“Never cut a tree down in the wintertime. Never make a negative decision in the low time. Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods. Wait. Be patient. The storm will pass. The spring will come.” Robert H. Schuller

If you ever want to test your threshold for patience, I suggest starting or joining a startup venture. During the last couple of years my threshold for this has been tested time and time again. I have made some rash decisions in the past, looking back, one of the major factors behind them was largely, a lack of patience. We live in a society where instant gratification is expected in most situations. As the human race continues it’s progress, tolerance for patience is being withered away consistently. Although on one hand, our lives have definitely become easier, on the other, the utility gained from all our comforts is diminishing at an exponential rate. Bringing balance into this equation is critical at this juncture of time. As an entrepreneur, your success, may very well depend on it.

Patience, unfortunately, is not something which can be learned over the weekend. The only way to increase your threshold for this, is with time and experience. As an entrepreneur, your patience will often be sorely tested in one form or the other. For example, your marketing plan is not returning the numbers you expected in the first quarter; a customer has not responded to your proposal for over 2 months; an employee is not being able to keep up with the rest. How we react to these situations will determine our patience threshold. I believe your threshold of patience, is directly correlated with your probability of success. 

One fundamental difference I would like to point out here is, patience requires you to proactively adapt to your circumstances. For example, if you need to open a door and the key you have is not the correct one, no matter how many attempts you make with that key, the door will not open. Remaining patient and expecting the result to change miraculously over time is not a wise strategy. One needs to constantly adapt to the situation at hand and find alternative solutions. Over the course of this week, I will discuss some areas where my patience has been tested as an entrepreneur, and the lessons I have learnt along the way.