|
Chapter Three
Perseverance
Weathering the Daze --
Reign and Shine
The greatness of a dragon is not
judged
by its strength, but by its perseverance.
Now for your personalized
self-marketing forecast. One that you can be sure to count on with
absolute certainty:
Do not expect clear skies.
The decision to self-market your
dream will cloud you with confusion, thunder you with turmoil, and
leave you wading chin-high through doubt pouring down in a torrent.
Know now that weathering the daze of disappointment, frustration,
and setbacks will not leave you toasty and dry, and it is not
(repeat: not) for those individuals with weak mental and emotional
resources. To take on the challenges and obstacles of self-marketing
your dream, you must have the ability to work from the inside out in
all ways, approaching each new day with a presence and consciousness
that is catalyzed with patience, persistence, and perseverance. We
promise you that no matter how great your intention, how sincere
your aspiration, how exceptional your idea, without resolute
steadfastness and purposeful determination, you will tangle yourself
in nonexistent limitations and knot yourself in unfounded fears.
Doomed by your own inaction, you will wimp out, abandoning the
richer experience that awaits you, languishing in the repeated
echoes of shoulda-coulda, the ultimate phantasm that haunts us all.
Not a good place.
So here is something we would like
you to learn today, and it is so important that it can't be
overstated: It takes a give-as-good-as-you-got commitment to
manifest your vision. More than any specific skill or talent,
self-marketing a dream requires placing priority on certain
qualities of thought and attitude. Adaptability of thought and
action will allow you to overcome seemingly insurmountable setbacks,
viewing adversity and failure as only temporary barriers to success.
Be unreasonable. Hang on to a tenacity that others may think is an
upside-down belief, until the world looks level. Perseverance gives
timing a chance to come to your aid. Realize, please, adaptability
is not the attribute of a blessed special few -- it is the endowment
of all who open themselves to inspiration, desire, and hard work.
To be a Zentrepreneur is to
understand the essential lesson handed down in Charles Darwin's
study, On the Origin of Species. Often mistakenly misquoted as
expounding the survival of the fittest, truth is, Darwin's theory is
actually based on what he described as the “survival of the most
adaptable.” The true Zentrepreneur adheres to the mantra that the
positive force of a pliant attitude is the most powerful source of
energy available, allowing you to adapt to circumstance and attend
to those things that can be controlled -- your thoughts, your
emotions, the endless moments of doubt, the self-directness that
gives you the endurance to act, excel, and succeed. A really good
idea demands it. It also demands that there be a led-and-fed
readiness to tolerate uncertainty. To know that there is a way.
Understand this: Zentrepreneurs never retreat from their goals. They
constantly affirm their conviction that they will find a way to
achieve them. And understand this, too: Every single successful
product or service that exists was started by a person with an idea
and a strong capacity to deliver the idea despite a terrifying
tempest of trepidation.
Perseverance is continued effort.
It is also the process of being in
love with what you want to do, without being in love with the idea
of what you want to do. This daze-and-confusion is tragically one of
the main reasons that many turn their backs, hopelessly giving in to
the pressures of discouragement. Too often too many quit because
they believed that their ultimate goal was not reachable, failing to
understand that it is the process rather than the product or service
that actually gets you there. In other words, it's not the idea that
forms the action, it's the action that forms the idea.
Successful people have an
enthusiasm for the perpetual experience of the process, which fuels
their determination and perseverance, which powers them to do.
Loving what you do actualizes a compelling intensity and exuberance
that can overcome the damaging intervening thoughts of rejection,
uncertainty, and self-pity -- thoughts that can, if you let them,
paralyze you from taking action. Or worse: cause you to recoil from
your purpose. Worse yet: in the crunch, giving up and giving in
altogether. The difference between success and failure is the
difference between a strong will and a strong won't. Perseverance
yields progress. Take solace in Gandhi, who stated that joy lies in
the fight.
Perseverance is zest for the
pursuit.
It is the willingness to face fear
and confront cynicism with a clear-headedness, understanding that
success will come when you treat each day of the process as a
learning curve rather than an earning curve. Perseverance is the
discipline that is used as a review for steps taken, a guide to
improve the process with revised insight and dauntless will. It is a
way of looking at what needs to be looked at. It is, quite simply,
making yourself and your business one percent better in one hundred
different ways.
Nutshelling it, it is the courage
to forge ahead when you discover the downsides and risks, and fear
the inevitable failure. Perseverance is difficult, but it is the
hallmark of success. Those that have prevailed in any endeavor have
shown a common trait -- the endowment of a strong mental spirit. We
feel that this can't be repeated too often, which is why we are
going to repeat it again and again throughout this book: The primary
attribute available to you in order to successfully market your
dream is ultimately like a gift. . . .
It's the thought that counts.
Excerpted from Dragon Spirit:
How To Self-Market Your Dream -- A Zentrepreneur's Guide
By Ron Rubin and Stuart Avery Gold
Copyright © 2003 by Ron Rubin and Stuart Avery Gold
Reprinted by permission of Newmarket Press, 18 East 48 Street, New
York, NY 10017, (212) 832-3575
|
