Perseverence Archives | jeremyrolleston.com

The Innocent Project – it’s not where you start but where you finish ! (II)

You watched the first part of Dewey Bozella’s story last week. Now see the second part – him accepting his 2011 Arthur Ashe award for courage. What an amazing man !

“… never let fear determine who you are
never let where you come from determine where you’re going”

Remember what I wrote last week – CHOICES & IT’S NOT WHERE YOU START BUT HOW YOU FINISH.

Now add the quote above and see and hear Dewey is his acceptance speech. Carry him and his attitude with you when life doesn’t make sense and when things aren’t going your way !

Myth of the Leprechaun

When I look back over my own life and reflect upon my successes along the way, I also pay homage to the failures, difficulties, sacrifices etc that it took to accomplish each of them. In very few cases did so-called “luck” have anything to do with it. But yet I find it funny when people say “… you’re so lucky”.

I think of the journey to get to my first Olympics in 2006. It was a childhood dream of mine to become an Olympian and I certainly wasn’t the guy at school with all the talent so it was never an inevitability. I’d already had two dreams shatter around me – my dream to represent Australia in rugby and play for the Wallabies. This dream crumbled before my eyes when I snapped my PCL ligament two weeks out from the Hong Kong Sevens World Cup whilst playing for Australia A in the Fiji Sevens. Then four years later, after having taken up bobsleigh and after much blood, sweat and tears, I was ready to have my dream of becoming an Olympian come true. We had satisfied the international qualification criteria to compete in the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City 2002 and were just waiting for the final but all important telephone call telling us we had been selected in the Australian Olympic team. The phonecall came, but unfortunately it is one I will never forget. They had decided not to select us and impose a higher Australian qualification criteria. We would not be going, despite being the only team who qualified who would not be going to compete ! It was a devastating time. So before I even came around to the 2005-06 season I had to find the strength to put my heart on the line again, knowing it could be crushed as it had two-times in recent years. And that was before I even started to compete on the ice and the hard work began.

So off I went. Travelling from Australia to Norway – Germany – Austria – Canada – Germany – Switzerland – Australia – Italy – Germany – England – Australia – Austria – germany – Australia – Italy. Doing almost 200 runs in the season. Competing in minus 15. Crashing and seeing people almost die in front of me. Training and training. Investing time and money and energy and emotion into making my dream become a reality.

This certainly wasn’t luck. LUCK ? What did luck have to do with this ? This was hardwork and resilience.

Perhaps there is some truth in the expression “The harder I work, the luckier I get” as that speaks of positioning yourself so that you can best take advantage of the opportunities that come your way. But luck … no … If you want success then you need to be out there doing the hardwork that comes with making your dreams come to pass. Lance Armstrong says it well ….

“Everybody wants to know what I’m on. What am I on? I’m on my bike busting my ass six hours a day. What are you on?”

Challenge – what do you need to work harder in ? What opportunities have you missed because they are dressed in overalls and look like work

Andy Irons – I lost to a girl in my first contest !

It was a sad week last week as we’ve saw the tragic death of Andy Irons and we mourn his loss and think of his wife and unborn baby left behind. Here is a video tribute to him.

But in everything that has been written and said and shown … one thing stood out like a beacon to me.

Andy Irons: “….I lost so many heats to get to where I was. I lost to a girl in my first contest ever. And I quit for a year and never touched a jersey. And I had to pick up the jersey after that and get back in there. And that’s the only reason I got to where I’m at, or I was at, five years ago when I won those titles. And, you know, I haven’t won the title in a long time, but you know I’m getting back in the jersey and I’m not winning heats yet, but I gotta start somewhere.”

That there is what makes a champion. That is another testament to the age old value of resilience. The people that win in life are not always the smartest, biggest, strongest, or most talented. The people who win have all these things in some measure but the traits that are the stepping stones to their success are also

Learning from their mistakes
Overcoming disappointment
Perseverence and resilience
Believing in themselves
Hard work and commitment

Never ever forget that. Be inspired by Andy Irons. Lest we forget

Running the long road

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQCY1zPbIZs

This ad speaks of perseverence. Of keeping going when it just feels like hard work. Of picking yourself up again. Of keeping focussed on where you want to go and who you want to be and on what you want to achieve. And I am personally walking that journey at the moment too !

Perseverance is stubbornness with a purpose. It means more than trying. It means more than working hard. It is a willingness to bind yourself emotionally, intellectually, physically, and spiritually to an idea or task until it has been completed. Perseverance demands a lot. It means succeeding because you are determined to, not because you’re destined to. This is important because if you want your dreams to come to pass they wont just happen. To achieve them will inevitably require perseverance.

And if you think about it, perseverance doesn’t really come into play until you are tired and close to giving up. When you’re fresh, excited and energetic, you approach your goals with vigour. But when you’re tired, when you’re over it, when you can’t see how things are going to work, when the obstacles seem insurmountable, when you’re disappointed, when you feel like quitting and when your dream still seems a long way off … that is when you need perseverance !

What highly successful person do you know who gave up ? How many people do you know who have been richly rewarded for quitting ? The greatest achievers don’t sit back and wait for success because they think they deserve it. They keep moving forward and persevere because they are determined to do so. I could give lots of examples here, but let me give you just one – Walt Disney

Walt Disney supposedly had his loan request rejected by 301 banks before he finally got a yes. The loan he received allowed him to build Disneyland, the first and most famous theme park in history. That’s perseverence. And as if that wasn’t enough, Disney also struggled to release some of his now-classic films. He was told ‘Mickey Mouse ‘would fail because the mouse would “terrify women.” Distributors rejected ‘The Three Little Pigs’, saying it needed more characters. ‘Pinocchio’ was shut down during production and Walt Disney had to rewrite the entire storyline. In 1944, at the suggestion of his daughter, Disney tried to adapt the Pamela Travers novel Mary Poppins into a film. However, the author Travers had absolutely no interest in selling Mary Poppins to Hollywood. To win her over, Disney visited Travers at her England home repeatedly for the next 16 years. After more than a decade-and-a-half of persuasion, Travers was overcome by Disney’s charm and vision for the film, and finally gave him permission to bring Mary Poppins to the big screen. The result is a timeless classic.

Wow ! Now that’s perseverence.

So my challenge today …

In what area do you need to remind yourself of the end goal and to keep on walking / running one step and one day at a time towards it ?

Never give up

There is nothing more to say.

Never give up. Keep on going. There is more in you than you know. It doesn’t matter how you you started – it matters how you finish. You never lose until you quit trying. Don’t give up. Keep going. More and more and more and more. Again and again and again. You CAN do it. Despite what it looks like, persevere and never give up.