There is one overriding quality of mind and personality that weighs more strongly than anything else in determining eventual success. It is character. Eventual success depends more than anything else on the ability to keep striving in the face of disappointment and rejection. And failure.
I have been struck over the years by how many people fail despite growing up with all the advantages of money and good health; and by how many others there are who start off impaired and impeded by emotional and physical illness and being born into dysfunctional and abusive families, and still manage to succeed. Included in those success stories is a man who could not attend school growing up because of a phobia which then prevented him from leaving his neighborhood, but who ended up owning three or four food franchises. He had previously failed in one business after another. Another man with a similar story ended up going to medical school at a somewhat advanced age and became a pediatrician.
I remember another man who had spent three entire years in a mental hospital when he was young and who kept losing jobs subsequently, but who persisted in looking for work until he found a stable job as a mechanic. He married a woman who loved him, and they had two children.
I remember a woman with a learning disability who kept talking her way into jobs that she then failed at until she finally rose to prominence in a cosmetics company. Every successful author has gone through a prolonged period of rejection after rejection. Many of the greatest Presidents have failed at previous endeavors or been defeated in previous campaigns. These include Grant, Lincoln and even Washington.
I remember a very troubled young man who managed on his first date to lock himself outside a building on a fire escape. He had one romantic misadventure after another until he finally learned how to approach a woman. After five years of treatment he married.
There was a middle-aged lady who did not think much of herself but who joined a church and by virtue of helping everyone became admired and then beloved by everyone.
I find myself admiring these people who seem to surmount insurmountable difficulties simply by not giving up. They suffer embarrassment and sometimes humiliation, and yet they do not give up. Sometimes I see a child in school who is like that, and I know—and I tell the child’s parents-- that that child will turn out okay. I know that child will catch up, because it is the single virtue of persistence that makes for success. (c) Fredric Neuman Follow Dr. Neuman's blog at fredricneumanmd.com/blog or ask questions at fredricneumanmd.com/blog/ask-dr-neuman-advice-column/