Persistence is The Key to Success

Persistence is the key to success. 

I am sure you have heard this many times. It is really not an overstatement. One of the main reason for failure for many people in any venture they are involved in is to give up too early or too easily. If you read biography of successful people, you will find that these people have failed so many times before they achieved success.

The Story of KFC

When Colonel Harland Sanders retired at the age of 65, he had little to show. He had a small pension and a recipe for chicken. Knowing that he can’t live off his pension, he decided to sell his chicken recipe to restaurant owners, who would in turn give him a residual for every piece of chicken they sold–5 cents per chicken. The first, second then third restaurant owners he approached all turned him down. He didn’t give up. In fact, he was turned down 1008 times! The 1009th person he talked to gave him a “yes”! After two years of making daily sale calls, he had signed up a total of five restaurants. Still he  pressed on, knowing that he had a great chicken recipe and that someday the idea would catch on. You all know how the story ends. By 1963 the Colonel had 600 restaurants across the country selling his secret recipe of Kentucky Fried Chicken (with 11 herbs and spices).

JK Rowling & Harry Porter

JK Rowling loves writing. In fact, she wanted to be a author since age 6. She worked very hard trying to make her dream comes true. However, she soon realised that it was not easy. None of her previous novels achieved much success. Even with her Harry Porter book, things didn’t go smoothly from the beginning. Her Harry Porter book was rejected by 12 publishers! Wow! What would you have done if you were her? To give up? Or to write another novel? She persisted. The 13th publisher she approached decided to publish the book! And again you know how the story ends.

These two stories could have gone completely the opposite direction, if Mr Sanders and Miss Rowling decided to give up, which I believe most people will do after repeated failure. These stories really shows that Persistence is The Key to Success.

Persistence is The Key to Success

To be persistence, you got to have belief. Mr Sanders believes in his chicken recipe and Miss Rowling believes in her book and her dream. Only with strong belief, one can withstands repeated failure and endless criticism. Only with belief we won’t get pulled down by people who want us to fail.

The thing about giving up is that you will never find out what could have happened if you have persisted a little bit longer. You could potentially be missing out on a lot of success.

Persistence is The Key to Success is a principle which applies to all area of life. Take network marketing for example. If you started a business and talked to 100 people, but still could not enrol anyone, what do you do? Do you give up or carry on? 95% of people would have given up. However, we all know that the 101th person you talk to if you persisted could be the person who will take your business to a completely new level! You just never know!

Therefore, it is important to have dream and have belief in what you do. Only with dream and strong belief you can be persistence and work hard endlessly until you achieve your dream.