One more example about persistence that paid off. Maybe you heard or read the news story about the young Canadian, Kyle MacDonald, who swapped a paper clip for a house. It started in summer of 2005, when he had the idea that it might be fun to use the Internet to play a swapping game. He decided to start with a little red paper clip and listed it for barter on his local craigslist web site. He promised that he'd visit anybody with whom he would trade.
The first swap was for a pen in the shape of a fish. After about ten swaps, Kyle had a generator and nobody very interested in going on playing. By this point it was November, and he was close to giving up.
This is where it gets interesting, from the perspective of persistence!
Instead of giving up, he decided to give it one more push, by starting a blog called oneredpaperclip.com. On the blog he said his goal was to keep trading up until he could get a house.
The blog went viral. Without 24 hours, it received 120,000 hits! The trades went on and on, the media got interested, and--jumping ahead to July 2006 he took possession of a three-bedroom house in the little town of Kipling, Saskatchewan. In front of it was a twelve-foot-tall red paper clip built for him by the town.
