John Zajaros Blog

Or: Persistence, Determination, Honesty, Integrity, and a Bucket of Oysters

Whenever I think about positive mental attitude statements and affirmations, my mind always comes back to Erma Bombeck’s classic title:

If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?

Talk about effective marketing!

Recently, I had the pleasure of listening to Eben Pagan interview Joe Sugarman, one of the greatest copywriters and direct marketers of our era, the founder of BluBlocker Sun Glasses. Joe Sugarman sold millions of BluBlockers and made millions of dollars in the process. The story is an interesting one, one for another day.

In the interview, Eben and Joe discussed many topics, topics related to marketing, success, and life. I recommend it if you can find a copy, it is well worth the time.

Of all the topics discussed, the topic of persistence piqued my interest. Persistence and determination are among of my favorite topics, along with desire, perception, perspective, and assumption…as you well know, particularly if you have visited any of my blogs.

You see, I believe the most crucial ingredient, the characteristic that defines us and determines our success, is persistence.

In my opinion, and in the opinion of many men and women smarter than I, persistence, and its partner determination, are central and recurring themes in almost every success story I have ever listened to, read, witnessed or been a part of…including my own.

Persistence, when combined with determination and honesty, almost always assures one’s success long term.

If integrity and honesty are not part of your makeup, all of your effort will be for naught.

No one can sustain success long term without integrity and honesty!

Getting back to the teleseminar with Joe Sugarman and Eben Pagan, Joe Sugarman made an interesting comparison, one worth sharing:

Life is like a bucket of oysters. In life, we are guaranteed

success if we persist. In the bucket, we know there is at

least one pearl. Opening the oysters is hard work and quite

often we end up cutting our hands, getting discouraged,

and wondering if it is all worth it when we are only half

way through. However, we know there is a pearl in the

bucket…if we just keep digging for it!

That is exactly like life!

The sad thing about it?

Many people end up losing sight of the reward, giving in and giving up as difficulties ensue. I have known so many men and women who, on the very brink of success, have thrown in the towel, unable to continue, unable to complete the task that would surely yield the pearl they had been striving for.

Like shucking oysters in search of a pearl, success in life demands a combination of skills.

The skills, when combined with a certain finesse, and finally brought to fruition through persistence and determination, often yield rewards impossible to imagine as we hover over the bucket, intent upon the task at hand, opening the oysters.

If we get bogged down in the task, complete with the difficulties, forgetting to focus on the pearl, we may not see it through.

Failure along the way is a certainty. Failure, when viewed as a setback, as a learning experience, can be a valuable lesson, another on the way to acquiring the pearl. Persistence in spite of the failure, and even because of it, will take us one step closer to discovery…and success.

Ultimately, if we keep the pearl in focus, remembering to apply both finesse and persistence, remembering that life will yield a pearl the magnificence of which we can’t possibly imagine, we will succeed.

Interestingly, as we progress through life we will find not one pearl but a succession of pearls, life’s reward for persistence, determination, honesty, and integrity…all along the way to an empty bucket and whatever awaits us in the hereafter.

Another, larger bucket…or perhaps a string of pearls?

John

Professor John P. J. Zajaros, Sr.
216-712-6526 (home)
216-539-7412 (office)
Skype: johnzajaros1
johnz@johnzajaros.com
excellencepaidforward@gmail.com (personal email)

PS, If you want to read a little bit about Joe Sugarman’s latest venture, something I immediately got involved with because it promises to help so many of my readers with various health issues and challenges…from pain to energy and illness to aging! It is truly an amazing product and the best I have come across, anywhere! If Joe Sugarman is on board you can be certain it is the very best available or he simply wouldn’t offer it!

I just received an email from one of my freelancers, hired from one of the outsourcing platforms so popular online. The email took me back to 1967 in an instant and I thought I would share it with you. It is a valuable lesson, one I learned early on, one I still struggle to honor and live up to every day! Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I crash and burn…but I have never forgotten it and it has shaped my life!

Here goes:

When I was a little boy, I went around the neighborhood and asked people
if I could cut their grass for $5.

I had quite a few jobs and quite a few people who said “No thank you!”

I took one job and the lady was very nice. I was no more than 12 and I
still remember her and that lawn 42 years later.

Why?

Because as soon as I started the job I knew I was going to be doing a lot more
work than I had initially thought I was taking on.

The lawn was there, the lady was there, everything was pretty
apparent…cut the grass and get paid.

Well, the job was taking me a long time!

About half way through, I had had enough! I stomped up to the front door and told the
lady I had made a big mistake and that I needed $10 for the job.

She smiled very politely and said, I will never forget this…

“You made a commitment. You took on the job and I agreed to your price, a
price you set in advance.

Two, you can quit right now and I will never hire you again.”

I hesitated for a moment, then nodded and went back to work.

Every bone in my body was screaming “QUIT!”

That lady hired me every week for the next 4 years for one job or
another, I always made sure the money was out of the way up front,
and she also referred me to all of her friends and relatives in the area.

That nice lady was responsible for hundreds of dollars every year.

Not bad for a little kid who almost didn’t finish the job he was
initially hired to do…because it was too much, too big, and too tiring!

That job paid me many times over.

If all I had focused on was that first job…and the extra $5 bucks, what
would have been the outcome?

I would have quit, a bad habit at any age…a black hole at 12!

Instead I bucked up, sucked in my pride, yes grumbled a bit, and finished
the job.

Had I walked away, I would never have made all the money to come over the
years and I definitely would never have learned one of the most powerful lessons
in my life…at any age!

You make a commitment, you keep it!

Commit to a task, you finish it!

Have I broken commitments since then, no one is perfect, but in reality only a few times…
and only when deathly ill. Even then, I did everything I could to honor the commitment
made before finally saying…

“Uncle”

…and finding someone else to finish the task. Even then, it was like being
tortured beyond the breaking point.

I will never forget that lady or the lesson! I owe her a great deal!

The End!

Just thought I would throw that in!

After all, every 12 year old thinks all stories have an ending…right or wrong!

In fact, life is a process, a progression toward an end. The end is up to you!

The process, the progression defines your ultimate success…

and the lessons learned from little old ladies when you are 12 last a lifetime!

John

Professor John P. J. Zajaros, Sr.
216-712-6526
Skype: johnzajaros1
johnz@johnzajaros.com

Welcome to the latest edition of John Zajaros’s The Quest Revealed!

I had a gentleman asked me an interesting question yesterday, and thought I would take some time to answer it. Interestingly, he asked me what The Quest is, meaning The Quest Revealed and The Internet Marketing Quest Revealed, of course. In all the time I have been online, and in all the references I have made to The Quest Revealed and/or The Internet Marketing Quest Revealed, not one person has asked me that question. That is, until Phil asked me yesterday. The funny thing about it? I really didn’t have a quick and easy answer. So, it is probably a good thing no one has asked me before now! However, ever since Phil asked me, I have been able to think about little else.

So, here it is!

The Quest, with a capital Q, is really a life story or at least a lifelong pursuit…primarily for excellence. At first glance, that answer may seem cliché, even a bit trite. I can assure you, it is not. You see, for as long as I can remember, I have been fixated on the notion that most things in life are simply average, mediocre at best. Unfortunately, the situation seems to be getting worse! By that I mean, we have almost become accepting of mediocrity, it has become the rule rather than the exception. For that reason, it is actually easier to become successful in today’s world, there is so little competition at the highest levels.

Interestingly, there are very few people actively engaged in the pursuit of anything approaching excellence, regardless of the field or endeavor, making it possible for those who make it a point to be excellent to succeed beyond their wildest dreams. People pursuing greatness through excellence have very little competition. Depending on who you listen to, somewhere between 5% and 20% of the population make between 80% and 95% of the income. Regardless of whether you believe it is 20% to make 80% or 5% to make 95%, and frankly no one knows the actual numbers because the wealthiest and most successful don’t broadcast their earnings, the fact remains that the air is quite thin at the peak! Significantly, there not only appears to be a positive correlation between success and excellence, there also appears to be a causal relationship between excellence and the success experienced by those residing in the top 5% to 20% of the population.

All my life, I have pursued excellence, the highest levels of whatever endeavor I was attempting accomplish or master at the time. It has never been easy, but then success never is. Interestingly, I heard something many years ago, in 1975 to be exact, and I heard it repeated recently by one of the Internet “gurus,” I use that term with more than a grain of salt: “Success is hard, failure is harder!” That quote has been with me for more than 34 years now. From the first time I heard it at a sales seminar put on by one of the Big 3 automakers, although I cannot remember which one, Ford, GM or Chrysler, I have remembered it and associated it with the pursuit of excellence. Big 3! That’s another lesson in excellence, isn’t it? Success and failure, excellence and mediocrity! Opposite sides of the same equation and it is up to you which side you will reside on. Me? I made up my mind many years ago…excellence and success!

In the next article in this series, I will discuss some of my early experiences and how they shaped my thinking and drive to be the best, to be excellent, at whatever I attempted. Have I always been successful? Absolutely not! But the lessons I’ve learned may help you in much the same way they have me. At least that is my hope. It is my sincere belief that if you will take the time, the five or ten minutes tops it will take you to read these articles, you will gain some insight that will move you that much closer to success, through excellence. I hope The Quest will Reveal as much for you as it has for me. See you in the next edition of The Quest…Revealed.

See you tomorrow for more of The Quest Revealed.

John Zajaros
216-712-6526
Skype: johnzajaros1
johnz@johnzajaros.com