Quotes About Persistence

I've been trying to write since 1998 after dropping out of Visual Communication from Loyola. My parents have been supportive.

I moved out to Los Angeles with the idea of becoming a director, which thousands, if not tens and hundreds of thousands, of people do, every year. It's a very competitive field, of course. I immediately got swept away into the visual side of things, starting with visual effects, and then designing.

What I do is I get the sheet music and I put it out for myself and then I use a visual tuner to go through each note individually. And every time I make a mistake, I start the song over again, so I use the muscle memory of intervals and then watching that tuner, and then a lot of repetition.

Inexperienced personal development teachers always tell you to visualize, but often in a tragically limited way. They tell you to visualize nothing but victory. But high-achievers know that it's even more important to visualize themselves at the point where they want to quit, and then see themselves working through the struggle.

I've written all of my songs, I directed all my videos. Every part of what I've done for music, from the visuals to the business, I did it. And I'm really proud of that.

Growing up in a group home, and with an undiagnosed learning disability to boot, the odds of success were not on my side. But when I joined the high school football team, I learned the value of discipline, focus, persistence, and teamwork - all skills that have proven vital to my career as a C.E.O. and social entrepreneur.

I think it is vital to fight to do something you want to do despite not gaining your community's or your friends' approval.

If you can't find the next McDonald's, I'll find the next McDonald's. But it's vital to be with people who with looking for 'em, because they do exist. They are created.

Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over.

Retirement is not in my vocabulary. They aren't going to get rid of me that way.

They say, 'Nothing can be done here!' I reply, 'I know no such word in the vocabulary I adopt!'

Tired is not a word in my vocabulary.

I'm not a great reader, believe it or not. It's not the vocabulary - my father made me read the dictionary when I was little - but my attention span is poor. Takes me months to read one book.

I started playing instruments before I started making beats, and I was never the best guitarist or the best pianist or the best drummer. And when I started making beats, I was not the best beatmaker, and when I started making hooks, I was not the best vocal melody person. When I first started rapping, I wasn't the best rapper at all.

I never, my producer never, we never let myself just sing. We were always trying to get the perfect vocal.

The problem is I'm a perfectionist, so the producer might say he's happy with my vocal take but I'll say, 'No, it can be better.' I'll do it again and again until I feel I've got the truth out of a song.

In the ring, you're constantly working out and honing your craft, and you're doing the same thing with acting, too - taking classes and working with vocal coaches.

Like my writing, my voice has been something I've worked at. I knew I had a good voice but it was a matter of time before it was what I've got now. I've had to build my vocal muscles up until they were like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I don't have any godfather, I had to continuously prove myself as a vocalist to survive in the music scene.

I started as a guitarist and couldn't find a decent singer, so I started providing my own vocals.

As I am a lyrical singer, I really have to work hard. I'm still really training on a daily basis on my vocals. Because of the lyrical training, it never really ends.

I have had so much at heart. Defeated, not conquered; disappointed, not discouraged. I have but to be more energetic and more faithful in the difficult and painful vocation to which my life is devoted.

Long before my days at ESPN, the 'Philadelphia Inquirer,' or the 'New York Daily News' before that, I was a student at Thomas A. Edison Vocational and Technical High.

People ask me 'Why you want to do another magazine - 10 years at 'Vogue,' a great magazine? Why do you want to make a new one? It's so difficult and there's already so many.' I wanted to do something new, bring a new vision.