By Henrylito D. Tacio
Sir Winston Churchill had a lisp that continued throughout his career, reported consistently by journalists of the time and later. The British Prime Minister described himself as having a “speech impediment” which he worked to overcome.
His dentures were specially designed to aid his speech. After many years of public speeches carefully prepared not only to inspire, but also to avoid hesitations, he could finally state, “My impediment is no hindrance.”
It took Churchill three years getting through eighth grade because he had trouble learning English. It was ironic that years later, Oxford University asked him to address its commencement exercises.
Churchill arrived with his usual props. A cigar, a cane and a top hat accompanied Churchill wherever he went. As he approached the podium, the crowd rose in appreciative applause. With unmatched dignity, he settled the crowd and stood confident before his admirers.
Removing the cigar and carefully placing the top hat on the podium, Churchill gazed at his waiting audience. Authority rang in his voice as he shouted, “Never give up!”
Several seconds passed before he rose to his toes and repeated: “Never give up!” His words thundered in their ears. There was a deafening silence as the British Prime Minister reached for his hat and cigar, steadied himself with his cane and left the platform. His commencement address was finished.
That is what persistence is all about. As long as you are alive, don’t lose hope. Failure is just the beginning. “Remember the two benefits of failure,” reminds Roger Von Oech. “First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn’t work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.”
Stephen King, before he became a best-selling author, admitted that he hammered a nail into the wall when he was younger, and kept all his rejection slips there, until he reached 100. In his book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, he wrote: “When you get to 100, give yourself a pat on the back… You’ve arrived.”
Award-winning F. Scott Fitzgerald had the same experience. By July 1919, he accumulated 122 rejections slips, which he pinned in his room. It was not until his novel, This Side of Paradise, was published that his short started appearing in magazines.
Ernest Hemingway was one of those who collected rejection slips scattered on his road to literary fame. Unable to sell any stories he wrote in summer and fall in 1919, he asked Edwin Balmer, a former reporter for the Chicago Tribune, for advice. “The writing business is a funny business and you’ll never know when something will sell,” Balmer said. “Rejected stories did not stay rejected forever.”
Film actor Sylvester Stallone had been turned down a thousand times by agents and was down to his last $600 before he found a company that would produce Rocky, which he himself wrote.
A struggling actor at that time, Stallone insisted that he would play the title role. The film became a box-office hit, won an Academy Award for Best Picture, and earned for the star an Oscar nomination.
“To truly succeed requires a total commitment to your goal,” someone once said. “Too many people make the mistake of quitting just short of success. Keep going no matter what. If you really believe in what you are doing, give it all you’ve got and don’t give up.”
Don’t be downhearted if you encounter some obstacles and hindrances. They are part of growing up. In his book, Life is Tremendous, author Charles Jones wrote: “Things don’t go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson once pointed out: “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.” Maya Angelou has the same idea in mind. “You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated,” the American author and poet said. “In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, and how you can still come out of it.”
Truly, never give up. Try and try again. “Just because you fail once doesn’t mean you’re gonna fail at everything,” said Hollywood sweetheart Marilyn Monroe. Or listen to the words of Thomas Alva Edison, “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
Sir Edmund Hillary was the first man to climb Mount Everest. On May 29, 1953, he scaled the highest mountain then known to man-29,000 feet straight up. He was knighted for his efforts. He even made American Express card commercials because of it!
However, it was not until his book, High Adventure, that people came to understand that Hillary had to grow into this success. In 1952, he attempted to climb Mount Everest – but failed.
A few weeks later a group in England asked him to address its members. Hillary walked on stage to a thunderous applause. The audience was recognizing an attempt at greatness, but Edmund Hillary saw himself as a failure. He moved away from the microphone and walked to the edge of the platform.
Hillary made a fist and pointed at a picture of the mountain. He said in a loud voice, “Mount Everest, you beat me the first time, but I’ll beat you the next time because you’ve grown all you are going to grow… but I’m still growing!”
“My own heroes are the dreamers, those men and women who tried to make the world a better place than when they found it, whether in small ways or great ones,” George R.R. Martin revealed. “Some succeeded, some failed, most had mixed results… but it is the effort that’s heroic, as I see it. Win or lose, I admire those who fight the good fight.”
Persistence, indeed, is the key. – ###
