The Importance of Persistence in Entrepreneurship

Darren: Good day there! My name is Darren Rowse and I’d like to welcome you to episode 89 of the ProBlogger Podcast, where today, I want to talk about the second most important thing you’ll ever do as an entrepreneur. This follows on from episode 88, where I talked about the first most important thing and that is starting; not just starting once off but starting as a mindset. You can find today’s show notes—including a full transcript of the story I’m about to tell you—over at problogger.com/podcast/89. I’m going to tell you a story today that’s 160 years old, but I think it has a lot of potential to encourage us and hopefully inspire us as entrepreneurs today.

The year was 1851 and two brothers stood by a bend in a creek that had wishfully been named by gold prospectors Golden Point in days gone by. The two brothers’ surname were Cavanagh and they’d been digging along with around 600 other miners in their claim at Golden Point for days now. Now, some gold had definitely been found in this particular bend in the creek. In fact, numerous miners had made good, although not spectacular money from their finds in the previous weeks, and that’s why 600 other miners had shown up. Most of the gold that had been found had been found in the sandy ground to a depth of about one meter or about three feet. But at that point, everyone who dug hit a hard layer of clay and then they received no further reward for their effort.

Digging through the sandy ground wasn’t too hard but as soon as they hit clay, it became backbreaking work. The result was that the whole area around the brothers’ claim was littered with abandoned claims, holes in the ground were everywhere, all dug exactly to the same depth of about one meter. Now, the miners around the Cavanagh brothers that day were beginning to talk of rumors coming from further up the creek of richer pickings. In the 24 hours that followed, most of the miners had moved on, but the brothers Cavanagh had a hunch. They wanted to see what would happen if they dug deeper. They began the arduous task of that day of digging into the hard clay that everyone else had stopped digging into.

They chose an abandoned claim from another miner and they began to dig. The work was hard, it was unrewarding. They dug and they found nothing but more clay. Inch by inch, they’d chipped away into the clay only to find more clay. All day they dug. They went to bed that night with no reward for their effort. The second morning they continued to dig as the last miners around them abandoned their claims and moved on to chase their dreams up the creek. I can just imagine the other miners abandoning their claims and shaking their heads as they looked at the Cavanagh brothers and laughing at their foolhardy efforts, but the brothers had a belief and they kept their focus.

As sunset approached on the second day and after hours of backbreaking work, the brothers finally broke through the last of the clay at around the depth of two meters. Under the clay they found what centuries ago had been the old bed of the creek. In it were pockets of gold which had been washed down that creek from the mountains of the hundreds of years. The brothers worked into the night feverishly until the light from their lamps gave up. I can just imagine how they must have felt as they lay in bed that night attempting to sleep. The next day they arose early and assessed their work. In the light of day, the full reality of what they’ve uncovered started to sink in. There was gold down below that clay—and lots of it.

In the single day alone that followed, the Cavanagh brothers found 27 kilograms or about 60 pounds of gold. That day’s takings alone earned them over three-and-a-half thousand pounds which is more than enough to set the two brothers up for life. Word quickly spread of the brothers’ success. A month later, 10,000 miners worked in that area around Golden Point, and the wider Ballarat area—just a few hours from where I live here in Australia—became known as the richest gold field in the world for that time. You can bet that those who followed, those 10,000 miners, dug a whole heap deeper than they previously dug.

I first came across the story of the Cavanagh brothers while I was researching a project back in high school. It’s one of those stories that I continue to find myself reflecting upon today. I love the determination, the focus, and the persistence of these two men. I don’t even know their first names. I only know them as the Cavanagh brothers, but I often think about them. I love how despite the distractions of rumors from up creek that there was gold further up that they continued to dig where they were, where others had already given up.

They actually dug in the abandoned mines of others which I find quite funny. They found something as a result of doing so that others could only have dreamt of finding. I love that through their persistence that they not only found their fortune, but they opened their eyes to others, to try things in new ways, to dig deeper. Others who had probably looked at them and thought that they were crazy suddenly started doing what they were doing.

Success comes through digging in hard places. I guess this, for me, is the big lesson. This is the thing I guess I want to communicate today. Whilst in the last podcast I talked about starting as being something that’s really important, it’s probably the most important thing we can do as entrepreneurs. I think persisting is the second most important thing. We all know this but it’s so tempting to chase those rumors from further up creek and to abandon our mines.

There’s been a whole heap of times over the last few years that I’d felt a little bit like the brothers Cavanagh. Whilst I don’t actually like physical labor, and I would never pick up a pick and dig into a clay, I feel like I’ve done that over the years with my blogging. I’ve seen many other bloggers come and go over the years. People who are like me, saw the opportunity in blogging, to build something significant, but at the first sign of clay, abandon their blogs. Believe me, I’ve been tempted to give up my blogs many times over the years because it does become hard work at times.

I see a lot of bloggers who abandon their work because of these exciting rumors from up creek. I think back many years ago just after I started, I heard about bloggers who were giving up their blogs to get on MySpace. Then I’ve heard other bloggers who’ve given up their blogs to get on Twitter, or to start on Tumblr, or to start on Facebook, or to get on to Google Plus. There are many abandoned blogs around the blogosphere; there must be tens of millions, if not more. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if some of those bloggers have kept digging through the clay. I know not all of them would have succeeded.

Persistence doesn’t guarantee success, but I do think it’s a big part of it, particularly in the blogging and in the online space. My experience was, there have been days where I’ve dug into rich veins of gold and great fortune. It sometimes feels like you do find gold overnight. It almost always comes after a focused effort of digging in hard ground.

I hope you enjoyed today’s story as much as I enjoyed telling it to you. I think of it often and I always get fresh inspiration from it. You can find today’s show notes including a full transcript at problogger.com/podcast/89. I also want to encourage you to tune in in a couple of days’ time to episode 90 because I want to continue on in this little miniseries of important things that you need to do and talk about quitting.

Now, it might seem strange, I’ve just told you to persist, but I do believe there is a time to quit. Now, the story of the Cavanagh’s is one where we see the upside of persisting, but I’m sure there are many miners over the years who have dug in the one spot for too long and perhaps should have quit earlier. In the next episode, I want to give you a few pieces of advice for working out whether now is the right time to quit or perhaps change direction.

You’ll be able to find that podcast at problogger.com/podcast/90 once it goes live in two days’ time. For those of you listening, after the fact, it’s probably already live. I look forward to chatting with you then.

You’ve been listening to ProBlogger. If you’d like to comment on any of today’s topics, or subscribe to the series, find us at problogger.com/podcast. Tweet us @ProBlogger. Find us at facebook.com/ProBlogger or search ProBlogger on iTunes.