I believe that a huge positive characteristic is what I like to call The Eff It Attitude. I am not a huge fan of the F word as it has man negative memories associated with it, so if you don’t care about swear words, just dub in the real thing, etc..
Alrighty, what is The Eff It Attitude? Well, it’s pretty much not giving a rat’s ass when someone tells you no. It reminds me of Richard Branson’s “screw it, let’s do it,” catch phrase. Someone says you are unable to do something, you then do everything you can to prove them wrong. It’s tenacity.
According to Webster’s Dictionary, tenacity is the persistence in maintaining, adhering to, or seeking something valued or desired. In layman’s terms: If I want it, I go get it, no matter what. They say I can’t do it, it’s too hard, it can’t be done, well screw them, I’m going to prove them wrong.
Henry Ford
“When Henry Ford decided to produce his famous V-8 motor, he chose to build an engine with the entire eight cylinders cast in one block and instructed his engineers to produce a design for the engine. The design was placed on paper, but the engineers agreed, to a man, that it was simply impossible to cast an eight-cylinder engine-block in one piece.
Ford replied, ‘Produce it anyway.”
The big time Ford engineers told Henry Ford it couldn’t be done. Did he give up and say, oh gosh golly darn I better give up and pick a new dream? No! He decided not to use them, and instead handpicked a handful of other engineers, had them work far away from the prying eyes of the engineers who said it couldn’t be done and made the first Ford V8 in 1932. Tenacious!
Madame Curie
Madame Curie was a female scientist in the late 1800’s/early 1900’s. How often did those close to her tell her to knock it off and get back in the kitchen? First, she lost her mother at age 10, which, if you’ve ever had to step up in your family you know how much pressure she must have been under. She was raised in Russian occupied Poland and had to go to a secret school just to learn physics and natural history. She was too poor to go to college, so she had to work as a governess to save up enough money to buy a ticket to Paris. She was finally able to go to college and learn science and use their labs, but she was so poor she had to ration her food and passed out from weakness. Tenacity. She did not cower under the pressures of society, family, friends. She focused on her desires and won multiple Nobel Prizes.
Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks was so tired and worn that she broke the law, got arrested that led to the USA Civil Rights Movement and forever changed history. Do you think that maybe breaking the law might have been difficult? Ummm, yeah! And did you know this wasn’t the first time she stood up for herself? 12 yours earlier she went to the front of the bus to pay her fee and refused to disembark and re-enter the bus through the back door where black people were supposed to get on? There was such a kerfuffle that Rosa left the bus rather than comply. Not to mention that she was an active member, AND SECRETARY of the NAACP? That’s some serious grit!
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Richard Branson
He was told by his teachers that he was stupid, later finding out that he was brilliant, but had dyslexia. First, let me pause here and mention how often this happens in history. A brilliant, tenacious person’s brain didn’t work in a way society understood and this person later rose up and became a massively influential person in history! For all of you who feel different, listen up! After dropping out of high school, he borrowed money from his mom, started a magazine that got him poopood on for being too radicle. He started virgin records by producing bands that the big publishers didn’t want. He then started Virgin Airways and got sued by British Airways. I could go back and count how many times he has been sued, ridiculed, but I think you get the big picture. The big picture is what? “Screw it, let’s do it!” Hell yeah! Don’t have money? How can you get started without any money? Think big, break down your steps into baby ones and take your very first steps. I wanted to write a book, so what did I do? I started writing ideas down. I wanted to start a blog, so what did I do? I started writing ideas down.
J.K. Rowling
She lost her mother, had a child, went through a divorce, and lived in poverty before her first Harry Potter book got published. And got published after being rejected by publishers repeatedly. Let me remind you, that just because one, two, twenty seven, one hundred people say no, all you need is one yes, or, go out and do it yourself!
“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.” — J.K. Rowling