EVENTUALLY

'If you’re going through hell, keep going.'

- Winston Churchill  

Adversity is inevitable, and we must never allow the difficulties of our short-term situation to define our long-term positioning.  The question of whether we should stop when things are difficult is a question of whether we seek to have perpetual difficulty.  I have learned, painfully at times, that to continue is the right choice in this situation.  I must remember this.

'There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.'  

- Buckminster Fuller

Many of life's challenges have come in circumstances which are devoid of clear signs of the path ahead, or of the viability of that path.  Our trust in one another and in our processes is vital to create the trust in our path, but we must have that trust.  The team relies upon it.  We are all substantially better when we have a broad-based trust that caterpillars will become butterflies.

'There are risks and costs to action.  But they are far less than the long-range risks of comfortable inaction.'  

- John F. Kennedy  

Eventuality of outcome does not reduce the necessary immediacy of action.  To the contrary, reliance upon accretive activity requires constant and immediate action – and a wholesale rejection of the long-range risk of comfortable inaction.  Take action.  When in doubt, take action.  When not in doubt…take action.

'All the things that are worth doing take time.'

- Mos Def

Immediate action is essential for every team, business, and industry, but will not necessarily always yield correspondingly immediate results.  All that is worthwhile takes time to achieve.  I will simultaneously embrace the immediacy of activity and the eventuality of outcome – and the different timetables of each.

'I never threw an illegal pitch.  Trouble is, once in a while I toss one that ain’t never been seen by this generation.' 

- Satchel Paige  

Change will come to us as well.  Eventually isn’t just a word that we use to define our favorable outcomes relative to an uncertain timetable – it is a word which defines the expiration of the advantages or capabilities we enjoy.  All things – whether competitive advantage or pitching – will eventually change, and I will be a leader who embraces their impermanence.

'Work ethic is important because unlike intelligence, athleticism, charisma, or any other natural attribute, it’s a choice.'  

- Mike Rowe  

As a species, we choose hard work.  We may hire for intelligence, we may value charisma, we may seek to acquire talent with other natural attributes, but we choose hard work.  The choice to ‘work harder’ may not always be the most efficient solution, but ninety-nine times out of one hundred, it will contribute to the answer.

'The mode in which the inevitable comes to pass is through effort.'  

- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.  

Many constraints teams face are rooted in long-term and external limitations.  These constraints are often waved away as permanently present, and when their expiration occurs, that change is viewed in retrospect as inevitability.  It is notable: without effort, without dogged determination, that inevitability never would or could have shifted from inevitable constraint to inevitable change.  I will never look backward and discount the value of hard work.

'If you’re walking down the right path, and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.'  

- Barack Obama  

Maintain a positive attitude in the face of challenge.  Little good has ever come of giving in to discouragement or of permitting negativity to creep into one’s thinking.  I will be a leader focused upon resilience and adherence to the right path – I will be willing to keep walking.

'I don’t know how many times I’ve been 114 yards from the hole and made double bogey.  Well, I hit a great drive, but it doesn’t matter.  It’s only the next shot that matters.'  

- Nick Saban  

The promise of eventual success can easily lull one into the sense that the work has been done, the hay is in the barn, and it simply requires time to achieve the desired outcome.  Eventuality is not inevitability.  I will always be a leader who recognizes and embraces the continued excellence required to achieve my team's goals.  Focus upon the next thing to do, not simply that which has already been done, in the service of eventuality.

'Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.  The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.'  

- Thomas Edison  

Never give up.  Quitting is an illness which once contracted is surely fatal.  A relentless focus on getting up, trying once more, and never giving in to failure is as valuable as it can be initially difficult.  Once done, however, it becomes habitual – and that gives way to eventual success.

'When everything seems to be going against you, remember, the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.'  

- Henry Ford  

Eventual success does not mean the absence of intermittent failure.  It does not ensure a smooth, linear, direct path from origin to destination.  It does not imply that difficulty will not be present, nor that difficulty will not seem overwhelming at times.  Rather, it means that endurance – and excellence in the face of adversity – will eventually result in long-term success.  In all my activities, I will maintain a long-term focus, remembering the impermanence of circumstantial adversity and the eventuality of long-term favorable outcomes.