Resilience

We love success stories. Actually, we only read success stories. And this because it helps us get closer, even though only in our minds, to the success for our project or the solution to our issue.

But we often forget that success does not come on a silver platter. Success is not guaranteed by how well one appears, how well one presents one’s project, the vast experience, the impact that project will have once launched or how much that impact will last after its launch, if one is famous or not, if one brings something new to the table already piling with similar projects, if one is credible or not in one’s role of initiator/ supporter of the project, etc.

To tell you the truth, success is all the above united. Somehow, they all must occur at the same time. Moreover, one must be willing and ready to receive discouraging replies or refusals and keep insisting. And even after all the above are fulfilled, success may still not happen. Here comes the balancer, chance, and nothing and no one can influence it.

There are many cases of people that have tried the above, but chance was not on their side. I love to read encouraging examples of ‘successful people’ or ‘successful projects’. But every time I finish reading the story, I realize that there is more to it. Something that is not actually mentioned in the article or interview.

I give you an example – J. K. Rowling. This author is the most given example when we talk about resilience. The manuscript of ‘Harry Potter’ was refused twelve times before being accepted for publishing. Have you tried proposing a project more than twice?!

I have. And is indeed very hard to stay strong when people dismiss your project, or they give you such a moronic reply that you think that no answer would have been a good policy. But twelve refusals are a lot to take. Well, this is a true proof of resilience. The sad part is that for each success story, such as the one of J. K. Rowling, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of examples of writers that did not make it. Even though they proved resilience in submitting their projects.

Thus, I must come back to the importance of having the chance by one’s side. I will not refer to runes for I know nothing about them. But yes, I do believe that chance makes the difference.

And in order to have it, one must show resilience. Supporting my view with my inspirational quotes, below is the one from Rocky:

“The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place, and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t how hard you get hit; it’s about how hard you get hit, and keep moving forward.”

Rocky Balboa in Rocky, 1976

Therefore, the secret is to insist, and then insist some more. Take a break, and then start again. Maybe the next time around the chance will make its appearance.

And to my inspirational quotes, I add today the following: An oak is not felled at one stroke.