Will Your “Persistence” Ever Light Up a Room?

Are you persistent? Do you give up after the first failed attempt? How about after several setbacks or negative comments about you or your idea? Success often comes with a price paved with long hours, hard work and persistence to see the job through. Recent data analysis suggests the average entrepreneur will fail three times before succeeding and has an 18% chance of succeeding on the first try.

Consider how much time it took to invent the light bulb.

“Most of us grew up believing that Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. The truth is, he didn’t. What he did do was invent the first long-lasting light bulb, greatly improving on the work of others, and making it a commercial success. One thing that can be observed in all of the men who helped bring us electricity was their dogged determination. Joseph Wilson Swan was one of Edison’s predecessors and is credited with inventing the world’s first workable electric bulb. Beginning in 1840, he toiled for twenty years until, in 1860, he created and patented the first electric bulb which only burned briefly. Returning to his project in 1875, he achieved a better result—a bulb that burned for thirteen hours. Edison and his assistants tried 6,000 different types of filament before, in 1879, they surpassed Swan’s result. They designed a longer-lasting oxygen-less bulb with a carbon filament that burned fourteen hours. A year later, in 1880, Edison’s team came up with a vastly improved bulb that burned between 1,200 to 1,500 hours, which they took to market. As they say, the rest is history.

We can certainly admire such celebrated determination and spectacular results, but what about you? Would you try anything 6,000 times before you gave up? How about 2,000? How about twenty? What’s the most number of times you have tried anything before you finally succeeded? What did you attempt? How many times did you try?”

Excerpted from Fire Your Excuses.