Influence – Lesson 9 cont. – By Perseverance

“For perseverance is the mother of many gifts; from her is born circumspection which clasps hands with application and patience.”  Here the Shogun is saying that certain qualities of character make others possible.

Next he talks about a positive attitude –

“It is incredible to what degree the man who is gifted with patience is proof against the pitfalls of fate; hope and cheerfulness are two unanswerable arguments under most circumstances; application (work) comes to hold up their hands, and few undertakings can resist their combined influence.”

In more modern language Zig Ziglar said “a positive attitude won’t allow you to do anything, but it will allow you to do everything better than a negative attitude will.”

Next Yoritomo talks about men doing great projects in the margins of time between home work and their regular work.  Indeed, we have time to do more, we are just wasting it.  Especially today.  He says it far more eloquently than I do –

“Do we reckon what might be the production of one hour a day won from many frivolous pursuits to which we give so many precious minutes, which are so many of our drops of life fallen into the gulf of eternity?”

“He who should cut down a branch every day would end by clearing a way through a dense forest.”

“It is by the power of personal effort and of application that the most brilliant and solid reputations are formed.”

Isn’t that true?  People who are trying, day after day and year after year, pursuing a goal – they are the ones we are attracted to.

Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, Martin Luther King, and those we look up to and follow – they persevered.