Wealth Zone Blog

Wealth Zone

Chicago, IL

Welcome to the Wealth Zone Blog!!

Which wealth zone are you in?

Articles about acquiring and keeping wealth in your life. Ad hoc reviews of companies, products and services that help get you in the wealth zone.

Endurance

This entry was posted on 5/8/2007 4:35 AM and is filed under Attitude,Success.

Sticking to a goal can feel onerous when it takes a while to achieve it. Along they way, perhaps you might begin to doubt yourself or others might begin to doubt whether if you will make it or not.

I recently heard someone tell the story of Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest Airlines. He had an idea to startup a low cost airline and compete with the big guys at the time. Of course, the entrenched players, not wanting to respond by innovation or their own cost cutting efforts, decided to go the usual route and sued the company endlessly in court. The entrenched, thinking that they had more time and money to go to court, would wear Herb and his company down and force them out of business. Herb was a lawyer, so he was able to use his own skills in court to fend of the litigation.

In one particular suit, he lost in trial court, and then proceeded to lose in appeals court. At this point, some people begin to doubt he would make it. But, Herb was determined to press on anyway. I am not sure if he had doubts at the time, but what did he have to lose? One way or another they were trying to get him and his company out of business. So he files an appeal to the state supreme court and this time - he prevails.

Now we know today that not only has the company succeeded wildly, but it defined low cost competition on it's terms - not those of it's competitors. Even if you aren't thinking about something as grand as an airline, know that endurance and perseverance count as much in the success of your idea or goal as anything else.

If you want another example of endurance, see the movie called "Shackleton". It's a story about Sir Ernest Shackleton who was determined to raise money and take a crew to Antarctica to explore an area of it. Antarctic exploration was a hot topic at the time in the early 1900's. His goal at the time was to sail in the ship "Endurance" and arrive on the continent via the Weddel sea, cross the continent via the south pole to the Ross sea. Unfortunately, after arriving in the Weddel sea, the pack ice closed in on his ship and it had to be abandoned as the ship was crushed. Although Shackleton did not succeed at his original goal which was to cross the Antarctic continent, he acquired a new goal along the way which was to rescue his men from the failed mission. It took two years in all to round up all of the men involved and not one of them was lost. He could have easily given up at any point but he did not.

Trackbacks

Trackback specific URL for this entry

No trackbacks exist for this entry.

Comments

Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

11/18/2008 10:57 PM Betty wrote:
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Betty

Reply to this