Patience Is Something You Can Grow
What are the most important personal characteristics necessary for being successful out on your own? After having a passionate drive (I'm iffy about the word ambition), patience might be number two.
Patience is the trait that builds confidence safely: with good doses of humility. Patience allows you to be optimistic while keeping reality in full view. Patience is the mantra of the long-term-oriented person, which is where big ideas happen.The energy of starting something new is incredible. It gives you laser focus and a healthy, hurried efficiency at achieving your first milestone. Often times though, it also allows you to build delusions which, when unchecked, can damage your delicate sense of clarity. When doing your own thing, you're forced under this simple rule: doing work does not equate to success. You may be doing brilliant work. In a normal employee scenario you may be indispensable. On your own, however, you're subject to new laws of physics. Or more accurately, you're subject to almost no laws at all. In my opinion, patience is the metronome that keeps you on a successful track, surviving the ebs and flows and ups and downs that are absolutely inevitable. It keeps you from taking drastic measures when you really should just wait it out. It encourages quality. It keeps you in a balanced state from which all decisions become more level-headed. This in turn leads to being able to better trust your instincts, which has an unending stream of payoffs. In comparison to many of the other critical personal characteristics (optimism, talent, industry knowledge), patience seems to me to be one that can be grown most easily. Being patient begets stronger patience.
