Patience

The Bit Before the First Bit.

The First Bit; I Want Patience… right NOW!

I recently spoke with a budding young Professional Speaker (mid 20′s) who is yet to do her first paid gig. She came to see me for a little mentoring and guidance and we had a (mostly) productive hour or so. In the course of our chat she informed me that she wanted to be – “where you are now (you being me) – in eighteen months” and that she was “prepared to do whatever it takes”. By using the words “where you are” she meant that she wanted to be delivering as many presentations as I do (about one hundred per year) and to be generating a similar level of annual income.

Here’s part of our conversation (I’m in black):

“Are you really prepared to do whatever it takes to get there?”
“Absolutely, I’m totally committed”
“What if it takes more time?”
“Aaah…”
“What if it takes ten years… are you still prepared to do whatever it takes – for ten years?”
(Silent pause and shifting in seat)
“I did my first paid speaking gig in 1987, so I’ve been working hard to become the best speaker I can be for twenty two years and I still have plenty to learn.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
“Oh.”
“Okay, just for this conversation and for the sake of being realistic and practical, let’s exclude luck or unexpected opportunities for the moment (ones that might catapult her to speaking stardom). For now, let’s assume that you’ll get there by hard work just like the vast majority of successful speakers have done. And by hard work I’m talking about things like consciously developing your speaking skills, studying other speakers, doing freebies, marketing yourself, taking chances, developing and refining your content, building your knowledge base, dealing with rejection and persevering when most would give up. So, based purely on hard work, discipline, a good plan and the right attitude – and assuming that you have a similar level of talent to me – if you work twice as hard as I did (and keep in mind that I worked extremely hard) it might take you eleven years (half the time it has taken me) to get to the point that I’m at now with my speaking career. What do you think of that?”
“Eleven years… wow, I don’t know if I could….er..”
“But you said you’d do whatever it takes… what if it takes time?”
“I can’t wait that long.”
“And that’s your problem; you want the results without the work.”
(more silence… and a little attitude)
“Impatience and excellence don’t go hand in hand, so if you’re in a hurry to be a world-class speaker, you may want to consider another career path. By the way, the question is not – can you put in eleven (or twenty) years of hard work – the question is, will you?”

Results Without the Work

The truth is that for the vast majority of us, success is the result of many ingredients, one of the most important being, time. It is my experience that many people are simply not prepared to do what it takes to succeed. Mostly they have the ability (at least to produce better results than they are right now), but apparently they don’t have the time or the commitment. We see this being played out in business, in weight-loss, in sport, in marriage, in writing a book, in gaining a qualification, in becoming a great professional speaker, in developing a successful blog, in… life.

Impatient Fat People

Here in the Land Down Under we fatties spend around $2,000,000 every day on weight-loss crap because we want to lose weight but we don’t want to sweat, hurt, sacrifice or…. wait. We definitely don’t wanna wait. And we all know how effective those rapid weight-loss products prove to be over the long term don’t we? If only I could get my hands on some of those supa-mega-fat-blaster 4,000 pills – then – I’d never have to work out again. Have you seen the chick in the Ad? Awesome!!

“She’s like… totally… ripped.”

And if I had the time and patience, I would also explore the notion of those ‘amazing’ get-rich-quick schemes but I’m guessin’ that by now, you get my point.

More Self-Sabotage

Over the years I have worked with many people who have allowed their impatience to sabotage their dreams and goals. They wanted instant gratification. The rewards with out the effort. The destination minus the journey. Some of them wanted to undo thirty years of unhealthy behaviours, choices and outcomes in three or four weeks and when I gave them a little snapshot of reality – what was really required to get in shape and stay that way – they would go in search of someone who would tell them what they wanted to hear; someone who might provide a quick-fix. I am yet to meet the person who has found a quick-fix that has (1) proven to be successful and valuable over the long term (2) didn’t have some significant negative consequence down the track. If not sooner.

A Worthwhile Investment

The very thing that impatient people try to avoid – investing considerable time and energy into the pursuit of their dream – is the exact thing that could have set them up for success over their lifespan had they been prepared to make the effort. The journey (the one they do their best to avoid) and all of it’s components – pain, fear, discomfort, mistakes, criticism, success, joy, fun, laughs – is where we learn, grow, adapt and develop the skills, strength, resilience and the winning mindset necessary to consistently produce great results over the long term.

The Million Dollar Question…

Who do you think is more likely to hold on to their money and possibly turn it into much more; (1) the person who has earned a million dollars through developing their own business or (2) the person who has just been given a million dollars? After all, they both have a million dollars so they’re both in the same situation right? Wrong. One knows how to create and grow wealth, the other doesn’t. Why doesn’t she? Because she by-passed the ‘learning how to make money’ part of the journey and went straight to the ‘having money’ part. As a result, she doesn’t have the skills, experience, understanding, knowledge or mindset to effectively manage or grow her considerable windfall.

The Blog; A Lesson in Patience

When Johnnie (my business partner and webmaster extraordinaire) and I started this blog two and a half years ago, our goal was to create one of the best online personal development resources in the world. And to make it free. Forever. Over the last two and half years, I have written around seven hundred articles exclusively for my readers. That is, you. I do not dish up recycled articles that I have written for mags; everything for this site is original and everything is written starting with a blank page. I would guesstimate that on average I spend somewhere around five hours writing each post (that includes a little planning and research). I often spend much longer. You don’t need to be a genius to figure out that I have spent somewhere around 3,500 hours writing since November 2006 – that’s the equivalent of writing non-stop, twenty fours hours per day, for five months. And that doesn’t include all the other time I have spent developing the blog. Am I extremely talented? No, I’m extremely patient. I’m simply prepared to do what most would-be bloggers won’t do; persevere.

If you are an impatient person my advice to you is…. change. For your sake, I hope that you don’t let impatience stand in the way of your potential, your passion or your possibilities.

Enjoy your day.
 

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