Impatience has become a hallmark trait for this generation and it also manifests itself in our career and self-development. Read this article to find out why Malcolm Gladwell said that to develop mastery in your domain you must put in 10,000 hours of work.

2. The Patiently Impatient Generation
Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 Hour Rule
When you experience death, you tend to look at life differently. There is nothing more dramatic
than witnessing someone die; I know the feeling of watching someone take their last breath right
before your eyes. Because I was there when my brother in law began to experience significant
head pains unexpectedly; my sister and I carried him to the hospital and watched him on the
stretcher curling up in pain, his eyes rolling up and down while holding his head because no bed
was available.
I was right there after 10 minutes of agony when the doctor finally came in and said that he is in
and out of consciousness and they need to stabilize him, only to be told after 15 minutes later that
Pete died.
That experience changed my life, I never experienced that type of emotion before but what that
whole situation taught me was you have to enjoy whatever life throws at you and use it as
motivation to help people who are in similar situations.
I now place significant value on the things people take for granted, like, I love going to the
Savannah to feel the strong wind on my face and watching the mountains in the distance or sitting
under a tree and listening to the birds chirping or watching my son and daughter ride their bikes
and enjoying life. These things become very valuable experiences.
I have also learned to slow down a bit and help people, especially young people to understand that
if you want something out of life it cannot happen in an instant, generally, it takes time. One of the
surprising things I am learning about this generation is the pace they want to achieve everything.
They want everything now, instant gratification. It must be now, fast food, faster loading time,
faster cars, fast diet everything must be now, but life does not work like that. In certain instances,

3. I was very impatience. I found myself thinking subconsciously why is this taking so long to load
or why is this person driving so slow in front of me or why is this service so slow.
Sometimes I have to constantly remain myself have more patience Gifford, but this generation,
wow. I am now trying to teach my son this because, he is growing up with the same tendencies,
not my daughter, she takes after her mother but my son, oh boy. Daddy you are taking to long with
our dinner, daddy this video is taking too long to open. I tell you this little boy drives me up a wall
sometimes, and in many instances, I have to tell him, son everything cannot happen in an instant
all the time you have to wait and excised some patience.
But usually, when I say something like that to him, I have to immediately check my surroundings
because of my wife, with her special gift for sound, somehow hears everything. I will usually hear
something like “the fruit really doesn't fall far from the tree." Love you, honey let me slip that one
right in here just in case my wife read his article.
Impatience has become a hallmark trait for this generation and it also manifests itself in our career
and self-development as well. Simon Sinek said in one of his speeches that he was chatting with
one of his millennial friends and his friend told him “ Simon I am leaving this job” so Simon said
“Leaving the Job but why“ his friend replied “I am not making an impact” Simon responded
“making an impact, dude you are only here for like 6 months."
We tend to rush off to the deep end and believe it can happen just like that. Well, it can’t which
brings me to Gladwell 10000 hour rule. The rule states that if you want to develop mastery of
anything you must put in at least 10000 hours of work. Now I am not going to complicate this by
including that all hours are not made equal debate or who is a genius.
On the low, this is a term I got from my son, on the low let's keep it simple. These days simple
have become the new complexity. The rule simply suggests that you have to put in the work if you
want to develop any type of success in your given area of interest. It requires work to develop

4. mastery in anything and in many instances, very hard work. I can always remember the first
business I started.
I was very excited and talked about it all the time. I wanted to work for myself. So I opened a mini
mart, selling basic food items, snacks, various drinks, etc. I expected within the first 6 months, I
will make some real money because I wasn’t working for much back then. But what I soon realized
is that life of an entrepreneur is not a Hollywood movie where you become a millionaire in two of
three hours.
You have to put in the work to keep your business going so after 1 year I lost interest. I had enough
and the business was closed, in my mind, the business was not moving fast enough and generating
the income I thought it would. I did not envision the work involved as a business owner, especially
for a startup, you have to be chief cook and bottle washer.
I was totally unprepared for life as an entrepreneur because in that very said area there were 4
small businesses just like mine selling the same products I was selling. I had no clue how to run a
business, but I got caught up with the craze of wanting to open my business. The ambition was
good, but I needed time to understand the world of business, get some experience under my belt,
find a mentor to guide me to prepare my mind for business.
It takes time for any new business to find it legs and you must have the temerity to fight through
the struggles and pains of entrepreneurship. Consider the following examples:
Twitter
As with every web startup, Twitter had its early hiccups. In the early years of Twitter, no one used
it. It was a failure in the eyes of many people, but Jack Dorsey and his co-founded kept at it.
Throughout 2007 and 2008 users came to expect the occasional arrival of the Fail Whale. There

5. were nearly six full days of downtime as its data center struggled to cope with some very fast
growth. However, they eventually got it right and today Twitter is a huge success.
Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs said you need a lot of passion for what you're doing because it's so hard. Without
passion, any rational person would give up. So it’s a lot of hard work and it's a lot of worrying
constantly. If you don't love it, you're going to fail. When Jobs was ousted as the CEO of the
company he co-founded it took Jobs 10 years of struggling to hit the jackpot once again with Pixar,
his success with Next and his eventual return to Apple and the rest is history.
Jack Ma
For the first three years, Alibaba did not make any make profit, zero, nothing. What did Jack Ma
and his team did, they continued to work and work and work and work until the company became
sustainable. Now Alibaba is one of the most valuable companies in the world, they did not give
up.
Steve Harvey lived in his car for two years, washing up behind gas stations and bushes to follow
his dream of becoming a comedian. Tyler Perry was homeless and chase after his dream of putting
on a show for 7 years before he became successful. There are many, many, many more stories of
people and companies who stayed true to their calling, patiently believed, worked hard and
eventually achieve mastery in their domain.
When you passionately believe in something especially if you trying something new, expect to
suck at the start, expect to fail, expect to feel uncomfortable, expect to be disappointed and expect
abandonment. Expect everything to go wrong but if you are patience enough, continue to work
and have the faith that one day will be your day; I promise you, it will and you will eventually
become successful.

6. Dr. Myles Munroe said “Live to become a person of value and money will run after you," to
achieve anything of substance in this life it takes time. In many instances, it may take up to 10
years or it may take shorter but it will take some work in trenches to develop mastery.
I am always available to help anyone in need and If you find yourself not motivated or you need
some advice to help with the development your business further, you can email at
giffordthomas1@gmail.com and I will share with you all the tools and training I have accumulated
over the years that helped me become a better leader, motivator and most of all a better human
being.
You can be happy; you can enjoy your life, and enjoy your work. All you need is to understand
you and the unique gifts you were blessed with.