​If there is one characteristic that sets successful people apart, it’s persistence—the willingness to hang in there when it comes to pursuing a goal or dream. If you look at successful people throughout history, very few were overnight successes. Instead, they were persistent—they made lots of mistakes and encountered many obstacles, but they didn’t quit. They hung in there long after most other people would have given up. Albert Einstein once said of himself, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” Thomas Edison, who failed 3,000 times before he invented the first commercially successful light bulb, had this to say about persistence: “Our biggest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” The lesson here is that if you are willing to persist, you will succeed. On the other hand, if you decide to quit, you can’t succeed.