The story is told of a woman who was very patient and needed to be for she was pregnant with twins. Every night she would pat her round abdomen and say, “now be nice,” Night after night she would repeat this ritual, talking to her unborn with patience and love.

She was patient because 9 months passed and no babies were born. Then ten months, and still she patted her abdomen every night and whispered to her unborn children “now be nice.”

This patient woman did this night after night for one year, then two years and then three years. Still she remained pregnant with her twins and still she patted her abdomen every night and whispered to them, “now be nice.” This went on year after year until she was an old woman.

When the she turned 90 years old she finally gave birth to two old men who were remonstrating with one another.

“You go first,”

“No, please, after you.”

My wife and I went snorkeling at Bahia Honda state park in the Florida Keys and while we were out in the blue waters there on the sand at our feet was a strange gray object. Jodi, my wife, ducked under the water and retrieved it. It was a dirty gray sea biscuit. Boy, was it smelly, dead and ugly. Jodi brought it home and put it in a bath of mild bleach water. Wow, was I surprised when the next day she lifted a snow white sea biscuit from the bleach bath. The bleach had worked on that old sea biscuit all night long removing every trace of its ugliness.

I had snuck a peek at the thing about an hour after she'd put it in the bleach. It was still as ugly as sin and I figured it would stay that way. But bleach is inanimate and therefore completely patient, doing its work slowly but surely until it is complete.

Even though patience is the key to success, what good is a key without a car? There are certain things that must be in place in order for you to apply patience.

1. Chunk - You need to have realistic goals. These goals should be stepping stones to your overall goal. For instance, I want to be my own boss, so I am going to learn Internet marketing. My goals are: Make my first sales, then make my first $100. From there I would like to make $100 a day etc. I chunk up my major goal into a set of smaller goals and I begin working on them.
2. Learn - Educate yourself about what you are trying to accomplish. I needed to learn the insides of Internet marketing. I started researching ways to learn it. I finally narrowed down my search until I choose Wealthy Affiliates to teach me.
3. Adapt - Remain flexible and adapt as you learn. You need to discard things that aren't working and add things that do work as you learn. As I try to create different approaches to marketing products on the Internet, I adjust my efforts according to what I am learning.
4. Patience - To all of this add patience. Patience is not waiting around, we all have to wait at times whether we like it or not. Waiting is a circumstance; patience is an attitude. It is a keep-on-trying attitude. Instead of looking at setbacks as failures, a patient person looks at them as learning opportunities.

Thomas Edison tried over 1000 different ways to make a light bulb before he achieved his goal. He would never have made it if he had been like some of us. I know that if I adapt Mr. Edison's attitude, I will eventually be my own boss. It is inevitable. If you are willing to learn, adapt and work you can succeed at anything you put your mind to. If you want to follow my efforts you can read my blog here.

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