It Takes Persistence and Perseverance to Keep Doing a Difficult Thing
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Do you think it’s possible for you to become one of the best Financial Advisors in the world? How about in your firm or in your town? Is it possible for you to be great, to be admired and looked up to? How about rich? How about famous? Or are the rewards for the other guy? Have you thought long and hard about what it takes to become great?
It has been said that advice is what you seek when you already know the answer but wish you didn’t.
The good news is that all those things are within your grasp. The bad news is that acquiring them takes a big chunk of time. The difficulty lies in the dedication to hard work. And that dedication escapes most people.
Fame and fortune are not the byproducts of talent. Rather, they are the byproducts of working hard and long to turn that talent into a skill. Only one question matters when it comes to rising to the top of our profession. How badly do you want it?
Greatness does not elude most people for intellectual reasons.
What we do as Financial Advisors takes brains, but the intellectual challenge is not overwhelming. What is overwhelming for most is the commitment. It’s a difficult task becoming excellent and too few want to put in the hours. Persistence and patience are in short supply.
Learning how to become a successful Advisor is like learning how to become successful at anything.
You don’t take a golf lesson and run out and play golf. You work on what you learned that day. Then you go back for another lesson. If you apply what you learn and work hard at it, you might get good. Not everyone who works hard get good, but all those who are good worked hard to get there.
Persistence is basically pushing onward despite difficulty.
When most people feel like quitting, they quit. They lose the motivation to continue. That’s usually, but not always, a bad thing.
If you made the decision that holding seminars is the best way to prospect and you’re getting nowhere after many seminars and probably never will get anywhere, it may be time to try something else. But if there is an inkling of success, quitting is probably wrong.
Every great Advisor, like every successful person in other fields, persisted when most others would have quit.
They look back and remember that one extra phone call or that last knock on the door and know exactly when their careers turned around. As Calvin Coolidge observed,
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
The fuel of persistence is patience, the ability to tolerate delays while persisting.
You may not like the setbacks and the defeats, but you know they must happen and you must go through them if you want to break away from mediocrity. Accept that success takes time.
Run, don’t walk, at your obstacles and clear them out of the way. Be patient. The height to which you will go will be in direct proportion to your desire to succeed.
Success lies out there. How badly do you want it?
