Perseverance offers a number of rewards, some of them may even be sweet!
Think about Milton Hershey. Yes, THE Milton Hershey of Hershey’s chocolates fame. He was fired from his first job as a printer’s apprentice, for lack of attention to detail. Next, working in a candy store, he discovered his passion and opened his own shop in Philadelphia. Although he had plenty of financial support, he went bankrupt. He moved to Denver to work in his father’s mining venture, but missed the opportunity.
Again, he went to work in a candy store. Learned some new things, and moved east, again. He opened another candy store in NYC; again, he went broke!
No one would have been surprised or would blame him had he given up and gone to work, again, for someone else. But he didn’t. He summoned his courage and tried, again. (There’s that word, again — “AGAIN”!) And aren’t we all thankful he did? Personally, I’m partial to the semi-sweet variety of his chocolate and am enjoying some now, as I write!
The key is, he was persistent. And his name is synonymous with chocolate.
And what about Walt Disney? I believe he went bankrupt seven times before his dreams for Disneyland were realized. I’m sure we could all think of several other similar stories of passion, adversity, perseverance, and eventual success.
Leadership and failure are inseparably linked. When you attempt to bring your vision to life, you will experience bumps in the road, you will find you have fallen into a pot hole or even a giant sink hole along your journey…or you may be blazing an entirely new trail, with all kinds of unforeseen obstacles ahead. The trick is to learn from these setbacks, grow through them, and move beyond them. You will feel the amazing sensation of satisfaction — along with your success — when you do. And my friends, there’s not much like true satisfaction in knowing you stuck to it and accomplished what you set out to do.
Spend a little time today thinking about your greatest setback in your life to-date. What was it?
How did you get through it?
What was the bittersweet reward?
What did you learn from it that you have carried forward and use in other situations?
