How to Develop Unstoppable Persistence And Get What You Want (4 Steps)

There is one single quality that gives you the ability to succeed in any endeavor you set your mind to. Read on to find out the secret quality.

My 100th podcast episode was out a while back, and I want to talk about one topic that changed the way I perceive a lot of my work: persistence.

In this blog post, I’m going to share my secrets for how to develop persistence, so you can get what you want more easily.

What is Persistence?

Persistence is the ability to keep on taking action towards our goal, despite setbacks along the way. 

It’s the one single quality that gives you the ability to succeed in any endeavor you set your mind to. If you pull up a list of all skills needed to be successful, persistence is the ultimate trump card.

How to Develop Unstoppable Persistence And Get What You Want (4 Simple Steps) 

The good thing is, persistence is a skill. That means anyone can improve it, with the right mindset and plenty of practice.

Here are 4 steps to cultivating unshakeable persistence straight from the “Think & Grow Rich” playbook. They call for no great amount of intelligence, no particular amount of education, and little time. They don’t care about your past, what you’ve done or haven’t done, or your age, gender, or ethnic background.

Step 1. Find a definite purpose backed by a burning desire for its fulfillment

When I started Indestructible Wealth and launched my podcast, I certainly had success but I was severely lacking fulfillment. Tracing back to all the times in my life I felt the happiest and the most fulfilled, there was a common theme that kept popping up: The feeling of my purpose being fulfilled.

When I was mentoring and pouring my knowledge into younger men and women, I was at my best. My definite purpose was to be the mentor 22-year-old Jack needed but never had. Back then, I was  doing well in business but severely lacked financial education. 

Without financial intelligence, we are doomed to make costly mistakes. I believed that if I consistently put out quality content with pure intention in my heart to help those who are walking the path I’ve been on, that I could create a new network of great people who know me, like me, and trust me.

And with that influence, I could help them to make better choices, make their lives better, and in turn, my life would get better. I believed it would lead to business partnerships, e-course students, and investors for my companies.

Which is exactly what’s happened.

Step 2: Derive a definite plan, expressed in continuous action

Mike Tyson said it best: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”.

Along similar lines, German military strategist Helmuth von Motke said, “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.”

It’s important to create a game plan, but it’s just as important to be flexible and evolve as circumstances change. Be open to learning if you want to get smarter.

When I first started High Return Real Estate, we were focused on acquiring and building a portfolio of C-class properties, because the cash flow was so much stronger. But over time, the tenant class wore us down. Their disregard for other people’s property and their lack of respect to contracts (leases) forced me and my team to change our strategies. 

Our overall mission and goals were still the same, but the plan we started with had to change. From acquiring new properties to changing the way we rent them out, we had to make amends to everything on our playbook. It cost us time, energy, and money, but having the flexibility to change course and adapt as we grew is what kept us in the business.

No matter what happened, we took continuous, relentless action and kept at it. I see countless people in business almost frozen in place, not taking any action because they don’t have it all figured out. 

But they need to realize that messy action is any day better than waiting for the perfect plan!It will not be pretty, and possibly a bit chaotic, in the beginning, but by immediately getting into action, you separate yourself from the millions of others who will sit idly by, thinking about what they should do but never actually do anything.

Always ask yourself: “What’s the one thing I can do right NOW, to drive my company forward?”

Step 3: Develop a mind closed tightly against all negative and discouraging influences

When I first launched my podcast and then subsequently my book, “Building Indestructible Wealth”, I had expectations that many of those around me would enjoy my content. 

But quite contrary to my reckoning, some of my top leaders in my direct sales business to my knowledge have not listened to even a single episode. This still is a tough pill to swallow, especially when I know that my content can help them drastically improve their financial decisions.

I also didn’t realize how nasty some of these reject troll people can be. People don’t really fuck with me anymore in the offline world. I suspect that has a lot to do with who I hang around, but it also could be that there’s a level of respect for what I’ve built. In the online world, they have no idea who they’re talking to, and they have no concept of how to disagree professionally. 

There have been several intentionally hurtful comments made on my posts that I’ve had to come to grips with. This is what I signed up for when I decided to build a personal digital brand. 

The only way to effectively deal with negative comments was to focus on all the people that respond positively and give me feedback they’re getting financially smarter. So I stay focused on this group and ignore the noise.

Step 4: Contract a friendly alliance with one or more persons who will encourage you to follow through with both plan and purpose

There was a time in my direct sales business, right around 8 months in, when I was in bad shape. I had made very few sales, I hadn’t even received a commission check, and most of my “friends” and relatives were pretty adversarial about what I was doing. 

I was extremely discouraged, and even locked my dorm room door, turned the lights out, and sat on my couch for an eternity, with thoughts churning back and forth about quitting.

What saved me that day was something pretty simple. I had one client that was still with me, who was following my program and kicking ass. He was down fifty pounds and he thanked me profusely for helping him. Although I wasn’t making much money, I knew I loved that feeling: The feeling of adding some value to someone’s life out there.

I kept saying to myself, if I can help one person like this, I can help another, and another, and another, and yet another. I decided to focus on this client, drown out the noise of all the negative people in my life, pull myself together, and go out and find another.

That one client, I’ll never forget him. He ended up sending me 20 referral clients, and then those 20 led to another 40. Pretty soon, I began making some good money and my confidence grew, and I started attracting a team. 

By the time I graduated, I had saved up $50,000, bought a home, and was living life on my terms, with no boss hanging over me. Thousands and thousands of clients have been served since then.

All of that success was a result of a friendly alliance with Mark and Candace, who I sought out to mentor me. Mark would drive an hour one-way to my college campus every single week for months to teach and help me build my business. I was scared to do the presentations at the meetings, so he would do them over and over for me, and eventually, I got the confidence to do them myself. 

It was during those rough initial start up times that I leaned on Mark and Candace to give me a vision, hope, and encouragement to keep going. They always had my back. Do you have anyone in your life like this? If not, find them. Successful people love pouring into others.

Why Persistence is So Important: My Personal Story 

Looking back, persistence has served me and saved me so many times, in business and in life. 

There is 0 chance that I’d be hitting 100 podcast episodes without it. Did you know that of all podcasts ever launched, only 50% make it to their 15th episode? 

Even worse, a massive 12% only publish a single episode! How you take all the time and energy to come up with your name, logo, cover art, publishing account, and then push out one episode and call it a day is a bit hard to understand.

But then, it’s easy to understand because it’s tough when it looks like no one is listening. I’m glad I made it through.

There’s not been much in life that has come easy for me. Early in life, back in my prior basketball days, my first taste of adversity was barely making the 7th grade team and being relegated to the end of the bench. There was a game early in the season where I didn’t even get in the game. 

By the end of the season, I had cracked the starting lineup. By 8th grade, I was back on the bench and had to make my way back into the starting lineup again. In 9th grade, I got benched mid-season, and had to fight and hustle my way back in. In 10th, I watched two of my friends get moved up to Varsity. 

My Junior year, I broke my leg the first home conference game and was out for the season. My Senior year, after many thoughts of quitting, I helped lead the team to winning the conference and darn near breaking school records.

Making it to the team seemed out of reach, and if not for the one quality I am going to talk about, I wouldn’t even have tried.

Later in life, my direct sales business saw an extremely rough start. It took me 9 months before I generated my first commission check for $14.90. When I graduated, I had built up a nice business, went full time, and stayed stuck at the same level for 8 years. It was quite the slog.

In my real estate business, besides the very first year, I have not taken a paycheck out of the company. Welcome to entrepreneurship, the glamorous land where the grass is always greener. All I’ve done is put money into the company to drive growth and make up for past mistakes and bad partners.

When I ventured into crypto mining, I’ve had to wait for parts that were stuck in China or in various supply chain disruptions for eight months, losing loads of cash in the process.

For Indestructible Wealth, I was on a roll the first few months of my podcast. Downloads were steadily on the rise, until I mistakenly took a month off to work on my online learning courses. I don’t know what I was thinking, but from that month, the algorithm punished me, and my downloads have yet to recover.

Through all these downs, only one quality has kept me going.

Persistence.

There isn’t anything worthwhile in life that’s easy. I remember walking out of the Grand Canyon on my 9th grade Biology school trip, which is several miles of steady uphill climbing, and our lead teacher and guide Mr. Link said:

“The more difficult something is, the better it feels to achieve it. There isn’t anything in life that’s easy and rewarding.”

His words have resonated throughout my life. Persistence is what we are talking about.

Napoleon Hill, the famous author of “Think & Grow Rich”, said, “Persistence is nothing more than concentrated effort mixed with determination and faith”. 

Hill was challenged by Andrew Carnegie, at that time the richest person in the world, to spend the next several years interviewing the nation’s most successful men and identify key laws and habits that drive success, and then to share that research with the world. 

Carnegie would give Hill the introductions, and Hill had to take it from there, without any financial assistance. The challenge from Carnegie led to the publishing of what is now the best-selling personal development book of all time.

Here is what he had to say:

“The majority of people are willing to throw their aims and purposes overboard, and give up at the first sign of opposition or misfortune. A few carry on despite all opposition, until they attain their goal.

Those who have cultivated the habit of persistence seem to enjoy insurance against failure. No matter how many times they are defeated, they finally arrive at the top of the ladder. Sometimes, it appears that there is a hidden Guide whose duty is to test men through all sorts of discouraging experiences. 

Those who pick themselves up after defeat and keep on trying, arrive; and the world cries, “Bravo! I knew you could do it!”

The hidden Guide lets no one enjoy great achievement without passing the persistence test. Those can’t take it simply do not make the grade. Those who can take it are bountifully rewarded for their persistence. They receive, as their compensation, whatever goal they are pursuing.

That is not all! They receive something infinitely more important than material compensation – the knowledge that every failure brings with it the seed of an equivalent advantage.”

I believe we all understand that persistence is a necessary part to create success in our lives, in all areas. Be it our finances, our physical fitness, our relationships, our business, or our career growth – it makes us or breaks us.

Let’s Wrap It Up

Napoleon Hill closed out the chapter on how to develop persistence with this:

“There is a magnificent reward for all who learn to take these four steps. It is the privilege of writing one’s own ticket, and making life yield whatever price is asked. Does the quality of persistence set up in one’s mind some form of spiritual, mental or chemical activity which gives one access to supernatural forces? Does Infinite Intelligence throw itself on the side of the person who still fights on, after the battle has been lost, with the whole world on the opposing side?”

I would say, without any doubt, the answer is yes.