Small opportunities are often the beginnings of great enterprises. – Demosthenes
The Steves (Wozniak & Jobs) in the garage in '75. Who knew this little computer opportunity would grow into such a great enterprise?
What does that mean?
Just ask Kinko’s or Fed Ex or Apple. Each started as something small. Each is now a major or dominant player in it’s chosen field. Some even invented whole new fields to dominate.
Even a little kiss can lead to a great enterprise, if you want to call a family an enterprise (and some of them turn out that way). This is not just about business, but the whole of life.
From the High School play to Broadway to Hollywood. From PeeWee football to High School Letterman to College to the NFL. From Little League to High School Ball to College to the Minors to The Show. Everyone who has made it big, they were small at one time.
Why is perseverance important?
If you don’t keep at it, what happens to the small opportunity? It will slip away, won’t it? Like a tiny flame, it needs to be tended or it will go out. And to make it a big fire, you have to put even more effort into it, right? It’s the same with an opportunity.
Perseverance means doing it, over and over and over. Keeping after it until you get it. It means not giving up, even when things are going badly, nor losing focus in the good times.
Perseverance isn’t just blindly doing the same thing over and over again. That might work in the initial stages, but isn’t going to work in the long run. You have to have the ability to detect how the situation is changing and adapt to keep on top of it.
Where can I apply this in my life?
Perseverance is a tough job, isn’t it? But the people who persevere get a better quality of life than those who don’t. There are rare examples of people who succeed by luck (born into wealth or winning the lottery, as examples) but most people have become successful through perseverance.
Again, this applies to all of our lives, whether it’s your love life, your business or a career choice, it’s perseverance that separates those who do very well from those who just do well.
At dictionary.reference.com, perseverance is defined as “steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.” Sounds like my life, how about you? Have you had some difficulties, obstacles or discouragements in your life? But somehow, we pick ourselves back up and keep on going.
The easy answer to how does one persevere is to just keep at it. In reality, it’s the same. The difficulty tends to occur on the emotional and motivational areas. As you’re pushing to make something grow, sometimes it just doesn’t seem to be working. You can get bummed, depressed even. You can feel like throwing in the towel and just walking away from it all.
We’ve all been there, in one form or another. Sometimes you have to take a step back and make sure you’re on the right track (the Far Side had a comic on this). Sometimes, a change in approach is a necessary part of moving forward.
We can also use a pause to reflect on our emotional level and motivational level, as they tend to be related although separate. Our emotional level is often tied to success, although sometimes a failure can really get a person fired up. What is your emotional level, and what needs to be done to get it back where it needs to be?
Our motivational level tends to be influenced by our emotions as well. When one is on an emotional high, it’s easy to stay motivated. When the emotions hit a low ebb, it’s easy to become de-motivated and even to quit altogether. Motivation, though, can be it’s own thing, if you make it so. “It’s not over until I win” is a good way to stay motivated despite the cycles of emotion. What do you do to stay motivated?
This post doesn’t have any easy answers or slick tricks to help you figure out how to persevere. But the answers are simple enough, if you explore within and find your own source of motivation, and your own way to handle the roller coaster of emotion that is known as life.
If you can stick with it, you just might end up with a great enterprise. But you’re going to start small, and have to persevere. I’ve been at this blog for over half a year now, and plan to go at least two years, or until I run out of interesting quotes. I intend to persevere, although there is no guarantee that I will end up with a ‘great enterprise,’ although I hope to help a few people out along the way.
From: Twitter, @GreatestQuotes
confirmed at : http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/d/demosthene128803.html
Photo from http://www.dailygalaxy.com attributed to Apple Computer
