Persevering in the face of disaster.

If there has been anything we have learned from our research on the experiences of "wannabe" entrepreneurs — and how they got their dreams to become realities — it is that success does not come without overcoming a "flood" of adversity.

John Mackey and his girlfriend Rene Lawson, were both college drop outs back in 1978, when they decided to go after their dream of finding a way to provide healthier, more wholesome foods for people to enjoy. They borrowed $45,000, from their family and a few friends, so they could start a small natural foods store.

Not lacking a sense of humor, they decided to call their store SaferWay. It was a deliberate slap at the Safeway grocery store chain, which, like most regular grocery stores at the time, sold products filled with chemicals, preservatives and other ingredients that are, by some people's reckoning, anything but safe for regular consumption.

This couple, like most entrepreneurs, had many challenges along the way. But this is a part of what makes the difference between an employee mindset vs. an entrepreneurial mindset.

An employee minded person, faced with a problem or obstacle only sees the difficulty and the trouble. An entrepreneur will take problems as challenges and keep on keeping on, until they find a solution and move forward towards success. This is one reason why winners win, and losers make excuses for giving up.

The challenges that John and Rene encountered are too many to detail. But, there was one major issue they had to face which will show how their perseverance drove their success.

Two years after startup and many challenges later, John and Rene partnered up with Craig Weller and Mark Skiles, who had a health foods store called Clarksville Natural Grocery. They merged SaferWay in with Natural Grocery, and opened the first original Whole Foods Market in Austin, Texas in September 1980.

It was less than a year later, on Memorial Day in 1981, that the largest flood in more than 70 years damaged much of the city of Austin. The ravaging flood waters wiped out the vast majority of the store's inventory and equipment. Their losses ended up being more than $400,000. In today's dollars that would be close to around $1.5 Million — without insurance! Do you need any better reason than that to cut your losses, go home and get a job where someone else takes the risk and deals with the losses?

Well, the devastation was absolutely not the end for John and his team of natural food lovers. John and his team gathered their people around and immediately made plans to rebuild and recover from the flood. They were blessed to have many of their loyal customers, who did not want to see Whole Foods Market go away, donate time and service. They all pitched in together to repair and clean up the devastation. Even vendors and investors came and gave their assistance to help the new market recover and survive. Miraculously, the store was able to reopen in less than a month after the flood.

Today, Whole Foods Markets, which became the first official Nationally Certified Organic Grocer, has opened up more than 280 locations around the USA, Canada and Great Britain. They have more than 54,000 employees, and their overall revenue is more than $8.3 Billion, with annual net income of $118 Million and total assets adding up to $3.78 Billion.

And so the story goes, when an entrepreneur and his team choose to persist and persevere, they can still succeed even when facing a flood of challenges and difficulties.

Solid Gold Performance...

It starts with an absolute conviction that you can deliver something of value to the world. John and Rene took this conviction and made a life-long commitment, to do whatever it takes, to make that vision come true.

How Did Whole Foods Become a Gold Mine? By Superior:

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"Business is simple. Management's job is to take care of employees. The employees' job is to take care of the customers. Happy customers take care of the shareholders. It's a virtuous circle." ~ John Mackey