Perseverance

Perseverance is not giving up. It is persistence and tenacity, the effort required to do something and keep doing it till the end, even if it is hard.

The Oxford Dictionary defines Perseverance as follows: Steadfastness in doing something despite the difficulty or delay in achieving success.

It was Thomas Edison who noted that many of life’s failures are people who did not know how close they were to success when they gave up.

There are many examples of this. Look at any inventor who has taken his or her invention to market. They did not just wake up with an idea one day and go into production the next. It took many of them months and in some cases years to refine their ideas and even longer to find and convince people to invest in them. I know some of you reading this now who have experienced exactly that, but you, and they, believed enough in their product/service, that they persevered until they achieved their goal!

Any sport at any level has great examples of perseverance. Take golf, one of my favorites (who would have guessed) and see how many times a winner has come from behind or soccer when a game is all tied up and it goes into overtime and sometimes all the way to a shoot-out. Examples exist also in nature…the spider weaving his web, or a crocodile stalking what appears to the elusive prey. I saw a video recently of a leopard swimming across a river and sneaking up behind a crocodile basking in the sun on a sand bank. The leopard was silent and lethal, pouncing on the crocodile and paralyzing him to the point where the leopard swam back across the river with the croc in his mouth. A leopard, beating a predator on the predator’s turf! Imagine what patience and persistence that took!!

So, while this obviously applies to business, whether it is winning projects, starting up or just growing your business in competitive markets, I believe that in today’s world of competition, invention and desire,  it applies to more than just “the business”.

I believe that because of the intense competition, the growing population, the continuous innovation and inventions and reinventions that it is easy for companies to start losing sight of their core values and principles. It is easy for companies to lose sight of their morals and ethics. Their desire to succeed or grow or win is so strong that sometimes it is easy just cut a corner or deliver short of their intentions. Small, and never malicious, or obvious, or maybe not necessarily intended, but too easy to fall into that trap.

So…I believe that it takes perseverance not only to create and keep a business, but ALSO to develop and maintain those core values…morals, principles and ethics! Persevere to maintain those values. The companies that do, will be the better for it.