“A Nobel prizewinner, a physical culturalist, a naval historian, a biographer, an essayist, paleontologist, a taxidermist, an ornithologist, a field naturalist, a conservationist, a big-game hunter, an editor, a critic, a ranchman, an orator, a country squire, a civil service reformer, a socialite, a patron of the arts, a colonel of the cavalry, a former governor of New York, the ranking expert on big-game mammals in North America and the president of the United States. All these men were named Theodore Roosevelt” (Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt; emphasis added). That’s quite a list. How does one man accomplish so much? Why was this man, who ultimately led the United States of America, able to lead so effectively?

One key to Theodore Roosevelt’s tremendous success was the power of perseverance.

This man had a dogged determination to accomplish whatever he set out to do. Certainly he set goals and educated himself. Certainly he had an overwhelming drive. But had he lacked this vital component of perseverance, had he been a lesser man, perhaps none of us would know of Theodore Roosevelt today. He would never have become the great leader we now remember him as.

As a young man, Theodore was afflicted with asthma and was pitifully thin. His body housed a fantastic mind, but what a frail housing it was. Anyone who looked at the child was instantly aware of this, and he knew it.

His father knew it too, and gave the 12-year-old this command: “Theodore, you have the mind but not the body, and without the help of the body the mind cannot go as far as it should. You must make your body. It is hard drudgery to make one’s body, but I know you will do it.”

Theodore could have given up right there.

“The little boy looked up,” his sister later recalled, and “with a flash of white teeth” accepted the challenge: “I’ll make my body!”

From that point on, he spent every day making his body, making his mind, making himself into the man whose face is chiseled on the side of Mt. Rushmore. He worked out with weights, hiked, ice-skated, hunted, rode horseback and boxed. Even after he became president, it was well known that he continued to do these things. He continued to box while he was president, even though he lost the sight in his left eye as a result of a punch from a military aid. He even hid the injury so he wouldn’t alarm the young man. This resolve to make his body continued through his entire life.

This was the man who led the famed Rough Riders, a man who gave 673 speeches and traveled over 20,000 miles in 1900 alone while campaigning for vice president. This is the man who became one of the most effective presidents ever to serve in any nation, and one greatly respected by other world leaders.

Herbert W. Armstrong related in a letter in 1960, “When U.S. President Woodrow Wilson was running for reelection in 1916, he had been sending the German kaiser several notes asking the kaiser to kindly stop torpedoing and sinking American ships. But there was nothing back of his notes to convince the kaiser he meant it. The German subs kept on sinking American ships until they finally forced U.S. entry into the First World War in April 1917.

“During the election campaign in 1916, I stood less than 10 feet from former President Theodore Roosevelt while he commented on Mr. Wilson’s many notes. This, almost word for word, is what he said: ‘If I were still president, I would have sent the kaiser a note telling him to stop sinking American ships—just one note!—and the kaiser would have known that I meant it! I was president for 7½ years. I did send the kaiser a note once. At that time a German battleship was steaming toward Manila Bay. I sent the kaiser a note. The German battleship did not stop. I quickly sent another note—but I didn’t send the second note to the kaiser. I sent it to Admiral Dewey, ordering the U.S. Navy to drive that German battleship back to Germany. The kaiser learned that I meant it!’”

Numerous other stories show that Roosevelt led not only the U.S., but was able to influence and persuade leaders all over the world. He never would have developed these tremendous leadership abilities if he hadn’t persevered.

Consider this comment from Roosevelt himself during a speech in Paris in 1910: “It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

If we wish to know victory, we must persevere. How determined are you to persevere past any obstacle?

Think on how Roosevelt reacted to an unexpected situation just before a speech.

On Oct. 14, 1912, Roosevelt was in Milwaukee for a rally. On the way to the event, just outside his hotel, a man suddenly raised a pistol and shot him in the chest. I think it’s safe to say that most of us would call off our speech at that point. Not Roosevelt. Not the Rough Rider. Not when he had a message to deliver. He persevered. With his shirt soaked in blood, he demanded that he be taken to the rally anyway and spoke for the next hour and a half, ignoring the pain, ignoring the blood, ignoring cries that he should go to a hospital for treatment. He had a message to deliver and he was going to deliver it with his whole heart and soul.

And you? How important are your goals to you? What would it take to stop you? Would it take bad weather? Would a hostile audience make you back down? If you had been shot that day, would you have persevered as he did?

Becoming a leader doesn’t happen in a flash; it takes personal development. It takes tremendous perseverance.

When Roosevelt died in 1919, the vice president said, “Death had to take him sleeping, for if Roosevelt had been awake, there would have been a fight.” He persevered to the last.

So must we! Grab on to this quality of perseverance. Let nothing stop you from pursuing the goals set before you. Allow qualities of leadership to develop in you through the power of perseverance so that no obstacle will overwhelm you. Overcome whatever prevents you from being the leader you know you should become. Exercise the power of perseverance.

For more on Theodore Roosevelt’s tenacity, watch “The Strenuous Life” on The Trumpet Daily.