Yesterday my friend Ellen and I walked on a scenic mountain trail. I came with camera, wanting to capture her shining image.

“Don’t bother with me,” Ellen quipped.  “I take an awful picture.”

My reaction: I decided to ignore her negative predictions. I clicked and clicked. Admittedly alot of them came out poorly. Was I daunted? No! I kept at it.

In the end– hooray– I came away with two excellent ones and two not bad ones. With persistence I prevailed!

Bask in the juice from the following accounts:

I. Thomas Edison

I love thinking about Thomas Edison and his development of the light bulb. Our hero took 1000 experiments to create that device that sustains illumination. What did he say to himself at experiment 750?

Picture him in his laboratory, having been at this endeavor already for a good chunk of time.  Some of us might say, ” This blankety-blank thing will never work. I quit!”

But Edison said something like, “Maybe if I adjust this widget a bit like this, it would improve…”  He stays psyched, he persists.

He enjoys his process, knowing not when his mechanism will shine forth.

When he awoke on a day down the road, it was like any other day at first. That day in the lab, the bulb worked. He is just like you and me.

2.   John Lennon

Once I had the chance to view an exhibit of John Lennon’s illustrations.

On one of the matted pieces was this: “My aunt always told me, ‘The guitar is very well, John,  but you will never make a living at it.'”

Isn’t it fun to picture the day John heard his aunt say that and see in your mind’s eye his ignoring her? He just kept doing what he loved. Imagine!

3.  Examples from the “Consider This” page Chicken Soup for the  Soul by Jack Canfield

– “Beethoven handled the violin awkwardly and preferred playing his own compositions instead of improving his technique. His teacher called him hopeless as a composer.”[1]

– “The parents of the famous opera singer Enrico Caruso wanted him to be an engineer. His teacher said he had no voice at all and could not sing.”[2]

– “Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before he finally succeeded.”[3]

–  ” The sculptor Rodin’s father said, ‘I have an idiot for a son.’  Described as the worse pupil in the school, Rodin failed three times to secure admittance to the school of art. His uncle called him ineducable.[4]

4 Take away for Readers

Please… tell yourself stories of success– those like these and YOURS.

Notice what feels really good –to think or do–persist at that!!

Enjoy all you can

Daydream

Keep going.

And share your stories with me and with readers of this blog. Please comment. Together we light up this wonderful world.