A poor boy named Harlan with only a sixth-grade education wouldn't have made anyone's list of the most likely to succeed. His first major success came at the age of 39, when he was able to come up with the financing to open a small-town gas station and restaurant.

He did pretty well, but with the onset of World War II, Harlan's once-solid customer base left the small town to enlist in the military or take factory jobs in the city. He managed to hold on until a new interstate highway eliminated his drive-by trade. Then, after nearly 30 years in business, Harlan was forced to sell his business to pay off his debts.

Almost broke and approaching age 70, Harlan could have walked away from his dreams. Instead, he hit the road, offering to share his pressure-cooking techniques with other restaurant owners if they'd agree to become his franchises. He sold only five in the first two years, but he stuck it out.

Four years later, Col. Sanders had sold more than 600 Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises. And by the time Harlan Sanders died at age 90 in 1980, KFC was a worldwide brand. Today, KFC is the world's second-largest restaurant chain (measured by sales) after McDonald's, with thousands of stores around the world.

Persistence is one of the traits I look for in hiring any new employee, especially a sales rep. There is no substitute.

I remember when I was first starting out as an envelope salesman and asked an experienced colleague I respected how many calls he would make on a prospect before giving up. He said, "It depends on which one of us dies first."

When giving up is not an option, you have to find ways to maintain your motivation. Give yourself a pep talk, and then roll up your sleeves and look for the next reasonable steps you need to take. Do you need more education? Do you need more staff? Do you need to tweak your idea to make it more attractive to potential clients? Do you need to channel your efforts in a completely different direction?

Bob Nelson, author of "1001 Ways to Take Initiative at Work," says it's best to focus on what you can accomplish rather than on what you can't. This will help you stay positive. Use your energy to work toward a goal, rather than wasting it butting up against an obstacle, he suggests.

If you identify a roadblock to your goal, develop a plan to address whatever is in your way. Be patient; remember Col. Sanders' example. Success may be elusive at first, but give it time.

Some of Ross' other pointers include finding ways to make it easy, even desirable, for your colleagues to say yes to your requests. When you give co-workers options, they should be able to choose how they can best help you.

Be assertive, but not aggressive. Always be polite, but don't give up on your direction in order to be liked. If you believe in what you are doing, you need to be able to stand firm when naysayers try to shoot down your plans.

A prime example of shooting down plans came when the early space explorers were trying to send rockets up into the great unknown. One of America's space pioneers was a physicist named Robert Goddard. His story is one of unwavering persistence in the face of "learned" skepticism.

Professor Goddard helped launch the Space Age by experimenting with a 10-foot rocket in a New England cabbage field. His belief in rocketry as a viable technology for flight was met with great cynicism. Even The New York Times dismissed his plans in a 1920 editorial.

Yet Goddard persevered until he proved his firm belief that rocket engines can create thrust in a vacuum. Two of his 214 patented inventions -- a multistage rocket and a liquid-fuel rocket (both patented in 1914) -- were important milestones toward spaceflight.

The theory was proved 40 years later by other space pioneers who did indeed reach extreme altitudes. Years after his death, at the dawn of the Space Age, Goddard came to be recognized as the founding father of modern rocketry.

Unless you are Robert Goddard, persistence is not rocket science. If you are willing to stick with it, you can take your ideas to the moon!

Mackay's Moral: When you feel like giving up, remember why you held on for so long in the first place.

Four psychiatrists shared a hotel suite at a convention. Talking one night, one of them said, "You know, people are always telling us their troubles, but we have no one to talk to about our problems."

Another psychiatrist agreed. "Let's tell each other our biggest problems and see if that makes us feel better. I'll start. I confess that sometimes I want to laugh at my patients for being so naive."

The second one said, "My problem is that I'm usually drunk when I see my patients, and half the time I can't follow what they're saying, so I just nod and say, 'Go on.'"

The third psychiatrist admitted, "I overcharge my patients so I can afford my big house, my fancy car and my vices."

The last one said, "My biggest problem is that I can't keep a secret."

And who wouldn't be tempted to share those juicy tidbits? Well, if you want to be successful, the wisest action would be to forget you ever heard them, and never repeat one syllable of those confessions. But we live in an imperfect world where gossip is often the only form of conversation that some people seem able to conduct.

Gossip has replaced news in many media. It's big business. Outlets like TMZ and celebrity gossip programs get huge ratings. Social media has made the truth a rare commodity, as people can share harmful gossip and rumors in an instant from anywhere in the world. And the truth gets lost in the whirlwind.

The gossip business may be red-hot, but office gossip is mostly bad for business. The workplace should be a no-gossip zone. But when it is not, consequences include lost productivity and wasted time, erosion of trust and morale, damaged reputations, dissension among employees and even the loss of good employees who leave companies due to unhealthy work environments.

Gossip and rumors have been part of the workplace culture since ancient Egypt. Although a certain amount of personal chitchat goes on in any workplace, gossiping employees can erode trust among co-workers and infect a team with hostility.

Before rumors gain a foothold in your organization, take some proactive steps.

Make sure your general company communications are efficient and as complete as possible. Employees will believe rumors if they don't have access to facts. Even in tough times, give your people as much information as you can so they can rely on solid data, not half-truths. If you can't share news, explain why, so you don't appear to be hiding anything.

Always confront rumors directly. If you catch wind of an untrue rumor, address it promptly. Go to the source and set him or her straight, explaining the damage that false information can cause. Clear up any confusion with your entire workforce right away. They may think twice about spreading or believing rumors if they know you're ready to step in.

Set the right example. Don't listen to gossip that comes your way. Either correct any misinformation immediately, or explain that you're not interested in rumors. Don't pass along any unsubstantiated stories yourself. Let the gossip stop with you. If people persist in spreading rumors, suggest that they need more work to do.

Sometimes the harm that gossip inflicts is irrevocable. It is critical to nip it in the bud.

Perhaps you are familiar with this Hasidic folktale: For months, a man slandered the rabbi of his village. When the High Holy Days approached, the man realized the enormous evil he had committed and, overcome with remorse, sought out the rabbi and begged for forgiveness.

The rabbi told the man he would forgive him on one condition: that he go back to his house, cut up a feather pillow, scatter the feathers to the wind and then return. The man raced home, followed the rabbi's instructions and returned to the rabbi's residence.

"Am I forgiven now?" he asked.

"One more thing," the rabbi answered. "Now I want you to go out and gather up all the feathers."

"But that's impossible," the man said. "They are scattered everywhere."

"Precisely," said the rabbi. "And though you truly wish to correct the evil you have done, it's just as impossible to repair the damage done by your words as it is to recover the feathers."

Mackay's Moral: People who gossip are usually caught in their own mouth traps.

There's an old saying that goes: If you can dream it, you can achieve it. That's a good start, but I think that statement needs a qualifier. I would add a few words: If you can dream it, you can achieve it if you are truly determined.

Visualization is an important strategy for accomplishing dreams large or small. I believe it is an essential tool for maximizing your potential. But it needs to be workable.

For example, I can imagine myself competing in the Ryder Cup, the biennial men's golf competition between teams from Europe and the United States. I'm a pretty fair golfer, and I would love to represent America in winning style. Sadly, even though I was a competitive golfer back in high school and college, my glory days are long over. So I will be content to watch the competition and cheer on my countrymen.

And therein is the difference between fantasy and visualization.

I have used visualization throughout my life as a means of seeing my dreams realized. In business, I saw myself running a factory even though I had modest means and little experience. But I was willing to work myself to exhaustion and slog through the trenches to achieve my goal.

Part of the reason my visualization was effective was that I also foresaw some of the problems that I would encounter, which were abundant at the beginning. Foremost in my mind was how to work through challenges and still come out on top. I imagined what could go wrong, and how I could take charge of the situation.

I tried to prepare for every possible hurdle, because wrestling with a problem isn't always the best way to generate a creative solution. Step back and quietly visualize the answer you're looking for. These are the steps I follow:

-- Focus on what you want. This sounds easy, but keeping your mind free of obstacles and distractions can be difficult. Try to clear your thoughts of everything but the outcome you need. Don't fight negative thoughts -- just let them flow out of your brain so you can concentrate on the positive.

-- Make a movie in your mind. We tend to see things in pictures more strongly than we can visualize abstract concepts like numbers and theories. Think of your problem in visual terms and try looking at it and your solutions from different angles. Bring your senses into play: Imagine what your idea would feel like, sound like or even smell like.

-- Take your time. The solution may not come all at once. Give yourself time to get used to the process so you're not forcing ideas too hard. With practice, you'll learn how to quickly relax your mind and let it explore problems and situations without effort.

"Losers visualize the penalties of failure. Winners visualize the rewards of success," says sports psychologist Rob Gilbert.

Two-time Olympic pentathlete Marilyn King provides a very moving example of how powerful the conscious use of picturing what you want can be.

When King was preparing for the 1980 Olympic trials, she suffered a severe back injury and was confined to bed just months before the trials. She was determined not to let this injury keep her from performing, so she spent her time doing nothing but watching films of the best performers in the pentathlon events and visualizing herself going through the same events.

Amazingly, she placed second at the Olympic trials despite her lack of physical preparation. She credited her psychological state, not her physical condition, which resulted in her victory. She said, "If you can't imagine it, you can't ever do it. In my experience the image always precedes the reality."

I know several real estate developers. They have amazing powers of visualization. They can look at a piece of property and see skyscrapers, apartment buildings, schools and a host of other construction projects. They can see the placement of the roads, the style of the streetlamps, and the people who will populate the newly built space.

They can also see the issues they will face with city planners, construction delays and environmental assessments. But they are undaunted, because they have seen all this in their mind's eye. And they know that they can make it work.

As Thomas Edison said, "Good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation." I'll take his word for it -- I suspect Edison's power of visualization was immense.

Mackay's Moral: Seeing is believing -- if you believe in yourself.