“We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.”
- Max Depree, American author / businessman
“Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Becoming what we need to be happens in a moment.
The concept today is along the lines of Abraham Lincoln being an overnight success. He lost election after election. He lost all his money. He lost friends along the way. Then, all of a sudden, he was president, and a danged fine one at that.
We have to be true to ourselves – anything else will contribute to our failure – and we also need to be constantly evolving. It’s true in nature, and it’s true in us, as well.
What’s the connection to “pace?”
Well, we need to evolve faster than ever before. We need to pick up the pace.
This is one of two times of year that I desperately miss the farm. Planting and harvesting are the frenetic times in a farmers life, and they’re also a great corollary to the idea that pace and patience are closely linked.
All through the winter, the soil is changing. The seeds are getting ready to be placed in the soil. And, while patience is required, we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that billions of microscopic changes are taking place every hour of that waiting time. Weeks or months later, we see the plants break through the soil, which appears to take place in a moment, when it’s actually been evolving out of sight for those weeks or months prior.
When it comes to changing our pace, perhaps one of the best things we can do is manage our prep time – our patience period – so that by it we are gathering momentum and accelerating our evolution.
What do we read? What do we spend time on that detracts, rather than contributes to the outcomes we seek? Who do we hang with? What “seeds” do we plant in our minds?
If we want to accelerate our pace of evolution, the key to the acceleration is in the quiet times that lead up to the seeds breaking the surface of the soil.
Pace is a “roots up” consideration.
Make something incredible happen today.
STEVEN T HESTON
