I have quit the insurance business at least a thousand times… and that was in the first year some 36 years ago. It’s so easy to get down on yourself.

We are in a business that pre-supposes a frequent amount of failure. It takes courage to succeed in our business. When I think of courage, I think of a kid by the name of Terry Fox.

When I first met Terry Fox, we were joined together on a program in Toronto, Ontario, Canada before 4,000 Toastmasters at an international convention in 1978. We were both scheduled to speak to the group.

I was competing for the World Championship of Public Speaking. Terry was competing for something far more important than trophies and awards. Terry Fox was competing for his life.

At the young age of 22, freckle-faced Terry Fox lost his life to a battle with cancer. Some of his Canadian brethren died with him.

On April 12, 1980, twenty-one year old Terry Fox began what has come to be known as his "Marathon of Hope." Succumbing to cancer in the prime of his life, Fox decided he would bring attention to the awful disease with a marathon. He began a marathon across Canada with reporters and cameramen on his heels as he sought to cross his native land on foot.

Terry Fox lost his leg to cancer when he was a teenager. While in the hospital going through chemo, he was affected by the amount of suffering in the cancer ward and decided that, in his words, "Somewhere the hurting must stop." He decided to run across Canada to raise funds for cancer research, running 28-30 miles per day on one real leg and one artificial leg.

Three thousand three hundred thirty nine miles later, a choked up nation looked on as a young Terry Fox collapsed short of his goal. The unprecedented challenge to a nation brought an estimated $35 million in for cancer research as Fox's dramatic run across Canada fell short as his health finally failed him.

In an earlier attempt to stop the cancer from spreading across his body, Fox underwent the amputation of his right knee. Now with the support of an artificial leg, he began the dramatic race to Canada's west coast with his right leg amputated just above the knee. A tearful world looked on when he started in St. John's Newfoundland, the point where North America reaches the farthest into the Atlantic Ocean.

With one artificial leg, Fox set out on his journey completing 28-30 miles per day along the Trans-Canada Highway, the narrow concrete and asphalt ribbon that spans the second largest nation on earth. With the world cheering him on through the eyes of the press, Terry Fox fought his biggest battle ever and lost. His dramatic termination run in Thunder Bay brought an outpouring of emotion, the likes of which Canada has never seen before.

On September 1st, 1980, 143 days and 3,339 miles into his "Marathon of Hope" across Canada, Terry was forced to stop running outside Thunder Bay, Ontario because the cancer had spread to his lungs. On June 28, 1981, he died at the age of 22.

Nearly 6,000 Torontonians signed a petition urging creation of a commemorative stamp in Terry's honor. A monument was erected at the Thunder Bay site where Terry's courageous marathon ended. After months of resisting, Canada agreed to honor Terry's Marathon of Hope on a stamp.

Terry Fox was awarded the Order of Canada, the country's highest civilian recognition. A ballad was written about his cross-country endeavor, and campaigns for official government recognition of Terry's Marathon of Hope sprang up all over Canada.

As he lay on his deathbed, Terry Fox said goodbye to a gracious nation and an emotional world that many felt were unable to believe in heroes anymore. Thin and pale, Terry developed a bronchitis-like infection and was spitting blood. A tearful nation looked on in prayer as young Terry Fox began the final 385 yards of his personal "Marathon for Life."

Terry Fox's life was not given in vain. There are hundreds of trivial sayings one could apply to the situation…. "A winner never quits; a quitter never wins…." or "Winning isn't everything…it's the only thing." Winning for Terry Fox was the breath of life.

Perhaps the greatest tribute to Terry Fox is the fact that the foundation that he helped start has now raised $360 million for cancer research, about $10 for every Canadian citizen.

Selling life insurance requires persistence, but the fact is, so does life. I was giving a speech to an insurance association several years ago and was on the program with a guy named Jim Abbott, a former major league baseball pitcher with only one hand.

How would you like to play baseball with only one hand? Imagine competing in NASCAR with only one hand. Imagine playing basketball with only one hand. Imagine playing any competitive athletic event with one hand. Jim Abbott did it–and did it well!

Jim Abbott has battled the odds his entire life. Despite being born with only one hand he was the 15th player to ever make a professional debut in the Major Leagues. Many considered the move a publicity stunt by manager Doug Rader, but after struggling early, Abbott proved his doubters wrong by winning 12 games with a 3.92 ERA in his rookie season.

On the mound, Abbott wore a left-hander's fielder's glove at the end of his right arm. While completing his follow-through after delivering a pitch, he rapidly switched the glove to his left hand so he could handle any balls hit back to him. In that first 1989 season as a professional he won more games as a rookie than any other previous player without Major League experience.

What prepared Jim Abbott for this type of success? I believe that it was Jim Abbott's so-called "weakness" that caused him to excel. Like Wilma Rudolph who was born pre-mature and later acquired polio, those "weaknesses" became the thing that motivated her to win three Olympic Gold Medals in the 1960 Olympics in Rome. Our strengths, overused, can become our weaknesses.

Conversely, the things that hamper us in life can become the very things that motivate us to higher performance.

Jim Abbott spent hours as a youngster bouncing a ball off a wall to practice fielding as well as throwing. He was the starting quarterback on his high school football team, which went to the finals of the Michigan state championship, and he showed enough promise as a pitcher to be drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays shortly after graduation.

However, Abbott went to the University of Michigan on a baseball scholarship. Abbott led the Wolverines to Big Ten titles in his freshmen and junior years and won the prestigious Golden Spikes Award, presented annually to the outstanding college baseball player in the United States. He had a career record of 26 wins and 8 losses at the school.

As a member of Team USA in 1987, he became the first American pitcher in 25 years to beat a Cuban team on Cuban soil. The team won a silver medal at the Pan-American Games and Abbott won the U. S. Baseball Federation's Golden Spikes award as the best amateur player in the country.

Abbott participated in the 1988 Summer Olympic Games, pitching a complete game seven hitter, leading the United States to the Gold Medal in a 5-3 victory over Japan. It was the first US victory ever for a Gold Medal in Olympic Baseball competition.

He then joined the California Angels following the Olympics, beginning a tremendous Major League career, which included throwing a no-hitter for the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium in 1993.

His baseball achievements include the Sullivan Award (best amateur athlete in the United States), male athlete of the year for the 1988 Olympic Games, and many awards at Michigan including the Jesse Owens Athlete of the year.

Jim played for 10 seasons on 4 different teams and ended his big league playing career in 1999 and today, in addition to being a pitching instructor for the Los Angeles Angels, Jim Abbott is a motivational speaker. Are you as persistent in your selling as Jim Abbott was in pursuing his dream of being a great baseball player?

We have to lean toward the positive in all our sales efforts if we’re going to survive a profession so heavily fraught with failure. It’s just too easy to walk away in defeat. Having a positive attitude is a critical first step toward success.

Perhaps one of the best examples in sports of a person "leaning" toward victory came in the 1948 Olympic Games in London, England. The crowd roared their approval as two men, who were favored, climbing into the starting blocks. They were Barney Ewell and Harrison Dillard. Everybody expected these two to turn this race into a fighting duel–and that they did.

Ewell jumped out to the lead with a brisk start, knees pumping high and elbows pumping hard. But with a burst of speed on the backstretch, Dillard pulled up beside Ewell and the two raced neck and neck, stride for stride to the finish line.

Just as they approached the finish line, Ewell had the lead and it appeared that victory would be his as he hit the tape straight up, waving at the crowd with a victorious number one high in the air. Little did he know, however, Harrison Dillard, in the outside lane, had leaned forward ever so slightly at the finish line and his shoulder hit the tape just before Ewell's body crossed the line. Even though more of Barney Ewell's body was across the tape, Harrison Dillard's shoulder got there first, and he won the gold medal.

It's imperceptible how minute a different that type of "lean" can make on a track or on a football field or in a classroom or in a boardroom or in the factory. No matter where you are in life, the person that LEANS toward the positive will be the person that comes away with laurels.

It happened again just four years later in the 1952 Olympic games in Helsinki. Eight men flew out of the starting blocks together. They were like one as they raced down the cinder path, knees pumping high, lungs pounding, and muscles tense with anticipation. They hit the tape exactly together, but Mendy Regima of New York won. They kidded him later, saying his nose was a quarter-inch longer. But the real difference was the lean toward the victory tape. In race after race, it's been shown how slight the difference is between victory and defeat.

One of the great contradictions in life is that winners never lose. Nothing could be further from the truth! In the selling profession, we lose more often than we win. Baseball players fail 75% of the time at the plate and are paid in the millions.

The guy who hits .333 earns in the millions and still fails two out of three times that he goes to the plate. The guy who hits.250 is also well-paid but fails three out of four times he goes to the plate. Failure is part of the process. Interestingly, the difference between these two guys is only one more hit in every 20 times at bat. The difference between greatness and being average is so minute.

Please pardon the personal reference. I won the World Championship of Public Speaking for Toastmasters International in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in 1978, an organization (at the time) of some 65,000 speakers in some 60 countries throughout the English-speaking world.

I lost that same World Championship in 1977 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada because I went eight seconds over my allotted time limit and was disqualified. I'm fond of saying that you have to go through Toronto to get to Vancouver. Sometimes winners lose!

I remember when I competed in Vancouver. I took the time to visit the site of a marathon in which the noble Jim Peters of Great Britain had run the demanding marathon, an imposing 26¼-mile event. Peters was competing in the 1954 Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, exactly 24 years prior to my visit.

He was easily the pre-race favorite, and he attempted to destroy the field with a blistering pace, which worked quite nicely for the first 26 miles. The problem was, the race was 26 and a quarter miles long.

When Peters came into the stadium that year, he had a 17-minute lead on his closest competitor. The announcers were going wild because this was about to be a new world record. History tells us that the atmosphere in Vancouver was humid and hot that particular day, but Jim Peters was determined to make his mark.

As with most marathons at this level of competition, Peters ran the first 26 miles outside the stadium in Vancouver. When he came into the stadium for the last quarter mile lap, the lactic acid in his muscles all but consumed him. He began to suffer from severe cramps. Some 300 yards from the finish line, Peters collapsed on the track.

But he refused to quit. He got up, and he ran a few more steps, and he collapsed again. Peters got up a third time and walked a few steps before collapsing again. Altogether, Jim Peters collapsed 16 different times on the Vancouver oval that particular day. But he still refused to quit. When he tried to get up the 17th time, he crawled on his hands and knees in an agonizing show of guts until he collapsed one final time across a white line that he thought was the finish line. He was 200 yards short of his goal.

As a child growing up and hearing of this story, I was struck by Jim Peters' bravery and determination. It illustrated the bulldog spirit. Or was it just another example of the British not accepting the reality of the situation?

It would be nice to say he went on to win the gold medal at the next Olympics. However, following the medical advice of his doctor, he gave up racing. Jim Peters never won the gold medal he so desperately wanted.

Sometimes, no matter how hard you work, no matter what price you pay… sometimes you fail, not because of yourself but in spite of yourself. Life is full of failure. Dolly Parton is fond of saying "You've got to have the rain to have the rainbow."

Me? I believe the road to Vancouver goes right through Toronto.