Bear Grylls Quote

Let me give you one of my favorite examples of the difference between trying and endeavoring.When a new motorway was built, taking passing traffic away from Colonel Sanders’ restaurant, his business crumbled. About to retire with just a paltry military pension, he was facing a bleak future. But the one thing he knew he had that was of value was a mighty fine chicken recipe.He didn’t have the money to open a new restaurant, but he figured he could franchise his chicken recipe to other restaurateurs and earn a slice of every chicken meal sold. After all, he had been selling his special chicken recipe for years in his own small restaurant: how hard could it be?The answer was: very.The first restaurant he went to politely asked him to leave with the words: ‘We have a good chicken recipe of our own already; why would we want to pay you for another?’ The same thing happened at the next place he endeavoured to persuade.And the next.But he persisted.Guess how many no’s he got before someone agreed to give his ‘finger-licking’ recipe a ‘try’?The elderly Colonel Sanders had to knock on 1,009 doors before someone gave him a yes and the legend and business empire that became Kentucky Fried Chicken was finally born.Now, how many of us, after the first 50 no’s, might have thought that maybe we should quit (or at least check our chicken recipe!)?What about after ONE THOUSAND no’s?I reckon most people wouldn’t even have got to the hundredth door, and long before they rang the 1,009th doorbell they would have given up. ‘Well, we our best’ would have been a fair assessment. But not for the good colonel!Colonel Sanders - he really was an army veteran with some great military doggedness - had that spirit of determination, that , not to quit until he had found the thing he was looking for.Trying often comes before failure. Endeavour more often leads to success.But they are just words, I hear you say. Why does it matter whether we say ‘try’ or ‘endeavour’?It matters, believe me.