"The two greatest warriors are patience and time"

Leo Tolstoy

I'm reading a book at the moment as part of a new commitment to read a book every week.  It's called "The Slight Edge" by Jeff Olson.  It is a fantastic book and I encourage anyone who wishes to make a positive change in their lives to read it.  The core message in the book for mine, was that of persistence.  Jeff gives an excellent example of what he calls the slight edge in the development of a child (you or I) learning to walk.  At the beginning we slowly dragged ourselves up, but quickly fell down again because we didn't have the strength to maintain our new posture, but we got up again.  We fell down again.  But we didn't stay down, we kept on getting back up and everytime we did that we got a little stronger.  We got up.   We fell down.  We got up.  We fell down.  Day by day  and week by week we eventually took one step, then two, then 3 or 4 - falling down constantly along the way, but before long we were almost running.

I tell this story of past to remind us all that we all have what Jeff expounds upon in his book - that slight edge, that natural persistence seemed so inherent in our early childhood - our learning to walk is proof of this, but somewhere along the way we started to give up on things.  In the same book Olson talks about how by the time we reach school age we have already heard the word "no" 8 times more than we hear the word "Yes."  Is it any wonder he suggests, that only 5% of people go on to achieve all the goals and success they desire by the time they reach the end of their lives, whilst 95% of all people flounder and do not achieve their deepest desires?  What separates the 5% from the 95% according to the book, is not a lack of "How To Manuals", because there has never been more information than there is today, but more of a lack of understanding as to how to do the how - if that makes sense?!  It is our personal philosophy which guides our attitude and this attitude influences the actions that lead us up towards success or down towards failure.

Success then is achieved by a series of small habits repeated daily, not by some quantum leap - though we fantasise that this will be the case with us.  There are many reasons why we do not stick with good habits according to Olson, but one of the overwhelming reasons is that we fail to see progress straight away.  In a world of instant everything we also want instant results, but how long did it take us to put on those 10 kilograms we need to lose?  How long did it take to start losing touch with our families and friends?  These things didn't happen overnight, but they did happen.  A reversal of fortunes will also take time, but it will also take persistent, consistent action over the long term.

To round off this post I'll leave you with a story that was told by Jeff Olson's daughter in the book.  She is also an inspiring young individual who lives the same kind of philosophy as her father.  She told a story about Will Smith, who we all know to be an incredibly successful actor.  Apparantly as the story goes Will's father tore down a wall in their shop that was 16 feet high and around 30 feet long and asked Will and his little brother to rebuild it.  They also had to dig a 6 feet hole for the foundation.  Trouble is, Will was only 12 years old at the time.  He told his Dad it was impossible, yet nevertheless he and his brother set to work to build the wall, mixing the concrete by hand, failing many times along the way.  Every day after school for a year and a half Will and his little brother would build the wall, mixing concrete by hand.  Will said in an interview with Charlie Rose that he remembered standing back looking at the wall and thinking "There's never going to be anything more than a hole here!" because of the sheer enormity of the task, yet in 18 months they laid the final brick.  His father stood back with Will and his brother out the front of the shop and simply said (in Will's words) "Now don't y'all never tell me you can't do somethin" and walked back into the shop.

We may not all have a literal wall to build, but we all have a figurative wall that we need to work on.  A wall, like a pyramid is built brick by brick and only by building in this manner it seems, can we accomplish what we set out to do.