Entrepreneurial patience = Success

If you were to identify synonyms for the word entrepreneur, you would come up with things like, risk-taker, industrious, visionary, perhaps even capitalist. But one word that is definitely NOT synonymous with entrepreneur is patient.

It simply is not in an entrepreneur’s DNA to wait for the world to bring him or her things. Entrepreneurs bring things to the world.

But having said this, entrepreneurs who enjoy long-term success have learned entrepreneurial patience. Even the most impatient entrepreneurial farmer understands that a corn harvest doesn’t take place until after the seeds are planted, the plants nurtured and a certain amount of time has passed.

Having entrepreneurial patience means knowing the difference between wasting time and energy and investing time and energy. Successful entrepreneurs are impatient about steps in a process — getting the seed, planting the seed, cultivating the plants, etc. — but not about accomplishing the ultimate goal of harvesting the result of the process.

One of the most prominent guarantees of failure in business is not understanding the simple wisdom of Renaissance author and father of deductive reasoning, Sir Francis Bacon, who said, “In all negotiations of difficulty, a man may not look to sow and reap at once; but must prepare business and so ripen it by degrees.”

When you see someone trying to “sow and reap at once,” you’re witnessing failure waiting to happen. The only thing left to be determined is whether this failure will become a valuable lesson in entrepreneurial patience, or a bitter experience.

Whether in the field or in the marketplace, all endeavors are subject to natural laws, like the time it takes for a seed, or a project, to germinate and produce fruit. Successful entrepreneurs understand this and have learned how to employ their impatience prudently, as leverage for success.

Impatience is often synonymous with failure; entrepreneurial patience is usually synonymous with success.

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