“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” -Calvin Coolidge

It has been only a week since the management team that had come in to re-shape Good Clean Love resigned. Even with the holiday and a snow day, it seems like a month or longer. Sweeping change alters one’s perception of time in the same way that the groundlessness that you feel when everything shifts under your feet alters one’s experience of place. Getting grounded again and settling into this time of uncertainty is an act of persistence.

Months ago when I won the investment award that began this most recent chapter of business development, I recognized two things as the key to my success: the first was the ability to press on, to keep imagining a better future, often in spite of all external measures. The second was the recognition that no success is ever achieved alone. No one really can ever make something happen by themselves.

Coming back into the business in these recent days after being kept away from the daily workings for the last several months I am remembering the many times that I was required to start over. Standing by and watching the people who have oftentimes been indispensible to the growth of the business move on and away, I realize how birthing and sustaining a business is unlike any other kind of work. For me, there is no resigning, there is only re-inventing.

Each time I face these junctures I learn what I am made of. Most recently I see clearly how this positivity quest has changed me. Fear is not the driver, panic is not the decider, even as I grapple with the open space where success and failure dance together. I am happy to remember Winston Churchill’s words, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

I trust that beyond the horizon where I cannot see, all this will make sense and, that in hindsight, I will recall this juncture as another moment of discovering what it takes to succeed.