Category Archives: persistence

Bold and Persistent Experimentation

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While helping my niece with essays for high school last week, I came across a quote from FDR.  He graduated from one of the schools she hopes to attend.

Long after his graduation and before entering the White House he spoke at the graduation ceremony of his alma mater.

He implored students to value persistent and bold experimentation.  And regardless of your view of his politics, he certainly did just that throughout his life.

After reading that quote I thought a great deal about my own personal core values.  You see my values are my compass; they help to guide and direct me when I am faced with decisions on a daily basis.  They keep me true to me!

Most people who know theirs (and frankly, while all of us have them, few of us know them) list words like “connection” or “love.”  However, we often fail to truly comprehend how a set of words relate to ourselves.  I am dissatisfied with this approach.  I require sentences . . .

So last week on the Velocity “Who We Are” webpage I changed my core values to reflect how I want to show up each and every day:  living a life of consistent (not persistent, a bit too assertive for this assertive guy) and bold experimentation.

In the pursuit of what, you may ask?  It matters not.  It is in the process and the journey that I find satisfaction and growth.  And as an organic social scientist, I derive a great amount of pleasure from experimenting in my own life.

How do you want to show up each day?  Is there a personal core value that you have yet to live?  In what ways can you express that value today?

In another commencement speech at Oglethorpe University, FDR shares a point of view true then and true now:

“The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”

Vocabulary Tests

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Remember those from school?  The dreaded vocabulary test. 

Whether taking the test for English class or for the ACT or SAT, vocabulary studying was certainly the bane of my existence from the age of eleven to eighteen.

Ah yes, words like inexorable, bellicose and magnanimous . . . I would say, “when am I EVER going to use those words?”

So what’s the point, right?

Well this past week I had the chance to spend some time with my sister’s family.  My 13 year old niece is enjoying her summer, no doubt.  In addition to hanging with friends and engaging in summer camp-like activities, she is practicing for a test to help her go to the high school of her choice.

I know what you are thinking, one day we will have the PSSAT (Pre-School Scholastic Aptitude Test).  Just stay with me here . . .

I was amazed by her commitment to learning.  It made me realize how nothing increases our choices more than the effort we put into a task.  Psychologists and educators call it grit, and someone who has grit possesses the self-control and stamina to see a task completed and completed well.

What is so amazing about grit?  It can be learned and fostered!  Certainly this can happen alone through personal trial and error.  However, I watched it being taught by a dedicated care-giver!  My sister, the mom, possesses grit in such high capacity it amazes me.  Her daughter is learning from her the value of hard work, the value of delayed gratification, and the value of working together to expand choice!

This learning does not end when the dictionary is closed each evening and the note cards are filed.

Oh sure, my niece gets annoyed.  I mean come on, it’s summer-time!  I was amazed by her persistence and the persistence and patience of my sister.  In effect, she is teaching a module on grit through vocabulary training.

Loving parents do this everyday.  The job of parenting requires ample amounts of self-control, stamina, patience, and delayed gratification.

We learn by doing (time-on-task) . . .  no one is more of an advocate of the experiential process than I.

But we also learn by example.  I come from a family of amazing women.  My grandmother, mother and sister are all very different, but last week I finally discovered the common denominator (omg, FRACTIONS!) . . . they each possess/ed boundless supplies of grit and they found a way to pass it along to their loved ones.

My niece is in great hands . . .

I bet you are too if you expand your perspective on how we all possess the capacity to learn and grow through grit!  Share it and explore it.  Be inexorable in your pursuit, never overly bellicose in your advocacy of it, and always magnanimous in the face of ignorance.

 

One Small Step for Humankind

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-by Matt Leedham

We’ve all heard about Thomas Edison and his 10,000 failed attempts at making the light bulb sustainable and affordable for all people to use.

We’ve all heard about the work ethic of a Tiger Woods or a Michael Jordan or a Michael Phelps.

There are countless other stories out there that demonstrate persistence, perseverance, and good old hard work.

But we don’t always recognize the small things. We don’t always see the tiny actions that so many of us take on a daily, and sometimes hourly basis, to make progress.

I’ve come to realize that movement is essential to progress. Every great achiever has something in common. They tried.

That’s it.

They tried. And then tried again. And again. And again. They tried over and over again until they started to get better and people started to recognize their “talent.” Over time, people start talking about the work ethic, the effort, the focus.

But it all starts with that first moment. That first attempt to do something.

Think about it. How can you improve upon something you’ve never done before? You can’t. You can only mull it over in your head for so long.

Take that first step, friends. Get out there and give it a try.

What’s the first step, you ask? You could click on the video below…

Tell us how you will take action today and try something new, or something you’ve always wanted to try. Leave a comment below.


The Price You Pay For Success

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-by Matt Leedham

“The price for anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”
- Henry David Thoreau

It can be difficult when you are in the “swamp.” That’s the place of origin of something unfamiliar or new. The “swamp” is the place you start when working toward a new goal. It’s a place of murky water, muddy ground, and a quagmire of resistance.

I’m currently in the swamp.

As our regular readers may recall, I set a fairly aggressive goal a few months ago. I committed, publically to the world, that I would be conversational in Korean by October of 2011. As most of you know, or might conclude, I’m not Korean. I have no previous knowledge of Korean other than “hello” and “thank you.” To be conversational was quite the mammoth goal to set.

As it turns out, learning Korean is not easy. Crazy, right?!

It’s true. It’s difficult, and here’s why:

  1. The alphabet is not Roman/Latin – it consists of symbols entirely unique to the Western world.
  2. The Korean language is known as an SOV language (Subject Object Verb), which is essentially the opposite of English. Meaning, each sentence is spoken “backwards.”
  3. There is a particular syllable in Korean that is almost unpronounceable. Seriously, it’s insanely difficult for Americans to pronounce.

As a competitive person that is a self-described high-achiever, not being good at something is very difficult to accept. But as it turns out, you must first be terrible at something before you can be good at it. Here’s a quote from Jaime’s post a few months ago about failing without giving up:

“Here’s the thing – you have to suck first before you get to be good at something. There is no cheat code in life. There is no movie montage through the difficult training that happens first. You literally have to slog through each and every day of being bad at something in order to get good at it.”

In fact, we know that there are no prodigies either. It’s not like it’s possible to be awesome at Korean right away, and I just don’t have the talent. No, even the most talented language learner needs to walk the long path of learning.

The problem lies in my ego. It’s embarrassing to be so terrible at something. I want to impress people with my skills but I just sound ridiculous now. Ego can hold you back in so many ways. It’s another form of judgment. I’m judging the process, I’m judging myself, and I’m judging what others will think of me.

I’ve learned that the quicker I can release those judgments the easier and more enjoyable learning a new skill becomes. I can be proud of my (incremental) progress, and I can appreciate the process of learning because it is so difficult.

In six months when I am actually speaking Korean, I will learn to appreciate this even more. I can tell the story of my “movie montage” through the difficult times. But only I will know how difficult it was and how much focus I needed to slowly become better and better.

Being bad at something is uncomfortable. Failure is uncomfortable. But successful people learn to become very comfortable at this stage. It’s their persistence that is the only difference between ultimate success and failure.