Learn to wait

There’s no such thing as instant success, with either people or problems. Whether you need to lose ten pounds or one hundred pounds, the weight can only be shed one pound at a time. Standing on top of the mountain is a thrill, but you can only get up there one step at a time. Nothing great is created suddenly; almost every significant success in life comes at the end of a long, arduous wait. And unless you accept that truth, you’ll give up too soon and settle far short of the success God has in mind for you. Jell-O celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1997, but if the inventor were still alive, he would probably take little comfort in his product’s success. In 1897 Pearl Wait wore many hats. He was a construction worker who also experimented in patent medicines, and he went door to door selling his therapies. In the midst of tinkering and experimenting, he hit upon the idea of mixing fruit flavouring with granulated gelatin. His wife promptly named it Jell-O, and Wait had one more product to peddle. Unfortunately, the initial sales of his jiggly snack were not as strong as he hoped, so he ended up selling his Jell-O rights to Orator Woodward for the paltry sum of $450. Woodward was a savvy businessman. He knew the value of marketing, and within eight years he turned a $450 investment into a million-dollar business. Today, not a single relative of Pearl Wait receives one penny from the million-plus boxes of Jell-O sold every day. Why not? Because Wait couldn’t wait!