It is not realistic to think that you will not have challenges as a business owner. The owners that succeed have developed their patience and endurance to get through the tough times.
By Gary Shotton #000384

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Patience And Endurance

By Gary Shotton

        Hello! I’m Gary Shotton and I’m here to be a part of inspiring better business IBBTtalks, we’re going to talk about patience and endurance. My dad was such a shining example to me I didn’t realize it at the time as much as when I now look back and just remember the stories of his life, he was a farmer and rancher and we moved he moved one of the most amazing things he did was move from a very fertile area in the state of Kansas to a much drier and less productive area. Where the land was not producing the crops in southeastern Colorado in the united states and he was an example of patience and endurance. It was 20 years after he moved there before he could buy his first piece of land he worked for somebody else not as an employee he didn’t ever get a paycheck but it’s called sharecropping and he got only the pro the percentage of the cash crop that was raised on the ground that was owned by somebody else and he tried to own it and he tried to buy it.

It was the landowner didn’t want to let him have it and then the bank wasn’t favorable. He had to just continue to plug away and continue to add land and equipment and tractors until the point he was really a fairly large operator and the banks and everything fell into place but there were rain storms that went on the neighbors and didn’t rain on our ground. You see our ground had no fertilization and no irrigation and so we’re totally dependent upon natural rainfall in what would be a considered a very dry and arid part of the land just marginally enough moisture the soil was all right. It just didn’t have the moisture just to give an example on good irrigated ground with water and fertilizer you could expect between 120 to 150 bushels per acre on a harvest. Because you water it and fertilize it we averaged 20 bushels to eight per acre but there were years upon years two or three years in a row there was no crop none no income from the land but he had income from the cattle he had other ways of constantly being patient but enduring to the end.

Now when you’re looking at your life and into your situations you’re going to have to come to grips that there’s a this doesn’t happen automatically on a straight line up from the left to the right. You know sometimes you graph something you think on when you have on the bottom you have time and on the left-hand side of a graph you have your levels of income or prosperity. And you’re thinking man this is just going straight up to the right, because I’m love the lord or I’m doing the right things. I’m working hard it doesn’t usually work that way in fact it doesn’t work that way it’s more like up some years down, another year up another a couple years in a row and then down a little heartache in there in patience and endurance is part of the quality of an entrepreneur. That has truly started from ground floor with no financial backing and that’s where most of you are and you’ve got to recognize that you’re not being punished you have to be willing to last out to the end and not quit.

A good saying by a friend of mine that he read from somebody else so I can’t even give credit but it said that “Satan has no counter-attack for patience if you continue to be patient in your what you’re doing and consistently doing what you should do then there’s no way you can fail. You can only think you can do is quit and you’re not going to fail and if you hold on and you continue plugging away and there’s going to be bursts of encouragement and so. I’m not talking about just you know driving it in the ground so that you have no success but you’re going to have some success with god’s help now. I’m going to read a scripture verse here that’s going to be kind of puts it in place and I’m going to talk about the factor right here in the middle of august. When we have the corona virus and Covid-19 and I’m having to practice patients and endurance, right now for the last six to eight months our income has been about two-thirds of what it should be normally be.

We’ve had to cut expenses we’ve had to watch everything we spend, we’re really working hard to be honest to break even in other words to not lose money to just break even we haven’t had to lay off any employees. We hope not to we don’t think we’re going to have to but man it’s sharpening my business skills to no end here’s the verse in Hebrews chapter verse 13 and it says here that “well it’s after it’s talking about Abraham. And for I’m going back to 13 it says” for when god made a promise to Abraham he’s made a promise to you he made a promise to Abraham and that was a promise to have wealth and have an abundance and have a family. He wasn’t able to have a family early on of his own him and Sarah because he could swear to no one greater so god made a promise to Abraham. Because he god could swear to no one greater than to himself he swore to himself saying surely blessing.

I will bless you and multiplying I will multiply you and here’s where I’m getting at and so this is talk about Abraham after he had patiently endured. He obtained the promise you know if that’s true for Abraham in god’s kingdom i think maybe we might be in the same boat and don’t forget you are going to learn things during all of this period of endurance and patience. If you’ll take note if you’ll try to learn if you’ll see it as part of your training here’s four things that I think you should watch at and so as all things are looking bad or it’s not working like you want don’t panic. I have a complete teaching on that just don’t panic you’re not going to do any good if you’re frazzled in your mind number two continue with solid business principles. We had an opportunity here that the government gave us a large sum of money to make it through this pandemic and i appreciate that but some people blew that money and didn’t use it wisely.

I don’t care how much money I have in reserve or in the bank I follow solid business principles continue step by step by step three surround yourself with like-minded people positive people you have no business running around with people that are saying wow there’s no way we’re going to. Make it did you hear that on the news report by the way cut out a lot of that news that’s bad find something that’s good to listen to. Because what you hear you’re going to take in and you’re going to start saying that and that’s the last one watch what you say don’t start saying there’s no way this is going to work out. No it doesn’t look good right now and we the reality is I’m a little tight on cash but I know that my god is more than enough i know he’ll give me wisdom to deal with this i know out of the and sometimes you don’t say anything you just keep your mouth shut so I hope this helps. i hope you’re a part of when you’re when it kind of gets tough patience and endurance will help see you through you.