Think about what you would do if some natural disaster just flattened your whole business. We’re talking burying everything under a pile of rubble. Would you instantly decide to rebuild? Or would you say to yourself that this was some kind of cosmic message that it was time to hang it up?

I’ll bet if you are honest with yourself and in light of the struggling economy of the last few years, there would be a lot of pressure to just end it. But that’s just not something that David Sun of Sunco even considered when a massive snowstorm caved in the roof and flattened his cabinet manufacturing plant in February 2011. He immediately set about rebuilding, and today he presides over a brand new 150,000-square-foot Eastman St. Woodworks facility on the site of the demolished building. The new plant boasts state of the art equipment and a lot of really loyal employees who stuck with his efforts to give them back their jobs.

How we deal with setbacks and failure – both from natural causes and of our own making – says a lot about us as people. There are very few true overnight successes. Most of the people who make it in any field or endeavor do so because they surmounted many obstacles. If David Sun can forge ahead after the roof caves in, what can you do if you really are committed to succeed?