Persistence

No one thing is as important to my success in life as persistence. My father used to say, “Sister, you can do anything you want to do if you’ll just stick with it long enough.” My grandfather was named Grover Cleveland Spencer. I never knew Papa’s father. For this reason I created my own special Grandpa hero out of Grover Cleveland Spencer. It was fueled by my daddy’s stories about his father.

According to Daddy my Grandfather owned a dry goods store in Ft. Myers, Florida. It was called The Fair Price Dry Goods Store. It was the only one in Ft. Myers at the time. Everyone in town shopped there. For this reason my Grandfather knew Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, both of whom wintered in Ft. Myers. Henry Ford told my Grandfather a story that he passed down to my daddy. Papa passed it down to me. I have passed it on to thousands.

Apparently Henry Ford had his challenges in starting up the automobile industry. To begin with, he had to convince people that they needed a car at a time when there were really no streets for them, and very limited fuel outlets. Neither were there parts readily available. Developing a sales team to sell an expensive “tough buy” product had its own special challenges. Henry Ford had finally gotten a team of 25 young salesmen together, and was sharing sales facts with them. He told them that typically a salesman has to be able to endure hearing “no” twenty-five times for every “yes.” Henry Ford then told the young men that “they could do anything if they would just stick with it long enough.”

One young man stood to his feet to object.

“Mr. Ford, I beg to differ. You see, for as long as I might wish to carry water in a sieve, I can never do so.”

Henry Ford paused for a long pregnant moment and then replied, “Son, if you are patient enough to wait until winter, the water will freeze and you’ll be able to carry that water anywhere in your sieve.”

Papa used this story to coach me to completion and success for the span of his life. He teased me relentlessly if I wanted to quit swimming or running.

He would say, “Swimmers never quit and quitters never swim.”

Due to his coaching, I went on to become a Florida state swimming champion and a Jr. Olympian champion.

He often provoked me by challenging me as a “girl”. He would chant, “Girls can’t do that”. As it turned out, that was the perfect motivation for me to perform just for spite. At age 59 I was cast in CBS Survivor Vanuatu. Even before applying, I ran around my ranch barefooted to toughen my feet. I bought and wore Survivor buffs, and practiced on our balance beams. I never doubted that I would be selected, so I persisted in my daily training. Today, Papa is gone, but his lessons remain.

“You can do anything you want to do, Sister, if you’ll just stick with it long enough”.

Over my many trips around the sun, I’ve learned the value of “picking a path and staying on it long enough to see where it leads”.

We now know that “persistence” is the most quoted key to success by coaches around the world. You can figure out how to do anything you want to do if you’ll just stick with it long enough.

As one of my songs says “The key to my success is in a whole lot of failure, strung together with a lot more hanging tough. My Daddy said that I could do anything I wanted to if I would just hang in there long enough!”