Everyone wants the easy button.
In finance. In health. In technology. We want to jump from where we are to where we want to be, and we want it now.
It doesn’t work that way. It never has.
Time is your ally. In finance, time is the best tool you have. The sooner you start, the more you get. There will always be changes. There will always be reasons to wait. But the payoff for patience is exceptional, and it rarely arrives all at once. It arrives small. Incremental. One decision at a time.
The same is true when you’re healing. If you have an injury, you need patience. Recovery takes time. There are ups and downs, and the benefits show up the same way they do in a portfolio. Small. Incremental. Healing from a surgery, or just flat getting your life entirely back, is not an event. It’s a process.
Everything good in life works this way.
Now look at what’s happening with artificial intelligence. Everyone is trying to jump from their current state straight to the easy button. The truth is simpler and harder. You have to be patient. You keep working with it. You keep learning. You accept it for where it doesn’t work well, and you maximize where it does. And don’t be afraid to go back a couple of weeks later and try something that didn’t work, because it might work now.
That’s hard in the middle of a technology revolution, when a lot of people are trying to figure out where they fit. Here’s the truth. If you don’t know where you’re at, don’t just stop. Don’t just stand there.
And this is the main part, so hear it plainly.
There is never a point, whether it’s finance, whether it’s medical, whether it’s technology, where I want you to stop working on yourself.
Here’s why. Everything we do is balanced. Put too much energy into one thing and you take from the others. Spend all your money on investments and you’ll likely rack up debt doing it. Spend all your effort trying to heal a wound and you’ll likely cause another. Spend all your effort trying to figure out technology at this moment and you’ll forget to stop. Forget the walk. Forget the book. Forget to focus on your mindset, on positive psychology, on feeling empowered. You’ll forget the things that got you where you are today.
Don’t.
If you’ve read my book, you know I tell people this. Those legacy systems we have work. They have worked forever, and they made us successful. Don’t just rip out everything under the hood. Don’t give up on the things that matter to you. Your health. Your fitness. Your mindset. Your knowledge. All the things that got you where you are today.
Technology will only extend those things. It will never replace the work.
So take the time. Be selective in what you eat. Take the walks. Go to the gym. Read the book. Technology will be here. You’re not going to miss anything in two days.
Take time to focus on the positives in your life, and the energy you’re working from. Take time to network and coordinate. Talk to your people. Move everything forward one step at a time.
Be realistic. Everyone wants the next great startup, the next great thing. You can pour all your energy into one thing, and that in and of itself could be the Achilles heel to what you’re trying to do.
Be mindful. Have a strategy. And let it evolve naturally.
Time is your ally. Act like it.
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