Emanuele Pani (00:01.154)

From over 15,000 downloads a month to under a thousand. From 30, 40 people on coaching calls to starting from scratch. And yet, I am the most at peace and the happiest I've ever been. Today, we talk about patience. Welcome to CEO Mindset. I'm Emmanuel Epani. My friends call me E. Let's get into it. Dad, welcome back.

Thank you. We spoke about generosity. We spoke about discipline. And as we told our listeners, we're going to talk about patience next, which I think is going to be one of those episodes that is just as much teaching as it is sharing, because it's probably the pillar that hits the closest to home for both of us for different reasons. And

I know it's one of the pillars that you're actively working on. So tell me what patience has been like for you. Thank you for having me first. And you're right. right. Patient, you have six pillars. Some of them by definition or intuition might be...

at least one fell, feel that they are more difficult. I'm thinking about transcendental knowledge or wisdom that, you know, whatever that means, it seems to be huge versus discipline or patience or more perseveration. But for me, specifically, I had a grasp of wisdom.

Earlier in life, of course, the journey always continues. All the pillars, by the way, they always continue. You cannot assume you check a box and you say, got this pillar. Now I'm into enlightenment. It's not how it works. But particularly, patience is very relevant for this because patience among the pillars is a continuum exercise.

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And the reason, and this is why I think he escaped me for so long, I think in our conversations I told you, it took me least 10 years, full 10 years, in which I had the clear feeling that I needed to be more patient and to work more on the sense

of patients to develop and yet I had all the logic and all the rationale and all the reasoning and yet it was very difficult because I would find myself into situations where I was assuming that a requirement for patient was coming and I exercised it and yet I did not have it.

You want to know how I flipped this after 10 years? I think that would be very interesting for your listeners and to everybody. Because I was trying to work on situational patience. What does that mean? What is that? There is a situation and you need to be patient. You are in a very long line for...

you know, a restaurant, a movie, a bank, a post office. Actually, you have a deadline, nobody's moving and that's the very difficult way. Somebody cuts you in the traffic. So these are all situations in which your temper, which is a lingering cloud on patients, of course, people that are explosive, impulsive, irritable. That's another thing we should discuss.

irritability, how it can influence many of these pillars. Then, get into the situation and patient is lost. As long as I was relating patient to situation, I couldn't get it. The flip was that patient, the patient is within relationship. Is there with the relation that is

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built in that situation. So you are projecting you to that individual in front of you and to the other individual in front of you and to other and at the end of the line or the one that cut, there is an inner dialogue between you and you like usually is in which you feel disrespected, you feel not taken care of, you see them sloppy, you...

You feel them, they don't care. And so the situation becomes a relationship between you and these other individuals, which by the way, you don't know anything about it. You might have, or she might have a lot of things. And she might be, or he might be late for reasons other than you know. Which goes back to generosity. Kind of comes full circle. yeah. I'm gonna read you guys the quote, the little writing.

because I think it ties greatly into what Dad just said. If one prayer is to be chosen, let it be for patience. Patience represents mindful acceptance, not cowardice or despair. It is the conscious weight that steadies mind and heart, the quiet between heartbeats where focus lies. For an exemplar of patience, observe a tree. It is enduring trunk, expensive roots,

adapting foliage, learn the power of inaction, the silent strength of patience, it turns caterpillars to butterflies, buds to fruit. Faith may move mountains, but patience allows you to climb them. Correct. So one of the teachings around patience, and I'm going have a couple of stories that I'm going to share with you guys in terms of

my personal life and my journey with with patience. But before I get into that, one of the things that I have realized listening back to this show, which also brings in the topic of patience, is with you guys in understanding that this show, especially this six episodes, are in no way scripted or premeditated. And

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both Dad and I have a tendency of...

thinking and exploring through speaking. And so there is going to be moments that this episodes go a little long in certain directions. And I do understand and I also do encourage you to practice your patience because again, there is shows out there that are more concise but they're completely scripted. This episodes are not going to be so.

Again, it is our goal to keep them powerful and impactful and compact, and also to allow the wisdom of this conversation to happen. Because again, as humans, being concise is part of this rush that we feel as a society to give me things quickly and efficiently, which then loses the beauty of conversation. And it's not my intention to deprive myself.

or you guys, of the wisdom that this conversation, this mastermind, right, the mixing of two brains can bring you by creating a structure where I feel that there is a beating drum to how quickly I gotta get this done because we'll be at this service to you and to me. And so that's some patience. And one of the experiences that I like to share with you guys

in terms of patients and applied patients, it's been my divorce. So I asked for this divorce October 6, 2023. We're nearly three years in. And one of the things that I've got to conversate with that about often, and he would tell me, you just gotta be patient. And I would tell him, I am being patient. And he's like, no, you are.

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acting out patients, but in the way that you're speaking, you're not being patient. Because if you were patient, as the quote said, you will be a piece in the waiting. So, how part listeners understand the difference between patients and acted out patients? And actually, this is a very good example. I did not.

No, you would mention something like in line with what you just said, this is a flow and it should be a flow because it will allow you guys to understand then when you don't script, you are allowing your inner self to come out and that is an exercise you should practice a lot because this is where from where your creative intuition will come. They will not come from the observation of things that they are.

They will come from observation, things that you remember under the table. That's the way and flow of thoughts and language is exactly that. Your point is absolutely well taken. And if you go back to these three years, for what example that I was giving you in the case of patient, in this case, you were projecting to your ex-wife that the situation related to

these impatience, okay? Not really with the process per se, which is a situation is complicated, divorce are complicated, there are things to calculate and so on. The moment you abstract that from the relationship with this divorce, because of course it could have done much easier and shorter and so on, but they were...

other dynamics. As again, I say, you don't know anything about the life of the individual that is at the end of the line. You might say, I've been married for 10 years. I should know. Actually, you don't. And so that is the demonstration. So what do you do, to your point? You act out. The acting out of patience is the... it's a pretense, in which you are acting as you were patient.

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So it's like you say to yourself, if I was patient, that's what I would do. Okay. But in reality, you are not. So there is a sabotage internally. And the little piece that you quoted that I wrote at the end of the journey, 10 years journey, understanding patient was exactly what I wrote. It popped.

into me by looking at a tree, at the majestic patient of a tree, small or big, winter or snow, and he will know that he will grow eventually some tree, die and things, but the resilience of that. that is what brought me back to the quintessential

structure of the individual. Stay, sit. You know the saying, right? They say a lot of problem in the human life arises from the fact that nobody is able, apparently, is able to stand, sit on his own hands for a while. The ability to stand, sit, stay alone with your thought and wait for the patient.

For no, that's another very important concept related to what you... no reward. Exactly for what you were saying about bit, bit, bit, give me this, give me that, give me the quick, you know... I'll be patient, but for what? What's in it for me? Yeah, exactly. Which is now patience. For how long do I have to be patient? That's the most important question, the one my asking is the wrong one. For how long? Long? Oh, now.

you enter in the concept of time into patient. Guess what? Patient is exactly that. No regard for time. And you say, a minute, time is the most important thing we have. You always say a day wasted is a day gone. Make the best of it. Yes, but when it comes to understanding of patient, you need to put time on another dimension. Okay? And that is so important.

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So fundamental. In fact, if you think about it, a lot of the situation in which patient is lost or not acquired ever have to do with the time. Once you bring in the concept of time. Time. You were impatient about the divorce because, how long does it take? In fact, you just said it. You just said it's been three years. So you put time immediately to give context. Okay.

And the moment you remove time, which is now you understand why patience is a pillar, say, how can we live without the concept of time? Because time does not depend on the minutes. It depends on the value. And so if you are able to live without time and without space in the moment, that is the path.

And that's what patient is such a powerful key. So I said in the beginning, apparently easy, easier than wisdom, actually is not. Part of the quote at the beginning brings in another concept that I think really dances so well with the concept of patience, which is the concept of faith.

And I love that you brought up the example of the tree because in a lot of my conversations with people, I use this line that you don't know, whereas you know the gestation period of seeds and you know how long it takes you from when you're pregnant to the moment you have a baby. When you have an idea, you don't know the gestation period of an idea. And...

Part of that, and where the patience in my mind comes in too, is when it comes to, if we use the analogy of plants, people, if I ask you, right, there's this beautiful flower that bloomed, and we look at this flower, was this flower perfect just now that it bloomed? Or in order to bloom, the flower was perfect the entire journey.

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Even though a lot of the journey was on the ground and unseen, in a moment that you will say, well, nothing is happening. Because when we have a seed and you have an idea, you get ideas from the universe, let's call it, from God, infinite intelligence, whatever language best serves you. And then you can have that idea and then you can choose to grab it. So you have an idea, you say, okay, cool, I want that.

And then once you want something, one can become a goal. But then the moment that the goal becomes a goal, it's like you're planting it in the ground. And then you're watering it. But if you know from when we were little in school, and our teachers made us put the seeds in the little plastic cups, why were they in the plastic cups? So that you could see as you were watering every day, you could see the roots happening. Because again, as a child, you would be like, this is extremely boring if I cannot see it.

that hasn't changed. Correct. And so it takes a lot of patience to continuously water with belief and faith the seed of these new ideas that you have about becoming the CEO of your life. And so that what I like for you to talk about next is is that like where have you experienced long extended moments of

watering seeds when no... because it wasn't in a plastic cup so you couldn't see anything happen and so what do people do in that moment? So you're good, proud of you because you're introducing the concept of season on this and what is now for...

commercial reason and marketing and everything. We so extended the concept of season that we have four seasons, right? The fall, the spring, the summer, the winter. In reality, the very fundamental forces are only two. And there are two seasons. One is the winter, the dormant, the yin. The other one is the summer, the blooming, everything. The rest...

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are the outskirts of this thing. It's fine if you call it spring and fall, but the two fundamental reasons are these. So when you do exactly that and you have an idea, you have an idea that it will bloom fully in winter or fully in summer. And by the way, these seasons are not always the same.

because they are not dependent on time. They are dependent on your own particular maturation of the idea and the conditions around you. You might have the same identical idea with the same, even more potential, but in the wrong season, okay? It will not bloom. They don't bloom all of them in the summer of the Why? Because let's say the summer has more energy.

more that kind of thing. Think about plants, okay, it's more explosive and yet needs instead another type of seasoning. There is something that is counterintuitive when it comes to seasoning and plants. Many people rightly so think that the real season of plants and humans are the one of growth, which is true. There's a moment they change more, right? And yet,

If you, any gardener can tell you that if you transfer a plant, you transplant a plant during the summer season, that is wrong. And what the reason is, is because what they say in the jargon, the roots are pulling. So that's a moment in which the energy is flowing and is coming. So you have to have the patient to understand first in what season is your idea to bloom.

It's an idea that needs traction and so on. So that you have to wait until it comes in a moment of full energy. It's an idea that instead needs more meditative time. More, for instance, network. You need to build networks. You might find finance for this idea. You have the same idea, you come at the wrong moment.

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Exactly that, the finance is not open, the idea is lost. Maybe you don't have the energy, somebody else picks it up, the season has changed and now your idea blooms. recognize the season of life. If you want to very sophisticated, recognize four of them, but actually there are two.

One of the things that I find with conversation, and that conversation a couple of days ago with somebody that has been working on a project on her own, and has been tough. And she's been, she has a huge opportunity and now the money is the problem and financially she was funding her life through other.

journeys that she has had. And now she's in this moment where she's running out of the money that she had. This new project is not starting off. She doesn't she hasn't been able to have the success that she wanted with the investors that she's talked to. And now somebody approached her and there are there are sharks in the water. Oh, And I could hear her. And she wanted to just have a conversation to just talk it out.

And what I told her, I'm like, listen, you are not, it's like when you go to the grocery store hungry. You are not thinking patiently because your circumstances have changed. And so what I find fascinating is that because we set time,

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with patients.

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We ran out of time before we ran out of patience, but because we're running out of time, it's almost like somebody's shaking the hourglass and the sun is falling quicker. But in reality, time, you set time. All the time. Sorry for that game of words. Constantly. So how can people not be victims of time? Well, that's...

That's another fundamental question. They need to recognize if desperation enters into the picture. And how can they tell? Desperation looks like you start thinking that no matter what, are available to concede significant pieces of your ideas. So your love for your idea

and your delusions, it's a big word, I understand I'm using it, but your delusions around your idea become so big that they overcome the reality of facts. So you gave an example of this lady and the first question will be for her with your help, help of a mind coach and so on, to set exactly the stage where the misalignment occurred. So the misalignment that occurred was,

between this, this and this are the premises by this date, by this date, by the I should achieve this, this and that. And it did not happen. That did not happen. When did it happen? Was again, the season was not right for one month, for three months, for six months, because if you are missing for six months, it means your, your, all your provisions, all your ideas, all your projections were wrong by, you know, close to a one year. One year is a big time.

be a big period of time to support yourself. So first thing, it's an analysis that has to be based on facts. What really happened? Why did you... not stories, Facts, facts, not things, not stories, not narratives. When did you say, I would do this, this and that. I will lose 10 kilograms by this day. Okay. I will make a hundred thousand dollars by this day. I will have this relationship fixed by this day. Okay. When you, when you said that...

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Go back, not the moment in which that did not actually happen. The moment you projected, what were the conditions by which you will find inevitably, and that's why the mind coaching is essential, because another mind needs to challenge you. You are the problem. Of course, says your assumptions on the facts were not there. You said you had this patent done, but there was a patent application.

not a patent given. So six months later, you cannot sell this patent. Okay. Because basically you don't have it. Okay. When you said this is the money that you needed, that's another thing that you did not have. Okay. These are the points where you need absolutely to have certainty and reassess.

Unfortunately, if you don't do that, and I come back to the desperation, now desperation comes in. And desperation is your worst position for negotiating anything in your life. 100%, this is something you should never do for you, for your family, for... And you feel desperation, by the way. And you might deny desperation, but you feel that.

And the measure, when you ask me how do you know, is that you are willing to give out, to give up things that you worked so hard for so little. Okay? You're still retaining, but you had 95 % of the corporation of the idea. You own 95%. And now you're scrambling to have 20. Okay? Yeah. Don't do this. Pull out. Yeah. Cool it. And be patient.

Yeah, and what I thought my and I love that example of desperation and you bring it into the conversation because what I told her was that it takes just as much energy for you to live in fear than it does to live in faith and fear and desperation are next door neighbors. Yeah. And what is funny is that in seasons you have moments and

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The issue with desperation and the issue with lacking patience and faith is that in desperation you make moment become

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mountains, where in reality they're just moments and nothing is anything until you assign meaning to it. And so I think where patience is helpful in the journey of a CEO is having the patience to live in faith as the gestation happens of your life and to never assign meaning to moments.

when they're not in service of your vision. Absolutely. Right? So if we talk about plants and trees, if there is a particularly rough winter, a plant different than a person is not going to get to the following winter fearful and dreadful because the previous winter was bad. And it's not going to go through that summer

We're my God, winter is coming. Winter is coming. Winter is coming. Whereas as people, we go through moments and we let them become mountains and we are living in this constantly carrying this baggage from the past. Because again, when you talked about the idea and the goal and the shoulds and the timeline, your shoulds are determined by your past. And so again, in order for you to become something you're not,

Dare we say that no part of your old self.

has any voting right? Like how are we saying, well, we should do this in this long when that's just based on what you've done in the past. But the past is giving you the present, but it's not going to give you the future. So why is the past dictating the speed or the distance or the quality of your future?

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I understand we're entering into a gardening coaching class, I think it's... I plants are... No, no, but I thought... you I find them very... And I think the metaphors that are related to what you're saying are very powerful, are very powerful, and again, offer us a moment to think about this. And you brought up some very fundamental things here again. First...

Absolutely, plants do not care if the previous winter was bad, as an anticipation of the next one. Interestingly though, all plants, even the evergreen, they always prepare in advance for what is coming. And they do this, again, to my example of two major seasons.

And they do this clearly way I had the humans even perceive, right? You sometimes you see a cherry blossom and it's cold outside. They know. They know already it's coming. Or you see the beautiful, you know, shedding of the fall with all the different colors, but it's still warm.

They have some differences like humans, know some some starts early and some later, but within what is it? 10 days? 10 days! And they have no calendar, they have no time, they have no watch. They just look at and feel the sun and the different orientation and inclination of the sun. And based on that, because I'm here, the other plants is there, I do my things and I prepare in advance all the time and I prepare and I...

And this, what is really interesting for us as humans and why we should take this as an example, we must remember that plants can live without us. We cannot live without plants. If you want to check, go to Mars. There are no plants. In the beginning of the end of Mars, was a planet like ours.

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water and everything else, billions of years ago, started when the entire atmosphere got rid of plants. Because the oxygen, everything that we have. So yeah, it's a garden in coaching, but plants, like everything in life, by the way, even a stone, can offer an occasion to meditate, to think, to coach yourself. And that's exactly what we're doing here.

And this is why the beauty of the flow and non-script is so powerful. Because if now we record one shot, continuous, nothing. If we were to do this again, it would be worse. I agree. Why? Because there is a component of memory. And see memory, it's essential, it's very powerful, but it's a poison. And why is it poison? Because meanings, so I close the loop.

comes from memory. Of course. It's the memory that comes in and gives you the narrative around something that has happened. What has happened? A glass fell and it broke. That is what happened. That's it. There's nothing related to that. Nothing else. You have to clean it or not clean it this side. Be careful because you get cut. That's it. No. Instead, we give meanings.

to everything, which we understand why it was essential for our evolution, right? The meaning, the very fundamental meaning of we are in the outskirts of the savanna now and there is a movement of some dust that is raising up. What is it? Is wind? a buffalo herd coming charging our way?

It's a platoon of enemies with horses and everything. What is it? If you don't give meaning to rotation and you follow through, okay, to that, no, no, let me look at it. Let me go up in the hill and see better, okay? you know, was wind. It was a little tornado, nothing. No, no, the tigers are coming. That is the difference between life and death. So the ability to give meaning to situation.

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is embedded, is built in our brain and has been essential. And now we are slave to it. Now we are enslaved to the meaning. Because now the situation that we can process are thousands, very few of them related to life and death like the herd of tigers. But the subconscious doesn't know. Doesn't know. So it was trained on that survival. Doesn't know. the same system. Doesn't know. We've been hijacked.

by ourself. ourself. In closing, one of the areas that I see patients

with you and it's a work in progress, if I dare to say. And it reminds me of a quote from Ram Dass that said, if you think you're enlightened, go spend a week with your family. And family, it's always a beautiful measuring stick of your abilities, your healing, your story, because again, they are your environment. They are where you come from. And so they know your...

buttons and there is this deeply rooted child that is still here, right? So that mother to son relationship or the brother to sister relationship, right? That is still here. It doesn't matter how old we are. so help people understand that might be listening to this and there are, they feel that they might be very patient people with.

the outside world and their working world and then their home and their absolute assholes to their own families. And I'm not saying that you are, but I know many people that... I'll take it. They tell me. No, but it's not there. there is moments that it's funny because I see you lose your cool. And I'm like fascinated because I'm like, it's...

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there is only a handful of people that are able to do that to you.

And so tell us about it. If I might, you're correct, 100%. If I might dare to elaborate on Ram Dass, try to spend some time with your family during the holidays. That amplifies that and gives the reason to reply to your point because what happens, especially with your parents, okay.

Parents are the most powerful creature that you relate to. They, willing or unwilling, that's the way they are. They plant seeds in your brain, in your soul, when you are very, young. What young? Two years, three years, four years. You don't have any perception of anything. And they are ready, and from the moment you are born, four years.

It's very long time for the plastic brain to be seeded with something. So this gives them a superpower. And it's a superpower linked to your internal motherboard, if I can use another metaphor. The way the motherboard is not programmed, which would be something you can work on.

the way it's built. The very fabric of your motherboard comes from your ancestors, nature, nurture, both in terms of the genetic fingerprinting, which overall is 30%, so don't go too much, you know, 25, 80, 35. The rest is all environmental. And environmental in those four years, five years, six years, how long do want to go? You might have to go a long, long time, you know, a decade.

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Maybe when you are 10, 12, you're still very influenced. Okay. And that is 70 % of your making. Now, the moment you feel a disconnect, we call it this agosyntonic, agrodistonic, to what you have become. So you're programming to that motherboard fabric that has been built within you without any defense. You could not defend yourself.

then is when you snap. Okay? And that's what you have to work on. Because at the end of the day, there are two things that you could do in relationship with what your parents give you. And they're both wrong. One is to become like them. You there are commercials that are very famous now. They go around, you all become like your parents. But that commercial, which is very, very successful, has deep...

root psychological reasoning and that's why it's so successful. It's very true. You become like your parents. That's wrong. One is to become opposite to your parents. That is also wrong. Completely different. Your father is a Polish man, you are a thief. Your father is, your mother is a Catholic observant and you are an atheist, blasphemous.

level of often. They're both wrong. So what's the right? The right thing is your balance between the motherboard construction that you cannot change. Don't even try. Don't even try. You cannot change the motherboard construction. And the way your operating system goes. So now we went from gardening to IT. Computers. Computers. But it's still and why the reason is this because metaphors are very

are very powerful.

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images for the human brain. Meta-force means what I bring around, what I carry around. So not what I'm carrying, but since we're talking about meanings, other meanings. So you use meta-force. Those are the good meanings of the brain, not of facts, but of concepts. Okay? So don't give any meaning to a fact.

Because yes, none, apart from the fact that happened, that's, you know, the glass is broken, fine, but give a lot of meaning to concepts. Because the meaning to concepts and the metaphors of concepts carries you into the tapping of the subconscious mind and gives you ideas, innovative ideas. That's why the way is the real frontier of AI.

the tentative, the real singularity or not, is the tentative of imitating, coding that part of the human brain, intuition, creativity.

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So guys, with that.

We'll leave you and before I say goodbye

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Patience is going to allow you to climb any mountain of your choosing. And right now, you are on a mountain. Because that's just the journey of life. The question is, one, did you choose this mountain? And if you didn't choose this mountain, have patience, have kindness with yourself, and understand that you can change direction. And that regardless,

that you stay on this mountain because it's a mountain of your choosing or you go into another mountain, the point of life remains the same. If you want the view, you get to climb. And so you get to be patient in your climb and don't overestimate how much of this climb you can do in a day. Just understand that the only point of this life is to get to the peak of this mountain.

and it's going to take you however long it takes you. Some seasons it's gonna be easier for you to walk up the mountain, some others it's going to be baby steps. But success is the realization of a worthy ideal and destination. And so as long as you remain patient, kind, and you keep taking a step at a time, you'll get to the top of whatever mountain.

you're climbing. And with that we say goodbye. Bye guys. Bye.