I never really thought I’d have much in common with Donald Trump, then I stumbled onto this comment he made: “I was relentless, even in the face of total lack of encouragement, because much more often than you’d think, sheer persistence is the difference between success and failure.”
Right on, Donald! Rarely is there such a thing as an overnight success. And if you want to succeed, you’re going to get knocked down more than once on your climb. The thing that separates the winners from the losers is that determination to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and move on. Bad things happen to all of us. How you choice to perceive them makes all the difference in the world.
I’m not the smartest or most talented person in the world, and never professed to be . Everyday I meet people who are brilliant, and I admire them. But many are still struggling to find their way. Why? Because if something goes wrong — if they fail– it paralyzes them. The one thing I excel at is work. I know how to work hard and get things done. That’s true for all successful entrepreneurs I know.
So the next time you find yourself confronted with a crisis, consider it a bump in the road. (Or maybe a mountain.) But you can climb over it or get around it if you keep pushing forward. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. I know that from personal experience.
If building a business were easy, then everyone would be doing it. There would be few if any business failures. So put your game face on and go after it again. Persistence is more valuable than talent.
