Stories of sheer grit and tenacity that paid handsome dividend

Mr Samuel Ing’olan Lodio is 30 years old. He had tried his hand at police recruitment for nine straight years. He had been turned away each time.

And that was not all, every year he took part in all other recruitment exercises for security agencies such as Kenya Defence Forces and Kenya Prisons and always went back home dejected.

Ing’olan, who holds a diploma in forensic science from the Kenya Institute of Studies in Criminal Justice said this year would have been his last chance because of his age. At his final attempt, he was finally recruited into the Kenya Police.

That is what we call tenacity of pursuit.

And guess what—success in business takes tenacity too. Whether it is getting your foot in the door in pursuit of your dream job, or getting a promotion, successfully operating your own business, or leading a high performing team. The key to it all is tenacity.

Tenacity is the spirit of a ferocious nose tackle when you have your skin in the game. It is a child struggling with its first step. It is an elderly person continuing to meet his daily challenges. In short, it is the key to success.

Truly tenacious people grab hold of an idea or a cause and refuse to let go until they’ve succeeded, or, until someone finds them passed out in a pool of their own sweat.

Of course, what the external observer probably doesn’t know is the tenacious individual has not given up. He or she is just bowing to nature’s demands and refueling and rethinking while floating in said pool of sweat.

Picture this. After unsuccessfully trying to get his dream job, Ing’olan started selling second hand clothes in Nairobi in 2009. He now says that he will defer his studies until he is done with the police training. Then he will do distance learning.

I have found that many people start on their dreams but most never finish. Then those who stop resent those who make it.

The truth is that most people who become successful have simply mastered the art of keeping on keeping on.

I can remember early on in my consultancy when I would get discouraged and I literally said to myself, “one more week. Just give it one more week.” Quite frankly, this is what got me through a couple of years of my work early on. I hung on as others let go.

It is easy to get disheartened. Go to the most successful person you know and ask them if they ever thought about quitting. Ask them how they kept on going. You will be amazed at what you hear.

Today, more than 12 million people eat at KFC each day in 109 countries.

But did you know that Harland Sanders, the founder, dropped out of school in the sixth grade because he had to take care of his younger brothers.

By age 40, he was running a service station and decided to make a little extra cash by serving full meals to busy people — the place was so small that they had to eat in the same room where he lived.

But eventually, people started coming in purely because of his food, getting to the point where he could no longer cram them inside his bedroom.

Eventually Sanders moved to a bigger place across the street. His restaurant was a hit, and everything was perfectly fine from then on!

That is, until a new highway was built, directing all of the traffic miles away from his restaurant. Business dried up, and the now-elderly Harlan Sanders was in serious trouble.

So, at age 65, the restaurant was bankrupt and things weren’t looking so bright for Sanders. Now retired from his job, he cashed his first ever Social Security check.

But Sanders was so confident in his ability to fry chicken that he used the last money he had in the world and invested it in his restaurant.

Less than 10 years later, Sanders had more than 600 Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises in the US and Canada. In 1964, he sold his interest in the company for $2 million to a group of investors. He was in his mid-70s.

What Ing’olan and Sanders expressed is called tenacity of pursuit.

Mr Waswa is a management and HR specialist and managing director of Outdoors Africa. E-mail: [email protected]