“The three Ps of success: Passion, Persistence and Patience” – Doug Bronson
If you’ve read my previous blog posts you’ve probably noticed how passionate I am about two things: SharedBook and Sports, especially cycling. As an experienced high tech manager and long distance runner and triathlete, persistence is also one quality I learned to master. Today, I want to discuss the 3rd P: Patience.
We are living in a fast moving world. Suddenly everyone wants something, and wants it fast. We enter a website and if it doesn’t respond within 2 seconds, we lose our patience and leave. And the same goes for real life as well: we want results and we want them now.
The dark side of overnight success stories
High tech industry is crazy. We’ve all heard about those amazing one night success stories: startup companies that were sold for millions within a matter of months. And suddenly everyone expects this for every startup company…
Here at SharedBook we work differently. Yossie, our founder and experienced entrepreneur, kept on telling us from day one that it is going to be a long journey, and there are no shortcuts. Step by step, constantly checking yourself, learning the market and listening to its feedback, changing course accordingly and you will reach your ultimate goal. In fact Yossie sometimes laughs and says that those overnight success stories are one of the worst things to happen to this industry; since no one has patience anymore – we all expect overnight success.
If you want to ride fast, you need to learn to ride slowly
In sports – the same rule applies as well, you must have patience. Once you’ve set your goal, you need to start planning your entire season accordingly. The first stage is building a strong, robust aerobic base, which is why this period is called the base period. Base period requires a lot of patience: you need to ride long and slow. I don’t mind going long, but going slow is a different story. Cyclists and road cyclists specifically are addicted to speed. Going slow is almost against our nature – especially when you are training with people who are in a different stage of their season (i.e. allowed to ride fast). It can be nerve-wracking, it can be lonely, and you can even feel left out watching your friends riding fast while you are left behind.
Suddenly I have to keep reminding myself the importance of being patient. The importance of working hard, moving forward slowly but surely. I have to remind myself the importance of doing things right, without skipping any stages. And it is difficult for me, it almost feels against my nature, but I am learning. J
“He that can have patience can have what he will” – Benjamin Franklin
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