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Growing up my Dad was fond of reminding my brother and I that, “patience is a virtue.” My younger brother, always a bit cheekier than I, would often respond under his breath “yeah one I don’t have” to this well meaning advice.

While I was perhaps a bit more circumspect in my disagreement, classic oldest child, I nonetheless shared the sentiment. This advice was particularly infuriating to hear when waiting for the ability to watch TV, go out for ice cream, or act on whatever other lizard brain impulse drives young boys.

And yet, as with so many lessons transferred by parents to their children, it’s one I’ve begrudgingly accepted as key to success.

Consistency > Intensity

The above quote from Shane Parrish, one of my favorite modern thinkers and authors, is one that does a good job encapsulating the value patience has to those who practice it. Namely, over the long run you’re better off optimizing for consistent results rather than volatile ones.

It’s true that there are times in any leader’s life in which boldness is required. That said, I remain convinced that an individual’s reliability is ultimately the currency by which they unlock opportunity. And reliability is a function of consistency.

As Morgan Housel eloquently says, the objective is to achieve average results for an above average period of time. Consistency is the answer and consistency flows downstream from patience.

Patience is the plan

Jimmy Chin is one of my modern day heroes and man crushes. As a kid from the flatlands of Minnesota who loves the mountains it’s hard not to love the academy award winning mountaineer who is also a native of my home state.

Chin has a beautiful coffee table book of photographs from his illustrious career titled There and Back: Photographs from the Edge which my mother-in-law recently gave me as a gift. Readers of this newsletter know that I love pulling leadership lessons from explorers and adventurers.

As I was paging through Chin’s book reading about his various expeditions I came across one story where Chin and his partners were stuck for multiple weeks waiting for a weather window which would permit them to attempt the summit. In the caption to one of the pictures of this expedition Chin wrote, “patience was our only plan.”

For type-A people used to applying effort and their talent to achieve a goal it can be hard to pull back and let the world around them create the conditions which allow for success. In the Marines we called this, “tactical patience.” The idea that some situations are so unfavorable that it doesn’t matter how talented you are or how capable your team is, you can’t win.

This is a lesson I’ve learned both in the Marine Corps and my own outdoor adventures. If the timing isn’t right it’s best to be patient. Many new practitioners to poker are surprised to learn that the best poker players in the world fold 60%-80% of the hands they receive.

Sometimes, patience is the plan.

Boring is beautiful

Nothing has got me into more trouble in my life than trying to be clever. Rob Shaul runs a tactical and mountain athlete focused gym in beautiful Jackson, Wyoming. I’ve been following Shaul’s programming for more than 15 years to prepare me for everything from a combat deployment to Afghanistan to ski mountaineering objectives recreationally.

Shaul is a master of clear, thoughtful training advice used by some of the best athletes in the world. That said, if you look at any of the training programs he creates there is nothing fancy about them and he is fond of saying, “complex design is immature design.”

I love the idea that the more complex you make something the more you’re showing your inexperience. We should all be practitioners of Occam’s Razor, the simplest course of action is generally the correct one.

Humans have a tendency to add drama and complexity when it isn’t needed. Avoid this at all costs. Boring is beautiful.

So if you’re a type-A person like me remind yourself to be patient. Our goal is not to be one hit wonders but to build enduring, lifelong success. Patience is a virture.

See y’al next week.