BEN'S EXAMPLE OF PERSEVERANCE HAS BEEN AN INSPIRATION TO ME

Some years ago, a friend of mine announced that he was going to take part in a very popular, nationally recognised long-distance walking race in Darwin, Australia. He said that he intended to break the record for this race, and planned to raise a sizeable amount for charity. He said that he had nearly twelve months to train, and had already started a daily walk as part of his preparation.

Ben was in his late thirties, had never seriously walked or run in his life, was unfit, and was definitely NOT athletic by nature. Frankly, none of us took his announcement very seriously. We expected his enthusiasm to wane after a few days. And even if he kept on training for the whole year, we couldn't see him getting anywhere near the speed of the expert runners who we knew would be coming to Darwin for this big annual event. As for breaking the record, that was obviously a pipe dream.

However, as the days and weeks went by, it became obvious that Ben was very serious. He certainly hadn't given up, and was still doing his regular daily training. Later, when one of his friends checked his walk times, it became clear that Ben was walking very well and, if he could keep his speed up for the complete race, he had a good chance of being well placed. We began to take a greater interest....

When the day of the race dawned, Ben was fit, well, and ready to do the walk. And when the first walker came into view at the finishing line, we were delighted to see that it was Ben! Furthermore, when they checked his time, they found that Ben had indeed broken the race record, and by a significant margin.

I know this story sounds too good to be true, but these events did actually happen, and I have Ben's permission to recount them to you.

Ben's experience taught me an enormous lesson about life which I have never forgotten: if we make up our mind to do something, make plans to carry it out, and stick to those plans, we will almost certainly succeed. There is very little, if anything, that we can't do. The key is PERSEVERANCE.

The problem is of course that we usually have a great idea, work with it for a day or two, and then give up. Perhaps our friends and family discourage us (as, sadly, we did to Ben). Whatever the reason, we let "common sense" take over, and our great idea goes out of the window.

Never is this experience more common than when we set up our network marketing businesses. We are full of enthusiasm for a few days, then we get discouraged, and our friends and family, with the very best of intentions no doubt, advise us to give it up. So we do.

I've seen this happen so often with network marketing businesses, and indeed with many other businesses too. If the owners had only persevered, they very probably would have built successful businesses, just as Ben achieved success with his walking. But they gave up, and so never enjoyed the success they were entitled to expect. They simply didn't persevere for long enough.

So my message is that we should persevere with our businesses, and not give up just because things don't go well at some point. Of course, if things really don't go well, a point of time may finally come when we really should review our business, perhaps change our products, and in extreme circumstances close our business down. That's a possibility, but in most cases we stop because we don't persevere for long enough rather than for sensible reasons.

Like all of us, I have my times of discouragement in network marketing - it's guaranteed to happen to every network marketer. Sometimes I really feel like giving up and doing something else. Then I think of Ben... and I keep going.

Yes, if Ben could do it, so can I.... and so can you!