Week 8 – Persistence and Patience
Hope all is going well. We are in the last few weeks prior to the end of unofficial summer. Officially, summer ends at the end of September, but working people, college students and people with young children in the US view summer coming to an end right after Labor Day. Summer is always a challenge to get anything done. I know that this is not only in the US, but around the world. Many countries take a month off so that also delays any decisions or discussions ongoing. For small businesses like ours, it is such a challenge to deal with. I always feel the pressure at this time of the year, probably more so than at any other time. You would think I would get used to it after being in business for 21 years, but nope. Some habits are hard to break.
It usually never fails that the company needs something or is depending on something that, at any other point in the year, could get done at a much quicker pace. I tell myself to just relax, hoping that everything will pick back up in September, but it is hard to set your mind to accept it. My mind begins to tell me what can and will go wrong based on past history and there’s that constant internal struggle which is hard. As I was leaving at my usual “early” evening time frame one night this week, I ran into friends coming from the gym next door. They said, in a very sincere way, it must be nice being your own boss. As they are saying this, all these things about the business are going on in my head. Many people think it must be great to own your own business, but as I’m heading out late and going back home to work after dinner, I am not sure they would feel the same way knowing this. I often think about how working for someone else might have been a better choice. No headaches and much smaller worries. I fully acknowledge that there are drawbacks to everything, but sometimes I can’t help to stop and wonder what life would be like without the added stresses. Not asking for sympathy here, just to let you know what goes through many small business owner’s head. It is a blessing and a curse for sure.
This backdrop goes to this week’s theme of persistence and patience. As many of you know, I enjoy the simple things in life. Simple things for a simple mind. One thing I have mentioned in past blogs is that I enjoyed watching cartoons in my early life. I will still stop to watch a clip if I happen to catch one. I recently saw on Facebook a clip from a Looney Tunes cartoon featuring Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner. Looney Tunes is my favorite of all the cartoons. It was really geared toward adults, which I didn’t know at the time. This is even where I learned all about classical music (what little I know). Wile E. Coyote is the epitome of the characteristics of this week’s blog. He is always thinking of ways to catch the Roadrunner so he can eat him. He is persistent in that no matter how many times he fails, he continues to keep trying. He concocts different elaborate ideas and designs to catch him, going back to the drawing board failure after failure. His patience despite constant failure is second to none. It is said we are influenced by the environment around us. I wonder if I am living the life of Wile E. Coyote and when did it start?
I think back on my younger days growing up in a small town. My friend Paul, whom I’ve known since I was 4 years old, and I were the youngest of the group of boys that we would hang out with. In anything we did such as playing sports in the neighborhood yards, the older guys were more advanced and would dominate. It was so hard to compete with them. Many times, I would volunteer Paul and I to be on the same team to take on the older boys. We would get destroyed. You would think that would teach me a lesson. It did not. I continued to keep volunteering us to play against them, much to the chagrin of Paul, who also began questioning my sanity. We remain friends to this day so it obviously didn’t put him off too much. This went on for a few years, but as time went on, we began catching up to them, becoming more competitive until one day we began to win at different games. I have never been afraid of a challenge and have been willing to play the long game to find potential success. So, as you can see, I was being groomed early to be a small business owner even though this was never on my bucket list or something I dreamed about. I would like to blame Wile E. Coyote for driving me in this direction.
Persistence and patience are so important in most things you do in life, especially in running a business. They can keep you driving forward even if you cannot see a few feet in front of you. They can keep you going when things do not look great or you don’t know how you will go on. We’ve experienced that many times over the past 21 years. I think of all the things Tina and I have been through. We both believe so strongly in our mission, our team and our technology that we maintain persistence and patience. We believe that we have something special here and these two traits keep driving us forward. Enjoy the last few weeks of unofficial summer! Here’s hoping and planning for a busy September.
Matt
Comments