It Was 20 Years Ago Today…

It was 20 years ago today…

I bet you thought I was going to follow that up by saying, “Sargent Pepper taught the band to play.”  I’m not.

20 years ago today on a beautiful autumn day in Denver, Cathy and I were married in the chapel on the grounds of Regis University.  It’s been a great 20 years and I love Cathy dearly.  Happy anniversary Cathy.  Thanks for giving me the best 20 years of my life.

But as those of you who are married know, no matter how strong and loving all relationships have their ups and downs.  Both parties have to be tenacious to make it through20 years of marriage.  My dad and mom made it through 62, prior to her death in 2009.  Tenacity not only helps in marriage.  It helps in creating your life and career success.

In this post, I want to focus on tenacity.  Tenacious people commit to three things.  First, they take personal responsibility for their career success.  They know that they are responsible for their own life and career success.  They are willing to do the things necessary to succeed.  Second, tenacious people set high goals – and then do whatever it takes to achieve them.  Third, tenacious people know that stuff happens as they go through life.  They realize they will encounter many problems and setbacks.  Tenacious people choose to react positively to the negative stuff that happens and move forward toward their goals.

I live in Denver; the weather here is very changeable.  On December 21 2009, the first day of winter, we had 60-degree weather.  That night the weather announcer on TV reminded us that we had snow on the last day of summer.

This got me thinking about the unpredictability of life.  As I frequently say to my career success coach clients, stuff will happen as you go through life – good stuff, bad stuff, happy stuff, sad stuff, encouraging stuff, frustrating stuff.  However, it’s not the stuff that happens that’s important, it’s how you react to it.  You can’t control the people and events in your life.  You can control how you react to the people and events in your life.

I choose to react positively to the people and events in my life – especially the bad stuff, sad stuff and frustrating stuff that happens to me.  I choose to tenaciously follow my purpose and dreams.  And I urge you to do the same if you want to create the life and career success you want and deserve.

I know this isn’t always easy.  In fact, it’s seldom easy.  But the harder you find it to react positively to negative people and events, the more important it is for you to do so.  Don’t blame people or circumstances when things go wrong.  Instead, choose to be tenacious and learn the lesson behind every less than successful relationship or event in your life.

When you look for the lesson behind problems, setbacks and failures you are being tenacious; you are taking responsibility for your life and career success.  Find the lessons in the bad stuff that happens and then do something to put those lessons to work.  Commit to taking responsibility for yourself, your life and your career success.  Put yourself in the driver’s seat.  Don’t let events and people stop you from achieving your goals.  Be persistent.  Be tenacious.

As I write this, I’m reminded of the famous quote on persistence by Calvin Coolidge…

“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.  Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.  Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.  Education will not; the world is full of educated failures.  Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people commit to taking personal responsibility for their life and career success.  They heed the advice in Tweet 10 in Success Tweets:  “Emerson says, ‘Good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.’  Find your purpose and pursue it tenaciously.”  Only you can make you a career success.  You have to take personal responsibility for creating the life and career success you want and deserve.  Tenacity and persistence are the hallmarks of people who are committed to taking personal responsibility for their life and career success.  Tenacious and persistent people keep going, especially in the face of difficulties and problems.  Promise yourself that you will commit to taking personal responsibility for your life and career success.  Be persistent.  Be tenacious.  Keep at it, and you will reach your goals.

That’s my career advice when it comes to tenacity.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my daily thoughts on life and career success.  I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site on September 1.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  To celebrate the grand opening, I’m giving away a new career advice book I’ve written called I Want YOU…To Succeed in Your Corporate Climb.  You can find out about the membership site and get the career advice in I Want YOU… for free by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.