Charlie Jones tells this story of his son coming home and telling his dad he wanted to start selling greeting cards, door to door in their neighborhood. His son asked him if he would teach him how to sell.

Sure enough, Charlie sits him down and began to teach him what to say and how to respond to the customer’s questions etc. He tells his son to go outside and come up and knock on the door and do a practice run with his dad. The little boy gets his sales materials together and goes outside ready to do the practice pitch in front of his dad. He was so innocent and sweet as he walked to the front door expecting his dad to kneel and be so supportive while he fumbles through the pitch.

He knocked on the front door and his dad opens it and looks down at his son and says, “what do YOU want?” The little boy is shocked by the abrupt voice of his dad and tries to answer. His dad just slams the door in in his face. Of course, the little boy starts bawling. The dad’s wife comes running to in the room and starts asking him why he was being so mean to their son.

The dad replies “I am just getting him ready for a little living. He needs to know that everyone will not be gentle, accepting and kind. He needs to understand how to handle discouragement and adversity and keep on going”

The little boy stopped crying and knocked on the door again and the dad explained what he trying to teach him. That afternoon the little boy went out and sold five orders of greeting cards and did not get discouraged when some people were rude and said no.

That story tells a lot about real life. Many people get discouraged quickly and quit. History is full of people that if they had quit, they never would have invented some of the greatest inventions of all time. Tenacity is often overlooked as one of the most important attributes of life. You show me a person who doesn’t quit easy and I will show you a person accomplishing things in their life. KT