7

ENDURANCE

Fuel Your Endurance to Energize Your Performance

I will not be vanquished.

ROSE KENNEDY

Growth of any kind cannot occur without enduring some degree of pain and discomfort.

VICKIE L. MILAZZO

Women outlive men by an average of five years, which is surprising given our endless commitments and responsibilities. Among centenarians, people 100 years or older, women outnumber males two to one. That's endurance.

Male fetuses are at greater risk of damage, deformity, premature birth and death than female fetuses. Medical science attributes this increased risk to the male fetus's response to a mother's release of the stress hormone cortisol during pregnancy. Women always say they handle stress better than men, and this statistic may not prove it, but it sure is interesting.

Many women who choose to become mothers endure 14 or more hours of labor. That's 14 hours of pain. And while we might assume that mothers-to-be have no idea what to expect the first time they're picking out tiny pastel onesies, over 70 percent of them go back and do it again.

But endurance is about more than longevity or pain. It's about having the stamina to do what it takes to achieve wicked success, like working 12-hour days. Endurance is true-grit strength, a potent and positive Feminine Force we use to push onward toward a vision that may seem so far in the distance we often wonder if our passion will hold out.

Endurance is about having the inner strength to sustain commitments you make to yourself and others, even when you'd rather quit. How many women do you know who have gone to an online school to obtain a higher degree even while working a full-time job and raising a family? Like Sharon, who decided to become a lawyer even though she hadn't finished college. In six nonstop years of night school, she did both. Women every day endure long hours of work, family responsibilities, study and sleep deprivation to create the career and life that fulfills their passionate visions.

Endurance is the strength necessary for being successful during good times and bad—even a recession. Endurance is the strength that makes you more than a one-hit wonder. Instead of achieving one promotion, you rise progressively from teller to vice president at the bank. Instead of just launching a business, you're still growing yours 30 years later. These achievements happen only when you have endurance.

Dance the Endurance Dance

One of my favorite endurance allegories is about an East African tribe that became famous for its rain dances. This tribe was unique in all of Africa because its rain dances always succeeded. Other tribes in the region had low or mediocre success rates; this tribe alone was 100 percent successful.

Members of rival tribes jealously studied this phenomenon, theorizing that the tribe had better dancers, special steps, more powerful chants, or more sincere prayers, or that their costumes, feathered accoutrements and masks, made the difference. Finally, they claimed it was simply luck that made the gods smile on this one fortunate tribe and not on their own.

After observing the “lucky” tribe's practices, an anthropologist uncovered the secret to their 100 percent success rate. He was surprised that it was so simple. They had no special powers, no magical interventions. They simply danced their rain dance until it rained.

They never quit, never gave in to their exhaustion and never grew despondent over how long it took for the rain to come. They expected it would always rain when they danced, and their experience supported their belief. They just kept dancing, knowing that sooner or later the gods would be satisfied and reward their persistence with rain. Rewarded they were—every single time.

This is one of the most basic and simple secrets to wicked success. It's always easier to quit the dance, but much more rewarding to dance on. All it takes is endurance.

KEEP DANCING YOUR PASSIONATE VISION

Endurance is also about having the emotional intelligence to wait for success. When I was young I wanted to change the world, and I wanted to do it now. That unrealistic goal resulted in frustration, until I learned to chill about the outcome. At times, the space between reaching for an objective and realizing it seems unendurable, but I endure the wait because I know the moment will arrive, and it will pass all too quickly.

Today I'm content with growing my business 5 or 10 percent; our growth rate doesn't have to double or triple each year. And I don't have to change the whole healthcare system. I keep myself plenty busy while enduring the space between desire and fulfillment. As a result, I'm not fighting my own frustration.

Have you ever watched a woman who has a background or talent similar to your own become wickedly successful while your efforts stalled? Have you ever coveted another person's wicked success and rationalized why he or she was more successful than you? I've seen women succeed far beyond their dreams and watched others founder and give up. What distinguishes wickedly successful women from their less successful sisters?

Certainly it's easy to credit another's success to luck, money, connections or lack of children, yet famous women in a variety of pursuits prove that none of these is the essential success ingredient.

• Born the twentieth of 22 children, premature and stricken by polio, Wilma Glodean Rudolph endured to become the first American woman to win three Olympic gold medals.
• Determined to help her twice-widowed mother with the family finances, young Phoebe Ann Moses, later known as Annie Oakley, practiced with her father's old Kentucky rifle. By hunting small game and selling it to hotels and restaurants, she earned enough to pay off her mother's mortgage. She was 16 when she beat well-known marksman Frank Butler in a shooting contest.
• A year after being dragged from icy waters during her aborted first attempt to swim the English Channel, Gertrude Ederle plunged again into the water at Cape Gris-Nez in France. She was assailed by wind, rain and powerful currents in water brimming with stinging jellyfish and the occasional shark. She had already endured the humiliation of her previous defeat and ridicule from the press, which asserted that no woman could swim the Channel. But having developed her “never quit” attitude as a child, after a near-fatal drowning accident, Gertrude shattered the men's record by more than two hours. In fact, due to rough waters, she swam an extra 14 miles on top of the 21-mile crossing.
• Rosebell Kirungi's airplane, carrying nine other passengers, crashed in the Rwenzori Mountains in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The survivors broke into two groups of five and headed out separately. Despite freezing conditions, snow and thunderstorms in mountains covered by a dense jungle of brambles, wild animals and rebel soldiers, she managed to walk 100 miles in 10 days, becoming the sole survivor of the crash. After her rescue, both her legs had to be amputated to arrest the gangrene she'd developed walking to safety. Today she manages a charity for other Ugandan amputees.
• Susan Butcher moved to Alaska, drawn there by her love of animals and her dislike of cities. She began training for the Iditarod, a 1,110-plus mile dogsled race through the Alaskan wilderness, which tests the endurance of both the mushers and their dog teams. Iditarod racers must endure Arctic blizzards, sleep deprivation, wild animals and every assault Alaska can throw at them. After placing in several races, Susan lost one she was leading when a crazed moose attacked her team, killing two of her dogs and injuring 13 more. The next year she became the second woman to win the Iditarod. Then she became the first woman to win four Iditarod races, the first person ever to win three times consecutively; and she broke the finishing time record on three separate occasions. Asked her secret, she said, “I do not know the word ‘quit.' Either I never did, or I have abolished it.”

The wickedly impressive commonality for all of these women is endurance. They chose to keep dancing their passionate vision with full expectation of reward.

When I first knocked on attorneys' doors, I knew they had a need and would hire me, so I kept knocking until they said yes. I've seen aspiring entrepreneurs give up after one month, or three rejections or one person discouraging them. Likewise, I know a woman who used her strength of endurance to make 75 prospect calls to get her first client.

Keep dancing your passionate vision fully expecting to be rewarded.

FUEL YOUR ENDURANCE WITH PERSISTENCE

In February of the year I was to be married, I lost a six-figure client—on my birthday no less—when a law firm dissolved. It didn't make for a terrific day.

That evening, Tom and I had planned to go out with friends to celebrate my birthday, but my heart wasn't in it. We opted instead for a dinner of popcorn and saw the movie, My Left Foot, the story of Christy Brown, whose cerebral palsy confined him to a wheelchair. Christy overcame all odds to become a celebrated writer and painter—using only his left foot, the single part of his body he could control. What a model of persistence. I left the theater a different person, my own problems seeming minor in comparison. The following months I threw myself into reorganizing my business and came out from under that disappointment stronger than before.

I thought I personified endurance until I met Mary. I'm used to being the instructor, but in all my classes I learn at least one new thing from my students. This teacher turned serious student when Mary taught me a lesson in endurance.

She had attached a letter to her seminar registration stating that she was deaf and would require a “signer.” My initial annoyance at the expense heightened when I learned that not one but two professional signers would be required, alternating every 15 minutes. The cost of meeting Mary's needs was three times more than the tuition she paid. Besides, how could a deaf woman hope to establish her own business as a legal nurse consultant?

The first day of the seminar, Mary's signers arrived early and militantly staked out three seats in the front of the room—not in the back, where I had hoped to seat them. Unused to sharing the stage, I was already out of sorts when Mary and her seeing-eye dog arrived. It was then I learned she was not only deaf but legally blind, with thick glasses to augment her limited vision. I now had to compete for my other students' attention with a pair of sign language interpreters and a dog.

And for what? There was no way a deaf, blind nurse could analyze medical records well enough to get business from attorneys.

I started the day by trying to pretend they weren't there at all, even when the dog barked for no apparent reason and laughter rippled through the crowd. Isolated by her dog's watchful protection and oblivious to the racket, Mary paid close attention to my every word. I pasted on my best plastic smile and patted myself on the back for handling the distraction so heroically, until eventually I accepted that my inconvenience paled in comparison to hers. Swallowing my humiliation, I approached Mary during a break and asked what had attracted her to legal nurse consulting.

She said, “I was working on my own malpractice case. The attorney was so impressed with my help that he said he'd hire me if I took your course.” Gulp. I was grateful she couldn't see the surprise, guilt and contrition parading across my face.

Mary admitted that the eyestrain of trying to follow the text and the signing sent her back to her hotel room each evening with a severe migraine, but she was determined to endure the training and pass the exam. Which she did.

Despite the overwhelming odds against her, Mary began her days with a smile and fueled her endurance with persistence, working harder than the other students and knowing that each day she endured brought her one step closer to her big goal of starting her own business. I was honored to sign her certification card.

We each have our own endurance challenges. I've met thousands of women who've had setbacks. Divorce, breast cancer, loss of a 401K or loss of a child.

Any time we feel overwhelmed or on the verge of defeat, every step can seem an enormous effort, every minor conflict a major obstacle. Yet a small change or action can make a huge difference. One toe inches forward, then another, and before long we've taken a stride past the obstacle, a stride we once thought would never happen.

Endurance enables you to stand alone or with others and accomplish whatever you choose to take on.

STOP RUNNING ON EMPTY

In business, as in marathons, you have to pace yourself. If you shoot off the starting line too fast, you'll lose steam and won't have the energy to finish the race.

The big difference between marathons and your career is that in business, there's no finish line. You must keep your pace as long as you want to keep your career alive and your business growing. This means that sometimes you jog, sometimes you sprint and sometimes you stop to catch your breath. The trick for each of us is to find our natural pace and keep it. Knowing my pace and sticking to it are two reasons I've stayed in business for 29 years, and the biggest reason I still love my business.

I've seen women who start their careers full of fire. They move at a sprinter's pace and then suddenly get tired and quit. Business can be like a Venti Peppermint Mocha Frappacino from Starbucks. Those 660 calories and 116 grams of carbs (not to mention the 55 milligrams of caffeine) fire you up and set you off at a sprint. Soon though, you're in a carb-sag and need a nap. It's hard to keep the fire burning on artificial stimulants.

For the first week of January, our gym is full of newcomers throwing weights around like Arnold, and nearly flying off the treadmills and elliptical trainers. By the second week in January, the gym's back to normal because those newcomers went at it a little too hard, got stiff and sore and lost their steam for the long term. I see this in yoga (stretched a little too vigorously the first day back) and in dieting (after a week of steamed broccoli and turkey, a hamburger and cheese fries sound really good).

Women often leave satisfying careers because they can't envision enduring one thing more. Other women plug successfully away, day after day. They've chosen to endure for their own reasons—making a difference, money, sense of accomplishment or power. But like a marathoner, they know how to train, they know how to run. They know how to endure. Don't run on empty; run on your passionate vision.

Your personal life and your business life are like marathons. The key is to manage the pace at which you run them. You need to pace yourself to maintain energy for the long run. For my business, sometimes I go fast, sometimes I go faster, and sometimes I just stop. I do take 12 weeks off each year for renewal time. That's what gives me the energy to stay in business, despite the toughest economic crunch my company's ever had to endure.

Are you running at a pace that will keep you successful in your career? Or will your pace take you out of the race before the finish line?

FUEL ENDURANCE WITH INCREMENTAL PAYOFFS

At Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, I set out to hike a 14-mile trail. Although this walk was longer than I'm used to taking, I didn't see it as an overwhelming challenge. I consider myself to be in excellent physical condition.

The combination of a long hike and an excessively hot day—made worse by the uneven, hot volcanic terrain—turned out to be more difficult than I expected. Four miles into this sauna I thought seriously about turning back.

Fortunately, my pride and stubbornness pushed me to endure. At the end of the trail, my endurance was rewarded with a breathtaking view of the active volcano, an eerie yet awesomely beautiful sight like nothing I'd ever experienced.

It wasn't this final payoff, however, but the amazing small payoffs I received along the way that helped me endure: the uniqueness of each square inch of the black lava formation I crossed; abundant plant life in this seemingly barren area; incredible red flowers superimposed on the stark background; and, in the twelfth mile, the most beautiful rainbow I've ever seen—I would have missed it all if I had quit. Although the hike was a humbling experience, I had the satisfaction of knowing I had endured to the final payoff.

Marie's story of entrepreneurial endurance reminded me of my hiking experience. She hadn't anticipated the many challenges of starting a business. Along the way she often felt overwhelmed and questioned whether she could possibly turn her part-time venture into a profitable full-time business.

But she refused to quit. Finally, after much hard work, things seemed to come together. In her fourteenth month she grossed $17,000—an amount she couldn't have imagined earning two months earlier. This promised to be only the first of many similar rewards. If she had turned back when she doubted herself, not only would she have failed to receive that first big payoff, she also would never have known what she was truly capable of accomplishing.

Many women who fail in reaching their goals simply turn back too soon. The path is long and the terrain is rough. Unforeseen obstacles crop up—a difficult assignment, a fierce new competitor.

Stop and analyze your efforts to see if adjustments should be made, but don't give up on your passionate vision and life goals. Sooner or later small payoffs will brighten your path.

When your endurance is tested and you're tempted to give up, remember this: You will miss not only the gold at the end of the rainbow, but also a wealth of amazing treats along the way. Whether you're hiking, or building a business or striving for a promotion, the ultimate reward goes to those who endure, even when the big reward is far away in the distance.

Fuel your endurance by actively planning small incremental payoffs. What incremental payoffs will fuel your endurance?

FUEL ENDURANCE WITH THE RIGHT FOCUS

Great athletes focus on making their next stroke, pitch or swing even better than the last, not on the painful stitch in their side. Watch your favorite athletes on the tennis court. They're not chatting between rounds. They're harvesting energy for endurance. When you're mindful, you're not wasting energy. Masters of endurance are very good at blocking out the world.

When I'm in a “hot yoga” class, which is 90 minutes in a 105-degree room, I endure by focusing on each posture and my breathing, not on the sweat running down my face. I know I'll feel phenomenal afterward, that's a given, but I also try to enjoy the practice itself. I do best when I visualize perfecting the posture while at the same time concentrating on the instructor's directions and my muscles that are doing the work. I also repeat to myself a mantra: “This is my time. This is my 90 minutes. This is for me.”

The free diver swims hundreds of feet down and back again on one breath. Every movement, every thought, uses up precious oxygen. Can you imagine her worrying about when she'll get her next breath of air? Even worrying about beating her competitor's time is a dangerous distraction. Instead, she's mindful only of the task at hand, concentrating on performance.

Actress Jane Froman related her experience after badly injuring her leg in an airplane crash:

Nine months after her accident, through the right focus, Froman performed in a Broadway show.

Wilma Glodean Rudolph focused first on survival, then on getting fit, then on running, not on polio.

Annie Oakley focused on shooting straight and true, not on being poor.

Gertrude Ederle focused on swimming the English Channel, not on the naysayers and perilous water.

Rosebell Kirungi focused on survival and on seeing her family again, not on the long walk to safety.

Susan Butcher focused on the love of her dogs and the sport, not on the dangers and hard conditions of the wilderness.

Worry is a useless emotion. You can't nail a triple axel while focusing on your sick child. Dividing your focus whittles away at your endurance, and worry doesn't benefit either situation. I understand worry. In the past, every time I had a breast biopsy I worried I was going to die young, like my mom. Today, I laugh, knowing that all those hours of worry didn't help a bit. From those experiences I've learned worry is a useless emotion that accomplishes nothing and takes me off focus.

Finish It Out

Right focus also means to “finish it out.” This is the mantra of my trainer Jerome. It doesn't matter what exercise I'm doing, he's always pushing me—“Finish it out, Vickie, finish it out.” If I'm doing a lat pull-down or a one-arm row, he doesn't want me stopping short.

Every exercise has a full range of motion, and it's easy to quit before contracting those muscles to their full potential. For example, if you're doing one-arm chin-ups, it's easy to quit before your chin crosses the bar, and that's exactly when I'll hear Jerome chanting, “Finish it out, Vickie, finish it out.” Okay, I really don't do one-arm chin-ups (yet), but you get the idea, right?

I've critiqued more entrepreneurs' work products, promotional pieces and business plans than I can keep track of, and often my feedback mimics Jerome's: “Nice start, but now it's time to finish it out.” Always assess whether you have engaged or analyzed as deeply as is required. Whatever you're doing, ask yourself, “Have I finished it out?” If you don't, then plan on keeping an ear cocked for Jerome and me as we remind you to “finish it out.”

Is There a Skip in Your Record or Just in the Song in Your Head?

In the world of digital meda and MP3s, we no longer have to deal with skips in the middle of a song, as we used to do when listening to CDs or LPs. Most of us, however, have our own soundtrack running in our heads. Sometimes that soundtrack has a loop in it, causing us to hear the same information, right or wrong, over and over. Other times it skips, and that skip causes us not to hear what another person is telling us over and over again, or we don't hear our own repetitions as we belabor a point that's already been rejected outright. When that happens, not only does it drain our endurance, it also annoys the heck out of other people.

Train your brain to reduce the looping and skipping. If you're offered a promotion, don't respond with, “Thank you, but before I can accept I have to finish explaining the 10 new ideas I have for the company,” then loop back into your script. You've got the job, so stop, think, skip the script, and agree on the salary increase.

In some situations, repetition can be entirely appropriate. I love listening to my brother's “true Hollywood stories” from our childhood in Louisiana. Each time he embellishes a bit more, and it's fun calling him on those embellishments.

But there's a big difference between repetition for a purpose, even entertainment, and repetition due to lack of focus.

I often mentor Amy, who can fixate on an opinion. Instead of engaging in the intelligent discourse of conversation and the back-and-forth flow of ideas, points and counterpoints, she'll simply repeat her last point, like a skipping record, figuring that if she tests my endurance long enough, I'll concede her point.

It doesn't work that way. Instead, I interrupt her and ask, “Amy, have I given you any indication that I haven't heard you? It's time for you to move on, unless you have a new and different way to express your opinion.” Sometimes I have to repeat myself to stop her from repeating herself.

Recently, at a live event, I spent a considerable amount of time privately answering a woman's questions. I patiently covered all her issues, and I thought she was satisfied with my answers and recommendations. To my surprise, the next day she asked me the same questions again. I politely told her that no matter how many times she asked me, my answers wouldn't change.

I later found out that after talking to me twice, she buttonholed one of our mentors with the same questions. That woman politely told her to follow my advice. The internal loop of the woman's soundtrack and story was causing skips in her ability to listen and process information.

I challenge you to be like an MP3 in your career and personal relationships. You'll run into plenty of situations where repetition is necessary, but when it's not, before you start looping and skipping, ask yourself what you want to achieve and if you're staying on focus.

Focus is the rocket fuel of endurance. Concentrate on the right focus, the one thing that matters and shut your mental door on all the rest.

ENDURE FOR THE FUN OF IT

My parents taught me that fun was where I made it. I was their shy, quiet and serious child, and they made it their mission to help me “lighten up.” They'd get up a game of touch football for the neighborhood kids, or take us all out for hot chocolate and beignets. “Have fun” was one piece of parental advice I took to heart.

It's inevitable that we'll enjoy some experiences more than others. Getting praised for your work is fantastic. Going on vacation is bliss. Making a difference is rewarding. And we savor these fun moments. But not every moment of success is rewarding or fantastic or bliss.

One of the biggest factors contributing to failure in any endeavor is the naive assumption that to be passionate and enjoy your work you have to enjoy every aspect of what you do. Countless otherwise savvy and intelligent women blithely expect success to be like a perfect picnic. Then when they come face to face with the inevitable biting ants, stinging mosquitoes and drenching rain showers, they run for shelter.

If you assume you should enjoy everything you do every day, you'll wind up massively disappointed. You'll constantly be fantasizing about something better, someplace else. Then when you arrive at that someplace else with your delusional expectations, the vicious cycle starts anew, leaving you dissatisfied again—and wondering how it happened when you were following your bliss toward the “perfect” future. If you broaden your concept of fun to include the hard stuff, life does become easier.

Broaden Your Concept of Fun

People often ask me, “Vickie, of the places you've been, what is your all-time favorite trip?” I'm not a fan of this question because every trip is a favorite in its own way. But my response has been the same for 12 years: “If I can only pick one, it would have to be Nepal.” Nepal was my first expedition, so I felt daring, rugged and adventurous.

The Himalayas are the most stunning mountains I've ever seen. I hiked on trails carved by generations of use, and which felt like sacred ground. The dramatic peaks and high altitudes I reached took my breath away. With every step I marveled at wonders unfolding before me. To this day I've seen nothing that rivals the beauty or the thrill of my first view of Mount Everest.

If there was a counterpoint to the beauty of the surroundings, it was the places we stayed. I love being in nature no matter the weather, and I don't mind getting really wet or dirty. But after a long day of hiking, I enjoy a hot shower, a good meal and nice surroundings. Such niceties were markedly absent in Nepal. Some of the places we stayed were downright dirty. The communal Western-style toilet (if there even was one) was often overflowing and covered in a combination of excrement and urine. Luckily, my hospital experience with all sorts of bodily fluids helped me to cope, and being a nurse, I knew how to use a toilet without touching anything; but I quickly started looking forward to using the Nepalese hole in the ground.

Then there were the uncomfortable beds made from two-by-fours and covered by mattresses stuffed with “local materials” shaved from a hairy zopkio. They didn't bring me joy. When Tom and I zipped into our sleeping bags at night, it was for protection from the mattress and whatever was living in it more than from the elements. It almost made me wish we were camping outside, not teahouse trekking. Next there were the four minutes of lukewarm, sun-still-heated water per person. Tom and I made the most of that one. Don't get excited though—any flames of romance were quickly extinguished when the water returned to freezing in the ninth minute.

Finally, there was the food. Being an Italian gal from New Orleans, I live to eat, so Tom was shocked to find that not only was I not eating, I had no appetite whatsoever. After three days, he watched me practically have a food-gasm upon discovering a dubious-looking jar of American peanut butter.

Despite the worst food and the worst accommodations of my life, Nepal was still my favorite trip.

Sometimes the most rewarding and enjoyable things come with some discomfort. We can be working away in a business we love, or on a challenging project, then something happens and suddenly a great day turns bad. What do we do: lose our momentum and quit?

No, we have to endure, for the fun of it. When this happens at my office, I'll joke with my staff and say, “Hey, if this business was easy, everyone would be doing it.”

We often think easy or soft is what we want, but what we really want is something that will challenge us, and in the challenge we find a special reward. To be in Nepal, I needed to work to get there. Enjoying the Himalayas involved not only enduring the bad food and accommodations, it also included training for long treks of high-altitude hiking—not to mention traveling almost halfway around the world. One day we walked for 12 hours to get to the next teahouse.

At first I resisted the discomforts, but on day four of the trek, I woke up famished for even bad food, and on that day I had an epiphany: “Without the discomforts, I wouldn't be having this wondrous experience.” Suddenly I was all in, truly alive, and savoring each and every moment.

Embrace the discomforts of your own expedition. Vow to do something that makes you uncomfortable. Whether you're cleaning a closet, working overtime, or struggling to complete a project, you have a choice about how you label that experience.

Dale uses fun to endure the discomfort of rejection: “The thought of showing up at a prospect's office with my marketing materials in hand terrified me at first. Then I began having fun with it, inventing new ways to get past the gatekeepers. Now, the challenge of seeing how many prospects will actually talk to me is a fun game.”

Endurance is a choice. Fun is a choice. The more you broaden your concept of fun, the deeper your endurance for achieving wicked success. You may feel like you're climbing Mount Everest, but imagine the view you'll see from the top!

TAKE TO THE AIR LIKE A BUTTERFLY

My grandmother Pearl always called me her butterfly. I loved that she saw me as someone who was beautiful and special. What I didn't know is that she was also referring to the transformation I would go through to become the woman I am today.

As a butterfly emerges from its cocoon, it struggles and strains to free itself. The struggle is essential to strengthen the wings and shrink the body. Without such strain, the butterfly's wings would be weak, its distended body ungainly and it would never take to the air. Butterflies everywhere that endure this struggle are rewarded the glorious adventure of flying from blossom to blossom.

We are all constantly emerging from our cocoons, struggling and straining to become free, strong, beautiful women. Growth of any kind cannot occur without enduring some degree of discomfort. Here's your choice: You can play it safe, avoid the pain of growing and experience the narrow, earthbound existence of the lowly caterpillar. Or you can throw yourself fully into the struggle of living, pain and all, and enjoy the soaring freedom of the lofty butterfly.

Building muscle mass is another “no pain, no gain” experience. To build muscle mass, you have to hurt. And you won't just hurt the first few times you do it. If you're training correctly, it will hurt every time you work out. If you're not hurting, you're only pretending to be working out. Bear in mind that this hurt is what trainers refer to as a “good hurt,” not the kind that causes injury; but it's uncomfortable all the same.

Have you ever observed a person working out halfheartedly? Be careful that you're not playing that pretend game with yourself. Real growth requires real effort and real endurance. Don't take the easy way out, telling yourself you'll reach your performance goal by a shortcut that skips the painful part of the journey. Each hurt, each struggle you endure transforms you. Shortchange yourself in the effort department and you not only deceive yourself but also deprive yourself of the opportunity to grow.

Wickedly successful women have a pain threshold way above normal. To grow your success “muscles,” be willing to up the intensity and endure “hurt” on a regular basis. Eventually those muscles will turn into wings that fly you passionately onward.

FUEL YOUR ENDURANCE WITH FIRE

Endurance comes easy when we're passionately interested in what we're doing. A ballet dancer endures excruciating practice workouts to become excellent, but the pain doesn't stop when she perfects her talent. While performing, she's so intently focused that she may not feel pain, but after she pulls off her ballet slippers, her battered, bloody feet make her cringe. She endures because she's passionate about dancing.

As I've mentioned, I'm passionate about travel. I love traveling to remote places, but have you ever noticed the inconveniences travelers endure to enjoy their passion?

It starts with the preparation necessary to be gone for several weeks—as when I went to Bhutan—packing for all that time away, then enduring the body cavity search at airport security, uncomfortable seats and questionable airline food on the 14-hour overnight flight to Hong Kong, multiple connections on progressively more and more dilapidated aircraft, the frightening descent into Paro and the incoherent questioning by the overly suspicious customs agent—knowing that after you've fully relaxed you'll have to endure it all again—backward.

You start questioning, “Why am I doing this?” Finally you're in Bhutan enduring lost or damaged luggage. Part of you is miserable, while another part is muttering, “I love this, I really do.” But when you finally stand amidst the flapping prayer flags at the top of the Chelela Pass, peer into Tibet and marvel at the majesty of Mount Jhomolari, it's worth every moment of your endurance. Conversely, without the passion there is no way I'd subject myself to the endurance required.

Fire and endurance, when tightly connected, can take you all the way to the top. My business is a good example. Like all true entrepreneurs, I passionately love entrepreneurship, but the employee and management issues are an endurance for me. Because I love the creative development of the business, and I enjoy the relationships that surround it, I endure the less desirable aspects.

I'm continuously amazed at the variety of businesses that people seem to be passionate about, especially those that make and sell widgets. I couldn't wrap my passion around a widget, so I would never have the endurance to make such a business successful.

I shared a podium with a woman who owns more than 60 McDonald's restaurants. She started as an employee, at the bottom of the hamburger business, and left for a different career only to later return to McDonald's as an owner. When I asked her why she left one successful career for a career in hamburgers, she replied “Because I'm passionate about hamburgers.”

I'm thankful that other people can get fired up about making hamburgers, because otherwise they would never get made. Likewise, I've seen people whose spectacular idea never gets off the ground because they don't have the passion to endure what's required.

Since I started writing this book, I can't count the number of people who've told me, “I plan to write a book some day.” They have a bright idea for a book, and they think that's all it takes. But even the brightest idea doesn't shed any light until it's expressed in 70,000 words, or 280 manuscript pages or more.

It means enduring days and weeks and even months of fleshing out your idea until you finally type “The End,” and then enduring weeks or months of revision upon revision. You need more than a bright idea; you need a passion for writing that makes endurance possible.

To reach the end of anything—a project, a hike or 14 hours of labor—you need the Feminine Force of endurance. Fortunately, women have all the endurance they need. Merge endurance with your passion, and you can accomplish anything.

HARVEST ENERGY TO INCREASE YOUR ENDURANCE

Somewhere in your home or purse you have a device that runs on a battery. It could be a smoke detector, iPhone, digital camera or laptop computer. Like the battery in that device, endurance is there when you need it. But without occasional recharging, a battery runs out of power. So will you if your energy is not fueled by passion, focus, fun or another renewal source.

One source you can count on for harvesting more energy is positive relationships. We all know at least one person who lifts our spirits and makes us feel more alive. It might be your mother, your spouse, a good friend, your children or, if you're truly fortunate, all of them. Surround yourself with positive relationships, especially with people who support your passionate vision, and your natural endurance will be eternally rechargeable.

If positive relationships can power up your endurance battery, what do you think happens when you invest time in negative relationships? Zap! Why squander such a valuable resource?

Don't tolerate a relationship that returns little or nothing, despite how much you put into it. Limit any exposure to people who drain you, and sever dark, toxic relationships.

I love my employees, but I know my limitations when it comes to enduring employee issues. In my start-up days, I handled everything. I was head of production, wardrobe, marketing, shipping, transportation and cleaning, as well as running the cafeteria (I had to eat, after all). When I expanded beyond my one-person business, I thought employees would take some of that weight off my shoulders. Instead, their burdens became mine too, and I was now head of adult psychiatry as well. Employees waited until the end of a long day to come into my office, shut the door and say, “I need to talk with you.”

Add to that such issues as petty conflicts, bare midriffs, sick children, flu season, bad hair days and people crying on my desk—and that was just the men! Talk about a constant drain.

Now I have the luxury of working at home a couple of days a week. I hired five directors on whom I can rely to run the day-to-day operations, and I interact with them by phone or email. Women can find creative ways to endure, but when possible we should step away to recharge and improve performance.

Energy is life. Energy is essential for endurance. Detach from all energy-draining people who do not align with your vision. Conserve your stamina for what matters.

10 STRATEGIES FOR BUILDING YOUR ENDURANCE MUSCLES

Endurance is a strength you can build by working out. Muscling up your inner power to match your passion is no different from building larger, stronger biceps. It takes focus, dedication and discipline. If you stop going to the gym, your muscles atrophy. If you stop strengthening endurance, you lose it.

1. Energize your endurance. Many people energize their running or gym workout with music and claim they can work harder and longer. One woman in our office streams soft music from her iPhone while she works. Your inspiration might be classical music, an instrumental or sounds of nature. Or it might be your digital photo frame filled with photos of friends, family, renewing vacations and scenic landscapes.
2. See the light. Endurance comes easier when you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, when you know what you must endure and for how long. One day I had 17 TV interviews in New York City, a red-eye flight to San Diego for a morning TV show, followed by 11 radio interviews. Then I spent the next four days preparing a conference my company sponsored and rehearsing a keynote for 950 people. I could endure this experience because I knew it would soon end. You might not be able to run an 8-minute mile but you can run an 8-minute-mile pace for 30 seconds. See the light and you will endure.
3. Power up with knowledge. Fuel yourself with all the skills and information you need, and also with any peripheral knowledge that might give you an edge. Knowledge makes endurance less of a struggle.
4. Engage assistance. It takes a relay of runners to carry the Olympic torch. Who can you engage to make your burden lighter or your journey easier?
5. Condition yourself. Some things you have to experience to endure. When I first started teaching, I taught all day. At first it was hard; now it's easy. The more you condition yourself, and the more you up the intensity, the longer you'll endure.
6. Take an endurance break. When you work out with weights, you shouldn't exercise the same muscles two days in a row. Similarly, give yourself an occasional break from your ordinary world. Do something totally different, meet new people or go to a bookstore and spend an afternoon visiting a new world. Avoid answering your cell phone or otherwise getting drawn back into your real world. You'll feel stronger when you return.
7. Break the marathon. When you're running an endurance marathon, taking five-minute breaks every hour renews your energy for endurance. No matter how busy you are, you can always find time to take five or even two minutes.
8. Acknowledge your past endurances. Acknowledging what you've endured in the past strengthens your endurance for the next challenge.
9. Take care of yourself. A healthy body, mind and spirit fuel endurance. We'll talk more about this under the strength of renewal, in Chapter 9.
10. Think straight. Your thoughts control your life, and as your most intimate companions, your thoughts can help you endure. Don't dwell on the competition. Don't dwell on the problem. Don't dwell on the rude remark. Focus on the why—why you choose to endure in the first place.

Wickedly successful women take advantage of their inner strength of endurance to sustain their success. Build up your endurance muscles, and not only will you have strength to sustain commitments you make to others, you'll also have strength to meet commitments you make to yourself.