Key To Success: Perseverance
He that can quietly endure overcomes. –English Proverb
There are all sorts of factors which contribute to success,
but there is one that is often more important than all the
others…perseverance.
I have begun and ended this article with a proverb which
points out the value of being able to persevere, but for
most of us, one old saying comes to mind, “All things come
to him who waits.”
The problem with that particular version is that it implies
that simply waiting for success to happen is all that is
required. While the occasional miracle does happen, most
successes are the result of action. For most of us,
success, when it comes with will be a reward for our
effort, faith, and perseverance.
The world is replete with stories of those who “succeeded”
only after years of trial and effort. Thomas Alva Edison,
one of the foremost inventors of the 20th century is famous
for his invention of the electric light bulb, among many
other things. However, even Mr. Edison never hesitated to
point out that the thing that made him famous occurred
after years of not being successful (which IS different
from failing). He even stated that he found the way to
make the light bulb work only after learning several ways
to NOT make them work.
Very few “successful” entrepreneurs, salespeople, network
marketers, and today’s internet marketers can say that they
achieved success without trial and error…lots of error.
IN fact, many will be more than happy to admit that their
success came about after long periods of time in which they
managed to do some pretty foolish things and waste a lot of
time and money.
However, two major points also come out of these
stories…they learned from their mistakes and accepted the
setbacks as part of the tuition they had to pay to learn
their craft, and they did not give up.
Even in my own life, there was a ten year period between my
first half-hearted attempts at creating my own business,
and my first real income. There was another five year
period in which I grew my business in spare moments until I
began to make enough income that I could quit my job and
actually live comfortably off the income I was able to
generate.
Of course, I’m hard headed and insisted on re-inventing the
wheel. Two close friends of mine reached the viable income
level in three years, and both became millionaires in five
years, simply by sticking with the basics of their
individual businesses and the simplest tenets of network
marketing. They were friends with everyone, and handed out
a pamphlet to everybody they met.
It’s easy to look at that paragraph and either be
discouraged that it can take so long, or to become excited
that it can happen that fast. To put things in perspective
as far as perseverance is concerned; one of the gentlemen I
spoke of was in his mid 40’s when he began to pursue this
particular quest. He was nearing 50 when he began
receiving monthly checks in excess of $100,000 a month. It
would have been easy in the first year or two of this
enterprise for him to have quit and just chalk it up to
another program that wasn’t any good…or accuse himself of
being a failure. However, he realized the value and
potential of the program he was involved in and knew that
if he could just put brochures in the hands of enough
people, he would be able to find many like himself.
As I said, it took him three years to find those people,
and two more years of growing this group until the point
where he was being repaid to the tune of $100,000+ each
month. It wasn’t his skills that landed him there, but
neither did he achieve all this by waiting for people to
ring his doorbell and hand him money. To him, every day
was a chance to open new doors to the future for himself
and those who felt as he did.
Don’t ever give up.
For every door that shuts, ten will open. — Philippine
Proverb
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Donovan Baldwin is a Dallas area writer. He is a University
of West Florida alumnus, a member of Mensa, and is retired
from the U. S. Army. You can find more insights on
motivation and other self-improvement topics at
http://web-home.ws/self-improvement/ .
