Here is a tale of my own early childhood tenacity.
As a small child I had interest in many things. From what type of dinosaur was running rampant through Jurassic Park, how toothpaste got inside the tube, or even why Curious George was just so curious, there literally was nothing I did not question. For reasons of the sticky and burning kind, the following story sticks vividly in my mind.
It was a cold morning in the Dodson household, and outside looked like a scene out of The Empire Strikes Back when Luke Skywalker was on Hoth. The wind, ice and snow were brisk and too unforgiving for a toddler. My morning plans of building a snowman and sledding were put on hold. To make matters worse, I had a dentist appointment in a mere matter of hours. In the midst of everything, I suppose my mom was too tied up in her motherly duties with my siblings and forgot to make me one of my favorite breakfast time snacks: peanut butter and jelly toast.
Now I’ve always been a persistent one, so to speak, so I was going to jump on the chance to be a big boy and make my own food. There was just one obstacle; I was only about 3-and-a-half feet tall, and the counter top seemed like a climb to the summit of some large mountain peak. Nevertheless, feeling inspired from recently building one of the tallest Lego towers in my short history, I decided to do the same thing, but with my Little Tikes ride on tractor, my collection of story books, and my lunch box all stacked upon one another.
I began my ascent to the the top of the counter (upon a pile of my belongings) and after a short battle to find footing amongst everything, I had finally made it up to the counter top. The bread, the peanut butter and jelly, and the toaster were all at my finger tips so I began. It was my first time making myself breakfast, so I did it the way I thought was right, by smearing gobs of peanut butter and jelly on the bread first before putting into the toaster.
Just when I thought things were going good I could feel my lunch box and storybook tower start to wobble below my little feet. This proverbial house of cards was definitely coming down, and I was ready to hang on for dear life. All of a sudden my ride-on tractor started to slide forward and it was all history from there. The tractor slid forward while books slid across the flooring and my lunch box made a dramatically loud, “PLUNK!” upon impact. In my efforts to save myself from falling, I grabbed on to the burning toaster, but the angle at which I had fallen my chin caught the toaster on the way down and held me there for a few burning intense seconds. While the scent of peanut butter toast coming directly into my nostrils wasn’t bad, the fact that I had a huge painful black and blue burn mark on the bottom of my chin wasn’t pleasant at all.
Later that day when at the dentist office my mother kept being asked why her little boy looks like he got upper cut and burned with a lighter under his face? My mom would simply sigh and tell me where and when to be there. the hat I was very persistent and passionate about my breakfast, especially peanut butter and jelly toast. Years later after that painful, yet humorous life experience, I guess I wore my tenacity right on my face.
At Incept we support being “Tenacious” as one of our core values, but that doesn’t always just mean having persistence! It is the persistence to be passionate that makes the Conversational Marketing Experts (CMEs) at Incept tenacious. Stay tuned for more on how being tenacious ties in with being passionate!
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