Leading with perseverance.

 Leading with perseverance.

Webster's Dictionary defines perseverance as “persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.”  

That sounds like a typical day in business for me.  

Nothing ever seems to go right everything is delayed and well guess what we just keep going because it has to get done.  

What is perseverance to me?

Perseverance is sticking with something until you get it finished no matter how long it takes no matter how hard it is no matter what obstacles you run into.  It is planted a crop, weeding out all the weeds watching it grow watering it continually then harvesting beautiful crops at the end.  

Perseverance is not giving up when times get hard. It's having that stick-to-itiveness that pushes you to the finish line.

One of my favorite quotes about perseverance comes from Thomas Edison's.  Edison said,  "I haven't failed -- I've just found 10,000 that won't work."

Talk about perseverance, that's a lot of perseverance.  

As a leader, we have to have it. What happens if we give up in the middle of a project? 

Before long everyone on the team starts giving up in the middle of their projects,  and before we know it we never even start the projects because we're scared to fail.

Having perseverance when you're in a leadership position is important. We've all known leaders who don't have perseverance, maybe they weren't really leaders they were just people in management positions.

Honestly in my opinion perseverance is what makes or breaks a business. It is what helps a small business owner transition into a top 500 company. The ability to never give up.

Throughout the bible, it is discussed at length. 

Let's take the story of Joseph.  His brothers sold him into slavery and he was bought by Potiphar.  He stayed strong and rose among all the slaves to be put in charge of his entire estate.  Then when he wouldn't keep with Potiphar's wife after she attempted to seduce him multiple times. She had him thrown into prison. 

Still, he persevered.  Within a short time, he rose to be in charge of the prison just under the guards.  Then he interpreted several dreams for people who were released. But they forgot to tell Pharaoh about his abilities. 

Joseph continued to preserve.  Then one day when the time was right he was called to interpret one of Pharaoh's dreams. Right after he finished the interpretation Pharaoh placed Joseph as the second over the entire Kingdom.  the only one above him was Pharaoh himself. 

The point that I'm making is that if joseph would not have perseverance, he would have never succeeded.  He was knocked down several times, and yet he still stayed strong.  

If Joseph, who was sold by his own family, thrown in jail for doing what was right, and forgotten after he did great things can stay strong and persevere. So can you!

Until next time, stay strong and keep the rubber side down.