John Maddox
They say that “Good things come to those who wait,” but is it true?
Since shifting my focus from short term profit to a long term, multi-faceted game plan, I often find myself wondering if it’s worth it. What I’m doing makes sense assuming everything goes as planned, but that doesn’t make it easier to be patient.
So in an attempt to both pacify my own impatience, and hopefully share a few things I’ve learned in the last 18 months of being patient, let’s dive into a few reasons patience is worth it in entrepreneurship.
Meeting People of Influence
While I personally hate “who you know” being such a factor of success, it’s amazing what doors open when you take the time to build relationships with people of influence. In the past, I used sheer aggression in marketing and value proposition to build my companies.
Did that work? It sure did, but looking back I realized that the amount of time and energy spent should have been split in direct business development and relationship building.
This go around, instead of being consumed with trying to convince everyone my logic is the greatest thing since sliced bread, I’m taking the time to prove myself on a much smaller scale. This is leading to relationships with people who are opening doors that will ultimately make my long term objectives easier to attain.
As an added bonus, when I started to diversify my relationships, it became easier to find people who thought my logic was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Finding Better Ways To Communicate
As an entrepreneur, one of the biggest sources of frustration is not being able to convince everyone your idea is a good one. Very often that is because it’s hard to compact years of planning into 5 minutes of conversation and actually relay the big picture.
Convincing people who don’t matter in the big picture is easy. The ones that can make or break you is hard. If you can’t paint the picture quickly you’ll get shut down in less than 30 seconds.
Once you get over the slap to your confidence and accept that you can’t convince everyone, it becomes a worthwhile challenge to figure out new ways to be a communications artist. Not only does this have short term value in achieving your goal, being able to communicate effectively to different personality types is a priceless skill in leadership.
Learning To Suppress Ego
Being successful in a variety of areas makes you confident. While confidence is an extremely essential aspect of success, learning when to be humble is a hard but worthwhile.
There is always someone bigger and better than you. The quicker you learn that reality the quicker you will be able to connect and learn from them. This is not to say you should become a “yes man” and never challenge their opinion.
Learning to shut up and listen enables you to learn faster and also helps build a relationship. When others recognize you respect their opinion and experience, they are much more likely to help you in return. This applies to people of influence, your team, and potential partners or customers.
Building An Even Better Mousetrap
Looking back on the plan I’ve been working on for over 2 years now, the way it’s grown is remarkable. Different components of it are being implemented all over the world by other people, which just gives me more confidence that my logic is correct.
As pieces of the puzzle are confirmed, it makes it that much easier to convince those who I’ve been building relationships with that the macro vision being built is worthwhile. While it would be extremely satisfying to say it was my idea first, history proves that being the first to market doesn’t always mean you win.
It’s often those who build a slightly better version of the proverbial mousetrap who win.
So Is Patience Worth It?
As much as it pains me to say it, I think being patient will be worth it.
Spending time building relationships, learning to communicate better, and seeing what works and what doesn’t, enables you to put together a better mousetrap without having to convince everyone that it’s a good idea. Now you just have to convince them it’s a better version.
This leads back to learning to suppress your ego.
As an entrepreneur it’s extremely hard to not strive to be the man on top as quickly as possible. It’s the way we are wired and what separates us from those happy with the status quo and no drive to challenge it.
So I guess time will tell if patience will turn out to be a virtue. But I can say it has made me a better man. It has caused me to build relationships with people who will help turn my dream into reality, exposed my flaws and strengths, and given insight into becoming a person of true merit.
Financial success can be fleeting, but character built through patience is priceless.
