"You have life to live. It's short, at best. It's a wonderful
privilege and a terrific opportunity - and you've been equipped for it.
Use your equipment, give it all you've got, work hard and don't
quit."
Gabriela Andersen-Scheiss, a thirty-nine-year-old runner from
Switzerland, demonstrated the meaning of persistence to the entire world in her
dramatic finish of the marathon in the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
She had no hope of earning a medal. Her body's tissues were
desiccated from the hours of running under a pitiless sun, and she'd fallen
twenty minutes behind the leaders. Thirty runners had already completed the
26-mile, 385-yard event when Gabriela came lurching through the tunnel and into
the coliseum.
The seventy thousand spectators went to their feet to cheer her on as
she staggered in a weaving half-run around the arena. It took five agonizing
minutes for her to complete the final lap.
When she finally crossed the finish line and collapsed into the arms
of the doctors, the ovation she received was louder and more sustained than the
one that had been given to Joan Benoit, the winner of the gold medal. The
spectators recognized that, even though Gabriela came in thirty-seventh, she was
a winner.
What relationship does that pain-wracked, dehydrated woman's struggle
to finish her race bear to your performance as an agent? Plenty!
You are in a race every bit as demanding as a
marathon. The conditions are totally different, of course. The
crowd that will cheer you on at the end may be small, or even nonexistent. But
you must keep running, day after day, even when there's no hope of getting a
medal. Why? Because, like Gabriela Andersen-Scheiss, you don't have to be among
the top three to be a winner. You simply have to do your best every step of the
way and finish as well as you can.
Study the history of any agent who achieves consistent, high-level
production, and you will find that persistence played a major role in his or her
success.
As Calvin Coolidge put it, "Nothing else in the world can take the
place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful
people 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."
Persistence is a most valuable asset. Individuals who have and use
this quality always get
somewhere.
GO ALL OUT - NO IN
BETWEEN IN 2017!!
