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Perseverance

“Perseverance is,” said Thomas Carlyle, “the very essence of all the virtues. Most of life’s failures are not due to the want of talents, but to the vacillating and desultory mode of using them . . . The smallest brook on earth by continuing to run has hollowed out for itself a considerable valley.”

Perseverance is a virtue, and nothing worthwhile in life is attained without it. Life is filled with difficulties, disappointments, defeats, and most of all with the morale-breaking boredom of never-ending daily details. Every occupation has its “chores,” and only persevering loyalty and dedication to an inspiring purpose can conquer this deadly enemy of success and happiness.

This is strikingly illustrated in an incident related by Robert J. Spooner — a prominent life insurance agent, and a member of the Million Dollar Round Table of The National Association of Life Underwriters — in a talk before the Cincinnati Life Underwriters’ Association in March 1961. Mr. Spooner told of a ride from Appleton, Wisconsin, to Milwaukee with one of the most successful attorneys in Appleton — one of those truly busy attorneys who had a full schedule of appointments weeks in advance.

Mr. Spooner was the driver, and as the busy lawyer began to relax he slipped off his shoes, sat back and began to talk. He explained what a relief it was to relax with nothing to do for two hours while they drove to Milwaukee.

Then he began to expand, and told of a case he had just won in court. For five days he had shut himself up in his office, cut off all visitors and telephone calls, had his lunch brought to his office, and worked twelve full hours each day to prepare a case which lasted only one hour in the courtroom. The point was, he philosophized, that life is about 85 percent drudgery and 15 percent joy or satisfaction, that success consists of making yourself do terribly unpleasant things in order to enjoy brief periods of satisfaction and success.

Johnny Weissmuller, famous American swimmer, and movie Tarzan, was a sickly, emaciated youngster at the age of eleven. The doctor saw only one hope for him — exercise — and prescribed swimming. Johnny had no talent for swimming; neither of his parents could swim a stroke. He, himself, was afraid of water. Yet he wanted physical well-being more than anything else, and through daily painstaking, difficult, boring exercise, and unconquerable persistence, he overcame all the seemingly insurmountable difficulties, and became a model physical specimen.

Mary Martin, one of today’s greatest actresses, at the beginning of her career, was advised by a producer: “I’m afraid you have no talent for the stage, Miss Martin. My advice to you is to stay home and keep house.”

Mary Martin would never have attained stardom if she had not persisted, undefeated, in the daily grind of endless practice to attain her goal in life.

Barbara Stanwyck, another great actress of our time, did not win a contract until she had gone through the frustration of ten screen tests. She never stopped trying.

Booth Tarkington worked for five years before he sold his first manuscript. Undefeated by early setbacks he continued to write, and eventually won his place among the great authors of America.

Admiral Peary did not reach the North Pole until his eighth try. He never gave up.

Walter Hagen, one of our golf immortals, finished fifty-fifth in his first try for the British Open title in 1920. As he turned in his score he said: “I’ll be back.” He came back to win four British titles. He never gave up his goal no matter how discouraging the losses, and how tough and grinding the come-back trail.

The late great George Herman “Babe” Ruth, known as the “King of Swat” set an all-time record for home runs during his twenty-one years in baseball. But he also set another record which still stands — he had more strikeouts than any other player in the history of the game. But the interesting point about his strike-outs is the fact that Babe Ruth did not count a strike-out as a failure, but as an effort that developed skill. Whenever he got in a slump he insisted that the only cure was to “keep on goin’ up there, and keep swingin’ at ’em.”

In the study of the lives of successful men and women in any occupation, we invariably find that they never quit trying. And the reward for their perseverance was success.

One cannot but wonder how many talented people have failed because they did not try just once again.

When James J. Corbett won the boxing championship of the world, he was asked to give in one sentence the secret of becoming a champion. Said the old master: “Fight one more round!”

That was the spirit that won the all-important battle at Chateau-Thierry in World War I. The story goes that when the allied lines were collapsing, one of the officers rallied the troops with this heroic challenge: “Retreat, Hell! We just got here!”

Every successful salesman knows that many of his best sales were made on that one extra try. Every scientist knows that many of his most important discoveries came on that one extra try. Inventors and many others have learned the same important lesson.

Jacob A. Riis, New York City’s late great public servant, knew the need of perseverance to succeed, and in the following words told how he strengthened his will for continuous effort: “When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet, at the 101st blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.”

Failure is a stepping-stone to success — if you keep on trying. Scientists and inventors will tell you that failures far outnumber successes.

This is a “fact of life” in most vocations. It is said, for example, that Eddie Arcaro, America’s number one jockey, has won over 18 million dollars for horse-owners. He has ridden in over 1800 races, but has been “in the money” in only 20 percent of the races. That means that he has been a loser 80 percent of the time, and yet he is the greatest jockey of them all.

Hans Christian Andersen, the Danish author, would never have become the greatest of all fairy-tale writers if he had not kept on trying despite the discouraging experiences in his youth. He had no friends to help him get started in life — he was born in abject poverty, and he was homely and awkward. When he revealed that he wanted to be a writer his teacher laughed and said: “What rot are you slinging together now with your pen? You haven’t a trace of talent!”

But Hans kept on writing despite his teacher’s cruel rebuke. Years later he showed some of his work to a publisher who said: “Not bad. Keep trying. I’ll help you.” And that was how Hans Christian Andersen got his start.

Former President Calvin Coolidge, highly respected for his solid character and sound New England philosophy, evaluated persistence as follows: “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not do it; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men 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 will always solve the problem of the human race.”

And Henry Austin puts the challenge in these inspiring words:

“Twixt failure and success the point’s so fine Men sometimes know not when they touch the line. Just where the pearl was waiting one more plunge, How many a struggler has thrown up the sponge! . . . Then take this honey from the bitterest cup: There is no failure save in giving up!”

Visit How To Break Your Success Barrier for more articles from this book by Hans Peter Gravengaard.

 

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