Persistence

Recently, I was reading and studying the chapter on Persistence in the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. As I was reading about the symptoms of the lack of persistence the part about fear of criticism when tears came to my eyes and ran like a flood. The fact is that most times those close to you will launch that fear of criticism to the point of you beginning your own of self-sabotage.

I wanted to launch my company with a big bang, so I put together a one-day workshop dealing with topics for personal growth. I brought together people I knew very well to speak on certain topics they had expertise in for my workshop. The planning was going well when one of my experts said to me…. What if this doesn’t work? What if no one signs up? What will you do then? If you think about it who knows your name? I was persistent and replied, “It will work, and I am staying positive about it”. In the next few weeks I ended up having to cancel the workshop because no one signed up. I know you’re thinking did I advertise the workshop, I did! Still there was no traction with people signing up for attendance. There is a lot more to this side of the story, but I digressed from my point on persistence.

I didn’t realize that those words of defeat were so strong that I made them reality in my mind. From the day I heard those words of “who are you that your name would draw a crowd” (my interpretation) they remained stuck in my mind. I pondered on that being the truth and I stopped being persistent about my business launch workshop. I self-sabotaged my business launch workshop all by myself! I had a limited belief that I was a nobody whom no one wanted to hear from. I had lost the desire to be heard and make a name for myself. I no longer believed I was the person everyone would want to know and hear from. What a downer right? After crying my eyes out realizing this truth it helped me to get back up and begin again. Persistence is never giving up on my desire to be someone who other people what to hear from.