It was back in 2010, I was scheduled to speak at an event about entrepreneurship, and the main audience was college students graduating the same year; The organizer was insisting that I talk about my career path and what were the lessons learned for me at a young age in a relatively challenging world.

It was about 45 minutes talk that covered many points, some were funny references, some sad and some very motivational… I finally ended up my speech with this:

One common attitude I used to find in fresh graduates I interviewed for various potions in my company was their apparent lack of patience, they want to reach to the top quickly and when you ask them where do they see themselves in 5 years, almost everyone would say : ‘A Manager’. Knowing that I love and admire ambition, I’m also a realistic person, and just because some 20 years old dropped out of college and made it big, doesn’t mean that it’s the right way to do things or it will happen to you JUST AS IT HAPPENED TO THEM.

But let me tell you a small secret: Patience is a Virtue that Pays off!

Practically, no one will care about how hard your start was, when your end was not a success, in fact, ironically, when you become successful, the MORE Miserable your life was, the more admirable your success is… At some point in time one of my jobs was removing dust from books in the university library and re-organizing the books in alphabetical order for what is equivalent to 60$ per month before I leave to my night shift job that paid 100$ per month and then rolling in the weekend to do some work for some additional 10-20$ / week and so on… I never looked down at my self, and I knew this was not the end… This is only the beginning and I need to be patient, cause great things WILL happen.. And Years later, I started making in 1 day of what an average classmate used to make in a full month…

Patience doesn’t have a value if you’re not paying much attention to almost every aspect of your life at that time, you could be waiting for a train to pass, but if you fall asleep waiting, you might just miss the train, and remember that it’s the VALUE that you bring to the company you work at is what matters and not the time you spend there, And Most importantly, when you reach your destination, it doesn’t really matter what had to happen in the process, you just REACHED THERE! I don’t really remember the exams I had to pass nor the grades I had on these exams… And guess what! till this day, after I became CEO and worked for one of the biggest companies in the world, Those Exams grades Still didn’t matter.

So today, 5 years later to that talk, I recall a time when I used to look up Job opportunities that perfectly matched my skills but where I was not interviewed because my years of experience didn’t match the requirements, and I still recalled the time (that I was lucky enough to have had) when I met the same Hiring Manager few years later, who was attending one of my talks, and was surprised that I was the  Keynote Speaker introducing a technology that he, himself thought I didn’t have experience to even work in one of his teams.

My advice this week is the following:

Don’t try to take shortcuts if you find the road is too long, as no road is too long for a destination worth reaching… Patience is a Virtue that Pays off… So Be Patient, and Keep Going!

Enjoy your Week!

SC

Photo Credit by Samer Chidiac
Scene Location: Beirut – Lebanon
For Purchasing & Licensing refer to 500px.com 

Samer Chidiac is a Sr. Strategist, Author & an International Innovation Expert.

The Monday Tip Weekly blog is part of the “Influencing the Life of Others” project