There's nothing stronger than a person making a comeback. It can happen in a moment and it happens in your head first. You go back to what you know. It's the best part of your story, the part when you allow yourself to become what you've always known you could be.
Everyone has a gift and it is when you tap into your ability rather than immediate skills. Skill follows ability and desire to do something well. You do not needs anyone's permission to do so. Only a desire and the tough part is the execution. Harder still is to stay with it.
Everyone has ideas but it is in the time and attention and practice of execution that separates the successful people form the dreamers. Time and attention is all that is required. I will tell you the execution and commitment to the idea takes much more time and effort than the immediate conception of the idea. The successful ones work through the quiet part of execution, where they are putting in the time and effort but have yet to see results. It's the part with faith is your only coat. You are the sole believer as you stand there making your own website, painting your own sign, printing up your own brochures, packaging your first products in the mail..wondering; Is this thing going to take?
It's the part of the story that we love the best. Probably because we know how easy it is to quit instead of sticking with it, to put the dream down instead of revising it to make it work, to console our immediate lack of acceptance with "friends" who knew we shouldn't have tried such a grand endeavor in the first place. Remember, it's only the ones who stick it out who will be in the story not the ones who politely and quietly ..quit trading reassurance and status quo for a life that could be so much better because you are building the dream.
Some people who have no formal education are highly successful because they worked an idea, they had the grit to work through the quiet, lonely and ...POOR part of the journey. They set aside a feeling of entitlement to receive the results when they were deserved and earned by the customers or clients that believed in them first. The first sale, the turnaround client, the comeback check, the ones who put on the potholders when the heat gets turned up and can find a coat when the heat is turned down. These are gritty, push forward people you want to surround yourselves with because it's what it means to be really living.
It's always the best part of the story, it is why poets write poetry, composers write songs, a gazillion life coaches are out there promising to be the bearer of success but in the end you must do it yourself for yourself. It's one of the most human things you can do. It is the quiet part of the story where you alone make the decision to press on. If done well, it will outlive you and be a role model to people you will never meet. It's where all your loves is, all your grit, all your stubborn will to see something nobody else can yet envision. It's quiet. It's powerful.
It is what people remember. If you notice the news we try like hell to suppress the difficult yet necessary news in favor of something hopeful. So stay with what you know you should be doing and be that inspiration, that sign of a turnaround, and really bring it to another level. The quiet part of the story is the best part, the part where you believe all by yourself to put something good in this world., something productive, something artistic, in spite of everyone and everything around you telling you it's just too much to handle.
Breaking through this part is seeing the brick wall as a thin piece of ..nothing...all you have to do is walk through.
Sharon Sullivan - CEO of First Step Resources
Originally posted on LinkedIn on Jan. 19, 2016