Staying the Course:
Perseverance Versus Blind Stupidity
"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."
-Albert Einstein
 Perseverance has been identified by many of the world’s greatest success stories as the hallmark of success. Einstein, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dale Carnegie -- the list of historical figure and top entrepreneur quotes is endless.
They saw things through to fruition, and they encouraged the same of others.
What no one is telling us, though, is how to tell the difference between perseverance and blind stupidity!
Perseverance in Action
No one is questioning that perseverance is a necessary ingredient to a successful life.
Merriam-Webster defines persevering as to persist in a state, enterprise, or undertaking in spite of counterinfluences, opposition, or discouragement.
So yes, perseverance drives the right person to success under the right circumstances.
But in the context of wealth creation, what if the undertaking is self destructive and the opposition exists to protect us?
Stopping a five-year-old from walking out in the middle of a busy intersection is a good thing, and the child’s pursuit awfully misguided. In matters of finance, how do we know when we are not acting like the five-year-old?
The Minefields of Adult Life
In adult life, most of our states, enterprises or undertakings fall somewhere between the reckless behavior of a five-year-old and the conservative behavior of those only willing to invest in the hypothetical "sure thing" (if sure things even exist in finance).
Think about how often we take business risks in the face of the unknown:
- We select new employment, sometimes even moving cities, to take jobs under people whom we've known for only a day or so
- We buy real estate and move into neighborhoods not having met many of our neighbors
- We leave our jobs and become entrepreneurs in busineses we have only read books about
All of these actions require huge leaps of faith. How do we know when our faith is warranted?
Enter the Naysayers. The people closest to us sometimes cause us to doubt our decisionmaking skills as if we were lost toddlers wandering in oncoming traffic. Examples:
- "I know someone who hated working for that company. Are you sure you've researched them?"
- "The devil you know is better than the one you don't!"
- "You're going to lose your shirt working for yourself!"
Naysayer "noise" like that pierces our confidence, often grounding our ideas before they get launched.
Our Counterattack Plan
It takes a strong person to ignore discouragement in the midst of uncertainty.
But with matters of finance, there is a little "toddler" in all of us. Uncertainty looms in the back of our minds so that we are always left feeling a little lost in busy intersections.
With these concerns in mind, "am I fighting a winning battle or am I just being stupid?", here are some suggestions for how to persevere in peace.
The Independent You. The most important counterattack strategy I have used against discouragement (aside from trusting in a higher power!) has been  to develop an independent self-perception.
Through painful experience, I have learned that no one can set my goals for me.
If we don't make decisions for ourselves, we are letting someone set up artificial roadblocks for us based on their experience on a different path.
 Stumble It!In life, each goal, desire, dream of success, each failure - they all have our unique footprints on them -- each obstacle and each lesson, they are all non-transferable to anyone else.
Here is some more specific information on building an independent self perception.
Next: The Power of a Positive Self Image
Meet your personal Goal Setting Genie
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