There is a simple solution using cornstarch and water that produces an amazing metaphor to describe how patience plays a key roll in your journey of excellence.

Steve Spangler provides science experiments on the Ellen Degeneres Show. He did a show where he had an enormous vat of the mixture and to illustrate its unusual properties, had a volunteer from the audience run across. Watch:

So this mixture stiffens up when you beat down fast upon it. But if you take it slow, you can sink into it easily. Hence the metaphor of excellence.

It's different than the objective in the video, where they tried not to sink. You WANT to sink into excellence because when you are immersed in your core, you come alive.

I was talking with a client the other day about this. It seems when we take the time to reflect and go slow, we are more apt to pick up on what's really going on and make necessary course corrections and get further faster. This requires patience.

Patience is so much more than a virtue. It's a vital character trait of those who are becoming the fullest expression of their unique, God-given design. Patience is both the appreciation, as well as the exercise, of the principle that slow is fast; less is more. Of course there will be times to sprint and work hard for a season. But generally, excellence is a marathon over the long run.

ACTION STEP

• Pull up your Google or Outlook or Apple calendar
• Create a recurring appointment first thing every morning for 15 minutes
• Name it "cornstarch"
• During these 15-minute appointments, reflect on all that's happening in your life. Bullet point your thoughts