From Semi-Rad, a speech he gave at a graduation. I just love this!
Running 100 miles requires a lot of steps—226,000 steps, according to my watch. In my experience, about 10,000 of those steps are fun. The rest of those 226,000 steps are pure persistence, through blisters, foot and leg pain, chafing, indigestion, fatigue, sleep deprivation, and sometimes mild hallucinations.
I’ve discovered that it’s a lot like wanting to be a writer when you grow up, or, I’m guessing, being an astronaut or even a small business owner: you have a dream one day, and then you spend years working toward it, many times only motivated to continue by a faint memory of that first dream of seeing yourself cross a finish line, or sign a book deal, sit in a space shuttle, or on the opening day of your shop.
You start because of a dream, but you finish because you become good at talking yourself out of giving up. This is persistence.
People may call you stubborn—that’s OK.
Stubborn is just a dirty word for driven, and driven people get things done.
I like that definition of stubborn.