 Values
Best Practices
The
Persistent Decision
“I Will Persist Without
Exception”
By Andy Andrews
“Nothing in the world can
take the place of persistence. Talent will not. Nothing
is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius
will not. Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education alone will not. The world is full of educated
derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are
omnipotent.”—Calvin Coolidge
“I will persist without exception.”
I really love football but I played one year, in the
sixth grade and I hated it. I got headaches. I didn’t
like to practice and I didn’t like the coach. I wanted
to quit so badly…but my dad wouldn’t let me. He just
flat out said, “No. You started it and you’re gonna
finish it. I want you to know that persistence is a
habit. And so is quitting. One of the greatest favors I
can do for you in your life is to make sure that you
have the habit of persistence and never develop the
habit of quitting.”
I have a friend who’s a little older than I who also
played Little League Football. His dream was to play
professional ball. All the way through Little League,
junior high and high school, he was a quarterback. He
barely got a college scholarship, but went to college as
a quarterback. His dream of playing in the NFL was about
to come true until he was injured. As the NFL draft was
winding down to its last rounds, my friend’s dreams of
becoming a pro-quarterback were fading. The draft was
almost over. He had been hurt almost all his senior year
but thought, “Surely somebody saw that I performed well
before I was sidelined with an injury.” Every named
player in the country had been chosen and yet his name
had not come up. Finally, one professional team made him
their choice in the last round. He was to compete
against four other quarterbacks, and he wanted this more
than anything he had ever wanted in the world. He spent
the weeks before his first training camp getting in
shape and refining his passing skills. He threw
thousands of balls through an old tire hung from an
A-frame at his in-laws’ house. It was obvious when he
reported to camp in July: he was ready…and scared to
death. The team didn’t really expect him to make it.
When the jerseys were given out for the first photo
session, they didn’t even give him a quarterback’s
number. Today, if you get a rookie card of this guy, it
shows him wearing #42.
Training camp was tough, but the preparation he had done
paid off. The confidence that he had gained enabled him
to perform well in the pre-season games and he was given
a new jersey: #5. Through the next three years, he sat
on the bench and watched the team struggle through the
most dismal years in the history of the franchise. In
the fourth year, the team hired a new head coach. Nobody
had ever heard of this guy. He had never been a good
player, but he loved the game so much he wanted to
coach. It was later in his life when he was given the
opportunity, and only because the team was so bad
anyway.
My friend said, “If I thought that making the team was a
tough task, proving myself to this coach was even
tougher.” He is the “quiet type” and the coach was
unimpressed. But he was impressed with his work habits,
his stability, and his determination to never quit. He
didn’t have the greatest natural ability, but he did
have the ability to persist without exception.
In that fourth year, the starting quarterback was
injured. My friend went in the game, brought them back
from behind, and at that point, Bart Starr became the
starting quarterback for the Green Bay Packers. Vince
Lombardi, that little known coach, and Bart Starr led
the Packers to one of the greatest all-time records in
the history of the NFL. They won seven championships in
a row, including two Super Bowls, both in which Bart was
named the Most Valuable Player. He was named Player of
the Decade in 1970, and has also been inducted, along
with Vince Lombardi, into the Professional Football Hall
of Fame.
I believe that all men are driven by faith or fear. I
also believe that both are the same: that is, the belief
in something that can’t be seen or touched, or the
expectation of an event that hasn’t come to pass. Faith
is to believe what one has not seen and the reward of
faith is to see what one has believed. Fear is also to
believe what one has not seen, but to never see it,
because it doesn’t exist.
Sometimes it’s the smartest people who are most
susceptible to fear. Fear is the creative misuse of your
imagination, the misuse of a gift you’ve been given. So
cast fear out of your life. Remember that between you
and anything significant will be giants in your path.
Know that times of calamity and distress have always
been the producers of the greatest people. The hardest
steel is produced from the hottest fire. You are only at
half-time, my friend, and the second half—the most
important part of your life—is about to begin. Persist
without exception and the results of the game will be
entirely in your hands.
For more information about NYT Bestseller, Andy Andrews,
visit
www.AndyAndrews.com.
back to top |
