Insist to Persist with Ashton Chapman

Insist to Persist with Ashton Chapman

(Show notes written by Ashton)

The best advice I can give anyone who struggles with anything in life comes directly from my favorite underdog movie Rocky: “life’s not about how hard of a hit you can give - it’s about how many you can take, and still keep moving forward.” And as you keep moving forward, remember these words.

To begin, the (re)title of this interview is to Insist to Persist. Now I say retitle because it was titled Perseverance and Persistence, but during my interview with the awesome Spencer Jones, we stumbled on the idea of how to persist and part of that is being insistent with no other option but to persist. Therefore, when you want to achieve anything in life you must be insistent to chase your desires.

Let’s continue with the idea of perseverance in mind. As you know, perseverance is the embodiment of moving forward regardless of the challenges you may face. In a way, perseverance and insistence go hand-in-hand; one cannot preserver without insisting to do so. So here’s my repetitive phrase to reinforce this magical concept of success: INSIST TO PERSIST!

How have I taken my own advice to insist to persist? Better yet, how have I overcome personal problems in my life through perseverance? 2019 has been nothing but problems for myself and my family. As much as I wish I can say we have dealt with minor problems, everything we have experienced has been major. Allow me to give you the three biggest problems we have faced this year and how we have either overcome the problem or how we are currently dealing with the problem. I’ll start with the least major problem of the three and work my way up to the biggest problem we currently face.

This past June of 2019 my wife’s practice, who is a podiatrist by the way, was hit hard with randomware. What I have learned about randsomware is it’s a form of a computer virus administered by a hacker who essentially encrypts important computer files and holds the files for a hefty randsom. Unfortunately, the files held for randsom were very important to the practice and could not be decrypted, so my wife had no other option but to pay the randsom, receive the files, and move on. As you can imagine having paid the randsom was not only a financial burden on the practice, but on our family as well. The single most important lesson we learned from this experience is SUPPORT IS EVERYTHING. Luckily, during this time of financial stress we had the most amazing support system we could ask for. We endured and persevered because we remembered what good we had and continue to have today. Remembering and reflecting on the good around you is one key to surpassing any hardship you may face.

Continuing with the second major problem we faced this year in 2019 and how we dealt/deal with it is one we must continue to face today. Earlier this year my wife was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis or MS for short. MS is basically an attack on the nervous system that affects minor and major motor skills. Thankfully my wife is currently receiving treatment to control her MS, but this degenerative disease has the potential to worsen if left unchecked. However, we continue to remain optimistic my wife’s MS will remain controlled and optimism, well optimism is contagious. To persevere through something that seems depressing and hopeless requires optimism that stems from your “why” or driving force in your life. What drives you to pursue your passions, your desires, your hopes, your dreams? For myself and my wife it’s our daughter. Our daughter is our “why” for everything and remembering your “why” is the ultimate factor to insist to persist. Our daughter is really getting us through our greatest problem/tragedy of 2019.

The last major problem we faced this year and continue to face today is one that would typically deter anyone from pursing life to the fullest. This past July of 2019 my twenty-four year old brother-in-law, Joshua Eargle, tragically passed away. This has no doubt been the most difficult event we have faced in our lives. Our lives are shattered and hearts are broken beyond comprehension. However, when loss strikes you can either remain where you are or push even harder than before knowing what you had and what is to come. For us, we definitely had our time to sob in our own pool of disbelief, but if we remained in that state where would it get us? Absolutely nowhere. So, keeping our daughter in mind and knowing we had no option but to persist, we got back up after that gut punch and face life head on.

My brother-in-law Joshua was a wonderful man. After Joshua’s passing we found out all of the amazing things Joshua did and everyone he inspired. Joshua embodied the meaning of perseverance and persistence, because he never let anything get in his path to accomplish what he set out to accomplish. The best thing we are doing today to honor Joshua is raising money to create a scholarship at his undergraduate school, Presbyterian College in South Carolina. It’s our hope that this scholarship fund will help and inspire a future student to chase his or her dreams, because Joshua would want to help. If you would like to donate to this scholarship to help someone else, you may follow the link in this article below or donate directly to the college.

Donate online:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/joshua-eargle-memorial-scholarship-fund?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=p_lico%2Bupdate

Donate directly to the school:

Presbyterian College

503 South Broad Street

Clinton, SC 29325

Memo: Joshua Eargle Memorial Scholarship

Watch our interview Below!