Dogged Perseverance - The Power to Never Give Up Today, we are going to talk about a principle that gets down to our very core, and is what allows us to see everything else through. It is perhaps one of the most noble, necessary, and powerful forces in our life. It's the principle of never giving up. Welcome to the "Becoming Your Best" podcast series. This is Steve Shallenberger, your host today. We welcome you here from wherever you may be in the world. I'd like to share an experience I had many years ago when I was a college student. I had been in South America for a couple of years and returned to my university studies to get an accounting degree. A friend of mine had sold educational books in the South and throughout the country the summer before. He made enough money to pay for his expenses for school. And so, he wanted to know if I'd like to go out and sell with him, this is door-to-door sales, but I said, "Yeah. Hey, let's go do it!" He was a good person and a big influence in my life. And so we headed off at the spring break, at the end of the springs semester, to Nashville, Tennessee with the Southwestern Company. This is going to be a place where we would be working 80 hours a week. The idea was to work as hard as you could during the summer. Make as much money as possible, so that you could pay your expenses for the whole school year and focus really on your studies. Well, anyhow, we had a week-long training, that's called "sales school," it was a great experience. And then we headed off to our assigned area. My assigned area happened to be just north of Aberdeen, Maryland. Communities such as, Bel Air, and Havre De Grace, and Churchville. Wow, what an experience that was. I'll never forget what took place as I had my first Saturday on the job. This is the very first day. I started at 8 a.m., and as I had been taught in that sales school, I went out on time, a little bit early. I was scared to death. And my first house was on a country road and it didn't seem like very friendly country, you know all the mind games that people can play. My first knock brought the reply, "What in the heck do you want?" Only it wasn't heck. I said, "Nothing," I shouted before hustling down the road. The next house I approached with some trepidation. I could tell that it was occupied by ferocious, big dogs. Those dogs were barking and they had deep voices, and I didn't dare to go on to the front door. So I stood outside, outside of the gate and just clapped my hands, which is what people do in South America in place of knocking on the door. And I felt like an idiot. There I was out there clapping away, early Saturday morning. I probably looked like one too, but eventually, a woman came out and after I explained what we were selling, she actually let me into the house. Before I went in I said, "Let's see, have your dogs eaten this morning?" Well, she assured me they were more barkers and not biters. And the woman was very kind and receptive to what we had to offer. She bought the full set of books. I had only visited two houses. I had been on that street just one hour, my career was launched. I got out my calculator and figured out that if I kept on at this pace I'd earn $16,000 in commissions by the end of the summer, so that's not bad for the early '70s. But it didn't quite work out that way. I'd peaked a little too soon. I sold nothing for the next two days. I mean, I knocked and I knocked, I knocked, I knocked, and I knocked, and I was rejected, and rejected, and no, no, no, no. Well, my future earnings calculator dropped to $334 for the entire summer as I figured it out, but I kept at it. And my hard work, slogging from door-to-door, eventually paid off. I hit my stride, and I hit my goal, making enough money to pay for my tuition expenses for the following year in college. Well, what I learned was that if just kept working, putting one foot in front of the other, I would eventually get enough yeses. As a matter of fact, I learned t