Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 1: This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is that sometimes it is good to be patient.
Speaker 1: While plenty of things can be done more efficiently, some
Speaker 1: things just demand more time. The best way to deal
Speaker 1: with this is to decide to be certain of the
Speaker 1: outcome while recognizing that the process takes as long as
Speaker 1: it takes. So I have been thinking about this topic
Speaker 1: of patience a lot lately because I write books for
Speaker 1: a living, and that means I spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time writing. But it also means I spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time thinking about what my next book should be.
Speaker 1: The idea has to be big enough to justify seventy
Speaker 1: thousand words. It has to be new enough not to
Speaker 1: waste my reader's time, and the concept has to interest
Speaker 1: me enough to justify spending big chunks of the next
Speaker 1: two years of my life on it. I get a
Speaker 1: lot of ideas. I mean, there's a new episode of
Speaker 1: this podcast every weekday morning, but a book idea is different,
Speaker 1: and consequently I go through a lot of brainstorming and
Speaker 1: a lot of trying things out and a lot of
Speaker 1: false starts Before I feel like I've got anything workable,
Speaker 1: and sometimes this is frustrating. Searching for the right idea
Speaker 1: takes a lot of time and a schedule where a
Speaker 1: lot of time is already spoken for. So when it
Speaker 1: comes to book ideas, I try to remind myself of
Speaker 1: a few things. First, it would be better to spend
Speaker 1: a year thinking and iterating and come up with an
Speaker 1: excellent idea, then spend a month thinking and iterating and
Speaker 1: go with something I don't like so much just because
Speaker 1: I'm impatient to move forward. I have made this choice
Speaker 1: in the past, and I have had projects fall flat
Speaker 1: or else feel like I am pulling teeth to write it,
Speaker 1: or I put a book out into the world and
Speaker 1: have the world go eh. But alongside this frustration, I
Speaker 1: can decide to feel certain of the outcome. I have
Speaker 1: written books before, I will write books again. I will
Speaker 1: find the right idea, and at some point in the
Speaker 1: future this next book will take its place with the
Speaker 1: others on my bookshelf. I just need to recognize that
Speaker 1: this is an area of life where things take as
Speaker 1: long as they take. Holding on to that certainty eases
Speaker 1: a lot of in the moment frustration, so I can
Speaker 1: keep trying and iterating again. Maybe you have something in
Speaker 1: your life that is also demanding a large and uncertain
Speaker 1: quantity of time. Maybe it's finding a new job, maybe
Speaker 1: it's finding a new house. Maybe it's meeting someone special.
Speaker 1: Or maybe it's a journey to parenthood. Maybe you're trying
Speaker 1: to refine a business model, or invent a new product,
Speaker 1: or design a new study. There is no set timeline
Speaker 1: for any of these things. There is a hoped for outcome,
Speaker 1: but no certainty on how long it will take. No
Speaker 1: one can guarantee that if you look for a job
Speaker 1: for three months you will absolutely find a great one.
Speaker 1: No one can guarantee that if you would like to
Speaker 1: be a parent, in a year you will be holding
Speaker 1: a newborn. You simply have to trust that most likely
Speaker 1: in the future you will be in a great job.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to be a parent, you will be
Speaker 1: in some way or another. You can take a lot
Speaker 1: of comfort from holding onto the belief that the outcome
Speaker 1: will happen, even if the timeline is unclear. Of course,
Speaker 1: for all these things, just because the timeline isn't clear
Speaker 1: doesn't mean there's nothing you can do in the meantime.
Speaker 1: A brilliant and fully formed business model won't just come
Speaker 1: to you. You are going to have to think about
Speaker 1: it and talk to people and research and try things out.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to meet someone special, you should go
Speaker 1: places where you'll meet people and ask people to set
Speaker 1: you up, and use the existence of online dating sites
Speaker 1: to go on lots of first dates. I carve out
Speaker 1: time each week to think about my book ideas and
Speaker 1: to write about different topics and see what seems promising.
Speaker 1: We also shouldn't confuse patience with waiting for perfection. The
Speaker 1: perfect job doesn't exist, the perfect mate doesn't exist. There
Speaker 1: is definitely no perfect book idea. At some point, you
Speaker 1: do have to go with something that excites you and
Speaker 1: seems good enough. But there is also no point in
Speaker 1: setting a strict timeline and feeling like a failure if
Speaker 1: you don't meet it. I certainly hoped to have a
Speaker 1: workable book idea by the time my last book came out,
Speaker 1: and I didn't. I've got something I'm hopeful about now,
Speaker 1: but it has been a full year. Sometimes in life,
Speaker 1: it takes as long as it takes better to accept
Speaker 1: that and be patient. Love, which includes self love, is patient,
Speaker 1: which is really another word for being generous with time.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, This is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
Speaker 1: you can reach at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
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Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.