We all know the admonition immortalized by Tom Hanks' character, Jimmy Dugan, in the 1992 film A League of Their Own. But there's another great scene I'd like to point to as we approach this year's World Series.

Dottie, his team leader, is struggling and decides to quietly leave the team. Jimmy catches her and tries to convince her to stay:

Jimmy: “…Sneaking out like this, quitting, you'll regret it for the rest of your life.”

Dottie: “It just got too hard.”

Jimmy: “It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard… is what makes it great.”

You ever wanted to sneak out because it got too hard? It's funny about sneaking away, though. There's something inside you that knows you're better than that; you try to sneak out before anyone can talk you out of it.

I've seen struggling agents do it. They simply disappear. And if you were to catch them, as Jimmy did Dottie, they'd tell you it got too hard. And it frustrates me.

Tell me you're in over your head. Tell me you don't have the smarts to pull it off. But don't tell me it got too hard. If your child pulled that, you'd tell them to “stop being such a cry baby and get back out there!”

It amazes me when people are disturbed by the tough days. They always talk about them like they didn't see them coming. How is that? Anything of significance is going to be difficult. And working in this industry at this time is creating something of significance.

We should expect tough days.

We teach our sales teams, “It's going to suck. It's supposed to suck. It's called work.” And work, by definition, is not easy. Sometimes your goal for today is simply to suck less than yesterday. Setting a high bar, aren't we?

We continue to hold to this mythical notion that successful people don't have to work hard; that they're successful because their chosen path “just came easy” for them. Please hear me out on this: Their passion for what they do may keep them interested, but the new wears off of everything pretty quickly in life. And when the new wears off, they had a choice to make.

So do you. What will you choose? I hope you'll choose to stay and that you'll do it fully expecting more tough days. And when they come, celebrate them. Don't whine about them. Remember, there's no crying in baseball.