Patience.
It’s the driver for the pursuit of great achievement. Any athlete, businessman, artist, hobbyist, or generalist that gets to a high level in their respective field all are incredibly patient.
I’ve always dealt with impatience, it’s the reason I’ve started writing blogs, building and helping multiple businesses. Fortunately I got to see firsthand the byproduct of patience, persistence, and epic work.
My parents have always been entrepreneurs, since I was born they’ve owned businesses. First a recycling business, which comes to the first lesson I learned about patience. When something can go wrong, it will go wrong, and typically in the most dramatic way possible.
My parents not only owned a recycling business (incredibly frustrating and taxing business) they owned a recycling business in the mountains of Utah. As you can guess, it was hell at times. They owned a series of recycling trucks, all of which would break down, and typically the worst occasions would be in the middle of a snow storm. In between battling the storms, they’d also have to deal with their clients. As awesome as most clients were, the few would call complaining, and would do so to the point it’d REALLY test your patience. The lesson I learned about patience from the recycling business is that no matter what life throws at you, there is ALWAYS a solution.
The second business my parents started was a food tour business. My mom developed one of the most awesome experiences you could get as a tourist in our little mountain town in Utah. She went to the best restaurants in town, and gave everyone an incredible opportunity to get a taste of world class food, drinks, and history. For anyone that has ever been a tour guide may know, when talking with strangers (often multiple parties of people) they occasionally don’t interact the way you envisioned them to. Not only can it be awkward and intimidating, it can leave the guide with self doubt. Especially as a business owner, you really want everything to run smoothly and when you feel like it doesn’t, it can play with your head a bit. The second lesson I learned about patience from this business is that often, when you play things out in your head, it’s not usually the case. Patience requires the unfolding of time and trust in the efforts of your preparation.
The third, and my parents favorite business, was an escape room. It was one of the top escape rooms in the nation (according to people who had played over 100+ rooms) and definitely top in Utah. This business was built using everything my parents had learned from their previous businesses and all of their interests. The escape room not only is difficult as a player, but much harder as a builder. Much like building a world in a book, they built immersive experiences that made people feel like they were really in a mine, or the haul of a pirate ship. As stimulating as this business was for them, it came with a laundry list of problems. Of which, brings me to my third lesson on patience. Employees can be frustrating, especially when they don’t share the same passion as you for the business. In this instance, patience is often understanding that we each move at our own pace, and sometimes the best way to manage someone is to get to know their strengths and weaknesses before we critique them. This requires a great deal of empathy, and often is overlooked when hiring for managers. The best managers know their teams, just as well as they know the business. Patience is sometimes biting your tongue, and putting yourself in others shoes.
All the greats had to use patience at some point in their lives to get to where they were at now. As I’m strangely following in my parents footsteps (after witnessing all the madness they endured) it will be the thing that either makes or breaks me. The goal of this blog is to relay messages that someone else might be able to resonate with. I can’t speak for everyone, I don’t need to speak for everyone, but if you can relate to some of the lessons I try and pluck out each week then, it’s worth enduring the patience.
Only time can tell..
Thanks for reading!
With love,
Kai
Weekly Poem:
The greatest treats in life
Are the ones we work hard to get
Because when everything is handed to us
We lose purpose
When we are tested to our limits
We get to learn the power of patience
