Michal Stawicki - The Art of Persistence: Stop Quitting, Ignore Shiny Objects and Climb Your Way to Success

For kings reign well when they reign over themselves and do not become the servants of their own vices, but master the impetuosity of these by courageous constancy.

Saint Anselm

We live in a society that worships instant gratification. That is so wrong on so many levels! Intellectually, we know that instant gratification is not correct. It should be a curse, a bad phrase we forbid our kids to use.

Instead, we treat this kind of attitude like a bratty kid: Well, he is who he is. Let him play. H hes just a kid; he will grow up. We are lenient. My parenting experience has taught me that leniency is not the right approach for raising children into responsible adults.

The instant gratification approach is a curse.

We love convenience. I still remember the times when there was no instant chocolate drink. If I wanted it, I needed to boil the water and perk it. The last time I did this was when instant chocolate ran out in my home. It is so much easier to pour a few spoons of water-soluble substance into milk or water, so much faster. And the taste is better (read: sweeter). At a first look, there are only advantages. But on a second look? (See the instant mix label.) The price is revealed: sugar and other chemical additives that make the mixture easily water-soluble and yummy.

Convenience is easy, but may not give the results that are desired. The instant gratification approach has no merit or substance. The world doesnt function this way. You cant instantly have a cute three-year-old girl. First you need to go through nine months of pregnancy. Then you need to sacrifice a lot of time and work to raise her. Dirty diapers, colic, teething, crawling, and a lot of other stages must be worked through and checked off. Finally, the girl is three years old and you can have basic conversations with her.

Think of it. Look around you. Look inside you. Whatever you possess took you time to get. No one instantly gets a job, a spouse, a house, a skill, or knowledge.

But our thoughts mislead us. Our mind can imagine things happening instantly, so it wants those instant results in life. Its the way we all are. And that is why we have an instant gratificationoriented society.

No one is interested in extensive hard work. We love overnight success stories.

I started my writing career in May 2013. Ive documented every single day of my struggle in my online Progress Journal . Its freely available for the whole world, but I didnt advertise it, and only a small number of my friends saw it.

The sales of my first title were at least encouraging. People were willing to spend money on my work and didnt crush me with negative reviews. I published a second book at the beginning of July 2013. It sold exactly seventeen copies between then and the middle of November. That was more than just discouraging. It was a sales disaster and a blow to my self-confidence.

Before September 2013, I wrote two more books and spent time polishing them. I also published a public domain work with a personal twist. However, up until the beginning of November, I had sold just 144 copies of my books. And Id earned about $35.

Despite these meager results, I persisted.

I was working practically six days a week on my publishing business. (Revenue: $35!) I published my speed-reading book in November 2013, and for the first time I broke 100 sales in one month. But the price was only a dollar. Still chicken feed. A few hours of overtime at my day job would give me more than that.

But I was consistent. I published a fourth book in December 2013, and it wasnt a bestseller either. Sales were worse than the other three!

But I tell you, I had decided not to give up. I kept up my consistent writing habit even though I had no significant results. I was not there yet.

I had written my fifth book back in October. During this period, Id have been happy to get at least one sale a day. No one was very interested in my process of book writing, and I didnt have crowds flocking to my Journal.

In December and January, I worked hard on the post-production stages of this fifth bookediting it, polishing it, and preparing the launch. I published it at the end of January 2014, and it became a bestseller. When I revealed on my authors blog the details of the book launch , I abruptly got a few hundred visitors. I was invited as a guest on a podcast. I also gave a video interview.

Everybody was suddenly interested in how the heck I got my results. Here is the secret: I got them in the months from May to January, when no one was watching . It was my consistent effort that brought me a harvest when I launched that fifth book.

Yes, along the way it was boring. It was frustrating at times. But it was fruitful in the end.

A couple of my best friends have had, in many ways, similar journeys.

One, an IT specialist, works for IBM. Ive known him since high school. He is the eldest of three siblings. His father died in a car accident when he was fourteen. This hurt his family not only on an emotional level, but financially too. He matured very quickly and was able to be strong and supportive for his mother, brother, and sister. He graduated from technical university, immigrated to Ireland, and took a job with HP. He started his own family, returned to Poland, bought an apartment, and started a new IT career practically from scratch. He has achieved a lot, largely on his own!

Another friend, whom I have known since primary school, was with me in Boy Scouts. He is very intelligent. After technical university, he stayed on as an administrative worker and computer network specialist. After several years in the university, he started a corporate career at Alcatel. Did I mention he is intelligent? He has collected so many professional certificates that he is the best-qualified engineer in Alcatel, Poland. Soon he will be among the top 250 network specialists in the world. He is also a husband and a father and got to his status without much help from his parents. Its a common story in Poland. Most of my generations parents struggled through our countrys painful and difficult transformationfrom a communist to a capitalist economyand were unable to significantly support their kids.