If I could go back 10 years and tell my 26 year old self how important patience is, I’d probably say something like:

“Yes, of course!”

Then I’d continue to do the exact opposite of it.

For context, I’m not talking about rushing through your daily tasks or getting exasperated waiting in line…

I’m talking bigger vision patience, meaning giving up on things too soon because I don’t think they’ll work fast enough.

Exhibit A: Fitness

In the past, my goal was to get as strong as possible and one of the fastest ways to do that was to eat a ton of food and lift a ton of weights.

Makes sense, right?

While I did get quite a bit stronger in only a few months of doing this, I also gained a bunch of body fat and elevated my average blood pressure which wasn’t good.

To make things worse, I became so impatient that I started working out 6 days per week and pushing myself as hard as possible every session.

Then one fateful day, I messed up my shoulder so bad I couldn’t lift my arm without pain and couldn’t workout for months.

Fortunately, it healed without surgery and hasn’t really bugged me since, but that experience taught me a lot about being smarter in the gym.

Exhibit B: Careers

This is for sure one of the things I wish I could go back and tell my younger self:

Get in a sales career with a future family in mind.

If there’s one thing I’ve always been good at, it’s getting jobs.

Keeping them is a different story and the biggest underlying reason has been not getting paid enough fast enough.

Even in my early 20s, I landed some jobs with big potential but I didn’t have the vision I do now.

For example, one job I had selling cell phones paid me more than my current base salary and I left after 1 month because it was hard.

Crazy.

I’ve even struggled with this more recently because now I have a family and house to take care of and if I don’t see the potential fast enough at a job it’s hard to stay.

Sure, there are other reasons to leave jobs and I’ve had my fair share of those experiences too…

However, lack of patience has been my ultimate downfall in terms of careers too.

The good news is there’s a fix.

Exhibit C: Online Business

I got started with online business in 2009 building what we’re going to call a “team building affiliate marketing” business where you get 2 and they get 2 and so on.

So I’ve done that, I’ve run several blogs and YouTube channels, I’ve been a freelancer, coach, and consultant, and I’ve self-published dozens of digital products in multiple niches.

I’ve generated hundreds of customers and made thousands of dollars, and I’ve never had a big audience.

The reason I’ve never stuck with any of them is a similar reason to why I never stuck with any of the jobs I’ve had.

I post an insane amount of content, I get some results, I don’t get rich, I get “bored” with it, then I shut it down.

At the risk of sounding egotistical, there is one thing I’ll never get bored with, which is:

My life.

That’s the main reason I switched my content from specific niche topics to a more broad range of ideas.

That way, I don’t feel boxed in and can freely share what I’m working on, even if it doesn’t line up with a specific audience all the time.

How I’m Practicing Patience Now

Moving forward, I think it’s going to be a whole lot easier to stop rushing through life to accomplish the next big thing, which will pay off big in the future.

For fitness, I’ll push hard in the gym when I can and back off when I can’t, because I plan on lifting for the rest of my life anyway.

For my sales career, all I can really say is I’m committing to learning and improving because I just started this week, but that has been the so-called “secret” to the highest earners on the team.

For my online business, I’m going to publish every week on my blog and YouTube until 2027 even if I don’t make any sales (although I do get paid ad revenue for publishing).

Yes, my wife and I still want (need) to get a bigger house.

Yes, we still want to get a second car and upgrade the current one.

Yes, we still have big goals in life.

But if I keep restarting due to impatience, it’s going to take a lot longer to get where we want to go.

It’s time to make it happen.

Talk soon,
-Gabe

P.S. I also just uploaded a new YouTube vlog about getting ready for my new job which you can view here: