never giving up, it means failing over and over and over again until you get it right. This is where persistence comes into play.
There is a quote about persistence I really like:
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race” ~ Calvin Coolidge
You want to be a success, then persist. Don’t let ANYONE EVER convince you to stop. Press on and never give up until you have succeeded. As the quote states, you don’t need talent or intellect or education (they may help) all you really need is persistence.
So once you know who you are and why you are here and what you want, go after it relentlessly until you have achieved your dreams.
And through it all I highly recommend that you …
Keep laughing.