How many times have you been tempted to quit? To give up? To throw in the towel?
You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about this principle this week, of never give up. I was reflecting over the last five to six years. About six years ago, I took an investment seminar. How to trade options, manage money, and invest money from a very close friend named Gary out in North Carolina.
At the seminar, he said something that was very interesting. I’ve actually seen this statistic repeat itself over and over again in our seminars. He said to the group who were there that day… He said to them, “Eighty percent of you who are here today are going to quit.” Now that’s kind of interesting, let’s see what happens?
Sure enough, out of all the people I know, there’s only one who’s still around, because it’s tough. I spend as much time doing that, investing and learning to trade, as I did in my MBA program.
Recently, maybe six months ago, I sat in the home of a close friend. He had about a hundred people in the room. He was starting a new company. It happened to be a direct sales company. He looked in their eyes and he said to them, “Ninety percent of you in this room will quit.” Sure enough, that’s exactly what we’ve seen happen.
Now there are different facets to this principle.
I have a very close friend right now in Alaska whose son was in a motorcycle accident last week and is fighting for his life. It’s an amazing family and they have this never give up attitude.
So this idea of never giving up certainly applies in different arenas. I just want to take one or two minutes and share with you the arena…the aspect of never give up that applies to each one of us on a daily basis.
When I was 17 years old, I was wrestling and that was the year where I made a pinnacle decision that really changed my life. Leading up to that decision, I had started wrestling maybe as a sophomore and put in a lot of time and effort into it and started doing pretty well. And then throughout the summer, where most people took a break, I had a personal coach at BYU. Everyday I’d go down there and I’d spend about 45 minutes on the mat, just grinding it out. And when it came time for the wrestling season to start in the fall, I had gotten pretty good.
It got to the point where I was beating some people who never would’ve thought that I would beat them. And people started talking to me about being a state champion, that, “You’re going to win it all.” That, “You’re going to be the state champion for Utah.”
It went to my head and I thought, “You know, I have a choice here. I could quit, and then for the rest of my life, I could say, ‘I could’ve been a state champion. ‘ Or I could press on and either maybe be the state champion or maybe not.” And so there was this fear of failure that crept into my mind and I actually chose the prior. And I thought, “You know, if I quit now, for the rest of my life, I could always say, ‘I could’ve been the state champion. ‘” And I let that fear of failure cause me to quit and now I’ll never know. It’s one of my great three regrets in life.
I see people start these different ventures and it gets a little bit tough. So many people are quick to say, “You know, this just isn’t for me.” They throw in the towel when success often times is sitting right around the corner. Ninety percent of sales reps give up after four contacts, yet eighty percent of sales are made after five. That means that 10% of people are getting 80% of the sales. And it just is heartbreaking to me to see people so close to success and then give up.
One of the things I learned at 17, and it became our motto for our family is that when Shallenberger’s start, we finish. We don’t give up. And that doesn’t mean we don’t make course corrections. I mean, it’s smart to make a course correction when necessary, but you have this mentality that, “I will not give up. I will persist until I succeed.”
I love this quote from the book The Greatest Salesman in the World from Og Mandino. He said, “I was not delivered unto this world in defeat, nor does failure course through my veins.” I love that! We’re not delivered to this world to defeat and it takes a mindset to say, “You know, when I start, I will finish. I will not give up.” We get to develop a vision. We put together a plan. And then we work the plan until we finish and we make corrections along the way. So I just wanted to share that with you. It’s this mindset of never give up. For some reason, it’s really been on my mind this week, because I’ve seen several different people throw in the towel in different areas of business in their life and I thought, “Man, you were so close to success. Why? Why now? Finish the race. Go back to the vision, and then put together the plan and stick with the plan and don’t give up.” Let’s be the person who pushes on to success. “The slaughterhouse of defeat is not our destiny.” I love that quote, and let’s remember that.
Hey, this is just a sample of one of the 12 principles and how they can apply to our lives in so many different capacities. If you’ll go to the 5minuteleadershipmakeover.com. It’s just like that, the number 5, or you can spell it out five, 5minuteleadershipmakeover.com. It’s a great place to start and get additional tools and ideas on what you could really do with your children, with your teams, and especially in your personal life.
So hope you have a great day, and I hope this has been helpful to you.