On a sheer face in the mountains of Afghanistan, a young goat flees for his life while being chased by an agile feline predator hot on his tail. Somehow remaining glued to the mountain face in what visually seems to defy physics, the two animals leap from rock to rock, crag to crag in a heart-pumping sprint for the canyon bottom. At death's doorstep, the goat narrowly gets away by jumping into the rushing river. The whole sequence takes about twenty seconds but the intensity makes it feel way longer. The goat was fighting for his life—his goal was to simply survive. And he used every ounce of his being to not give up and live another day. That is tenacity.
Tenacity is the quality displayed by someone who just won't quit — who keeps trying until they reach their goal. It is a mindset of determination and accepting no alternative but success.
When we were conjuring up a logo for our company, I wanted a symbol that embodies tenacity—a logo that carries an attitude that giving up is not an option—a symbolic figure that if presented with a problem, it would meet the challenge head-on and blast right through it. And given my name is Billy, a goat seemed the perfect choice. And by goat, I'm not talking about the petting-zoo kind. I'm talking about the Markhor type that can survive leopard attacks, or the Ibex type that can scale mountain faces that most humans cannot climb, or the goat that will consume acres of blackberry bushes just because it can, or the goat that is the lifeline to a family by providing milk, muscle for work, and eventually its life for food. That is what I am talking about—the tenacious goat that is making a difference and a symbol of overcoming impossibilities and achieving goals.
To reach our goals in life we need tenacity. Goals are not met easily. If we set a goal that is easy it is not a goal. Goals need to stretch us. Goals need to challenge us. By setting goals we grow.
Think of a salmon swimming up stream. That takes work...a ton of work! And what is the individual salmon's goal? To reach the spawning ground where it all began and propagate the species.
We need to keep pushing. We need to keep moving forward toward the goals we set. We need tenacity within. Are you with me?
As the late Amelia Earhart once said, "The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do."
Well said, Amelia.
