Nate Walks America: Persistence Pays Off

Published October 16, 2011 71 Comments
Categories: Challenges, Philosophy

"Energy and persistence conquer all things." - Benjamin Franklin

In today’s news of the totally awesome, my buddy Nate Damm just completed his walk across America. He started in Lewes, DE on February 26 and finished the journey in San Francisco this past weekend after walking some 3000+ miles. Talk about an adventure!

You can read about his journey here at the appropriately named website Nate Walks America.

The picture above was taken from the World Domination Summit and what appears to be a sweet tattoo was Nate’s output from the Mondo Beyondo exercise where we came up with our core values and wrote one on our body somewhere with a Sharpie (mine was “Smash Fear”). Fitting that Nate would come up with “Persistence” as I can only imagine the hardships experienced over seven and a half months on the road.

When I think back to the accomplishments that I’m most proud of, I recognize that all of them were a by-product of persistence. Persistence is the ability to maintain moving forward regardless of how your are feeling. You press on even when you feel like quitting.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I feel like quitting all the time. Sometimes halfway through a tough cardio session, I feel like quitting my workout. Sometimes when I’m out with friends or on vacation, I feel like quitting my healthy eating habits. Sometimes when I don’t feel like writing, I feel like quitting this blog. And sometimes when I think of the incredible amount of work ahead of me in a week, I feel like giving up before I’ve started.

But then I take one single step toward my goal.

Not even a large one, but just a tiny one. Then that step leads to another, and then another, and then another, and I’m moving again. Before I know it I’ve conquered what I’ve set out to do. Then I look back and realize that the challenge that I was worrying about so much wasn’t even that bad, and I set the bar higher.

This past week I’ve struggled to find inspiration to write. But today I took a tiny step, and then another one, and then another one, and now here is another post.

Thanks Nate for the inspiration today.

“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 derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” – Calvin Coolidge