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PERSISTENCE PRODUCES POWER
Nobody enters a business activity without at least the hope of success. We would be foolish if we did. The world is full of what I will call “fanatical failures,” people who failed miserably at what they attempted to do – the first time, the second time, and on and on until by fortune or design they burst forth into success. We frequently hear about people who labor at some attribute for years of their life, finally to become an “overnight success.” It is said that Alexander Graham Bell worked for years to find a way to overcome his wife’s hearing deficiency – and invented something we think little about nowadays, yet which is critical to our existence. Thomas Edison is reputed to have tried more than 1,000 experiments in trying to find a way to illuminate an incandescent lamp before he found a way to do it repeatedly and successfully. One of America’s most outstanding failures failed in business in 1831. In 1832, he ran for the legislature of his state and was defeated, ultimately to be elected in 1834. In 1838 he was defeated for the position of Speaker of the legislature. In 1840 he was defeated for the position of elector from his state. In 1843 he was defeated for the U.S. Congress. He was elected to Congress in 1846, but defeated again in 1848. In 1855, he ran for the U.S. Senate – and was defeated. In 1856, he ran for Vice President of the United States – and lost. In 1858 he ran again for the Senate, and was defeated. In 1860, he was elected to the Presidency of the United States. And, it should be noted, he endured all of this without any support from his spouse. Where would this country now be, but for Abraham Lincoln? Lincoln demonstrated something very important for us today – our success, our greatness, is dictated by the methods whereby we bounce back from adversity and continue on. Lincoln, and many others, succeeded in the face of failure for one simple reason: they would not be defeated. Every Disappointment Provides Learning Today, as I write this, I’ve received word that a new recruit, having exhausted her small supply of free beginning brochures, is simply giving up. Much time has been spent with this young lady, both on my part and on the part of her leadership representative. But she gave up, simply because it was easier than applying herself. Her perspective is that given one brochure, hung on a doorknob, the recipient ought to make an order – that it’s the customers’ solemn duty. We all know that it doesn’t work that way. But this young lady is accustomed to giving up, and refuses to be dissuaded from doing anything else. I don’t know what she will learn from this experience except that “I can’t do it.” She will spend major parts of her life in self-defeat until she matures to the point that she recognizes that if she’s to make a life for the baby she’s produced, she’s going to have to do it – or something – and see it through. Right now, all she’s invested is $10, and she’s willing to blow that off, convinced that “it didn’t work.” I’ll be spending time with her, but she’s 15 years beyond needing a daddy that could give her that direction and make it stick. The situation may be augmented by a non-supportive husband. I contrast that with a lady I signed up less than a week ago. She didn’t even have the $10 to get started, so I gave her four days to get $100 in orders, and if she could do that, I’d pay the $10 for her. She called me in three. We filled out the paperwork and sent in her first order. She called me two days later and already had 20 orders for the next campaign. These two ladies live less than a mile apart. What’s the difference? One said, “I can,” and proceeded to go do it. The other said, “I can’t,” and proceeded to prove it to everybody. But I know one thing for sure – had the first one been willing to stick it out through adversity, she could well have become the better representative. The second one may become jaded through the ease with which she has started. At least at this writing she has not been required to deal with problems, opposition, and difficulties. There is no substitute for personal experience. Many people enter this, or any endeavor, unwilling to count the cost and consider all the facts, and as a result, will give up with the existence of any opposition whatsoever. Once you have had to pick yourself up from disappointments and difficulties, you’ve learned valuable lessons. The second lady, a grandmother, has already learned some of those lessons. The first lady, a 25 year old with little experience has not, because she married her father (not literally), and he cares for her every need. Suppose I were to tell you that perseverance, and persistence, being cut from the same cloth, were literally the fertilizer that causes your life (your garden, if you will) to grow, causing the flowers of your life to abound. Wait – Let Me Get My Genius Hat On I’ve been involved with AVON since 1992. I came at the position with many years of college, involving advanced degrees. And I made a success at it. Somebody once told me that the reason I was successful was that I was so well educated. That might be true, but doubtful, as we find that many of our number are outstandingly successful with barely a high school education. Clearly, formal education is not what it takes to be successful at this. It isn’t, as they say, rocket science. Thomas Edison said, “Achievement is 2 percent inspiration and 98 percent perspiration.” If there is any genius at all, it has to do with making an intense, continuous, and concerted effort at what you wish to do. There is such a fine line between success and failure, that it is doubtful than anyone could identify it for you. I can’t tell you where it is. But I can tell you how to find it. You will cross that line when nothing will deter you from accomplishing what you set out to do, when every waking hour is spent to find a way to make your own dream come true. I like to quote a poem I once read. I’m sorry that I don’t know who the author is, but it goes this way: On the plains of hesitation lie the bones of those who, With victory within their grasp, paused to rest. In 1915, the British Navy attacked the Turks at the Dardanelles (the straits leading from the Mediterranean into the Black Sea). The Turks put up an extraordinary fight, bombarding the ships with barrage after barrage from shore batteries, sinking several. Faced with what appeared to be certain defeat, the British Navy withdrew from the engagement. What they didn’t know was that the Turks were almost out of ammunition, and were just about to surrender. Had the British Navy been patient and continued to press the battle, they would have taken the Dardanelles, split the enemy forces, and foreshortened the war, with the savings of millions of lives. You are in business for yourself – not by yourself, because we have each other – but at least in your own interest. What will make that successful will be your willingness to take barrage after barrage and persist Build Your Neural Transmitter The wonderful thing about your subconscious is that it never argues with you. It doesn’t debate the merit of making a decision. It doesn’t cause you to be remorseful for something you have done or should have done. But it does do something very important. It can cause you to be persistent. We program our subconscious minds with what we shovel into it, day after day. Feed that subconscious mind messages of how badly you wish to succeed, and every time the need for persistence rears its head, the subconscious mind will provide direction. In essence, if you fill your mind with success messages, your mind will react with the stimuli that beget success. We learn by exercising the brain. Pathways are created and worn-in by neurons that inhabit our brains. The more we exercise these neurons in the directions we wish to go, the more that brain takes over for us in times of stress. Persistence is pounding on the wall until it gives way. Remember Frank Sinatra’s song High Hopes? “No one could make that ram scram; he kept buttin’ that dam.” Nobody is suggesting you should beat your head on a wall. What is being suggested is that persistence brings reward. It’s been said that 80 percent of sales are made after the fifth call. If that is true, why do you suppose so large a percentage of sales people quit after the first call (nearly 50%)? Another 25% quit after the second call; 12% quit after the third call, and so on. It then works out that when the number has been reduced, 10% of the sales people end up making the sale in that 80 percent slice of the market. I can’t tell you why so many people give up so easily, and it somehow seems trite to merely say that it leaves more for those of us who choose to stay – but it does. Persistence Is Power Persistence not only produces power – it is power, in and of itself. Think of all the commercials you see over and over and over until they become a part of your life. All the commercials for beverages are dressed up to make them inviting and repeated so often that they become second nature. You sing the jingles. You quote the words. You buy the products. Persistence pays off. It provides power. It is power. Do you want that power? It’s up to you. We learn by repetition, despite the fact that it may bore us. But listen carefully to the radio, the next time you hear a commercial involving a toll free number. That number will be repeated no fewer than three times, because ad agencies have learned that the number must be repeated at least that number of times to lodge in the brain. You’ll also learn that they select telephone numbers where the smallest commitment to memory is required. For example, if a popular telephone exchange in your city is “888,” then you don’t need to remember the “888,” you need only remember the remaining four numbers. Those numbers are then selected for ease of memory – “2200,” for example, or another, “1234.” Think about the 800 numbers where 800 is also the exchange. How many numbers must be recalled in 1-800-800-1234? Put that number into radio commercials or in frequent spots on television, and all the receiver must remember is the easy sequence of “1234.” I’ve not seen it recently, but the Sheraton Hotel chain used to have a jingle which sang like “8 0 0 – 3 2 5 – 3 5 3 5.” The music is still going through my head 20 years later (eight oh oh, three two five, three five three five). Just for the fun of it, I double-checked the number as I wrote this paragraph. The Sheraton lady was quite amused. Pile Driver, Write Down Ken’s Name – Success Thirty years ago I stood and watched as piles were being driven into the bedrock in Boston, as the foundation for what would become the National Bank of Boston was being prepared. A gigantic machine, a crane, alternatively lifted and dropped a weight against the end of a steel girder that was being pounded into the ground. I had some empathy for that steel girder, for I had recently driven by hand a sand point 25 feet into the ground to obtain water for a well at a house I had built. But there was the gigantic crane down in a foundation hole that was at least 100 feet below street level, lifting the weight and dropping it, as the steel girder “inched” its way into the bedrock. Actually, it would be more accurate to say it “quarter-inched” its way into the rock, as I took sight of a mark on the girder and an hour later it seemed it hadn’t moved six inches. It must have ultimately done so, as the building now stands tall on the Boston skyline. Today, there is a gigantic effort to put traffic underground in the Boston downtown area, called the “Big Dig,” so I imagine Bostonians have been well exposed to more such action. I heard one politician remark that the City Bird of Boston was now the crane. If I must explain that to you, hand the book over to someone else. The human mind must understand something in order to act upon it. We do some things as a function of automatic response, but by and large, things must be repeated over and over in order for them to be cemented in our cranium. Think of the number of times you’ve had to ask someone to repeat a name or a telephone number. That’s why we make strong efforts to write things down wherever possible. We invoke not only the mind’s ear, we also invoke the mind’s eye by doing so. So repetition clarifies information and ideas. It also enforces ideas in your mind just like that pile driver in downtown Boston. It’s up to you to give it the appropriate ideas to be reinforced. Listen to junk music and you acquire junk thoughts. Involve yourself in hedonism and you’ll never be able to intellectualize or even discern what is right and what is wrong. The repetition of good music, inspirational reading, uplifting taped messages, success stories from others in your group will, if you allow them, come to the fore when they are needed. All you need to do is to hammer them home, time after time, until they are a part of your life. Like the steel girder, you need to pick out your foundation and drive your stake into it, over and over, time after time, until what is there is so very powerful that it literally takes over your life and you will not be able to contemplate anything but success. You can achieve whatever you wish through persistence. Don’t let anybody tell you that it is not possible – it is, if you are persistent. You can have anything you want if you are willing to pay the price of persistence. What? Persistence has a price? You bet. It’s making telephone calls when you would rather watch television. It’s knocking on doors when your inner fear tells you not to risk it. But you’d better have a goal. You’d better have something that you strive for. You must – repeat, must have a dream to pursue if you expect any dream to come true. You must stay the course. You must pursue the dream. You must say to yourself, over and over and over again, “Day by day, I’m on my way.” I will. I can. I am able. “No one could make that ram scram; he kept buttin’ that dam.” Success doesn’t come to you. You must go to it. Focusing Your Attention You cannot possibly overstate the results if you consistently, insistently, incessantly, and persistently, carry out your mission: · Consistency – do it every day. Make it a part of your life. Make it such that others will expect it of you because you are out there taking control of your business on a daily basis. · Insistently – Put yourself into the mode of “I will.” Don’t slack off. This doesn’t mean don’t relax. But it does mean that you must put some emphasis into your effort – and force yourself to do the work even though the spirit may not be willing. · Incessantly – literally, never stopping. Now again, this doesn’t mean working 24 hours every day. It does mean, however, that you are always talking your business to everyone you meet, everywhere you go, all the time that it is appropriate. · Persistently – persistence is, of course, the subject of this book. You may get the idea that I feel that persistence is an absolute necessity if you are to make a success of your effort. In a nutshell, persistence means that you will continue to do it against all obstacles that have been tossed into your path. Persistence Empowers Your Purpose You can be successful. Let nobody tell you otherwise. Persistence requires that when things don’t go your way, you’ll continue to try. Persistence requires that when there are problems, you will find a way to go under, over, around or through the problems, rather than avoid them. If you are tempted to give up, to quit, that isn’t persistence. Persistence is your resolution to yourself that irrespective of circumstances, you’ll keep on keeping on. Where would this nation have been had there not been an Abraham Lincoln? It is a natural response, when faced with adversity, to take the path of least resistance – to quit. Giving up is easy. There are all sorts of encouragement – or at least empathy – for quitters. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were folks around that would simply tells us that failure is not an option? But if you have a purpose and if you pursue that purpose, then the purpose takes over your existence – and provides its thousand-volt power. It becomes a driving force. How often have you heard of people who have been injured who simply refused to give up – and found a way to walk, to talk, or live. Why should you be any different? Have you ever been to see a doctor? Yes, of course you have. Do you think the doctor got to be where he or she is by the purchase of a credential? No, there is college, and there is medical school, and there is residency – and before you know it, they have occupied nearly a decade of their lives (are you ready for this?) – in preparation to do their life’s work. You know they are handsomely compensated – but they gave up eight to ten years to get ready to start their life’s work. Irrespective of what you feel about lawyers, pretty much the same story is true: college, law school, pro-bono work, etc. The truth is that doctors and lawyers are occupants of high-level professions, having gained the prestige that was available only through having a purpose and pursuing that purpose. Their purpose empowered their lives – it motivated them to develop persistence. They are traveling companions, purpose and persistence. Don’t expect to persist if what you want out of your Avon career is a few dollars to buy groceries. But crank a new car or a new house into the equation, and suddenly your purpose leads you to do the kinds of things you must do to achieve those goals. Of course, we’re talking about worthy goals. You’ve read about and perhaps seen stories about people whose purpose is to get well, their goal is to become restored. And you’ve perhaps seen it happen, and celebrated its happening. They do it by the sheer determination to do so. Determination brings about persistence in the pursuit. The person who is persistent will see to the persistence in her own life – her health, her needs, her goals, her accomplishments. But for it to happen, you must have committed your will. Your faith in yourself must be unconquerable. Your thirst for knowledge must be unquenchable. Your desire for progress must be unrelenting. This cause is greater than you, yourself. This, to be successful, requires you to commit to making it happen and to taking the steps to ensure your ultimate accomplishment of those goals. You may well take two steps forward and one step backward as you make this trip. That’s OK. But understand this – without the desire to make the trip, you’ll never have the fortitude to see the journey through. Who’s In Charge Here? You are. One of the great powers of developing persistence is your ability to focus on the goal and control your own moods are you begin to make the journey. And moods are funny things – they feed on the available stimuli. What does that say about the music you hear, the books you read, the tapes you listen to, the church you attend, and the people with whom you associate? It is your responsibility to identify, define, state, and solve the problems that are the impediments to your greatness. This requires that you state the problem in terms that are manageable, and that manageability must be just like a 12-step program that says, “Just for today, I will take the steps that will lead to success.” If this sounds like talking success to yourself, that’s precisely what it is. You are your own worst critic. You are also your most outstanding support. The achievement of your dream is assured when your dream becomes a goal and your commit to its accomplishment. That’s you we’re talking about here. Your imagination produces the dreams. Your goals give you direction and measurement. Your enthusiasm stirs you up and pushes you towards accomplishment. It is the persistence that produces the results of your effort. But You Are Not Alone This book came about because of the author’s desire to place some of this kind of knowledge before a large audience, based on his experience. Without purpose, we become just like the people with whom we associate. If we associate with losers, we become losers. It takes some intestinal fortitude to break out of that mold. If we associate with winners, we take on the attributes of winners. We learn from the winners. We emulate what made them successful. If we hitch our wagons to stars, we tend to take on the attributes of stars. We work harder, sometimes with the motivation of going the stars one better. But we begin to enjoy the success of the winners, and there’s nothing like it. At all times, however, backsliding is so very easy. Laziness is a cancer that is easily contracted and is destructive. There are lots of people willing to help you to be lazy. One person who can “make it” by doing nothing or getting someone to do it for him spreads the disease and gathers many “friends.” All you need to do to fail is nothing. Drift with the tide. Somebody will rescue you. You may have your needs met, but you will never achieve the satisfaction of accomplishment – never be able to say, “This I have done.” Sliding down river requires no effort, no energy, no activity. “Go with the flow” is an easily assimilated perspective – but it is a fatal activity for anyone who would like to amount to something significant for herself, her family, or the future. It takes strength to fight the current, but once you begin to reverse course, something very positive happens to your self-esteem – and when that does, success is right around the corner. The Price and the Payoff of Persistence If success is your goal, the way to get it is persistence. Persistence has a price. But it also has a payoff. The price of persistence consists of several items: · Perseverance – hanging on when it would be easier to quit, and when others are encouraging you to do so. · Time – time spent establishing goals, planning for their accomplishment, doing the work, performing the measurement, adjusting the plan, and starting again. · Commitment – determining that nothing will compete with the accomplishment of the goal you have set for yourself, nothing will deter you from pursuit of the goal or the expenditure of the effort to achieve it. · Subjugation of other desires in favor of the one you are motivated to pursue. That doesn’t mean that other desires aren’t worthy. It does mean that in the priority scheme, they must take a lower place. Persistence has a curious way of setting you at peace with yourself. It provides contentment and focus. That peace comes when we are using our abilities, powers, and talents in pursuit of a worthy goal. The more purposeful you are, the more you are encouraged by the accomplishment of your goals. In another book, Becoming An Avon Representative, I talk of the philosophy of Andrew Carnegie, a turn of the 20th century steel magnate. His philosophy of success involved “going the extra mile” in pursuit of your goal, your work, and your service to others. You will find that persistence allows – no helps – you to do your work and a little more. There is Joy in Selling Avon Or Tupperware. Or Princess House. Or any of a number of allocations of your time and skill given with a whole heart and a merry countenance. How do you like your job? Do you spring out of bed in the morning eager to make that first call? Is it tough to shut down at the end of the day to return to your responsibilities at your home and with your family? Do you enjoy working out of the house and “taking your work home” with you? You don’t have to be a workaholic to gain joy from the vocation you have selected. People who do not like their work, when asked, seem to know no alternative to it. It’s bad, they acknowledge, but the truth of the matter is that had they seriously wished for something else, they would have pursued it. They’re not happy where they are, but they haven’t any idea as to where they would prefer to be. They have no job, no peace, no real happiness in their lives – largely because they have little or no persistence. They live for the dollar instead of for a greater purpose. They would rather work for a guaranteed minimum wage than to set their skills on the line and produce for their return. I can think of no greater use for your life than to operate such that the use of your life outlives your life. I would encourage you to read the previous sentence once again, slowly. If you have joy in your work, that joy begets persistence and that persistence begets success. With the results of your work, done joyfully, you have the resources to bring up your children with the qualities and character that live beyond your own life. With the results of your work, done purposefully, you are able to do well for yourself and good for others. If you can just find that purpose for beyond yourself and pursue it with persistence, bringing all your talents, abilities, the power of your mind and its subconscious being, your award-winning personality, and your passion, your business, like your life, is destined to be outstanding. And we know one thing for certain: you can. The burden of a great goal and a glorious responsibility in support of an outstanding purpose is not great in and of itself, once you have determined that you, and nobody else, have the tools to make it happen. Your Pathway to Success As the chapters of this book unfold, their purposes will be to support and reinforce this code of persistence: · You must never give up so long as you know you are right. If getting into the business you have selected was the right thing to do for the right reasons as expressed at the time of entry, it is no less right at this moment. You have only to make your plans, commit to their accomplishment, and get to it, sticking to it until you can see results. · You must believe that all things will work for you if you see the process through. There are so many instances in history – perhaps even your own personal history – where had the course been stayed, the results would have been desirable. The abandonment of a worthwhile effort, albeit one fraught with difficulty, merely allows one to make the same mistake repeatedly. · You must be courageous and unperturbed in the face of difficulties. Tell yourself you will fail and you will complete your own self-fulfilling prophecy. Tell yourself that irrespective of any difficulties you might encounter, the goal is worthwhile and one way or the other you will seek a way to accomplish that goal, and the aural reinforcement has a way of permeating your psyche to the point that you’ll simply find a way to succeed. · You must not permit anyone – anyone – to deter you from your path or intimidate you in any manner that might cause you to miss your goal. So many times I was told that I couldn’t do that. I refused to permit that to happen, even to the point that I commanded the naysayer to speak no more of the topic. This is your journey. You don’t have to go it alone. That’s what we’re here for – those of us who share a journey not unlike your own. Positive and uplifting support is available to you 24/7 amongst us who have selected the same path. · You must fight to overcome all handicaps and setbacks. Sometimes this takes the form of the frustration of missing product. Sometimes this takes the form of irate customers. But you, alone, control your mood. Fortify yourself with knowledge and understanding, skill and perseverance. Allow nobody to stand in your way. And nudge those who try aside with severe warnings. · You must try again and again to accomplish what you desire. And again, if necessary. Persistence is “No one could make that ram scram; he kept buttin’ that dam.” And, if I recall the song correctly, the punch line was “Whoops, there goes a billion kilowatt dam.” · Accept the fact that nobody you know of who ever accomplished significant had it handed to her. She had to fight discouragement. She had to fight adversity. She suffered temporary failure and fought to recover. Success was in her sights, and though she may have had to fight to see it done, she did so – or is doing so currently. · Recognize that if you will not surrender to discouragement or fear, or whatever obstacles may lie in your path, you will achieve the goal. And, if you are wise to establish your goals as short-term achievable steps, you’ll find that success bring an emotional surge to your performance, further boosting your efforts. One of the most quoted sayings from former President Calvin Coolidge was this: “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common that 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 always will solve the problems of the human race.” And that notwithstanding, we’ll next consider that persistence is education. Goodnight. |
