From Chapter 3, “Persistence: Press on!” in Ingredients of Outliers
Too Dumb to Quit?
In 1993, I started a company initially called Arizona Family and Urgent Care (AF UC), on a shoestring. I literally worked day and night to get it up and running. During its early stage, one partner backed out and another one said he didn’t want to take on any more risk.
I pressed on and we were actually making headway when the bank called our loan and put us in the “workout” division. At the time I thought this was great because I liked to work out. Then I learned that this was the area of the bank where bad loans were handled. The bank could have called the note at any time, which means it would have taken over and seized all our assets.
So we triple mortgaged our house and finally switched banks. When I went back and asked why the man who was our “workout banker” didn’t simply call the note, he told me it was because he never heard “defeat in your voice.” We eventually changed the name to NextCare when I heard an employee answer the phone, “Hello, thank you for calling “Aw-Fuc!” I served as chairman and CEO of NextCare until 2010, by which time it had grown from a single clinic to 58 clinics in six states with an annualized revenue of nearly $100 million dollars.
Now maybe I’m just too dumb to quit, but remember: you’re never beaten until you admit it. For those of us who get into fights, the worst people to fight with are those who are too dumb or too tenacious to quit because they just keep coming back.
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