Patience

Crowd waiting in line outside of White House for New Year reception.

Most people hear the word, patience, and think of a boring personality trait, a social virtue that demonstrates calm, rational thinking. A desirable self-control mechanism: the ability to forego short-term pain (or gain) for larger, longer-term gains. But it comes with the cliche, “patience is a virtue”, so much so, that the value of patience has been obscured. Many folks assume patience only benefits others and not themselves (i.e. politely waiting in line), when in fact you stand the most to benefit from being patient.

Patience is correlated with success. “Good things come to those who wait”, a related cliche proven by the now-infamous marshmallow experiment, paints patience in a passive tone. Sit around, hold still, and you’ll get more marshmallows. But patience is an active trait. It underpins almost all of today’s success stories. Look back 10 years and pick any asset class whether it’s investing in the stock market, cryptocurrency, tech startups, ride-sharing, or real estate. All of them have experienced awesome growth. Those that benefited were able to hold their positions through the turbulent times. While this may sound easy in hindsight, it requires a lot of self-restraint and conviction to carry out in the moment, especially in today’s go-go-go world.


It’s the conviction that makes it clear that patience not only embeds the notion of discipline, but also passion. How else could someone in 2009 invest their life savings in a little-known project, called Bitcoin? Or wait for 2 hours for a good bowl of ramen? Or start a company?


Outside of social etiquette and business, patience can also save your life. Look at the COVID pandemic we are living through. Being patient and taking the necessary precautions until life can return to normal are critical to reducing your risk. Unfortunately, many people couldn’t wait and have suffered.


But that’s the underlying secret of patience, you need to be able to afford to wait. Patience is a privilege. To see any investment returns, you need to be able to set aside money to invest and be willing to lose it. To develop a strategy for what company to join or investment to make, you need the time to think and form that perspective. Even after joining the right company or making the investment, you need the discipline to hold your position through thick and thin, even if life demands otherwise. COVID may be the starkest example of patience as a privilege, where essential workers have no choice, but to risk their lives.


Patience is more than a virtue. Patience is a powerful privilege. Use it wisely.

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