7 Dec 2025 · 2 min
Tom Ferry uses a runner named Jose to show why most people quit right before success. Jose hit mile 16 wanting to stop, but pushing through resistance is what separates people who make it from those who don't. Keep making the calls.
Chapters
We've all heard this before. Most people quit when you're. When you're totally into a project and you are grinding through it, or you're making your Phone calls for 90 minutes. Most people quit right before the good thing happens. I was talking to my friend, my driver last night, Jose. He owns a driving company. He's not my actual driver. And we were chatting about the fact that he's about to go run a marathon, and he just completed a 20 mile marathon. And he said, man, it was at like the 16 mile mark that I just. Oh, I was just losing it. I was dehydrated. I was ready to quit. I didn't want to do this anymore. And I reminded them of this little quote here, like, you might be tired. No one cares, right? You might be thinking to yourself, I can quit on this project early. I can quit on these calls early. I can quit on this client early. No one cares if you quit. Someone else will take the lead. Someone else will do the work. Someone else will take your clients. Someone else will make sure that that thing gets done. It just might not be in your business. It just might be by someone else. So I guess the message that I would remind everybody of is the resistance is very real. The resistance to finishing is very real. The resistance to taking the first step is real. The resistance to making the phone calls real. And what I would tell you is like, the resistance is real. Make the call anyway. The resistance is real. Fight through it. Keep moving forward. Keep getting stuff done. I don't know a wildly successful person that has ever said to me, gosh, you know what? When I built that company and it took me three and a half years, and I didn't take a single dime out of it, then I sold it for a bazillion dollars. You know what it was, Tom? The first three and a half years, it was easy. Like, every day I just got up, did all the work. There was no problems. There was never any resistance. I just. No, that's not how it works. How it works is it's hard, right? You got to push through. You got to fight through the noise. You got to fight through the noise. Like, that's just the way it is. So if you're watching this and you're fighting through the noise, I'm proud of you. You're right on track.