Let time do its job

Patience can be a superpower in a distracted world

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is to let time do its job. In many cases,
time is the secret ingredient in success, and time can

(00:27):
help us do things that we couldn't do immediately on
our own. Today's tip, like some others over the next
few weeks, comes from my new book Big Time, a
Simple Path to Time Abundance. This book, which is out
May fifth, is about what happens when you truly believe

(00:50):
time is big enough to accommodate what matters to you.
With some smart strategies, it is possible to fall in
love with your schedule. Big Time is about how to
do just that. One of my favorite insights that I
came across while writing Big Time is that patience is

(01:12):
a superpower. When we keep putting time into things, time
will help us accomplish things that seem impossible at the beginning.
This is obvious in the natural world. One of my
favorite children's books is Christmas Farm, which is about a
little boy named Parker and his neighbor Wilma, and how

(01:35):
they plant Christmas tree seedlings. They prune and water the
trees for five years. As Parker grows and the trees
grow too. The ingredients they need are sunshine, good earth, water,
and time. It would be ridiculous to expect a tree

(01:57):
to grow immediately, but give a tree five years and
it goes from being small to big enough to fill
a living room. So it goes with many things in life.
When I first start learning a challenging piece for one
of my choirs, it can seem impossible. Who can figure

(02:18):
out all these rhythms and dissonant harmonies or what have you?
And yet with practice, in time, I do figure it out,
and those melodies burn their way into my brain until
they seem completely obvious. Many people have trained for their

(02:39):
first races with approachable programs like Couch to five K.
That is indeed the promise of what can happen in
three months. You won't go from sitting on the couch
to running three point one miles immediately, but in twelve
weeks a very high proportion of people can in fact

(03:00):
train their bodies to go a lot farther than they
have before. Time is the secret ingredient. Friendships are also
built over time, spending relaxed time with someone repeatedly will
make you closer and if you keep doing it, you

(03:20):
can become great friends. But you can't do that overnight.
Time is your friend in making friendships that last. So
if there is something you would like to do in life,
see if patience might be your superpower too. What can

(03:41):
time do over time? If you write a little bit
a day, you can write a book in a year
or two. If you walk and run a little farther
each day, you can run many miles in a year.
If you study strategically for a few hours each week,
you could take a big exam in a year or two.
You can't do it immediately, but you can do it

(04:04):
in time. Time will pass eventually, and if we keep
moving forward, time is big enough to work with us,
helping us do things that seemed out of reach before.
In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and

(04:26):
here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for
listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.

(04:51):
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
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