persistence by RIchard george

It’s crazy to think that at one point Inside Virginia was NEVER a thing. It didn’t exist, it wasn’t thought of, and it wasn’t created. It’s the same as major companies like Amazon, Facebook, Tesla, Instagram, Tumblr, Snapchat, Twitter, and Uber just to name a few! They didn’t exist at one point in time and now they are all multi-BILLION dollar companies. It all starts with an idea, but here is the problem that the founders of these companies didn’t face like a lot of people do now with great ideas: they ENVISIONED, they PLANNED, they EXECUTED, and through the difficulties of doing things that had never been done before they maintained PERSISTENCE. This last aspect is the key that slips through the grasps of many great idea and concepts… persistence.

Coming through with the idea of InsideVirginia was fun starting out but after a month I started to see a few other accounts much bigger than mine doing much better and I had come down to two option: throttle down with the idea of InsideVirginia or gear up to fight the thought of feeling and staying little with the account. It is unbelievably easy to let the gloomy dark cloud of “What ifs”, discouragement , despondency, hopelessness, disappointment, dejection, and defeating thoughts take over your motivation. I can speak on this because it happened to me. I was confused as to which direction I wanted to run with InsideVirginia, I didn’t know what niche was right, I didn’t know how to reach out to local business or how to reach my target audience. Imagine sitting in the middle of an ocean not knowing where the mainland was. This was how I felt trying to build momentum, IT SUCKED and I genuinely wanted to give up and throw in the towel but there was this saying that was in the back of my head; “You miss every shot you don’t take”. It hit me that I was giving up on something that I never really gave a shot at. Simply put, I lacked persistence.

Imagine if Jeff Bezos founder of Amazon, or Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom co-founders of Instagram backed down on their idea of what they thought could be revolutionary ideas. The worlds LARGEST online retailer and one of the most sought after social media platforms wouldn’t exist and in that case neither would InsideVirginia! Persistence is the nitrous that keeps the momentum moving when you want to slow down. 13,300+ followers later, I look back at the pit I stuck myself in starting InsideVirginia trying to figure things out just to realize in this marathon of a journey, I don’t have to figure everything out, I just need to start, I just need to do, I just need to launch, I just need to commence because the more of this I do, the more I uncover answers, the more I piece this master plan together, the more everything makes that much more sense.

My encouragement to you all  is to keep moving friends. Your time here on earth is too precious to became stagnant. Keep taking those steps even if they are baby steps. The little progression means just as much as the large progression because regardless you’re still making forward progress and you’re still striving, and if you do feel like giving up as we do time and time again, understand that your dream, your idea, your concept  is 1000% worth pursuing and nobody can go after it as hard or as passionate as you can… the next major idea(s)/companies/brands still have yet to be born!... MORE TO COME!

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