The Power of Persistence...

​"Life isn't a sprint, but a long, steady climb. You can't run far uphill without stopping to sit down. Some people rush at a thing with a whoop and use up all their wind. And when they're rested and have got it back, they whoop again and start in a new direction. They mistake intention for determination, and after they have told you what they propose to do and get right up to doing it, they simply peter out.
Quiet, steady, persistent work is what gets us somewhere in life. More of us should emulate Grover Cleveland Alexander, one of the greatest pitchers of all time. He grew up on a farm and wanted to play professional baseball. Between chores, he would throw apples, stones - anything he could get his hands on to sharpen his accuracy. When he was able to acquire a few baseballs, he nailed a catcher's glove to the outside of a chicken coop and threw at it for hours. He got so he could hit the mitt nine times out of ten. 
Later, when he became a star, sportswriters went into rapture about the brilliance of his pitching. But no one knew better than Grover Cleveland Alexander that back of his amazing pitching was the patient drudgery of throwing at that old catcher's mitt nailed to a chicken coop."

From: Soundings..., June 12, 1990, Pages 14-16