I spent the day yesterday with my good friend pastor Sam. This is a man who has not yet received his reward. The retired preacher moves slowly around his house on two canes with his voice just below a whisper. As soon as his wife left the house, he handed me a flat head screwdriver.
"Door pins." He whispered. So we took the doors off their hinges and he handed me a tape measure.
"Desk," he whispered. "In the basement." I don't like to say 'no', so I measured out a thirty inch metal deskthat needed to go through a thirty inch doorway at the top of a fleight of stairs.
I'd have given up at this point, but Sam is man forged out of something else. In spite of all the setbacks, he was always ready to try something else. The legs don't come off? See if the desktop does. Can't get the hinges off the doors? Get my ratchet set and I'll pull that desk apart piece by piece.
Sam's attitude was that he would outlast the problem, whatever it was. Just keep trying something else and eventually the problem will give up. He never got frustrated. He waited for the desk to get frustrated.
This is the tenacity that we need in our businesses. We need to absolutely refuse to quit until we've met our goal, then we need to move on to the next goal. However long it takes. It takes Sam a long time just to get across the room or to communicate something. But he's going to get there without fail.
Here's a practical tip: find someone tougher than you and spend a few hours with him once in a while. Tenacity is contagious.
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