Helen Gurley Brown once said, “The only thing that separates successful people from those that aren’t is the willingness to work very, very hard.” In other words, successful people persist–they stay the course in pursuing their goals long after most other people have given up and quit. What enables these people to persist is they know what it takes to succeed. They understand that failure, setbacks, and obstacles are all part of the process of succeeding. So, instead of becoming discouraged when such events occur, they learn from them which turns these negative experiences into forward progress toward their goal. As Thomas Edison put it: “I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.”