Rich Man Common Sense

“One of the commonest mistakes and one of the costliest is thinking that success is due to some genius, some magic – something or other which we do not possess. Success is generally due to holding on, and failure to letting go. You decide to learn a language, study music, take a course of reading, train yourself physically. Will it be success or failure? It depends upon how much pluck and perseverance that word “decide” contains. The decision that nothing can overrule, the grip that nothing can detach will bring success. Remember the Chinese proverb, “With time and patience, the mulberry leaf becomes satin.” Maltbie Davenport Babcock

I was just talking to a friend of mine in India who runs a company called Success Key – a training and development institute that is extremely strong on Aptitude Skills, Skills Testing and other such areas. We were on the subject of making money and he tells me a story of a company called Meritrac - a skills assessment company and has more clients than any company I can think of. It is almost a monopoly in its niche and that awes me.

While on the subject, he told me about its rather remarkable story – Three young graduates left their corporate jobs and started this company with nothing but fire in their stomach and loads of confidence. It was a rather tumultuous climb for at least 8 months until there came a time when they didn’t even have money to pay their 12 odd employees. What would most people do? Quit like chickens have given up on their flying (Did you know that the longest flight time of a chicken was about 13 seconds?). Sorry about the meaningless meandering.

Now, the employees were told about the abysmal situation and that they had the choice to either leave the company or hang on to share the profits when they come in ( The founders had no doubt that it would work!) . Some of them quit. Some of them stayed back. Today the company grows at the rate of 100% every year; has over 500 employees; rakes in millions as profits and is success re-defined.

Bottom line: Perseverance pays. If you doubt it, you go take a hike.

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