I have a question for you. How long do you think it takes a Chinese bamboo tree once it breaks through the ground to get to a height of 90 feet? Five weeks. I find it amazing. Why? Because you can actually see it grow in front of your eyes. Now think about the roots, how strong those roots need to be.

Did you know that Chinese bamboo tree is not like traditional trees? It actually takes four years for it to break through the ground, so the farmers have to actually have crazy belief system to plant the seed, water it, nurture it, and see absolutely nothing for four years plus, and then within five weeks get to see 90 feet tall tree.

Now, everything in life pretty much works the same way. Everything has its time or, in other words, I heard the term “incubation period.” For example, from conception of the child to birth, it takes nine months. If you plant tomatoes, based on the type of tomatoes, it could take from 30 days to 60 days for you to harvest them, and everything else like that. Now, with everything though, you see progress. You can see. I see it sprouted, I see flowers, I see something is happening. But with the Chinese bamboo tree, you see nothing, nothing at all.

So a lot of times in life, when we are after business ideas or improving our marriage relationship or parenting, you name it, anything in life, a lot of times, we don’t see progress at all. You cannot just say, “You know what? Tomorrow, I’ll wake up, and starting 3:00 p.m., I’ll become a leader. I’m going to have all the traits that a leader has, and I’m going to lead everyone to follow me.” Doesn’t work that way. Takes a lot of work and a lot of work that you don’t even see results, and then one day, all of a sudden, everything just sprouts and you see the growth and everything gets to its place and we can actually see success.

But a lot of people, they actually start to create doubts. Once they plant the seed, the idea, or start to work on something, they start to deviate. They start to not have any patience to continue the process. So they quit. Somebody might quit their business idea and go back to their old job. Somebody might say, “You know what? Why would I wait four years, planting and seeing anything from the bamboo tree? I’d rather deal with a lemon tree. At least I collect something.”

But if we have such attitude, we actually stop the growth. We’re going back to ourselves, old selves, back being average, just cruising through life and not progressing at all.

So I encourage everybody I’m talking to me too that any time we want something, we should go after it and consistently discipline ourselves to put in whatever we need to put in and eventually see the results. Just believe with all your guts that you can pull it off.