JANE CHIN, PH.D. ∞

If you had to identify one crucial key to your success, what would it be? That was what Steve Woodruff asked himself one morning. His answer wasn’t the usual suspects like vision, expertise, or connections.

I personally was never born with “a vision” to speak of. If I had, I can tell you a more romantic story of how Jane-the-child had a vision to fulfill even before she could verbalize what that vision is. It would be even more romantic if saving humankind was in a vision, directing Jane-the-child through Jane-the-adolescent and now Jane-the-adult.

But, nope. That wasn’t me.

If Jane appears to the outside world to possess a small amount of “success”, it is certainly not “vision” that’s driven it.

This crucial key to success is definitely NOT “out-of-the-box thinking,” a term that has the corporate nutritional value as chocolate lava cake: looks good, tastes great, not much nutritional substance to write home about. At least our health agencies mandate that the manufacturer lists the ingredients, so we know what goes into that chocolatey gooeyness and make lava cakes so darn addictive. Anyone care to give me a list of ingredients to “out-of-the-box thinking”?

Most managers don’t even know what they’re talking about when they ask for “out of the box.” I know this because I was an “out-of-the-box” thinker. This caused me to be labeled as one of those employees who “asked too many troubling questions for her pay grade.” But I keep doing this because I love the sheer pleasure I experience from eating chocolate lava cakes.

Steve’s crucial key to success is “Conviction” of the non-felonious kind. He describes this as a “deep persuasion that something is right, and must be done.” Steve is a new entrepreneur and a parent. He finds similarities in both adventures.

My Crucial Key to Success is Perseverance.

Perseverance and Conviction are siblings.

Each stands on its own as words, usually without verbal props like “Power of Intention” or “Law of Attraction.” “Power of Perseverance” sounds redundant. “Law of Conviction”? That sounds better suited for a weeknight courtroom TV show.

Perseverance comes from Latin perseverare, which is further dissolved into per- (through) and severus (severe). Perseverance may stand alone as a word, but it is never alone in concept. Perseverance can only occur when there is opposition, discouragement, and counterinfluences. Perseverance rears its head when a person’s character is tested.

Conviction is also born of dueling forces. Conviction comes from Latin convincere, to refute. Conviction is a strong state of persuasion in spite of external forces that wants you to believe otherwise. As strongly as someone compels you to believe that “No, You Can’t,” Conviction compels you to believe that “Yes, You Can.”

I have a Chinese Calligraphy scroll on the wall of my office. I got this scroll in 1996 when I was in graduate school. The four Chinese characters in the title translate literally to “Strength – Conviction – Until – End”, which as a phrase means “Perseverance.” The accompanying text reads, “The most extraordinary outcomes often belong to those who, when everyone deemed the circumstances impossible, was able to persist to the end.”

Even as I remain unsure what “extraordinary outcomes” I’d witness in my life, I have summoned Perseverance throughout my life. Sometimes I commanded it, my voice strong and my will blazing. Sometimes I whispered it, my voice begging and my will wavering. Always, Perseverance comes through.

You have a Crucial key to Success. Each of us do.

Throughout your life, you have moments when you are compelled to keep going even when a part of you can barely mute the voices that tell you to stop. The beauty is that you don’t have to develop it or cultivate it or grow it. You already have it, and your Crucial Key to Success is always there when you summon.

You just need to recognize it.

This post was selected by author David Lorenzo at Career Intensity for January 13, 2007.