Persisting Until the Win: A Deep Dive into Scroll III

I’ve been digging back into The Greatest Salesman in the World as part of this program, and it’s like meeting an old friend again.

I’ve had this book for over 35 years, and it’s incredible how the scrolls speak to me differently now that I’m focusing so intensely on my health recovery and my current DMP.

We’ve already laid the foundation with the first scroll about habits and the second about love, but now we’re getting into the real “muscle” of the program.

Chapter Ten brings us The Scroll Marked III, which centers on a single, unwavering command: “I will persist until I succeed.”

This scroll is all about that uphill climb I always talk about—the realization that anything of significance in life is going to be a battle against the voice that screams “quit”.

What I like about this scroll was…

What really resonated with me in this scroll is the raw, uncompromising imagery of the lion versus the sheep. Mandino writes that we weren’t delivered into this world in defeat, and failure doesn’t course through our veins. I love the declaration:

“I am a lion and I refuse to talk, to walk, to sleep with the sheep.” Og Mandino

It reminds me of the “Golden Buddha” illustration—we have this incredible greatness within us, but it’s often covered in the “concrete” of old programming from society and teachers. This scroll is the tool we use to chip that concrete away.

I also really like the analogy of the young bulls in the Orient. They are tested for the fight arena by how many times they are willing to charge in spite of the “sting of the blade.” I feel like that’s exactly what we’re doing in this course.

Every day we’re tested by life, and the only way to “grade” our bravery is our willingness to keep charging forward, even when the work feels heavy or we’re having a “bird’s nest” kind of day.

The slaughterhouse of failure is not my destiny, and this scroll makes that abundantly clear.

I learned from this scroll …

This scroll taught me a lot about the geometry of success. It’s easy to get frustrated when you don’t see the results of your DMP immediately, but I learned that success often hides behind the next bend in the road.

You might encounter failure at the thousandth step, yet success could be right there at the turn. I’ve learned to look at each day’s effort as a single blow of a blade against a mighty oak.

The first blow might not even cause a tremor, but like the “childish swipes” that eventually topple the tree, my small, repeated attempts will complete any undertaking.

Another huge lesson was about cleaning up my vocabulary. The scroll demands that we remove words like “quit,” “impossible,” “unable,” and “failure” because they are the “words of fools.”

This ties directly into what I told Ian Hanamansingh during our interview: everything starts in your mind. If I let “subby” (my subconscious) hear those failure words, I’m feeding the engine the wrong fuel.

I learned that I must persist with knowledge that each failure to sell increases my chance for success at the next attempt—it’s the ancient law of averages.

I am impacted by this scroll to…

I am deeply impacted to apply this “persist until I win” mindset to my health recovery. There are days when I don’t have “good days,” and that voice in my head starts pleading with me to stop or go back.

But this scroll has impacted me to ignore the obstacles at my feet and keep my eyes on the goals above my head. I am practicing the habit of making one more attempt to close a victory even when my tired body beckons me homeward.

This scroll has also impacted how I view my daily “inner work.” Working on yourself is like surgery without an anesthetic. It’s hard work, and it’s tempting to quit when the Master Key Experience (MKE) assignments pile up.

But I am impacted to never allow any day to end with a failure. If I can’t finish a task perfectly, I will at least make one more attempt before I finish the day.

I am essentially reprogramming my brain to be a “mariner” who learns to ride out the wrath of the storm. So long as there is breath in me, that long will I persist.

I would recommend to others after reading this …

After living with this scroll, I would tell anyone that persistence is a habit you have to build, just like my morning exercise routine. If you’re feeling like breaking your rod and going home because you’ve got a “bird’s nest” in your reel, don’t.

You need a mentor or a guide to help you stay in the race so you don’t get frustrated and quit.

I would recommend that you never let yesterday’s success lull you into today’s complacency. That’s a “great foundation of failure.” Instead, greet each new sun with the confidence that it will be the best day of your life.

Remember that hard work trumps talent every time. You have to be “fully in” until the change comes about, using these words to warm your life and turn your dreams into reality.

If you stick with it and persist long enough, you will win. This scroll isn’t just a reading assignment; it’s the commitment to keep chipping away at that concrete until your Golden Buddha is revealed to the world.

Analogy to Solidify Understanding

Think of your persistence like a mountain climber tackling an “uphill” peak in the dark. You can’t see the summit from where you are, and your legs are screaming at you to stop.

Scroll III is your headlamp. It doesn’t show you the whole mountain, but it shows you the next step.

If you keep taking that one next step—refusing to look back at the trail you’ve already climbed—you will eventually find yourself standing in the sunlight of the peak, simply because you refused to be the “sheep” who stayed in the valley.