919. Patience Is The Long Game That Pays Off (Literally)

We all say we want success, growth, and impact, but very few of us are willing to wait for them.

In this episode, I unpack a short but powerful chapter from Gary Vaynerchuk’s book 12 1/2—the chapter on patience. It’s only four pages long, but it hits like a sledgehammer. Because patience isn’t just about waiting—it’s about who you become while you wait.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re behind in life, rushing to catch up, or burning out from trying to prove yourself, this one’s for you.

👉 In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The difference between urgency (good) and impatience (destructive)
• Why impatience feeds insecurity—and how to break the cycle
• What patience actually develops in you: resolve, tenacity, creativity, humility
• How to build a sustainable mindset for long-term success
• Why comparing your timeline to others will always keep you stuck
• Two powerful quotes from Tolstoy and Ecclesiastes that will reset your perspective
• How patience connects to the five skills: communication, curiosity, creativity, continuous learning, and productive confrontation

💭 “You don’t need more time. You need more trust in the time you’ve already got.”

Transcript

0:00

All right. 3, 2, 1. Let's get it. Welcome to another episode of What's Your Problem, the podcast. I'm your host. If we have not met, I'm your host, marsh Bi, and three problems we all face. I don't care what your social status is, adversity, uncertainty, and complacency at the three problems we're all gonna face and they're never gonna go away. So here on this podcast, in a short amount of time. We will help develop the life skills that you already have within to handle the adversity, embrace the uncertainty, and never settle again.'cause it ain't going nowhere. So you gotta develop some life skills. And like I said, they're already within. And to make it easy, they all start with a letter C, communication, curiosity, creativity, continuous learning and action, and productive confrontation. And so if you work within these skills every single day, stretching your communication, your curiosity, your creativity. You're continuous learning, you feeding that thing you confront, but productively, then you're gonna be RFA ready for anything. Do you know everything? No. Are you ready for anything? Yeah. That's what I hope that as you listen to these episodes, this will, this will help you. I was talking to a buddy of mine, a new listener, John. And, you know, he is on the precipice of getting his life back. Turned around and dude, he's on a great track and he was listening to the podcast. He was like, man, I listen to this every single day. And, you know, I'm like, bro, I, I put it out there as much as I possibly can because it helps me. These episodes help center me. So I don't wanna be one of these guys that just gets on the mic and says, well, this is what you should do. Uh, I've been that guy, yet I wasn't doing it myself. I was talking about what I've done, not what I do. And so I'm really emphatic on making sure that what I'm communicating with you is something that I live by. It's an aspiration. It's like sometimes, man, I, I do these episodes and it's like, bro, I never saw it like this. So it's kind of my stake in the ground and it's the next thing that I go to. But before I rock out today with a lesson on patience, I want to give a shout out to, uh, no comfort zone. They posted a five star review. And this is what they write. If you're looking to, if you're looking for a voice to silence the noise, marsh has it. Listen to this podcast to level up, listen up because average isn't a game plan. Surround yourself with A players. That's what I hope everybody who gets on here, we're all A players. Surround yourself with a-players. Make this podcast a part of your day. I've been a fan for Marsh following him for years. Thanks for motivating the rest of us. Great podcast. Thank you so much for these reviews. You know, it's been a been a little bit of time since somebody has posted and I get it, man. Everybody's busy. But the reviews, I, I can't tell you how much they encourage me 'cause there's days, man, and I'll talk about in today's episode where I just kind of threw in the towel for a minute. Um, so you're gonna go through those kind of seasons, like I said, I'll talk about that here in just a second. But when you take the, a few minutes out of your super busy day and write a, write a review, man, it means the world to me. But also, you know, there are, I don't know what it is, three and a half, 4 million podcasts. I mean, it's overwhelming. Like, I mean, try to find a new podcast out there that isn't death related, but try to find a new podcast out there is like. It, it's overwhelming. It's like trying to drink from a water hose because of its popularity, which is great. And so it's your words and reviews on what? What's your problem? It means to you, like, what's your favorite episode? What's your takeaway? Like, why, why do you come back? Why do you listen to this? And, you know, posting that, it really helps others too. It helps others stop and say, well, let me at least give one episode a listen. What is your favorite, uh, episode? So, you know, if episode eight 12, whatever eight 12 was, if episode eight 12 was your favorite episode. Then let people know, man, go to eight 12 if you, if you're in this kind of season right now, because, you know, we're all in different seasons. We all go through these different things, adversity, uncertainty, and complacency. And so I, I post these and. Hopefully you'll, you'll contribute to that as well. And a lot of feedback I get is they're like, bro, I needed that, those exact words, I needed that episode. And it's stuff that I'm dealing with too. So I just share it so that I can come back to it later, um, and listen to it.'cause sometimes I get a little bit out of alignment and then I leave it behind also, because not only to my children or to my family. I'll always be here. As long as podcasts are around, my voice will be here. So if it's something my children are going through and pops ain't here no more, then they can listen to that. But also, if you're just going through something, then you pop in, you listen to an episode and be like, all right, 'cause you know this is a long game that we're playing. Life is long. Uh, Nina Sosman Pope when she was on the episode many, many years ago, I, that's one thing that just always stuck with me. She's like, marsh, life isn't short. Life is long. Um, and if you look at it that way, then you're gonna, you, you're gonna have more sands to play with. And I guess this kind of ties in perfectly with what I'm talking about today because I cracked open Gary Vaynerchuk's book is, uh, I guess his newest book was 12 and a half. And, uh, 12 and a half leveraging the emotional ingredients for necessary, uh, I'm sorry, leveraging the emotional ingredients necessary for business success. And initially when I was going to the table of contents, 'cause I like to random read, I go to the table of contents, I just find a chapter in any book that sounds like that's the one I wanna roll with that day. And I was actually thumbing to get to the chapter on empathy. And Patience was a chapter that ended up popping up. And I was like, trying to turn it into empathy. I'm like, bro, I'm gonna come back to this one. I'm like, let's see what he's talking about with patience. And the, the chapters like this chapter's only like four pages long. So that's, that's what I really like about it. So it's a short chapter, but it's like a lifetime to learn it because it's all about patience. So he starts off the chapter by defining patience, and I want you to listen, get ready, settle in as far as what the definition of, of patience is, and patience by definition is the capacity to accept or tolerate, delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset. So, let me say that again. Patience is the capacity. To accept or tolerate, delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset. And he says that when he reads that definition of what patience is, he always smiles ear to ear because patience has been a beautiful gift in his life. A gift. I mean, think about that. I mean, he's had. The capacity, or he's developed the capacity to accept that there was gonna be delay to tolerate the trouble and the suffering without getting angry or upset. And you know, I haven't used patience as a gift at all. You know, when I look at that, like how much tolerance. How much acceptance do I have to delay to trouble, to suffering? Like, no, bro, I big lip it. I I'm like a 4-year-old child and just get mad and stomp off and I quit. I wanna play another game. I've, I've done that. But patience, man, when you look at it like this, it's just like. All right. That's a different way of, of looking at things. Back to the book, patience is the core ingredient to the lightness. I feel inside patience is the core ingredient to why he feels so light inside. And he said when you have a good relationship with time, well, like what is our relationship with time? I know it is like time is the enemy. Right? You know? And we think we're running outta time, but he feels light inside. He's developed the capacity to tolerate, delay, trouble suffering. It's not that he's like, oh, I'm cool with it. Great. No, but I mean, he, he expects it. He developed, he has developed a tolerance for it. And that's why he feels light inside without getting angry or upset. That's why he feels light inside and because he has a good relationship with time, he says that pressure is lifted and he said, you can end up doing so much more, bro. I was like that. That made me like put the pin down and be like, I never looked at patients like that. When you're patient, you're lighter, you're more agreeable, you're not all. Prune face, man, and you lift that, that pressure. See, when you're not constantly pressuring yourself, you can actually enjoy what you're doing. Think about that. When you don't have these pressures on trying to hit these, these milestones, you actually enjoy the process. I think you should be urgent. Urgency is good. Urgency means that you're on top of things, that you're not negotiating, that you're not procrastinating with yourself. You just get it done. So urgency is good. Being impatient is not good. Impatience can actually be very destructive. It can ruin things in your life. I've had it firsthand where I've tried to hijack time. Hijack situations. Oh no, I need it now. I know better than life does. And hijacked that sure changed. It made the situation worse because sometimes through patience, patience is maturity, man. It's a, it's a, it's a spiritual maturity. It's what it is. Patience gives me the perspective and the skillset that it takes time to develop something. The time is necessary because when you're impatient and you try to hack it or rush it, I end up making things way worse. You make bad decisions, you force it or you end up settling and you settle for something that had you let things play out the right way. Be urgent, be in alignment, but let things take their own course. If you would do that and let time unfolded, what else was there available that you'll never know because you were impatient, you had to have it on your times, on your terms. And if you would've let it just kind of play itself out, it would've saved you. But that's tough, man, because in the moment it feels like it's taken forever. But in the long game, in the long side of it, patience could have saved you not only time, but also heartache and money. Vanerchuk goes on to say that we'd have happier children. Hell, we'd have a happier society, which includes adults, children, adults, big babies. I know I am, but we'd have even happier adults if we didn't need escapism to cope with the stress that impatience creates. Think about that. Because you're impatient, because things aren't going according to your back of the napkin plan because you know, you, you had, you set this chart out in life and you did everything you were supposed to do, and it's still not doing for you, still not happening. Then what do we do? We escape. We cope. Netflix overeat over drink. And we make the situation worse. It's staggering how many young people, especially 18 to 30, have so much anxiety about their careers. I just went to graduation last weekend, man, and it's like, you know, I'm talking to these high school students. It's like, what's next? And they're like, I don't know. It's okay. You got plenty of time. But some of 'em, man, they're just, they're super uneasy 'cause it's like I, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. A lot of 'em just throw themselves in college, not having no clue what they wanna do and then just start racking up free money until you gotta pay it back.'cause they're impatient. Like sit back a little bit and so many people are stressed out, especially younger people stressed out. And they end up cashing out and they cash out because they trade the long-term reward for some short-term win. I just, I'm just gonna make, I'll just take this job 'cause I gotta, you know, I, I, I can make this money and you don't even like what you're doing. And you know, I know a lot of people, my wife included, who she has a master's and she is not even in the field. I mean, hell, she owns her own gym. She got a master's in science. She, she's not even using it right now. She always has it to come back to, but also she just, she just went with the flow. She, she struggled with that. She was like, she was very anxious about why I'm supposed to be doing this. And it's like, you can always come back to it. Just if you, you gotta call in to do something else. Do it. Always come back to it. And so many times, younger people, they feel like they're supposed to walk the, the plank of what their parents sacrifice for. And you sacrifice your parents sacrifice, bro.'cause that's just what we do as parents. You don't owe me anything for your, for my sacrifice. You just do what you want to do. I tell my daughter that. Go, go live your life, man. Go, go see the world. You can always come back home. But there's a bigger world than home. Get out. Go see the world, go see what's happening, and lemme know how it's going. So, so many times people, they, they trade the, the long term investments, the patience and investing in their career, investing in themselves, they trade that just to get a paycheck and they shortchange the very thing that they were capable of achieving. And dude, impatience never goes away. It doesn't. And when you're impatient, think about this with me. When you're impatient, it messes with your inner spirit and it really disrupts you from the inside out. And that disruption, it shows up in your energy and people can feel it. And you're just, you're putting out and burning up this negative energy and you're just, it is like, dude, you're just, your wheels are spinning, man. You're not moving forward. And it just gets deeper and deeper and deeper. You know, I was impatient lately and like last week, bro, I had to just like check out, meaning I, I didn't, I didn't write, I did very little reading. I did a little bit of working out. I didn't do much. I just got away from it. I slept in, I just walked away from it all and it was like, hold up, bro. Like what is all this running and gunning for? Like for what? I mean, I'm gonna miss out on the beauty of life if I'm just hard ass running toward these checkpoints and totally not even, even. Enjoying the process, and I think that's where a lot of the impatience has come from. Man. I think a lot of my impatience has come from either trying to chase what success looks like or trying to undo and make up for time from my past and feel. I feel like, you know, I've squandered a lot, lost a lot. The problem is that just creates more impatience and it feeds it and the more you feed it, the worse it actually gets. Like as I sit right here, man, I'm 51, about to be 52 this year. I got plenty of time 'cause my goal is to live to at least 110 and with modern medicine. And keeping my body fit and protecting my inner spirit. I got a shot, so I got plenty of time. I don't wanna squander any of it, but I won't if I stay patient, if I just keep progressing every single day. Faith, family, fitness, finances, fulfillment, but I, I don't need a home run. You know, I don't need to swing for the fences for tomorrow. No, just, just do things that progress. Be urgent. Just don't be impatient. Now there are gonna be days you're gonna fail. There're gonna be days when things just don't go right, and that's okay. Because patience gives you the space to adjust, to reflect, to forgive, and snap back in and get, get back to work. Brandon. Chuck writes, insecurity festers without the fertilizer of patients. Ooh, insecurity festers without the fertilizer of patients because impatience and insecurity. Really go hand in hand. You might not be insecure with other people, but you could be insecure with yourself, and that's a whole different thing, man, when you're impatient and you gotta hit this milestone, this checkpoint, or get this recognition in a certain amount of time, and it doesn't happen. It just makes you question yourself even more. That's the insecurity I'm talking about. Vaynerchuk writes, when you're desperate to prove something to other people in the short term, you don't give yourself a chance to enjoy the process, and when you don't enjoy the process, this is what makes you vulnerable. I. To burnout. That's where burnout comes from. It does impatience from rushing from trying to prove or trying to catch up and trying to keep up. And when you're trying to, when you're trying to. Catch up or keep up with something, someone else. None of that brings peace. It just creates more pressure, and that pressure is what makes you lash out. That pressure is what makes you shortchange relationships. That pressure is what makes you blur out the beauty in every day. I've done it, bro. I've lashed out with my wife saying, you don't understand, bro. I got, I got ground to make up. I'm 51. I got a lot of time to make up. I've lashed out saying that I didn't lose anything. I don't have any ground to make up. It may have taken me longer to realize some things. If you know now, if you, if I knew then what I know now, sometimes it took then to get you to the now so you're not behind. It just took you a little longer to realize it and the only way that you're gonna realize it, you can't read about it. Sometimes you gotta experience these things so I'm not behind. And if I think that I gotta make up ground, it's probably because I'm comparing myself to someone else who is like my age or even younger, who is successful. Bro, what race am I in? I'm in my own race, right? You gotta run your own race. It's a long game. And just because it takes you longer to learn something doesn't mean you can't go further. Now, I've, I, I've, I've taken, I've been the slow starter and slingshot past other people. You gotta be reminded of that. So you gotta, you gotta unhook from the past, learn from the past, but unlatch from that, untether yourself from that, I should say. And just work a process daily, whatever, whatever that works for you. And enjoy it, man. Life is long I mean, do me a favor. Go back five years from 46 to 51 is a complete blur. Like I, I couldn't tell you. Like just sitting here saying, okay, at 46, I did this. At 47 I did this. I don't know. I don't know. It was all a blur. I don't want it to be a blur. It doesn't have to be. And if I'm patient, I'll be able to see more. So now, bro, I'm, I'm just choosing to let today be what it is. Doesn't mean that I won't do hard things, doesn't mean that I won't challenge myself. It doesn't mean that I won't push hard, but I'll also be patient. Vaynerchuk writes that when he was working in his dad's liquor store, a lot of his friends who were financially successful, they would come in and then look at Vaynerchuk behind the counter and be like, poor guy, bro. He's just stuck in his pop's family owned liquor store. But Vaynerchuk says it didn't worry him because he had a long-term vision. See, he was on YouTube before it was YouTube. He was already doing the videos before videos were the thing to do. He was already doing it. He had this long-term vision and he writes, it's not like people who are patient are any less ambitious or tenacious. He says, patience can give you permission to dream bigger. Think about that. A lot of times people see patients as like settling. It is like just, oh, well, I'm just gonna wait on the Lord. No, he said Patient people that have a long-term vision, they are ambitious. They are tenacious. They will dig in, but because they have a tolerance and a capacity to expect that there's gonna be delay. There's gonna be trouble, there's gonna be unfairness. They expect it. They accept it. Cool. And they just make the necessary adjustments.'cause they have a long-term vision. They make the adjustments now and keep on rocking. That's huge, man. Patience can help you relax your grip and stay steady and think long. You still work. You're still tenacious, but you're not flipping out when there's some sort of delay, trouble, or suffering. It's what a day is made out of. And so the real question is, can you develop the capacity? I mean, that's what patience is, right? It's a capacity. It's not some 30 gallon bucket that you just dump, dump out all at once. It's a muscle. You develop it, you stretch it, you grow it because life is, it absolutely will. It's going to bring you unexpected delays. Life is gonna bring you trouble. Life is gonna bring you suffering and things won't always be fair. But when you're patient and you don't get angry or upset, you don't lash out. You hold the line and sometimes that delay in hindsight, you realize it was protection, it was preparing you, it was developing your resolve. And sometimes man to be patient is life reminding you just to chill out, be urgent, but relax. You're the one who put the time constraint on. It's not life. Time is actually a gift when you have a good relationship with patients. Vaynerchuk says I'm not in a rush to realize my dreams in the next few years. I'm excited about the next 46. And I read this line and I'm like, that is so true, man. I've been like, bro, by 55 I gotta be this. Like, what's the rush? Like for what? And then what? And I think that's why sometimes the things that I've, these metrics I wanted to hit, I think the, the reason why they didn't happen is 'cause like guy's, like, bro, what's the rush here? You, you got a long game here, right? So when he says, I'm not in a rush for the next five years to see what happens in the next five years, I'm excited about what happens in the next 46. See, that's a stretch mindset. That's a long horizon. I mean, bro, I've big lipped it before. I said in five years I gotta be here. And I swear like. Five months later I get all big lip 'cause I'm doing my part life isn't doing hers. And big lip it, I've quit, changed my mind, burned out, and moved around with a troubled spirit. Yeah, I read this man. Patience is what, it calms that spirit and it's not. It, it's, it's something that's not a switch. It's a practice. It's something you gotta work on daily. But here's the beauty of patience. Uh, here's the beauty of patience. When you're patient with yourself, you could be patient with others. You could tolerate their flaws, their delays, their struggles, because you've learned to do the same with your own Tolstoy. He said the less satisfied a person is with himself. The more useful he will be with others. Everyone knows something about himself that is worse than what his neighbor has done. And if you keep this in mind, humility comes easy. That's the connection between patience and humility. You don't walk around judging everybody else because you've made peace with your own imperfections, and so you become easier to be around. People can feel your drive, people can see and sense your intensity, but you're not snapping, you're grounded Because patience doesn't doesn't mean that you're not ambitious. It means that your ambition is sustainable and that's how you win the long game. Thanks so much for listening today. I've really enjoyed sharing this episode. This means a lot to me. This episode, this meaning, but more so our connection all over the world. You listening to this, you sharing this with someone else you've giving me. 20 minutes of your time. Much love, appreciate that, and I hope, I hope it was beneficial. So let's patiently rock out today. All right, keep it simple, keep it moving. Never settle. Stay patient. Stay tough. Peace.