Years In the Making: The Patience to Build Something Great
One of our favourite books is Do The Work by Steven Pressfield. It's a gift we give to every person who joins the UNBLOCK Yourself program. We're sure we've written about this before, but it is worth mentioning again.
The insights from the book are incredibly helpful, but what makes it impossible to put down is that the book is deeply personal to Pressfield. It's like he wrote it for himself as a guide he wished he'd had earlier in his life.
Even if you're not familiar with the name 'Steven Pressfield', you'd likely be familiar with his work. His most widely known is The Legend of Bagger Vance, which was turned into a Hollywood movie (starring Will Smith). This and other books have sold millions of copies. He's kind of a big deal.
Pressfield's story is not one of an early prodigy who wrote a hit and then followed it up with one successful book after another. To the contrary, he started as a struggling writer who tried and failed for DECADES. He drifted through a string of minimum-wage jobs, blew up his marriage and other relationships, and at one point, ended up broke and sleeping in his car.
Pressfield wrote countless screenplays, short stories, and manuscripts that went nowhere. It wasn’t until he was in his fifties that he published the manuscript that would become The Legend of Bagger Vance. Let that sink in for a moment.
His writing career didn't take off until he was in his FIFTIES.
Pressfield's story is a reminder that success takes patience. A lot of it. And truthfully it takes more than most of us are comfortable with. That, unfortunately, will prevent most of us from ever trying.
We recently had a conversation with Hilary Gauld, who described creating meaningful work (like launching a new business) as being similar to raising a new baby.
In the newborn stage, it requires constant care, without which it won't survive. From there, it grows into a bumbling toddler, still messy and unpredictable. With time and effort, it may become more self-sufficient, but only if it is nurtured well.
Hilary's own business, One for the Wall, is now 18 years old, and she described it as being in a semi-self-sufficient, adolescent phase. It’s still evolving, still finding its independence, but in a lot of ways can stand on its own, only after years of attention and care.
We loved that parallel. Building something worthwhile and impactful doesn’t happen in weeks or months. It takes years, and an ungodly amount of patience.
That kind of patience feels out of step with the world we live in today. This makes us feel old to say, but we've got to call it out.
We're immersed in a 'hustle' culture, where “overnight” success stories seem to pop up everywhere. YouTube and social media platforms hold the allure of going viral for anyone with a camera and an internet connection... which... well... we all have.
This type of environment makes it easy to feel like if something we're building doesn’t work right away, we’ve failed.
It's easy to point this critique at 'younger generations', but it applies as much to us (and those who are in our generation) as it does to anyone. We (that is, the two of us) spend hours thinking about how to 'crack' the algorithm ourselves. Our own peers who are smart, capable, seasoned professionals are caught in the same trap.
Some of us will admit it, and others won't... but deep down, many of us are looking for the big moment or the quick win that will give us the clarity and assurance that the world wants what we have to offer. The viral post. The celebrity podcast interview. On and on it goes...
When we started Vienna Waits in January, what we said we were about, and who we were intending to serve, was fuzzy. Our messaging was SO broad, because we didn't know who we were yet. Without clarity, lots of supportive friends and family offered us encouragement, but then would ask "Ok, so what do you DO?"
Without focused messaging, it looked like we were trying to help everyone, which ultimately meant we weren’t helping anyone.
Since then, we've delivered three programs, hosted a retreat, had hundreds of conversations, written dozens of social posts, released 10 podcast episodes, and published thirty of these blogs. With each thing we've done, it's given us a chance to try something different and to find our place in the world.
We're no longer in the newborn stage... or even the toddler stage.
But it does feel like we’re still in that awkward pre-teen stage. Not quite polished, not fully formed, but we've got an idea of who we are. We don't have it figured out yet, but we're definitely growing.
We wouldn't have been ok to admit all of this at the start, but we can now, and that feels like growth... and is a signal we're on the right path, because we're in ACTION. Not perfect, but moving forward.
Like most pre-teens, however, we can't wait until we're grown up, when we'll have more of this whole process figured out. But, as Hilary said, we can't rush it. It is going to take patience to grow from this step to the next.
We have come to terms with the idea that the growth is going to take some time. It won't move as fast as we'd like, and at each stage, we're going to need to put in the work in order to survive and grow into the next one. So... while we haven't got it figured out yet, we have taken some lessons from the stages we've been through so far that are helping us to make sure we're growing in the right ways as we move from one stage to the next. If you're in the newborn, toddler, or even pre-teen stages like us, or have yet to launch your idea, here is some advice that we try to keep in mind when it feels like we're stuck:
Build for you. Any time we've produced work that feels like it's something that we would take value from ourselves has been the time when we've received the best feedback and seen the best results. One of our favourite books is The Creative Act by Rick Rubin, and he talks about the importance of this. The best art is art that the creator loves themselves. Not created for others, but for themselves. It's been true for us, and while we don't get it right all the time, this is a principle we try to stick close to.
Follow the “free” energy. In our recent podcast conversation with Glenn Pascoe, he shared the guidance that if you're looking for where your passion is, watch for the things you do for free. This same advice has held true in our conversations with Jennifer Moss, Bobby Alu, and again in our most recent episode with Hilary. Rewards from what you're looking to build will take time to realize, so the motivation to stick with it has to come from WITHIN you, instead of from others. This is a key to staying motivated amidst thankless hours of work!
Stay committed. It's impossible to know for sure, but data we've seen suggests that somewhere in the neighbourhood of 8–10% of people stick with and achieve their New Year's resolutions. That's sticking with a resolution for ONE year. Think about how many more people could be eating healthier, have launched their business, or would be pursuing passion projects if they could stick with them for a year! Staying committed to a vision is hard to do and requires plenty of patience, but in order to build something meaningful, commitment is what it takes. You've got to keep showing up, because as Pressfield says, it really is a 'war of attrition'. It's not necessarily the best ones that will win — it's the ones who can stick with it that find success.
A friend of ours recently wrote something about this idea of 'taste'. The idea is that if you love something, you develop 'taste' for that thing. It could be literal taste, like wine or cuisine, or more figurative, like for taste in podcasts, music, or even things like sports and film. As you develop your 'taste', you begin to recognize what “good” is for that thing.
When you're someone who has good taste, that makes you a GREAT candidate to create or do those things that you love, because you know what 'good' looks like.
But there’s a catch. The first time you try to create something you love, you're not going to be good at it. There will be a big gap between your taste and what YOU create. That's because it takes time, persistence, and patience to make great things. Most people get discouraged and give up. But you don't have to.
If you’re one of those people sitting on an idea, whether it's a business, a project, or something creative, remember that creating anything great takes time, and a tremendous amount of patience. While you're in the process, watching your idea move through the stages of development (newborn to adolescent!), here are three principles to remember:
Build for you.
Follow the 'free' energy.
Stay committed to the work.
Steven Pressfield didn't find his groove until he was in his fifties. Hilary built her business over 18 years, and is now beginning to look at 'what's next'. And a year into it, we're still in the early stages of building Vienna Waits. As our favourite band, Arkells, say, most "overnight success stories" are actually Years in the Making.
Great things take time. They take patience. And they’re worth it.