They say persistence accounts for 90 percent of success. It’s the reason successful people leave a trail of failures in their wake. While most have the creativity, intelligence, opportunity, and passion to achieve their goals and dreams, the reason they don’t is simple: they give up too soon. That’s easy enough to understand, but a bitch to live.
The temptation to stop pushing forward—whether for a rest or total abandonment—is overwhelming when the universe throws up roadblocks at every turn, your once-scintillating dream seems like a lost cause, or you’re drawing your final ounce of physical, mental, and emotional energy before collapse. Try living persistence under those uncomfortable, exhausting, and downright painful conditions and you’ll discover the true meaning of the word.
I’ve been tested like everyone else, and I do pretty well. My type-A personality lends itself to challenge and competition; I’ve been called a bulldog on numerous occasions. But even my persistence gets particularly shaky when the tests don’t let up.
Take a recent trip to Phoenix I’d been looking forward to for months. I was headed to that desert oasis for a digital marketing conference, no big thing in itself, but ah, the stars had aligned. My intentions began humbly enough but grew through a miraculous confluence of synchronicity to galactic proportions as the event presented opportunities on all fronts of my life at once.
I was to speak at the conference, thereby gaining free access—my initial intention, since online marketing is what I do for a living. The icing on the cake was a) I love Phoenix and b) I’d be able to visit with my brother and sister-in-law, see their new house, and enjoy a little R&R. I’d even be going on a mountain hike with a new friend.
Yet between getting myself on the agenda and the event itself, the cake was to be elaborately decorated. I’d written a story, which made it to the Huffington Post, about a woman about to become homeless (talk about a lesson in persistence; you can read it here), a big breakthrough for a blossoming writer, and none other than Arianna Huffington was keynoting this digital marketing mixer. I’d have the chance to meet her, I reasoned, get myself on her radar, become a HuffPost blogger. This could be my launching pad … I could become a star (and the fantasies went on from there).
All of a sudden, there was a lot riding on this trip to Phoenix. I vowed to be there at all costs.
Again, easy enough until after flying from Ft. Lauderdale through Dallas to Phoenix the day before the conference I arrived at midnight Phoenix time with no luggage. Fuming, I shuttled over to the consolidated rental car facility only to wander stranded in the abandoned vehicular shrine—the company I’d rented from was closed, and the one that remained open had no cars. I sat on the bench outside the rental car center, on the verge of tears, deciding American Airlines wasn’t worth them. Then came the What Ifs.
What if this was the universe telling me now is not the right time? What if I had gotten ahead of myself and needed to be knocked down a peg? What if I’m not meant to be at this conference, at all? And as big a sinkhole as that opened in my chest, what if I just had to accept it? Still, I wasn’t about to spend the night on the rental car bench. At 1:30 a.m., I reluctantly made the call to my sister-in-law, dreading it because my brother, a morning newscaster, wakes up at 3:45 a.m. “Help me,” I remember moaning into my iPhone. “Save me” is what I meant, and she generously did.
I was grateful that I had family to call, and a house to stay in complete with food and personal care products, both of which I sorely lacked. Setback though this was, I reminded myself things could be worse. Nonetheless, I was left with no new Elie Tahari dress, no hair products to transform my unruly red mane into straight sleek beauty, no makeup, no jewelry, and no clue when or if any of it would arrive. My perfect plans for presenting my perfectly coifed and decorated self to the audience and Ms. Huffington were shot to hell. Again I reminded myself I’d made it this far; I could’ve been stuck in Dallas.
