Persistence
Persistence in many ways comes from Having A Dream!…
Very often we may look at successful people in society, whether they be a top golfer, a rich businessman, a celebrity etc and adopt the misguided idea that their life is more positive than negative or possibly that their route to this notable position has been one of lucky breaks. Holding this perception in our mind can have the effect of limiting our own life and progress, why?…. You are going to have bad days when things don’t go well, holding even a glimmer of the idea that this is stopping you from getting what you want or that others who are successful don’t have to deal with these problems could make you feel unworthy and that you aren’t destined for success and ultimately you give up and settle for mediocrity!
The real truth behind the lives of people we recognise as successful is often far different to what you imagine, they too have had their difficulties, their struggles, their upsets, times when it felt like nothing was going right, but they had something inside that meant that even during these difficult times when it felt like they had major distractions and problems in the way of what they wanted they never gave up! Sure they may have had the odd day or few hours of feeling sorry for themselves, but their vision of what they truly wanted came through and got them back on their feet. It has been said by many including I believe the Bible that… “people without a dream perish!”
So how often do you remind yourself of your vision for your life and business? Honour the uniqueness of your vision, don’t feel it must reflect someone else’s or what society says, get clear on what you really want and hold that vision clear, each day taking a few moments to contemplate the achievement and living of this vision. But remember as I mention above it wont be a smooth path, there will be challenges this is called NORMAL, but if you want exceptional results different to the mainstream then you must keep building habits that with discipline will lead you to new results, and actually in many ways it is no more complicated than that, the most successful people in the World have simply adopted a set of habits that have lead to their own unique result, what you can be certain of is those habits are different to the mainstream, I like to remind myself of this saying….
“For Extraordinary Results you need to do Ordinary things Extraordinarily Well!”
One celebrity in particular whose life is worth listening to and learning from is Sylvester Stallone alias Rocky his story of getting the career he wanted is one of true persistence…
Sylvester decided he was destined for the film business, yet after several years of trying he was on poverty, at one point he pawned his wife’s jewellery (not a great idea!) and even had to sell his dog for $25 because he couldn’t feed him any longer!
He was turned down by every agent in New York and by many several times!! They told him he didn’t look or sound right!
One day at another casting session he happened to mention to the producers that he also wrote scripts, and had one about boxing, they asked him to bring it in. This script the now famous Rocky was written by Sly in his tiny one room apartment in 3 days straight!! This wasn’t his first script, he had sold a previous title for $100.
The inspiration for Rocky came after watching a fight with Joe Bugner and Mohammed Ali, after watching this fight be barley slept until the script was written. He was convinced he was onto something with this script so much so that on completing it he was shaking with adrenaline. However others weren’t so convinced until he mentioned it to the producers mentioned above. They like it and offered him $125,000 for the script. Now imagine a man in poverty now being offered $125,000, he has to be jumping for joy over the moon right? Well not quite, you see Sly’s vision was to be Rocky and this didn’t fit with the producers, they were talking about the likes of Ryan O’Neal, Burt Reynolds etc, so they kept increasing the offer for the script and him NOT to be Rocky!! At one point the offer went over $300,000 and he still turned it down. Finally they agreed on $35,000 and the rest as they say is history. One nice sub story here is when Sly got the money for the script the first thing he did wasn’t what you might expect, he in fact went back to the street corner where he sold his dog and waited to see the man he had sold it too, and negotiated to buy the dog back. After selling the dog for $25, he ended up paying $15,000 to get the dog back, and that dog, Buckus is actually in Rocky! Plus so is the man he bought the dog back from as that was part of the deal to get Buckus back!!
I hope you agree this is a wonderful story of persistence, driven by a dream. You might not want to be a film actor, but whatever it is you want it is a worthy dream and I hope this story inspires you to pursue it. So the next time you have a day that knocks you off track and feels like you are treading treacle, remember Sylvester Stallone’s story and never let your vision disappear!
You may want to hear acclaimed motivational speaker Tony Robbins tell this story to a live audience, you can hear via this You Tube line, with some searching you can also hear a longer version direct from Sylvester Stallone himself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywuse55qU2A