Something different for your weekend listening pleasure: Here’s a full half-hour interview with me on happiness, optimism and revenue growth. It’s conducted by the talented and worldly Sam Mednick. Listen to it here.

Here’s a short transcription of an important part of our conversation, on perseverance. Sam asked me about my own work, and how I persevere:

 Sometimes it’s really, really hard to keep persevering because all you’ve heard is “no” for months and months, and you haven’t gotten a yes in a long time and sometimes, you forget what a “yes” feels like.

 What you do at that point, circling back around to the beginning of our conversation, Sam, is you think about the who, who do you work for. My kids, they deserve that I not give up here. My family who brought me to this country as a two year old with $20 and risked, literally risked everything, they deserve that I keep trying even though it’s the hard thing to do.

 Those people who live in that apartment in Ukraine, which was the Soviet Union when we lived there, the people who live there now, there are eight of them now. They live in 400 square feet. Those people deserve that I not give up. Why? Because they don’t have the opportunity that I have here.

 In a lot of countries you have to give up. You wouldn’t have a choice. In fact, you wouldn’t have a choice to try to begin with. We get to keep trying here. Where we live, we get to keep trying. That’s a privilege. Who am I to give up? That’s how I think about it.

 Listen to the complete interview here.

Best regards,

 Alex

847-459-6322 direct