Develop Perseverance

 

Whether you're an entrepreneur, athlete, artist or other, success is not a straight line. There are likely to be tough days, and the path may feel more like a zig zag to get where you want to go. To see through these tough times, you need to develop perseverance. In this episode I share my philosophy on perseverance, and some tips to strengthen yours.

 

 

Developing Perseverance

 

(0:01 - 3:36)

Perseverance. Let's talk about perseverance today because it is a big theme at the moment. It's something that we need to plug into, I feel right now, collectively.

And we can look at a whole bunch of different layers in the how, where, and why. But it's important, right? Because if you're trying to do anything in your life, the trajectory is not just straight up. You don't just start and arrive.

And there's others, generally speaking, that are trying to do the same things you are, depending what you're doing. And even if we're all working together, there's natural factors, you know, we can be facing collectively, not just in competition, but also in collaboration that are bigger than all of us. You know, even standing hand in hand, arm in arm together, moving things forward.

So perseverance is a is a characteristic, it's a muscle to develop, I feel. And it's on so many different levels. We can look at a big picture, small picture, individually, collectively, as a function of humanity and more.

At the moment, I'm specifically looking at it as just even trying to record this episode, when I've got a leaf blower outside my window. And sometimes that's another noise. Yesterday, it was a chainsaw.

Like, it's, you know, it's funny. But it's just what is right in front of me at the moment. And there are things that are always around us, no matter what we're trying to do.

And sometimes, the winds, as I like to use this, this metaphor, the winds are behind us, the wind is at our back. Right? Or the winds are in our face. And more often than not, they're kind of somewhere in between, I feel, given my experience and the experiences I've had in my life.

And they can come as gusts, they can come as sustained winds. You know, the best analogy for life of our I've always found, well, there's a couple, but they're usually water based. Come to think of it, as I reflect on that a bit, surfing is one for sure.

And also sailing is another. Right? So as we persevere, no matter what our goals or objectives are, my belief and my philosophy is that we need to keep going. And the winds are going to change.

But what the winds don't change is our destination. They may redirect us. But when we know what we want, our destination stays the same.

(3:37 - 7:24)

We can change our destination. We can go with the flow, so to speak, we can let the winds guide us, which is also a philosophy I embrace and adopt as a function of my destination. I think I have hard and fixed destination.

But I also have flexible and open minded destinations that, you know, are welcome to take shape, both a rigid trajectory, and a flexible trajectory, which things am I firm on and which things am I open to inspiration from as they evolve and present themselves. But generally speaking, we're sailors, each of us on our journey and all of us collectively, we're spinning around this, this spinning on this rock in the middle of space, right, which it's easy to lose sight of because, you know, we have all these things in the day that keep us active. The, the doings, right, the lunch meetings, the, the events, you know, the activities, the people, the stuff going on can, can sometimes, you know, distract us from that deepest truth and reality.

And that reality is that we don't still totally know what we're doing here, or why we're here. And that everything that is going on that we are doing, collectively and individually is based on, is based on, you know, data is based on, you know, historical inspiration, experimentation, and, and belief. But there are no certain fixed answers or guarantees.

There are systems that may be worked for others that might work for you or might work for us. And those are always moving and evolving also. Right? So our work, no matter what our goals are, is about reaching that objective, reaching that destination.

And you could be an athlete, you could be an artist, you could be an entrepreneur, you know, you could be a leaf blower. This leaf blower is literally just bringing it right now. But the leaf blower's goal, right, is on one hand, possibly avoiding the shoe someone might throw at them while they're doing their work, but also completing the task of, you know, of cleaning out those leaves, right? And so how do we persevere through the things? Well, some things are going to be easier than others.

And we have to appreciate, and I've recognized this in my life, I learned this a long time ago, there are, I said this the other day in another episode, there are factors we can control, and there are factors we can't control. And to persevere, we need to control the factors we can. And we need to trust the factors we can't, because we can't control the wind.

(7:25 - 12:29)

Don't get me in a whole side conversation about weather control and all these like, whatever, you know, deep talks about whether people can do that or not. That's a whole other thing for another day. And I'm not a whole expert on that either.

But you know, that's just a whole other thing. I just mean, right, philosophically, we cannot control the wind. We can't control the orbit of the earth, you know, and the way the earth spins, and the rising and setting of the sun, and the moon, and the universe, these are natural forces.

And the way we've built our world socially, right, even despite our best intentions, when those intentions are best intending, I don't feel necessarily always. With some characters that participate in this big dance, but let's say for many, I believe in you, and I believe in others. They come from this place with their best intentions, right? To do good and the right things.

We've created systems and structures that both support and impede, in different ways, our potential to realize certain goals, objectives, whatever, right? You know, rules, regulations, policies, processes, qualifications, associations, a whole bunch of stuff. And I can also go on a whole side rant about regulation, and red tape, and these types of things, and that will probably happen one of these days, because it's warranted. But we're also, you know, up against those things, which are like kind of man-made elements, right? They're meant to improve circumstances, find balance, make things fair for people, all this kind of stuff.

But do they, case by case, it needs to be, you know, considered, and always reviewed and re-evaluated in the context of what's going on. But my point being that these things are also either wind at our back, or wind in our face. And depending on what we're doing, we need to persevere through these things.

So what is perseverance generally? We know the term, you know the term, you've heard it, you're going through whatever you're going through, you're doing your stuff, you have your goals, you're working on them, right? But what does it actually mean? It is actually the continuation of a thing, this is not straight out of the dictionary, but this is my, you know, definition. The continuation of a thing, of the thing, of your thing, despite headwinds, despite things that are not bouncing in your favor, despite things that are not, you know, clearly, directly, or obviously supporting your work. I'm comforted by my faith.

I'm not religious, I'm a spiritual fellow, and I have no judgment for anyone, no matter what your leanings might be, where you find your confidence, trust, faith. But I explored and was rewarded, I'll say, with mine, from what I witnessed, taking the approach of what if, what if this can happen? What if this is possible? What if I do this thing? Is there more? And what I was rewarded with was the the confirmation of, you know, synchronicity, serendipity, you know, like, unbelievable coincidence, you know, miracles and magic and these types of things. On my journey, opening up to consider that, and challenge that and go, I think there's more.

(12:30 - 14:46)

To all of this, right? And I saw more. And that brought me this deep knowing and deep comfort in my journey in my life, despite whatever's going on, right? And to persevere, to develop a strong spine that can persevere through challenges and roadblocks and similar on your journey is supported and fueled by that type of faith, I will say, in part, because we need to find the ways to keep going. We need to find the ways to keep believing.

We need to find the ways to keep reaching. We need to find the ways to keep achieving. And that does not mean persevere blindly, in my opinion.

There's perseverance. Let's just, let's call it like this, a conscious perseverance, an awareness, and then there's blind perseverance. So blind perseverance, in my opinion, be like ignoring every sign and signal and cue suggesting to you that you're probably not headed in the right direction.

Like nothing's working, right? That all of your performance indicators are telling you that you're just way off and there's no response and there's just nothing happening. It doesn't mean you can't push through those things, but you need to evaluate depending on what your circumstances are and say, am I doing this right? Right? I'm not getting the feedback, right? I'm not getting the response. I'm not achieving the result.

(14:48 - 15:40)

And then to look at it consciously and go, okay, in what ways am I, like drill a little deeper, what ways am I achieving and what ways am I not achieving? And where's all my energy going? Is my energy going into all the ways that aren't working or all the ways that are working? Or should I recalibrate my energy into the things that aren't working more towards the things that are working? And if I do that and support those more and evolve more in that direction, will that continue to support and help get me where I want to go? But the key is about persevering and breaking through. And I've broken through many times in my life in places and scenarios that like nobody thought was possible. Nobody thought I'd do it.

(15:42 - 20:53)

Nobody thought teams I was working on or with, you know, clients would do it. Um, just things, just drop a whole bunch of stuff here. Things that, you know, people, other people didn't think were possible, but did I, I believe that they were possible and they became possible.

And so we need to find that deep knowing, but we need to still be responsible within that. Not just blindly saying it's going to happen because it's going to happen. We need to still try and do what we can to help that happen.

And that includes the recalibration along the journey as we persevere through whatever headwinds we're facing. And so look at, you know, look at the data, look at the, uh, you know, the feedback, you know, your reviews, um, your coaches notes, um, you know, comments, um, engagement, you know, look at, look at the engagement on your, on your content or your products or whatever it is like, this is all, this is all insight. And as we persevere to improve performance or to achieve a goal, generally, um, right.

Common, uh, you know, areas where we're talking about, you know, persevering and achieving, right. Those are all supportive elements to help us adjust our sails to catch the wind, right? Because we want the wind at our back. We want the support and the resources flowing in our direction to help us get where we want to go.

But those winds change direction and those change direction from factors that are also outside of our control. They're also outside of your control, right? And so we need to make adjustments. And what will also happen is that factors outside of your control will bring the winds back around behind you.

So the wind is at your back and helping propel you forward. Right. And that happens often.

And so when the winds are in, or, you know, right, your face, what you need to do, I would suggest, and which is what I do is I need to review all these different clues and elements and consider them and evaluate them. And, um, and, um, um, flow with them generally, uh, you know, and adjust according to them as I continue to move forward despite the headwind and, um, continue to refine and pour the cement, as I like to say, into the fundamentals of the thing I'm doing. So to continue to strengthen my fundamentals, um, which using the ship analogy, continue to make the ship stronger, right.

Uh, to make it more resilient, um, to, to, um, uh, you know, to just make it more, um, uh, you know, it's the best way to describe this to, um, uh, to, to make it better prepared, to make it ready, to make it more ready for when the winds change direction because the winds can change direction quickly. And what you can find is that if you're not preparing or you're not prepared for that, that you're seeking and the achievement of that thing that you're persevering to, when you get there, you might drop the ball. You know, they also say, um, when the student is ready, the teacher appears, right.

Meaning when you're ready, the winds may change. The headwinds may be in your face because you're not ready. So get ready for the winds to change and they will.

And they do. And I've experienced it so many times from like the impossible to the possible, from the nothing's going on to everything's going on. And those variables are also outside of us.

So our work and things we control is to prepare for that and keep working and going through it and tune what we're doing, tune our work, tune our activities to improve and keep going. Right foot, left foot. As I say, just keep moving the right foot, the left foot.

And it will change. And when it does change, it's just a spectacular thing and you're ready for it. It's hard to say when it's going to change.

(20:54 - 21:45)

That's the part we can't surely put our finger on. We can anticipate, we could say, well, you know, usually in September things like start to behave like this based on past experience or like, you know, maybe in January things will feel a certain way or whatever, but we're guesstimating a little bit. We're reviewing data.

We're evaluating. It makes rational logical sense, but it doesn't necessarily follow that that's a guarantee to occur. So there's a bit of unknown of the when, which is part of the challenge of perseverance is that we need to keep marching in the trust that it will change, which is a bit blind in the trust that it will change, but knowing that it will change and preparing for when that moment comes.

(21:45 - 22:19)

And that is the work of perseverance. In my opinion, that is the work of perseverance from my desk around the things that I do, those that I work with. And it's, it's what I advise my clients is, you know, it's tough.

I had a call come in interesting, but we're still going. So that's good. Um, I need to put this stuff on airplane mode, don't I? Um, but perseverance.

(22:19 - 22:34)

So for me, is that right? It is working through the hard periods until the conditions change that support your work. It's when nobody's going to take your call. You're not getting the votes.

(22:34 - 22:39)

You're not getting the sales. You're not getting the, the support. The resources aren't coming in.

(22:39 - 23:10)

Like these are stormy waters, right? And the wind is, is, you know, in front of you, you know, and we want to recalibrate that and it's going to happen, but we don't know exactly when it's going to be. So with all of my clients, I do advise, like you have to keep finding the way to move it forward, assuming it's what you want to continue to do. And that evaluation is based on a lot of different information.

(23:15 - 23:40)

Um, but that's for you to determine it's on a case by case basis. There's no real generalizations I can drop here, but whether you should or should not do your thing, right? Because you can ultimately get there. It's generally a function of time, but what is the best path for you to take? Well, that's something that you need to determine by evaluating all the variables.

(23:40 - 32:45)

But the thing you need to know is that when you're building something, especially as an entrepreneur in business, right? It's going to come, you have to keep going, but you have to keep evolving as you go to find where those opportunities are. So now we're taking like the, the, the sailboat, we're taking our ship here and we're finding the path, you know, through the rocks. Uh, and we're looking for clues.

We're taking all that information in, we're making adjustments a bit to, you know, navigate. It's not a straight line. It's more of a jagged line, right? A zigzag along the way to get to that destination, to persevere through the challenges that, um, will present themselves along the way.

And it's not just the route. It's also factors that we can't control. So I just always tell my clients, control the things you can.

What you can is moving your business forward, is making your business stronger, is digging a little deeper, focusing, um, more on the things that are working, like really reviewing the data. What is working? What does your audience want? You know, uh, what are the products people are most interested in? You know, where's your greatest strength? Where are your greatest differentiators that are gaining traction? Like all these types of things and like, keep moving your business forward, right? Because if you don't, then when things change, you won't be ready and someone else will have been doing that work and they will be ready and they will capitalize on, uh, that opportunity. So you have to find the way to keep going and it gets challenging.

It can get tight. It can get tricky. Uh, but in that the same principles apply that as you're coming to get to know me here, I'm all about, which is staying cool and grounded and clear, working through the breath, being kind to yourself, getting rest and exercise, right? Outdoors and surrounded by good people, but staying focused on that work, you know, and when the winds change and everything feels light and everything's great again, and you know, all things are flowing and you know, everybody's just joyful and happy and light and all that.

Well, and you can take all the breaks you, you want and need, right? But when, when, um, the going gets tough, the tough get going, you know, you get the call to it. You feel the call, it's time to get to work. And the thing with that is, that's not just about seasons.

Seasons are, you know, a construct basically around the weather and all this good stuff, of course. But when the goings are good and the goings are tough, we're not directly tied to the seasons. They're not directly tied to the holiday or the, or the specific date on the calendar.

Um, those are some possible variables about when things can be better and easier generally. Um, but they're not the only factors, right? Hard times can come at any time and good times can also come at any time. So you develop that instinct of when the good times are, when the tougher times are, where you need to roll up your sleeves and do more work to persevere through challenges and getting the sense of that might, you know, separate you a little bit from the general flow of people out there.

Um, but you want to have your own, um, ability to interpret that so you can make the calls that are appropriate for you in your world. And then you can step into assisting, making the calls in family, community, country, world, this type of stuff. But you need to be able to make those determinations for yourself, persevering through your own circumstances initially, if they present themselves, right? And when they present themselves, and this is the way to do it.

And in that, this is, and I believe this is the way to do it. And in that, trust that better days are ahead, that all storms pass, that what you seek is seeking you, that, um, uh, that if you just continue to do the work in the right ways, you can tweak, you can turn, you can pivot, partial pivot. These are all options, you know, they're valid and important.

Um, but, um, for you to determine those are, those are, you know, options available to you. However, continuing to move forward, take a break, you know, another great one, learn to rest, not to quit, right? Take a break if you need to mentally when you need to. And that could be for an hour, half an hour, that could be for a day, a week, you know what you need.

So listen to yourself in evaluating that, but keep the feet moving, right foot, left foot, moving forward towards your goal, moving forward with that objective that you hold in front of you, no matter what headwinds you're facing and lean into it as much as you need to, um, when the headwinds are strong and trust that they're going to change direction sooner than later for you. That is my take on my interpretation of my, um, um, inspiration to you for and about, uh, perseverance. And I'm a guy who perseveres a lot because I take on projects that are underdogs.

I work with a lot of companies that are, and entrepreneurs and on projects that are, that are independent, that are like smaller scale, that are under-resourced, undermanned, that are unknown, that are distressed, uh, and, um, you know, unwell, abandoned companies and ventures and things. And the work that I do often with these is to help them move forward, help turn around those circumstances, um, you know, and more. And so to do that, you have to have a deep resolve in this kind of work, right? And work on it until it breaks and it will break.

And trust that magic is coming for you as much as for everyone else. And it is more likely to come sooner if you continue to work on the fundamentals and strengthening the fundamentals of what you're doing, refining, um, the work or the, um, activities you're working on, whether you're an athlete or you're, you know, you're an e-commerce brand or whatever, and just keep moving those feet forward, get creative in doing it. Um, you know, get creative in, in the resources you use, the costs that you've cut, the ways that you keep going, you're really batting it down if you need to, but keep it moving forward.

That's the perseverance and things will open up. That's, that's the kind of perseverance you need to break through. So, um, no matter what you're going through out there, I hope it's going well.

I hope your chin's up. I hope you're putting your right foot in front of your left foot. I hope that you're, um, taking a close look at what's working and what isn't, uh, letting go of what isn't, trusting what is flowing, where things are opening and where you're being guided.

Um, but moving forward, no matter what headwinds are facing you, uh, towards your goals, because you will get there. I believe that I've seen it. I know it.

(32:45 - 33:40)

I've done it. So for now, that's what I got on perseverance. You have any thoughts, questions, whatever, let me know.

Check out my, uh, links, uh, below depending on what, uh, platform you're listening to this on. And, um, I'm sending you tons of good vibes and all the, uh, the, um, resilient, persevering strength and energy you need to move through whatever you're working through and get where you want to go until, uh, until you get there. And until I jump on to another episode and, uh, share some more thoughts and insights and, um, feelings and answer questions that you have with me and about our world.

So wishing you an amazing day and we'll talk to you later.