What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL
The secret of success is the consistency to pursue.
HARRY F. BANKS
With true grit you persist until you catch a glimpse of your potential. That is when passion is born.
FRED SMITH
Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.
DALE CARNEGIE
Press on. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
RAY A . KROC
Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
My dream to be a speaker was born in 1952, when I heard Bob Bales speak in Florence, South Carolina. He gave me valuable direction, which I followed. However, it wasn’t until 1970 that I was able to go full time in the business, and it wasn’t until 1972 that my career as a speaker really took off. In those intervening years, I read a large number of excellent books and listened to outstanding speakers as I traveled countless miles driving to the “freebies” that I conducted. I also picked up examples, illustrations, and stories as I participated in a wide range of events.
I shared with audiences of all kinds and sizes. I spoke to civic clubs, Lions, Jaycees, Rotaries, schools, rehab centers, prisons, churches—to virtually any group who permitted me to share with them. I solicited feedback from those folks who were experienced in the field and who had my interests at heart. Through it all, I had some discouraging times when it seemed as though nothing was happening. But not only did I have the dream, the dream had me.
Along the way, I became convinced that what I had to say was important and that I could make a difference in people’s lives. I can honestly tell you that not once did I ever contemplate abandoning the idea of being a full-time professional speaker. During those years, I continued to work in sales because, with a wife and four children, my first priority was to provide for them.
In retrospect, I realize that the long delay was largely responsible for much of the success I’ve enjoyed over the last thirty-three years. I was applying the principles on a real and everyday basis in my own sales life and in the lives of the people whose careers I was directing. I quickly found that the principles went far beyond the sales world. This revelation created a desire to discover more so that I could share more. Along this journey, I came to realize that the more I knew about my subject, the more creative I could be in my presentations. The more new ideas I acquired from others, the more useful my own ideas became, because truth forms a synergism. I was careful to seek truth and ethical principles as I built my career.
I believe that whatever your chosen profession, if you make a strong commitment and have a burning desire in your heart—combined with the conviction that you can make a difference—dogged persistence and grit provide you the best insurance for success. Remember that persistence enables you to develop other skills as you go along, provided that you’re always “on the grow” and are genuinely passionate about benefiting the people you’re dealing with.
Grit: The Story of Charles Goodyear
The next time you go to buy tires for your car, I hope the story I’m about to tell you will pop up on the radar screen in your mind and cause you to continue, finish, restart, or press on with your dreams. You may not buy tires made by the Goodyear company, but you’ll likely see them as you shop—and when you do, I want you to think about Charles Goodyear. . . .
The best account of the life and quest of Charles Goodyear is called Noble Obsession, written by Charles Slack. I tell you that up front in order to make reference to the title. Normally, we think of an obsession in negative terms—the dictionaries define it that way: “compulsive preoccupation.” And Charles Goodyear was totally, compulsively preoccupied with what he saw as his life quest.
But Charles Slack calls Goodyear’s pursuit a “noble” obsession for a reason: Goodyear believed he had been called by God to solve a particular scientific problem. In other words, Charles Goodyear wasn’t a nut (though he was accused of being one). He was simply a man who was passionate about what he believed was his purpose in life. For that reason, I believe there is much to learn from his story.
“Goodyear” is, of course, the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, founded and headquartered today in Akron, Ohio. But Charles Goodyear didn’t found the Goodyear company. In fact, he didn’t even discover rubber as a natural product. European voyagers to the new world—Columbus, Cortés, and the like—found natives working with the gooey substance that oozed from jungle trees.
But Charles Goodyear was the link between a useless, sticky, raw material and the tires on your car, the sole of your running shoe, the eraser on your pencil, and the rubber bands that bundle your mail together.
When European businessmen learned rubber could be used as a waterproofing agent and could be shaped into other water-proof products like shoes and life preservers, they invested heavily—until the weather turned hot and the rubber became soft, gooey, and formless. The “rubber fever” of the 1830s ended as quickly as it had begun. Numerous rubber companies that had sprung up went out of business and investors lost millions. The conclusion was that rubber was worthless.
Charles Goodyear wasn’t so sure. As a habitual tinkerer and former inventor, he was curious as to why rubber could not be fashioned to resist heat and hold its shape. So in 1834, Charles Goodyear began an odyssey that consumed the rest of his life. He spent every penny he had on thousands of failed experiments. He sold off the family furniture and dinnerware to raise money. He went to jail several times for failure to pay his debts. But he never gave up.
Then in the winter of 1839 he hit pay dirt. He had mixed raw rubber with white lead and sulfur and discovered that the sulfur caused the rubber to hold its shape, even when reheated. He had discovered the process now known as vulcanization—the basis of the modern rubber industry.
But fame and fortune still eluded him. He spent several more years trying to perfect the process while all the time mired in lawsuits against those who falsely claimed they had invented the rubber-sulfur combination. He and his family constantly faced financial ruin until he died in 1860. And even five years later, the patent he had eventually been granted expired, and his discovery entered the public domain.
In 1898, Frank and Charles Seiberling formed a rubber manufacturing company in Akron, Ohio, and named it Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in honor of the discoverer. They used his discovery and began manufacturing tires for bicycles and the growing automobile industry.
Charles Goodyear’s story is a powerful one—the man was true grit personified—because of his raw determination. But it’s all the more compelling for readers of this book because of its connection to passion and purpose. Goodyear was an avid Bible student and faithful church member who believed his “noble obsession” was a calling from God. He would not be stopped in his pursuits, because he believed he would then be unfaithful to God’s purpose for his life. It takes that kind of passion and purpose to reach the levels of peak performance I’m describing in this book.
Destiny and Determination
In Noble Obsession, Charles Slack made this observation: “About the only uncomplicated thing in Charles Goodyear’s life was the clarity of his mission. He never wavered, never thought seriously of giving up. The worse things became, the stronger his resolve grew. He did not seek poverty, yet neither did he shy away from it. He explained in his memoirs that God had chosen him to solve the rubber mystery and that he, Goodyear, was merely ‘the instrument in the hands of his Maker.’” His certainty about that, Slack continues, “gave him a rare and awesome strength.”
Later in this book I will delve into the power of purpose—and specifically, a sense of divine purpose—in our lives and its ability to take us beyond what we think we’re capable of. But with specific reference to determination and grit, nothing can make us more determined to perform at our peak than a sense of purpose. My heart breaks when I think about the number of people who get up and go to work every day without a sense of purpose. They see themselves as nothing more than a cog in a machine, easily replaced by another cog should they drop out. They aren’t determined to do their very best, or to see their dreams fulfilled, because they see no ultimate purpose, bigger than themselves, in what they are doing. If, however, one believes in a personal destiny, then determination and grit replace apathy and a sense of insignificance.
It was a sense of purpose that drove Charles Goodyear to pursue his dream of making rubber a valuable product for the world. Perhaps many people have drawn this connection, but it is the words of Martin Luther King Jr. that I recall first: “If a man hasn’t discovered something he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.”
Criticism and Determination
Once when Charles Goodyear’s wealthy brother-in-law told him that rubber was dead and he needed to give up his quest, Goodyear replied, “I am the man to bring it back.” Charles Good-year was impervious to criticism; he refused to believe 1) that rubber had no practical value and 2) that he was not the man who would discover it.
Let’s be clear about criticism and determination: it’s possible that determination can turn into bull-headed stubbornness. The Bible, in the book of Proverbs, calls those who refuse to listen to counsel “fools” (Proverbs 12:15; 15:5). The challenge we all face is this: how do I know when my determination to succeed has moved beyond healthy stick-to-itiveness and moved into unhealthy, obstinate stubbornness? I can’t answer that question for you or anyone else. There are far too many variables involved in each situation to reduce determination to a formula.
But this I do know: the world is full of naysayers and pessimists. Our determination should never be squelched by those who have no other reason for criticizing us other than their own opinion of what is possible. To the degree their opinions are backed with healthy amounts of wisdom based on experience, facts, evidence, or sheer volume, they gain credibility. It is up to every person who is the target of criticism to consider the source and weigh the merits.
But it is not criticism based on evidence that I find most destructive; it is emotional criticism. Let’s face it—none of us likes to be called stupid in so many words. Our egos are fragile (unfortunately) and can be the weakest link in our chain of determination. When our ego is bruised, our determination can lose its power in a heartbeat. Our internal self-esteem message system immediately communicates, “You are being rejected by others because of your dogged determination to see this project through. Give up the project and you’ll once again be accepted.”
Have you heard that voice before? Of course you have, and so have I. It’s at that point that a little self-talk—or a conversation with a trusted mentor or friend—is required in order that the “Don’t give up” voice can drown out the “Give up” voice. Three times in the book of Psalms we find the psalmist engaging in such self-talk: “Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me?” (Psalm 42:5, 11; 43:5). He counseled himself about the realities of his situation and decided the facts didn’t warrant despair.
In a December 2005 article in Psychology Today, author Peter Doskoch discusses one of the most critical environments on earth: “Beast Barracks” at West Point, the United States Military Academy. There are several goals for the summer preceding the first academic year at West Point, not the least of which is to weed out those who are not strong enough mentally to take four years of rigorous discipline. Therefore, everything is criticized: one’s appearance, attitude, skills, physical abilities, mental acumen, and emotional toughness. As a result, as many as 5 percent of every year’s entering class of plebes packs it in and goes home before the school year begins. Doskoch relayed this fact: “A grit questionnaire administered to all 1,223 cadets entering the class of 2008 showed that grit is the single best yardstick for predicting who will survive the academy’s punishing first weeks.”
The cadets who survive Beast Barracks no doubt do so because they are determined not to be broken by the criticism leveled at them by their upper-class handlers. You can survive your own version of Beast Barracks if you will resolve the same thing: “It’s not personal—‘life’ is trying to break me, to see if I can make it. So I will prove that I can in spite of the criticism and attacks that come my way.”
Creativity and Determination
As I have already mentioned, Charles Goodyear was not a scientist and had no laboratory experience. In other words, he had no innate “talent” by birth or training to predict that he might be successful in what he wanted to accomplish. If, as I believe, grit is the bedrock of success, this should not surprise us. And we should also not be surprised that recent research suggests that a mere 25 percent of the differences between individuals in job performance can be attributed to IQ. Intelligence accounts for only a fraction of the reason for success. Grit has value for people at all levels of ability.
This is true even for geniuses. Mozart’s diaries, for example, contain the familiar passage where he says that an entire symphony appeared intact in his head. But no one ever quotes the next paragraph where he talks about how he took the next several months to refine the work.
However, while it is true that study after study of high achievers in various fields shows that the one common characteristic of their success was that they were tenacious, these same studies suggest that determination motivates people to incredible feats of creativity.
Goodyear’s tenacity motivated him not only in trying to find a way to make rubber hold its shape when heated, but in other areas as well. He used various methods for raising money—borrowing, profit-sharing, partnerships, investors. There was nothing he was not willing to try to keep his dream alive. I’ve never met a peak performer yet who didn’t possess an undying conviction concerning how to go around, through, over, or under an obstacle that stands in the path leading to success.
Barbara Corcoran sold her New York City real estate company in 2001 for $70 million. Not bad, considering she began it with a $1,000 loan twenty-five years earlier. But she came close to losing it all following the stock market crash of 1987. She owed $300,000 and was writing a good-bye speech to her employees when she remembered something from her childhood. Her grandfather’s neighbor had had a litter of four puppies to sell and invited a crowd of interested buyers to come at one time to look at them. Supply and demand took over. Since there were only four puppies and three times that many interested buyers, every one became the pick of the litter.
Corcoran set her good-bye letter aside, added up the value of the eighty-eight different apartments her company had for sale in seven different buildings, divided the total by eighty-eight, and priced them all equally regardless of size or shape. She then ran an ad announcing the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Hundreds of people lined up to get one, and she netted over $1 million in one weekend. “I was able to open up two more offices in the depths of the recession. The worst hours became the best hours, simply because of persistence,” she said.
In keeping with the Peter Doskoch article in Psychology Today, the persistence Barbara Corcoran displayed was essential to her success, but it would not have helped without her business-saving spark of creativity.
Most great achievements in life do not occur “inside the box.” When Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com, he attracted hordes of buyers with creative innovations—and his creativity has continued unabated: one-click buying, free shipping, gift wrapping of purchases, customer reviews of products, ability to purchase a used book or CD cheaper than a new one, and on and on.
Get outside the box on your quest—only there will you likely find the creative ideas you need for the breakthrough you are seeking.
Time and Determination
When Charles Goodyear set out to solve the rubber problem, he placed no time limit on his venture. Because, as I have already mentioned, he believed God had called him to his task, he viewed it as a lifelong commitment. It so happened that his discovery of what would ultimately be known as vulcanization happened in five years, but he literally spent the rest of his life trying to perfect and bring to market what he had discovered.
Are opened-ended dreams more noble than closed-ended ones—those with time limits? Absolutely not. You may set a goal to reach a certain weight within one year, or earn your PhD degree within five years, or save ten thousand dollars to start a new business within twenty-four months. A classic example of a closed-end goal was President John F. Kennedy’s announcement to Congress, on May 25, 1961, that America would land an astronaut on the moon by the end of the decade. That goal was achieved on July 20, 1969, when Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon’s surface.
But some dreams and goals do not work well with timetables. Take Princeton mathematician Andrew Wiles’s quest to solve the 350-year-old math problem called Fermat’s Last Theorem. He was ten years old when he first encountered the math problem and decided he would be the one to solve it. Throughout his youth he worked on the problem and continued, as his teaching responsibilities would allow, as a professor of mathematics. In 1986, he buckled down. Seven years and fifteen thousand hours of intense research later, the theorem was solved. “I wasn’t going to give up. It was just a question of which method would work,” the shy math-ematician said.
Peter Doskoch cites what experts call the “decade rule”— meaning that “it takes at least a decade of hard work or practice to become highly successful in most endeavors, from managing a hardware store to writing sitcoms—and the ability to persist in the face of obstacles is almost always an essential ingredient in major achievements.”
The interesting phenomenon regarding the decade rule is this: looking ahead, ten years looks like forever. Looking back, it seems like the blink of an eye. Therefore, don’t let the “long haul” dissuade you from reaching your goal. When you get there, you’ll remember little of the blood, sweat, and tears you expended. You’ll be basking in the rarified air of success as you stand on the performance peak toward which you’ve been traveling.
Permission and Determination
Charles Goodyear didn’t ask anybody’s permission to solve the rubber-hardening problem. Who in the world is “in charge of rubber”? Granted, there may be times when permission is needed if your goal infringes on the life or rights of other people. But even if such is the case, here is my final admonition from the life of Charles Goodyear: don’t take no for an answer. In the vast, vast majority of cases in life, only one person’s finger is on the accomplishment switch regarding your goals: yours. As long as you don’t flip that switch (say no to yourself) it will stay on and your quest will continue.
There is power in grit, my friend. The next time you shop for tires or put air in your own, remember Charles Goodyear. This unlikely inventor discovered something that changed the world at the turn of the twentieth century—because he refused to give up on his dream.
Passion without determination will only find the nuggets that are lying on the surface. If you expect to find anything more valuable, it will take passion plus determination. Nobody lives the “better than good” life without determined digging—the kind God made you capable of. So begin today and don’t stop until you arrive at your destination!