The Fifth Element

Persistent means “constantly repeated; continued”.

Persistence is a major element of toughness and is also key to success within your academic, sport, and everyday lifestyle. In the book Toughness by Jay Bilas and in his interview with Mike Kryzewski, Mike defines persistence as “… your ability to keep going without giving up or giving in.” (Bilas, 119) Although Mike`s definition does not match the dictionary definition in the first paragraph he still does give a very good definition in his own words. An example of persistence I have is my own personal experience. Persistence was introduced to me after playing 3 basketball games 3 nights in row and on the 3<sup>rd</sup> night of basketball not having gon` to bed before 1 o`clock A.M. each morning of the three games, I was absolutely worn. This is when I was introduced to persistence because I had to use whatever energy I had left in order to keep playing and to not give in and to not give up. I had to maintain a structured and solid persistence.

We are able to conclude that persistence is a very important element within "the game" and and toughness based off of the interview between Jay Bilas and Mike Kryzewski.