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The Art of Patience: Why Slow and Steady Really Does Win the Race
Nobody tells you that the hardest part of being successful isn't working harder—it's waiting longer.
After seventeen years of watching businesses rise and fall across Melbourne and Sydney, I've noticed something that'll probably tick off every productivity guru on LinkedIn: the most successful people I know aren't the ones rushing around with their colour-coded calendars and five-minute meeting slots. They're the ones who've mastered something far more valuable and infinitely harder to teach.
Patience.
And before you roll your eyes and click away thinking this is another mindfulness-meets-business-buzzword article, hear me out. I'm talking about real, practical, money-making patience that separates the leaders from the wannabes.
The Patience Paradox That's Killing Your Career
Here's what drives me mental about modern business culture: we've confused being busy with being productive. I see it everywhere—executives who can't sit through a two-hour strategic planning session without checking their phones fourteen times, managers who want quarterly results from initiatives that should take eighteen months to properly implement, and consultants (yes, sometimes myself included) who promise transformational change in six weeks.
It's bollocks. Complete and utter bollocks.
The most successful client I've ever worked with—let's call him David because that's actually his name and he won't mind—runs a manufacturing business in Adelaide that's been growing 23% year-on-year for the past eight years. When I first met him, I thought he was the slowest decision-maker I'd ever encountered.
Turns out, he was just being patient.
David never rushes into new markets. Never. He spends months—sometimes a full year—researching, testing, talking to potential customers, understanding the competition. His competitors think he's scared or indecisive. Meanwhile, he's built a $47 million business by never making a rushed decision.
That's the patience paradox: everyone thinks patient people are slow, when actually they're the ones moving fastest in the direction that matters.
Why We're All Terrible at Waiting (And It's Not Our Fault)
Look, I get it. We live in an instant-everything world. You can order Thai food and have it delivered before you've finished typing the order. Netflix doesn't even make you wait for the next episode anymore—it just starts playing automatically.
But here's the thing: business doesn't work like Netflix. Business operates on geological time.
I spent three years early in my career working for a major consulting firm (won't name names, but their offices have those glass meeting rooms that make you feel important). Every project had to show ROI within six months. Every recommendation needed to demonstrate immediate impact. We were all running around like headless chooks, implementing quick fixes instead of sustainable solutions.
Know what happened to most of those quick fixes? They broke. Spectacularly.
The best time management strategies aren't about doing things faster—they're about doing the right things at the right pace.
The Real Cost of Impatience (Spoiler: It's Massive)
Here's some data that'll make your head spin: companies that rush major initiatives fail 67% of the time. Companies that take their time and properly plan? 82% success rate.
I made this mistake myself back in 2019. Had a client who wanted to completely restructure their customer service department. They were haemorrhaging customers, staff turnover was through the roof, and management was panicking. Classic scenario.
The sensible approach would have been a six-month phased implementation. Assess current processes, retrain staff, implement new systems gradually, monitor results. Instead, we did it in six weeks because they "couldn't afford to wait."
Total disaster. Staff quit. Customers complained even more. The whole thing imploded spectacularly, and guess who got blamed? Not the client who demanded unrealistic timelines—the consultant who should have known better.
That experience taught me something invaluable: sometimes the most productive thing you can do is nothing. Sometimes the best action is patience.
The Three Types of Business Patience (And Why You Need All Three)
Not all patience is created equal. I've identified three distinct types that successful leaders master:
Strategic Patience is about long-term vision. It's Steve Jobs spending years perfecting the iPhone instead of rushing it to market. It's knowing that building something properly takes time, and that time is an investment, not a cost.
Operational Patience is daily discipline. It's following processes even when you could cut corners. It's managing stress effectively instead of making reactive decisions under pressure.
Interpersonal Patience might be the hardest. It's giving people time to grow into roles instead of writing them off after three months. It's listening to the full complaint before jumping to solutions.
Most leaders are good at one, maybe two of these. The exceptional ones master all three.
The Melbourne Coffee Shop That Changed My Mind
I used to think patience was passive. Just waiting around hoping things would work out. Then I met Sarah, who owns a small coffee shop in South Melbourne that's somehow survived while Starbucks locations around her have closed.
"Everyone asks me the secret," she told me over what was genuinely the best flat white I've had in years. "They think it's the coffee or the location or some marketing trick."
Turns out, Sarah's secret is patience with people. She hires staff others wouldn't give a chance to—kids straight out of school, older workers coming back to the workforce, people with less-than-perfect employment histories. Then she spends months training them properly instead of expecting immediate results.
"Most cafés fire someone if they're not perfect after two weeks," she explained. "I give them six months. Costs me more upfront, but I've got baristas who've been with me for five years now. They know every regular customer's order, they handle difficult situations without calling me, and they actually care about the business."
Her patience with people has created a team that competitors can't replicate. Because patience isn't just a virtue—it's a competitive advantage.
Why Impatient Leaders Always Lose in the End
I've consulted for hundreds of businesses, and I can spot an impatient leader from across the room. They're usually the ones talking over people in meetings, checking their phone while you're presenting, and asking "How quickly can we implement this?" before they've even understood what "this" actually is.
These leaders might succeed short-term. They might even look impressive for a few years. But they always, always burn out their teams and their businesses.
Quick story: worked with a CEO a few years back who prided himself on "rapid decision-making." Lovely bloke, very charismatic, absolutely hopeless at patience. Every Monday morning meeting was a new strategic direction. Staff stopped taking initiatives seriously because they knew it would change by Thursday.
Within eighteen months, his best people had left. Within three years, the company was acquired by a competitor for half what it should have been worth.
Impatience doesn't just hurt results—it destroys cultures.
The Practical Art of Strategic Waiting
So how do you actually practice patience in a world that rewards speed? Here's what works:
Start with your calendar. I know, boring. But block out thinking time. Actual, proper thinking time where you're not allowed to make decisions. Just process information, consider options, let ideas percolate. Most leaders never give themselves permission to think slowly.
Create decision delays for anything important. Sleep on it. Get input from people who'll disagree with you. Run small tests before big implementations.
And here's the controversial bit: sometimes, just wait. Sometimes the best decision is no decision. Sometimes problems solve themselves if you give them space.
I learned this from watching indigenous elders in Alice Springs during a cultural awareness workshop. (Yes, it was corporate mandatory training, but it was actually brilliant.) They would sit with questions for days, weeks sometimes, before responding. Not because they couldn't think of answers, but because they understood that rushing to solutions often creates bigger problems.
This approach to thoughtful reflection has completely changed how I handle complex business challenges.
The Patience Premium: What Patient Companies Actually Win
Companies that practice strategic patience don't just survive—they dominate. Amazon lost money for years while building infrastructure. Apple spent decades perfecting user experience while competitors rushed products to market. Toyota revolutionised manufacturing by slowing down to get things right.
In my experience, patient companies enjoy three massive advantages:
They make better decisions because they have better information. When you're not rushing, you can actually research properly, consult widely, test assumptions.
They build stronger teams because they invest in development rather than constantly hiring and firing. Patient leaders create loyal, capable people who stick around long enough to become genuinely expert.
They create sustainable competitive advantages because they're willing to invest in things that take time to pay off—company culture, brand reputation, process optimisation, staff expertise.
When Patience Goes Wrong (Because It Sometimes Does)
Look, I'm not saying patience is always the answer. Sometimes you do need to move fast. If your building's on fire, don't spend twenty minutes researching the optimal evacuation route.
The key is distinguishing between urgent and important. Most things that feel urgent aren't actually important. Most things that are important aren't actually urgent.
I once worked with a CEO who was so patient he nearly missed an entire market opportunity. While he was carefully analysing and planning, three competitors launched similar products and captured most of the market share. Sometimes patience becomes paralysis.
The trick is knowing when to wait and when to act. Which, frustratingly, takes experience to develop. Which takes time. Which requires patience.
See the problem?
Building Your Patience Muscle (It's Actually a Skill)
Patience isn't something you're born with—it's something you develop. Like any skill, it gets stronger with practice.
Start small. Next time someone interrupts you in a meeting, don't immediately respond. Count to three. Let them finish. Amazing how often they'll answer their own question or realise their point wasn't as important as they thought.
Practice delayed gratification in low-stakes situations. Don't check email for the first hour of your workday. Don't immediately respond to every Slack message. Let some things wait and notice that the world doesn't end.
Set artificial delays for decisions. Give yourself 24 hours before responding to any proposal over $10,000. Take a week before making any hiring decision. You'll be amazed how often your initial reaction changes with time.
The Future Belongs to the Patient
Here's my prediction: in a world obsessed with speed, patience is becoming the ultimate differentiator. While everyone else is rushing around implementing AI solutions they don't understand and pivoting strategies every quarter, the patient leaders will be quietly building something sustainable.
The companies that thrive in the next decade won't be the fastest—they'll be the most thoughtful. They'll be led by people who understand that sustainable success isn't about moving quickly, it's about moving deliberately.
And here's the really beautiful part: patience compounds. The more you practice it, the better your decisions become. The better your decisions become, the less often you need to rush to fix mistakes. The less you rush, the more time you have to be patient with the next decision.
It's a virtuous cycle that starts with the simple acknowledgment that sometimes, the most productive thing you can do is wait.
The Final Word (After Seventeen Years of Learning It the Hard Way)
If you take nothing else from this rambling reflection, take this: patience isn't passive. It's not sitting around hoping things work out. Real patience is active, strategic, and disciplined.
It's choosing to gather more information when everyone else is rushing to decide. It's investing in long-term solutions when everyone else is applying quick fixes. It's giving people time to grow when everyone else is looking for instant results.
Most importantly, it's trusting that slow and steady really does win the race—especially when everyone else is sprinting in the wrong direction.
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