Patience And Hunger

A few days ago, I met Gary Vaynerchuk, whose book Crush It got on the bestseller list according to the Wall Street Journal, and it was great to hear what he had to say about various topics of entrepreneurship, social media, and how to work with one’s passion.  He had a huge room on the second floor of the bookstore full of people glad to listen in during his speech and following question/answer session.  There are a couple of points from the discussion that I would like to bring up here.

Patience Levels Separate Competitors

One of the concepts that Gary has brought up many times is patience.  He pointed out that most folks aren’t patient enough to follow through on something like building their online venture, like he did with Wine Library or his book Crush It, and most members of the audience silently agreed that this was one of their main weaknesses.  It was like Gary was telling the crowd “this is why you are failing”, and the crowd then knew the problem and solution were now in their hands, and was their responsibility.  I completely agree with this concept.  The person who quits doing something after 10 minutes might get no results, while the person who persists to complete that item in 45 minutes gets all the learning and glory that comes with completion.

How Can Patience Be Built?

Patience, like hunger, which I will speak about later, and specifically, enough patience to get something done, is only maintained by a small minority of people.  Folks in this category look at others incredulously, wondering why they can’t continue a task for more than 10 minutes without resorting to some sort of leisure activity.

What Keeps You From Getting Stuck At A Point During The Process?

For those not in this minority group, with satisfactory patience in place, the route to gain patience is a difficult one.  The key point of concern for those is when they spend 10 minutes doing something, and then quitting occurs.  It is at that point that you have to look at what caused you to quit.  Was it a distraction you allowed yourself to see or come into contact with?  A big reason for built-in patience is having a routine that is free of most distractions and energy- absorbing activities.  This leaves you the mental fortitude to use to take a task – from quitting at 10 minutes in – to taking it to completion.  I have to stress that time is not the important issue, but that it is about how you spend that time.  I just use 10 minutes and 50 minutes as an example to represent different points along an activity in a more obvious way.

People Have Their Set Standard Level Of Patience

If you have 10 random people start an activity at the same time, and progress through various difficult steps of it, you will see a spectrum of examples of patience.  The same person who is more patient than another in that single example will completely outdo them in all their undertakings, because it will help them get further through a task, to the points where rewards arrive.  I have long stressed the point that personalities are fairly fixed in place, and to supplement with similar material I read recently, Alex Shalman wrote an article, starting off with: “I strongly believe that how you do one thing is how you do everything.”.

Hunger Is A Vital Component

As far as having a hunger to do something, that is something we often say that someone either shows that they have, or lacks and is unable to synthetically.  How do you make someone who has an orange reach for an orange?  Gary said that younger folks are soft in comparison to those who are older, and that message was partly directed at the hunger that the younger generation may now lack.  A person who has a lot provided to them has much less impetus to go and get more, as that drive and determination comes from an urge.  For those who have less, that urge is more naturally there, while those who already have a life of abundance will have to search for the urges they have to get even more.  Our minds work very poorly when we already have what we want to get by working on something.  I also once wrote an article that had a part in it about what Arnold Schwarzenegger said about hunger.

I am looking forward to seeing what you think about these two key components of success.  Can someone increase their hunger if they already have more than most?  What holds someone back from having hunger to take on some opportunity?