Stamina

“When you get to the end of your rope,
tie a knot and hang on.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt

If all of this worked like a charm, everyone would do it. If all we had to do is prepare honestly and then perform with grace and flexibility, it would be hard but not crushing. But for your next trick, you have to accept that all of this doesn’t always end in “success” and keep coming back for more.

Let’s look to another POTUS for amplification:

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent.”
Calvin Coolidge

Politics is more unforgiving than the arts, obviously. These gentlemen were experts at getting up and coming back for more.

Need I say it again? Talent is not enough. The world does not owe you anything.

The good news is that success is relative. It is subjective. You need not subscribe to anyone else’s definition of it in order to be happy. So if you keep running into brick walls, the first thing you need to know is that persistence is rarer than talent. And the second thing is that you might want to think about your route so that the brick wall in question isn’t squarely in the middle of it.  But that’s a topic for tomorrow.

“Fall seven times, stand up eight.”
Japanese Proverb