You know that overnight success usually takes at least 10 years? One man said, “My overnight success was the longest night of my life. I spent many days and nights just getting there!” Remember, “Rome was not built in a day.” Many people are waiting for their ship to come in… when they’ve not even sent it out of the harbor. You see, winners simply do what losers don’t want to do. And they keep doing it till they get the success they want. Success is mostly just hanging on after others have let go! Or as one guy put it, “Big shots are just little shots who kept on shooting.” So the most important trip you’ll ever make is when you go the extra mile.
Many people who failed did not know how close they were to success when they gave up. People don’t actually fail, they just quit too easily. One guy said, “The secret to success is to start from scratch, and to keep on scratching.” So don’t quit trying just because your trying times are hard. The great inventor, Thomas Edison, tried a certain experiment hundreds of times, but it didn’t work. So his assistant said to him, “It’s too bad that we did all that work without any results.” But Edison said, “Oh, we have lots of results! We now know 700 things that won’t work.”
Never forget, delay does not always mean denial. If we hold out and hold on, we can accomplish almost anything we want. The British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said, “Never, never, never, never give up!” And the American President Calvin Coolidge said, “Nothing can bring success like persistence. Talent cannot, for there are many talented people who are not successful. Education will not, for the world is full of educated losers. Only persistence and determination can give you the power to succeed. You see you can succeed just like anyone else, just keep wanting it enough to keep working for it enough. So why not decide today to start going the extra mile on the road to your success?
译文:
水滴石穿
你知道吗？一夜成名背后往往要花至少10年的功夫。像某人说的：“我的一夜成名是我人生中最漫长的一夜。我度过多少个日日夜夜才到了那一夜！”请记住“罗马不是一日建成的。”许多人终日等待他们的船回来，实际上他们甚至还没有送船离港。你瞧，胜者只是做了失败者不想做的事，并且坚持不懈直到他们获得他们想要的成功。成功者往往只是在其他人都放弃的时候仍然坚持着。或者正如某人所说：“大人物和小人物的差别就在于他们不懈努力。”所以你要走的最重要的旅程是那额外的一英里路。
许多失败者不知道他们放弃时可能与成功只有一步之遥。事实上他们并没有失败，只是太轻易放弃了。有人说：“成功的秘诀就是从零开始，并且不懈努力”所以不要仅仅因为尝试的过程艰辛就轻言放弃。伟大的发明家托马斯·爱迪生为某项实验尝试了几百次都没有成功。他的助手就说：“我们做了那么多却一无所获真是太糟糕了。”但是爱迪生却说：“啊，我们收获太多了！我们现在知道有700种方法是不起作用的。”
永远不要忘记，成功迟迟不来并不一定等于它不会来。只要我们坚持不懈，终始不渝，我们就可以心想事成。英国首相温斯顿·丘吉尔说：“永远，永远，永远，永远不要放弃！”美国总统卡尔文·库利奇说：“没有什么能像坚持一样引领我们走向成功。天赋不能，因为那么多天赋异禀的人并非成功者。教育也不能，因为世界上充满了受过良好教育的失败者。只有坚持和信念能赋予你力量，通往成功之门。你看你也能像别人一样取得成功，只要你有足够的愿望并且付出足够的努力。所以何不现在就出发，踏上那通往成功的额外的一英里路呢？