Tenacity Trumps Talent
Show me a good loser, and I will show you a loser.
Jim Anthony was an insightful lineman for the phone company. He talked to new residents moving into the beautiful Upstate of South Carolina as he installed their telephones. He built relationships with construction and real estate development firms as he strung telephone lines to their properties.
Because of his passion and lifetime of experience and relationships, Jim saw an opportunity to develop high-end resort golf communities more clearly than others around him. He climbed off his telephone pole one day and began a journey that led him to develop golf courses with Jack Nicklaus, Tom Fazio, and Gary Player, among others.
Jim has an innate sense of optimism that one way or another he will prevail in the end. Jim said to me,
We made payroll week to week for five years. We hired a new accountant. He was here a couple of weeks and called one morning. ‘I just analyzed our cash flow, and in two to three weeks we are out of cash.’ I said, ‘Two or three weeks?! We’ve got plenty of time.’
You don’t lose until you quit. That separates the winners from the losers. The winners just don’t quit. Hang in there and believe that there is always a way.
Optimism is a key ingredient to success. I love to fish. I always believe there is a fish on the next cast… or a sale to the next customer.
Show me a good loser, and I will show you a loser. It hurts enough to strike out that I analyze why I struck out and take responsibility for it so that next time I won’t make the same mistake.
Jim punctuated our conversation with a profound insight,
Tenacity trumps talent.
For me personally, that is very fortunate.
During the darkest days of World War II, Winston Churchill issued his battle cry to students at his alma mater, Harrow School:
Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense
