I downloaded
a book on my Kindle a few weeks back and I got about 15% into it, and tonight I
opened it back up and started reading more. The book title is Enough
Already: The Power of Radical Contentment by Alan Cohen. So, as I'm back
reading, he is talking about having patience and how many people he knows and
coaches are type 'A' people who are always having to 'do' something, and
stopping for a bit of peace is not on the agenda--in fact, it isn't even on
their radar.
That reading
caused me to remember a meeting I had a couple days ago with two men. One was
very easy going and enthusiastic and quite interested. He was engaged and
asked questions, and really wanted to understand the whole picture as much as he
could in a relatively short meeting. The other gentleman was obvious in his
impatience. He wanted different answers. In fact, I believe he just wanted a
miracle to appear right in the room and then he wouldn't have to deal with it.
Yet, he persevered in allowing the other gentleman to ask questions and receive
answers.
At
the end of the meeting, the curious one asked yet another question and then
started into a story. As we were standing and I was listening, I couldn't help
but notice the other gentleman was looking more aggravated than impatient, so I
suggested we move out of the office and end the meeting. We did.
And
then, tonight, I read the quote above as part of the text in the book and I was
amazed how powerfully it is stated and how true it seems to be. Impatience is
not normally stated as fear, but, of course, that is exactly what it is. Yet it
is even more in that the one who is impatient is not present. They are somewhere
else. They are way ahead and the rest of us are holding up the way just like an
impatient driver following on your tail. Indeed, they want to be somewhere else,
get different answers, and more. It is resistance and not conducive to
success.
Alan says
in the book that "Things happen when they are ripe--not before or after. If you
try to force something before it is ready, it won't work." So true. We still
think otherwise as is often taught in that we have to 'make things happen.'
A better route is to allow things to happen, and this requires
patience.
He
also quoted a Bible verse from James 1:4, which says, "And let patience have its
perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing."
I
am amazed in the last few months of the volume and depth of things I am learning
about patience and in so doing, applying them in my business and my life and
amazed again at how successful that application really is.
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