In this 10‑minute live conversation, Mike Domitrz and Sam Silverstein explore why patience is essential for leaders and employees, especially in the blended work‑home environment. They frame patience as a shift of focus from self‑interest to empathy for others, emphasizing that true patience involves slowing down, listening, and resisting the urge to impose one’s agenda on teammates. The hosts discuss how impatience spreads stress, creates unhealthy cultures, and undermines accountability, illustrating the point with personal anecdotes about rushed deadlines and last‑minute planning. They introduce two practical self‑check questions—“Are you sure about that?” and “How’s that working out for you?”—to help leaders pause and assess urgency versus reality. The dialogue stresses that a leader’s emotional state sets the tone for the team; calm leaders foster calm, while stressed leaders transmit panic. Finally, they advise proactive planning, reflecting on past missteps, and cultivating empathy to build mutually amazing, accountable relationships.
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And hey, it's Mike and Sam, and thanks for joining us today. We want to give you 10 minutes live of something that you can use that'll make a difference in your life. It'll help build accountability and mutually amazing relationships.
And what you all didn't see there was that Sam started early, and the irony of that is just awesome because today's show is about patience.
We're talking about patience today, Mike?
And in our recording studio, you gotta wait for the thing to say live before you start talking.
You know, I'm just ready to go. We get on and I know there's people out there listening and we have something to share and it's like, I'm juiced, I'm ready to go. So what, uh, kick us off. Let's talk about patience today, Mike.
Yeah, it's a good one. It's one we all need, right? Uh, you and I were exercising it before this because I was racing to get something done and I was asking you to be patient while we were trying to do something, which is hard to ask somebody to do. So patience is so much in our lives right now. I think especially Especially with working from home, because we can really have our patience tested. Everybody's pulling at us—not just work but family—you know—all at the same time. Sam, I had a conversation with someone this morning that said, "I used to be able to truly leave work at work." Now that's not possible because there's all these things pulling. So I think patience becomes such an important topic. In fact, what sparked this today is this quote that says. A handful of patience is worth a bushel of brains. Oh wow! Isn't that powerful?
Absolutely.
Your favorite author—it's once again anonymous. Author is actually a Dutch proverb. It is a Dutch proverb, but okay.
So it's an unknown Dutch, in other words. Yes. Okay, very good. Yeah, you know, it's here's the thing with patience. Patience is really about moving the focus from you to them. When we're impatient, then it's all about us. It's about me. It's what I need now. It's, do this for me. Give me your attention. Get this action done. Take care of this project. Patience is really about empathy for the other individual. What's their situation? What are the challenges they are facing? What must they accomplish? And it's working around their schedule. So when we, as leaders, whether we're leaders in an organization, in a culture, leaders at home, or leaders in the community, living with patience means being able to step back and say, this is not about me, my needs now. What's going on with you?
Yeah, and it's so important. And not only what's going on with you, and then listening and being what we talked about yesterday, empathetic. And being truly present versus trying to fix. So, I think that's one of the things we can fall into when we think, oh, I'm being patient. I'm going to listen to what they need. Well, you're not being patient. You're actually racing through the act of caring, right? Patience actually requires slowing down, taking a breath.
And reacting to their situation and not just going, oh yes, that's nice. Okay, now back to me.
Yeah.
That's not patience. That's still trying to take care of what it is that you have on your agenda, getting your things taken care of. And quite frankly, accountable leaders understand that the success of the people around them is the only thing that ensures their success. When you're successful, I'm successful. When you fail, I fail. And so, I have to be willing to take that deep breath. It's real easy for me to get behind on a project and I have a deadline. And then, I race to Renee and say, can you get this shipped out right away? Can you take care of this right now? Can you get this done? And so, I'm losing this patience. I want it done right away on my agenda. Meanwhile, I'm the one that backed up to the deadline. I'm the one that's short on time. This is my issue. It's why am I making my problem her problem? And so, that's a total lack of patience, lack of consideration, and it does not build accountable relationships.
Yeah. And a lot of times, people who are entrepreneurs struggle with patience because their mindset is everything had to be done yesterday. And if that wasn't done already, that you're hurting us. Not recognizing that attitude is hurting the employee's ability to feel safe in the workspace, to really be productive, to be creative, because they're constantly under this concept, this cloud, this weight of, what if I don't? What if I don't please my boss? What if I don't please you? Versus, OK, I need to get this done because I— like the I focus versus the management focus. And when you have a lack of patience, people work under fear. Versus trust?
So, it goes back to where does this all stem from? And many times, we're in a situation where we need something done now that we could have alleviated by dealing with something proactively or on a timely basis. And so, in these situations where we're not showing patience because we have an agenda, I would suggest that our listeners step back and see what put you in this position in the first place. What were the series of events that led to this moment in time? And then, how should you do it differently next time? But then, there's the other side. And that is patience for an individual with regards to the way that they work. Patience with regards to the pace that they work. Patience with regards to maybe their misunderstanding in a situation. And I think in that case as well, again, it's about shifting focus from us to them. Just because something comes easy to us doesn't mean it comes easy to someone else. And so, being able to have an understanding of the other individual and their challenges, and then realizing that it might take them a little more time on the uptake on a new concept, a new idea, implementing new technology, I think having that understanding is critical as well.
Yeah, yeah, it really is. And I would add 2 questions you want to ask yourself in those moments. One, you sure about that? Now you might be going, Mike, what do you mean you're sure about that? You think everything's going to fall apart if this isn't done the next 30 seconds? You sure about that? So that's just a good little moment to go, you sure about that? Because if you don't have credibility on the deadline or the urgency, you lose credibility. Like, now I don't listen to you in the future because that wasn't true. So I think one statement is, you sure about that? And the other statement is, how's that working out for you? When you act from a place of impatience, people don't want to be around you. And you're frantic. You're not patient, right? You're not only— you put on everybody else, you're like this. And I was in that mode today as we were coming on because I was trying to get something in. I was racing to get something done. And that's— it causes panic, right? And so we want to be very aware of how's that working out for you. That's stress. That's this versus patience, which is here. And all eyes are on the leader.
Yeah, eyes are on the leader. So if, if we're stressed, then we're going to transfer that stress to our people. And if we're cool under fire in that situation, we're going to transfer that calm to our people. And so, the question is, which way are you going to people— which way will your people operate best? When they're in a moment when they're feeling stressed or when they're in a situation when they're feeling calm?
And by the way, if you're answering, my people are at their best when they're stressed, you don't have a healthy workforce. And I'm not joking there. You have an unhealthy culture if that's happening. You can't build mutually amazing relationships that are dependent on stress. Not dependent on it. That's incredibly dangerous.
Absolutely. So, what do we want to do? We want to discover our inner patience. We want to slow down just a little bit. We want to make sure that we're not backing ourselves up to the last minute and putting ourselves in a position where we need to lack stress. And then we need to start taking consideration and empathy for the people around us.
Yeah, yeah. And I love what you said about earlier about thinking about what could I have done differently Looking back, what got me here, right? I'll give you an example of that right now today to sort of wrap up today's show is I said I was panicking because I was trying to get something out. We did this big event and we want to get everybody these certificates out. And we're— we've been researching for days how to do it. And we should have researched 2 weeks ago how to do it because then I would have been relaxed. I would have known, oh, here, how's that going to work? And we would have been good.
And then I would have been relaxed.
And then you would have been relaxed. That's right. And then we did come across the discovery right before going on air, and it brought a calm of relief. Oh, but now urgency. And so once again, it's take that breath. I think that's one of the last things I want to leave everybody with. Take that breath and ask yourself, am I sure about this? And how's this going to work if I freak out? I'm going to create a fire for someone else that I started. Right. And so we want to avoid doing that. Want to lead with love. Want to remind everybody, you can find us on youtube.com/centerforrespect, youtube.com/cil— Sam Silverstein. And tomorrow you can catch us at 3 PM Central Time. We're giving you a— sure about that? Uh, we'll find out if you're here at 3 tomorrow. Have a good one, everybody. Bye.
