“Extreme Job”: Persistence Pays

I took a 22 hour long flight to Australia in 2023 for business. That’s a damn long flight even for me. I love Australia but it is really far away. The side benefit though is that you get lots of time to read, write and watch movies. 

I watched a very funny South Korean action comedy called “Extreme Job” about a down on his luck Police captain and his misfit narcotics squad on the hunt for a major drug lord. It’s especially funny because during a stake out they end up starting and running a fried chicken restaurant that unexpectedly takes off, distracting them from their investigation. 

They have continual bad breaks as they keep on screwing things up. But what I liked about them was that they just kept going. Taking humiliation and failure, over and over again without quitting. They literally would not give up. 

We learn also along the way that the captain’s earned nickname in his 12 years of major crimes unit was “Zombie” as he just wouldn’t die. He would just keep on coming at you like a zombie, no matter how hurt he was. Of course they finally caught the bad guys in the end. 

This is the similar trait I’ve seen in my most successful startup founders. This is the trait that I see in all of my super successful friends, especially those in my mastermind group. They are persistent, they don’t know how to quit and are just relentless in the pursuit of their goals. 

The best organizations are like that too. Like Microsoft under Bill Gates. Or Amazon under Bezos, who was reported to have said “be stubborn in vision but flexible in details.” Basically, be willing to grind it out. Ernest Shackleton (h/t to David Senra) actually said it the best: “By Endurance We Conquer.”

You don’t always have to be smart to be successful in business and life but you certainly do have to be persistent.