If the ingredient of patience is missing in your recipe or makeup, you cannot build something enduring. If you do not wait to make potential actual through consistency and make innovation of creativity through the painful processes of execution, you will not win. If you do not have it, how do you add it? You can either patiently earn it for yourself or you use synergy through collaboration. Either way, you have a huge price to pay because patience is hard and so, it is not commonplace.
Gary Vaynerchuk, while sharing thoughts about the configuration of an entrepreneur for success emphasised the essential need for patience. The ability to wait through the process of manifesting an idea and making the invisible things you have envisioned visible is not a walk in the park. It is the investment of your life and the development of mental toughness. Nature first breaks a man before it makes him. This is not an all comers’ position.
I have stated many times that patience is a character we imbibe in our journey to earn wisdom and once we get exposed to the value of wisdom, we do not cease from the thirst for it. The moment we have the hunger for a specific thing installed in our psyche, we can only constantly update the thirst program. If we stay hungry and not lose the ability, we can only stay in that milieu where we constantly seek productivity. Doing requires that you pay attention, and that you invest other resources to ensure sustainability.
When we ask for the virtue of patience, we indirectly thirst for trials and such trials that bring us in constant shave with delays, denials, and outright rejections. During these moments, we experience much pain; such pain that takes us through gut-wrenching spams that threaten the very virtues we seek to manifest. It is trying because it is tough.
Oftentimes we do not bargain for the things that we encounter. Did Moses, leading the Israelites to Canaan land through the way of a Red Sea he did not cross while going to Egypt bargain for that encounter? A situation which made an octogenarian weep because he was at the end of his wits? At the bank of the Red Sea Moses wept, after all the miraculous feats of the plagues and the multiplied sufferings of the Israelites from the time he, Moses and Aaron met Pharaoh, and all the pains that accompanied, all of which tried the people, it must have been taxing on all parties concerned.
Did Abraham bargain to wait for over 25 years to receive a seed that was promised him? What did he learn during the waiting period? And what is learning?
Learning is a practical process of grinding either mentally, physically or a mix of both.
I was having a conversation with a friend on the journey to innovation from creativity and ideation and he mentioned that he was learning something, and I acquiesced but quickly added that he was only in the process of truly learning, and that until he applies what he was hearing through processing, mind enlightenment and implementation to cause a positive change in behaviour, learning does not happen. This process requires patience.
Doesn't waiting look like frustration? Does not the building of patience have something to do with managing the pains that arise from many disappointments? Who goes on a journey to win asks to encounter tedious moments? Who starts a walk to mental and financial freedom thinks of making a pact with enervating moments? Who signs for comfort but do not envisage a marriage to such discomfort that will threaten the very value he tries to bring to the fore?
Patience is an ingredient of good character. The beauty of character, which is victory over present difficulties of life and instantly gratifying rewards, is that the user of the values or the one who practices it goes through the laboratory of good success. This place of preparation is not a walk in the park. It is where the orange and sugarcane are squeezed to extract sweet juice.
In whatever endeavour or circumstance we find ourselves, whether in our personal walk, or in our dealings with others, whether as partners in a corporate endeavour or in a production process or other initiative, whether working with self or with others, it does require that we contend with unforeseen forces at defining points and unless we pause, use keener insights than we had previously used, engage more thorough observation, and navigate with the gut and data, we will not make a headway.
This process I just described is a defining one and there are usually such defining moments in any enterprise we commit to. At these moments, many people give up on us, many friends walk away, others are at the end of their tether, but only you, the visionary, has to make sure that you do not give up on yourself. And even when you have held on with tenacity and have succeeded, you are still going to learn to carry others who may not be as strong as you are, along.
This is an extension of the character of patience. You tolerate others. If you are a leader, you actually work for the people you lead. This part is the hard one. Leadership is visionary thinking. The leader's mentality is one that wears the hat of problem solving. It is a lifestyle, and a leader must not only influence the followers, but he must also infect them with this bug by constantly taking the lead at grinding.
When the leader is doing this, he is working for others to see. And mind you, he is not without mistakes. With mistakes wisdom is gathered and character is built. Meaning is forged in the factory of the psyche. Life is worthy of celebration and living, not because it is without pain, but because the meaning of pain as leading to gain is being understood.
Understanding is in the configuration of the virtue of patience. Through use, we understand. When we are in the execution process, not the ideation process, we live with practical application in a specific endeavour or environment. We work with people, we know the human nature more, we understand human rationalities and irrationalities, we learn through engagement, and we see with the lens of experience.
Then we understand because we are able to repeat processes. This earns us know-how. We understand the workings of something. We gain what is referred to as experiential knowledge. With this, our psyche is wired to know beyond letters. We become one with the initiative or concept in question.
Like we know, "All good things take time"; this is as true as it sounds. In the words of Chris Myers, "One thing I’m sure of in this world is that nothing of value comes easily. In fact, anything of value takes time, whether it’s a matter of developing a skill, building a relationship, or launching a business initiative.”
When we think of the position we take on the subject of agility and speed of innovation in the present parlance, we often celebrate speed and fail to take into cognizance the value of due process. If we undermine due process, agile and speed can show up in impatience and desperation. This defeats the value of enduring character.
When we follow due processes passionately, we get wired into uncommon values that become a part of us. Our thoughts, words, actions, habits, and character take the form of specific virtues. We patiently follow. We patiently observe. We patiently dispense and we get to that unassailable point where we are able to clearly determine the things that truly matter to us.
I usually try to ask people the question: What are the things that truly matter to you? And 9 times out of 10, people are taken aback when I do because truth be told, not a lot of people spend time to self-engage, use self-awareness, and deliberately walk towards the actualization of that thing which they have discovered and become used to through development.
Can you imagine what the following names have invested their lives on for which the world knows them: Aliko Dangote, Femi Otedola, Warren Buffet, Larry Ellison, Bob Proctor, Denzel Washington, and a host of others. Find out the only game they play. You may have an idea of what truly matters.
How long has it taken each of these men on their journey?
What patience do trees use after they lose all their leaves at the end of a season? How do they coast through the drought year in and year out? Because of their immobile nature, we do not seek to understand that they exhibit the virtue of endurance which no man or animal can fund or support. An unseen intelligence is responsible for this.
The journey of life is a lifelong one. Whatever we engage in in life is one that will shape our lives and will thus become our lifestyle. Should building a lifestyle not become something that we become? Patience looks like sticking to a path of life long enough till we become one with that path. We focus on it till it becomes the focus. We focus on ourselves long enough till we become the focus in our field of endeavour. This takes a lifetime.
