Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Persistence in a Bag

Good morning all :)

I'm thrilled to see more followers on the blog - welcome and thanks for visiting!

Today's post will be brief. On one of the blogs I follow (Bookends, you can see it in the list on my main blog page) there's a blog post up today written by Bookends client Christie Craig.

View the post here.

I had the pleasure of hearing Christie Craig give a presentation at my writer's conference last fall. She came into the room carrying what appeared to be a doctor's bag or medium sized carry-on piece of luggage. All of us kind of wondered what it was for, and we sat back to enjoy her presentation on persistence and staying in the game, no matter what.

While her information was geared to writers, it could apply to anything. Stick to your goal and don't give up.

THEN she did something I won't ever forget. She asked the room how many rejections would it take for us to give up on our dream. Then she pulled about 200 rejection slips out of her bag, and tossed them on the floor.

We sat there, astounded. Then she reached into the bag again. "How many times will you read a rejection and keep going?" And she took ANOTHER 200-300 sheets of paper out of her bag and tossed them to her feet.

This routine continued for several more rounds--until the floor was covered with the rejection slips - she must have had 2000 or more stuffed into that bag of hers. And now she's a bestselling author.

Never give up on your dream, no matter what. Keep moving toward your goal. You'll get there.

Elaine

3 comments:

Martina Boone said...

The BookEnds, LLC post was a great read today! So much good information. Glad you're spreading the word!

Marissa

The Writers Canvas, Author Elaine Calloway said...

Thanks for commenting! I agree, the BookEnds post was superb. I try and read their blog every day.

Elaine

Anonymous said...

Now that is a lot of rejections! 2000...wow...but it also indicates a ton of perseverance too. 'If at first you don't succeed, try and try again' is the motto, and proved right seeing as she is now a bestselling author.