A Key to Success
I have always thought about what differentiates the top producers from the rest. What makes some people so much more successful than others in the pursuit of their dreams and goals? If there is one thing that you could point to that if applied on a regular basis will produce success more than anything else, what would it be?
Well, I believe one key would be persistence. I spent the past week at a conference in Orlando with one of our team members, Mike Schmidtmann. First of all, Mike was a rock star and I am so proud that he is a member of our team. In one of our conversations Mike was talking about an NSA (National Speakers Association) speaker who is the anti-motivational speaker. He tells people that the only reason they fail is that they are lazy and they don’t try hard enough. He states that there is no secret to success, just look at what others have done and go do it. I guess Nike has a point!
That got me thinking about the concept of persistence. If I look back over the past 20 years of building a successful business with our team, I would have to say that persistence, bordering on tenacity, has been one of the keys to our success. Now that can’t be the only key to our success, but without this one ingredient the rest would not have happened.
About 2 years ago, after we moved to San Diego, we were back in NY for the summer and we were driving around NJ. I started pointing to a few places I had gone to meetings that didn’t produce any results. As I started to think more about all the meetings I had gone to, the plane trips I had taken and the phone calls I had made that lead to nothing, that is all persistence. I tell my father all the time that every time I hear a “no” that I am one step closer to a “YES.” My father tells me that I am the only one he knows that truly believes that.
I guess that persistence is internalizing the fact that a “No” really does bring you one step closer to a “Yes,” but it takes work and a really strong sense of purpose to push through all of those roadblocks. I have been exceedingly blessed in my life and I look forward to continuing to be persistent in all aspects of my life, especially as I look to help young social entrepreneurs change the world!
‘Til next time ……
Larry Kesslin 