43. Leveraging Patience

God, give me patience, but give it to me now. I love that joke of a prayer. My mom has always told me that at times, and I guess it's because I'm not that patient of a person by my nature. I'm going to ask for your entertaining the concept that I'm going to share with you something that I'm working so hard on. I've gotten better at it, and it's so difficult. And it's very difficult for entrepreneurs or people who get excited about things and see possibility, people who want to make the world a better place, people who want to do exciting things, would get excited about these things. And then this thing called impatient sets in. Where is it coming? When is it coming? Why isn't it here yet? I did all my stuff. I mapped out my plan. I did all the homework I'm supposed to. I listened to the podcast by so and so. I did this dude or this gal's course. I've done what I'm supposed to do. Damn it, where is it? And a lot of this impatience reflects a little bit of perhaps immaturity, like a child pounding their fist or throwing a tantrum if they don't get what they want.

But very often it reflects simply a lack of understanding that our minds work very quickly and our minds can see things and envision things of what could be. I think most people can envision the concept, at least the idea of world peace. It's not that difficult. People not hitting each other and beating each other up and shaking hands and saying nice things to each other. It's not that difficult to imagine, but making it happen takes work. However you view the world, whether you believe there's divine forces at play or not, biologically, what we've learned from science is, things are made of energy and they comprise solid, liquid and gas. These things don't necessarily change quickly and people don't change quickly. Even though our body cells change, it takes a while for things to happen. It takes a while for a child to go from a baby into an adult. So many things that are great require patience and they require an ongoing commitment. I encourage you to look in the areas where you're impatient and to see if it's serving you or not. Now, to be really clear here, there are certain areas where it should serve you to be impatient.

If somebody is mean to you, abusive with you, if you're in a job situation that just is horrible, being impatient can be a very good thing. If there's an emergency situation, you need to get out of the house, being impatient is a good thing. This is not saying that patience is always the answer, but very often it takes a lot more time for things to manifest or happen or be made real in the material world than it does in our mind and in our brains. If you talk to anybody who's grown a business and let's say been in business at least five years, or if they've written a book, or if they've launched a product, just about always they'll tell you it took longer than I thought. People joke about this all the time. We're going to get an addition to our house and the contractor says it'll take two months and it tends up taking four months. Some of that might be just built in, but a lot of times, things just take longer, especially if we're committed to them being done right and done well. Just something to keep an eye on. Impatience, where does it serve you?

In what areas is it helping you? Whether it is as a parent watching your children grow, whether it is with your boss or your employees. Patience, where does that serve you? Where does it serve you better in long term relationships to perhaps be more patient with people and take the time and listen, to have the patience to actually listen to people and hear what they're saying, rather than be responding before they do things. Again, I am so guilty of so many of these things, so please don't take this as me preaching to you. I'll be listening to this myself and making sure I keep coming back to this, because it's something I struggle with. And again, it's a natural, almost curse for the person that can imagine or envision things being better to then become impatient. But one of my favorite quotes, it's a Deepak Choper quote, is that infinite patience creates immediate results. What that means, if you're just a really patient person, things happen a lot quicker than you think they would. The expectation very often is what kills us. The expectation that things are supposed to happen at a certain pace, whether it's love relationships or raising kids or getting the kids to finally brush their teeth without you asking them whatever it is.

The expectation is what often makes things so difficult. But if the expectation is things will happen as they happen, and when they're ready, they're ready, they'll unfold. There's a natural rhythm and pace to things, then it becomes a lot easier to go through life day in and day out. And for a lot of people, even the concept of anxiety, an entire diagnosis in psychology, where people take pills to reduce this. And this is not in any way to put you down. If you're taking pills for anxiety, man, I feel for you, I hope for you, I'm praying for you. But a lot of this sometimes is we just have this expectation that it's supposed to happen so fast. And when it's not happening so fast, we get so nervous. And if it's not, we got to do something. Instead of just saying, Things take a while. So I hope this serves you. Take your time, relax, enjoy the ride. As Ben Wilder says, Don't take things so seriously or take life so seriously, you'll never make it out alive. Hope this serves you. As always, look forward to helping you make more money in less time.

Do what you do best so you can enjoy a more abundant and happy friendship, family, loved ones, and everything else in your life. Thank you.