Underdogs don’t succeed because they are the biggest, the best, and the brightest, or even because they are the boldest. They succeed because they have perseverance.
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Rocky is the ultimate underdog story—at least, in fiction. With all the subsequent sequels, it’s easy to forget that in the original, Rocky Balboa’s goal wasn’t to win against Apollo Creed. Rather, his goal was “to go the distance” with Creed, to persevere through a full 15 rounds.
In my upcoming book, Underdog Nation, I also share about Sylvester Stallone’s own underdog story, and his perseverance to position himself as the movie’s lead when the studio was set on hiring a “big name.” In the end, his tenacity won out.
But how do underdogs develop this superpower? Is it natural talent or something more?
Perseverance Means Facing the Unknown
Throughout my own life, I’ve seen this over and over. My father showed perseverance when he chose to stay in Vietnam to keep fighting, even though he had no idea what would happen next. When I entered Officer Candidates School for the Marines, it required immense perseverance because I had no idea what I was about to face.
As soon as we arrived at Quantico, the sergeants started drilling us and shouting at us to get our tails off the bus and in line. Within minutes, one sergeant was barking in my face—the only Asian face in the line—asking why I was even there and if I was “a Viet Cong spy” (and no wonder since this was the same year the movie Platoon was released).
The moment was so shocking and unanticipated that my eyes welled up with tears, and I nearly broke down and cried. I was totally unprepared for the moment. Suddenly, I was a little refugee boy again, facing an unknown and uncertain future, and ready to go back home with my mom.
In retrospect, our recruiter did his best to prepare us for the experience by not warning us what OCS would be like. He wanted us to be in shock because perseverance requires the ability to operate in a new environment. In the face of the unknown, you have to develop mental toughness—mental stamina.
Perseverance is Mental Stamina
Right off the bat, perseverance is more about mental stamina than it is physical, even when you’re performing a physical activity. Ask anyone who’s finished a marathon and you’ll hear the same story repeated—the last 6.2 miles are finished through mental grit.
Success means being able to finish the marathon—and it’s not a matter of luck. There’s a formula for finishing well. You have to be prepared for the unknown—the weather, how you’ll feel that day, and any circumstances that might occur during the race, like a pulled muscle or a hole in your shoe that suddenly appears. All of that happens first in the mind.
You don’t build up mental stamina overnight, though. It’s a process. The more situations where you have to be mentally tough, the more perseverance and stamina you develop.
It’s the same with amateur golf. You can’t do the same stuff every time you go out on the course and expect different results. That’s the insanity cycle. You have to build up the mental stamina. You have to learn how to adjust your mental approach to different types of weather and ground conditions. Practice doesn’t make perfect—competing (and often losing or, as the saying goes in golf, choking) does create perseverance. And with enough perseverance, you make progress.
When I entered sales, I learned just how much perseverance is the great differentiator. If you don’t have the mental toughness to take a “no,” you won’t last long. According to reports from Marketing Donut, 80 percent of prospects say “no” before they ever say “yes,” yet 44 percent of salespeople give up after the first rejection. They simply don’t have the mental stamina to push back for more information, or to follow up and hear “no” again. When I failed to take our company public the first time, I changed our go-to-market approach and rewrote the entire prospectus.
Underdogs don’t succeed because they are the biggest, the best, and the brightest, or even because they are the boldest. They succeed because they have perseverance. Because they are willing to face the unknown with mental stamina. When you consider your own level of perseverance, which one of those two areas do you need to grow in?
