I decided to title this post "A 12th Round Knockout" because that's the vision that came to my head when I thought about one of those really difficult grind it out days.  You know one of those days where everything just seems to be harder than it should be for no good reason . Getting out of bed in the morning is a little tougher, follow that by having car trouble or missing your transportation to work.  Then add on to it you having a major brain fart while you're trying to get an important piece of work done. You get the point, just one of those days where it feels like you're being tested, yet you prevail anyway. Those are the type of days where you really earn your paycheck.

I did not expect today to be one of those days for me.  I mean I actually got a really good nights worth of sleep, I woke on time(not 5 minutes before my alarm) and I really had no personal stresses to worry about. Actually I was pretty excited thins morning because I had a few friends that reached out to me wanting to learn more about what I do on a regular basis.  I started my morning normally by reading the psychology portion of my trading plan (which gets me in a good mental place) then reviewing my charts. At about 8am I entered a trade that went directly into the red on me.  I didn't get upset because a losers a loser, but it annoyed me that this particular trade kept bouncing right above the point where I would be exited out for a loss, then going back up to even money. I honestly felt like the market was teasing me like playing the high five game as a kid where you say  "down low...too slow."  I was literally sitting in front of my computer saying "just take me out already, so I can cancel this order and use it someplace else." This same teasing action went on for 4 hours until it finally shot upwards and I was able to collect my profits.  During those 4 hours I was so tempted to simply give in and either accept my loss and just exit at whatever, or to exit when I was back to even money/ a little bit into profit.  But something in me told me to stick my guns and tough it out. And that something in me was right.

We recently started an I Am Business  facebook group titled Self-Made Entrepreneurs and a few of the members have been kind enough to share their stories with us. Some stories simply explain who they are and what they do, and some others have expressed the need for advice or help.  Starting/running your own business is very similar to the experience I had today. It's one of those things where at some point things are going to become so difficult that you want to quit. But you know what that is your test.  That's the point that separates the strong from the weak. Everybody on this planet is blessed with some type of natural talent. But it's only those who work extremely hard at perfecting that talent that succeed. The true test of a person's character is how they act when their faced with adversity.  Will you throw in the towel in round 8 when you're getting your butt whooped? Or will you fight through the pain and finish your opponent with a 12th round knockout? If it's something that you truly love and more importantly truly want to succeed at I suggest fighting through the pain.  Worst case scenario is you fight it out and you lose. But if you chose not to fight it at all then you have already lost. Personally I'll take a 50% chance at winning over an 100% chance of failure any day of the week.

Lastly my personal opinion on going through hard time sis this.  I believe that all legends in history (fictional or non-fictional) faced a point in their lives where they were down, out and almost left to die (figuratively speaking in some cases). However it's how they rebounded and overcame that situation that made them legends and what made their stories the ones we read about today.  Become Legendary I DARE YOU. 

Ryan
6/21/2011 10:19:31 am

This goes up in my office tomorrow morning 7AM

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april
6/22/2011 09:39:41 am

This was a really good post. I found the last two paragraphs to be particularly powerful and inspiring. Sometimes when I'm up at midnight making cupcakes I just wanna through in the towel. But with any great thing you must have persistance, strength and endurance through all the tough times.

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6/22/2011 11:34:55 pm

Thanks for the comments guys. Throwing in the towel was something that i contemplated so many times. However whenever I thought about doing so, I thought about all of the years that I used to jobs that I hated and the fear of going back to that life scared the crap out of me. Also I know I don't want to be that person that quits and has nothing else to go to. You're cupcake business is going to do well, not simply because you work hard, but because you love to cook. When you do something that you love its a lot easier to get past those "throw in the towel nights"

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