Persistence and secrets to success

We are all faced with challenges in our daily lives, and many of them seem insurmountable to us in the moment. However, there are many stories of individuals who have overcome their obstacles through dogged persistence. I wanted to share a few anecdotes of individuals who have gone to extraordinary lengths to make their dreams come true.

Colonel Sanders:

After a lifetime of working a variety of jobs and businesses he started trying to sell his chicken recipe to other restaurants. At the age of 65 with only a $100 pension, he began traveling the nation looking for buyers. It took him over 1000 sales calls to get his first yes! Now over 60 years later, KFC has grown into an international success, but if the Colonel had given up on try 998 then there wouldn’t have been any KFC.

Here are a few links further telling the story: planetmotivation.com, about.com

While the Colonel Sanders story is interesting and inspirational, I find that practical tips on how to implement new habits into our lives is very helpful.

Thomas Edison:

The wizard of Menlo Park, as Mr. Edison is sometimes referred to, is a very well known inventor, and showed remarkable persistence when pursuing an idea. He made over 1000 attempts to make a light bulb before producing a commercially viable design. He purported 3 actions to take to improve your probability of success.

#1 – You must fail systematically

By continually failing you are eliminating the ways not to do something correctly, and logically the more options you eliminate the closer you are to finding the one that works.

#2 – Rid your self of lazy thinker-itis

In order to continually implement possible solutions, you have to constantly think of new ideas to test.

#3 – Use proactive thinking techniques

Brainstorming and Mindstorming are techniques that many have implemented to accomplish this task.

Further exploration: Dr. Proactive, The wizard of Menlo Park