Endurance Can Make All the Difference

Entrepreneur and writer Matthew Paulson has indicated entrepreneurship as a stamina sport. It is true that sometimes if you recognize you are on the wrong track, the best course of action is to drop the original plan and start in a new direction.

On the other hand, more times than not, just holding to the original scheme usually makes all the difference between triumph and downfall. As the famed genius, Walt Disney was saying, “The difference between winning and losing is most often …not quitting.”

“There is a real fun in doing the impossible,” is a paraphrase of another of his famous quotes which refer to the opinions of the pessimists. Walt Disney is one of the most fortunate cinematics with a success that barely anyone has ever reached in movie making, winning 22 Academy Awards and more honors and nominations than anyone of all time. He did so by proving that doing the impossible is possible. Disney's most crazy idea, the notion of feature-length animated films when only shorts had ever been done before, was widely criticized as silly, unreasonable and destined for failing. He endured, though, and we all know the result. Disney's courage in the face of blanket rejection made the difference.

Long before he was laughed at by Hollywood studio masters, he learned the value of perseverance from all other so-called failures that might have derailed an otherwise creative career. Early on Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper for not having any original ideas and the lack of imagination, of all reasons.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was his first feature-length animation, which becomes the most successful film of 38, earning roughly the same as 134 million in today’s dollars. That’s not too shabby a person who doesn’t have imagination. The world had a chance to see the project through because of his endurance. 

The great writer Malcolm Gladwell outlined a theory that it can take 10, 000 hours of work on a project to figure what it will take, to make it a success. 10,000 hours equals five years of full-time employment, or in other words endurance. 

David Weber and Kenny Lao invented an idea for a food bar built around dumplings as a primary menu item. Their plan won the second place in the New York University Stern School of Business competition. As a result, they launched the brick-and-mortar Rickshaw Dumpling. Becoming a bit too driven, they opened a second store and stretched their resources far too thin. Approaching bankruptcy, they left behind the second store and started a mobile food truck instead. This proved quite successful and saved their business, becoming an icon in the New York City. Their endurance and ingenuity contributed to their way to success.

Walt Disney, David Weber, and Kenny Lao and their example are an influence for us all. Mountain climbers say they are doing what they do simply because the mountain is there. But, without power and endurance, they could not succeed in climbing. If you want to succeed in business, accumulate all the strength you have and climb the mountain. 

Endurance can and often make the difference!

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