An Unexpected Key to Business Success

Check out this excerpt from Entrepreneur.com!

Your capacity for delayed gratification increases your likelihood to succeed.

By Kristin Wehner Keffeler

February 20, 2009

While slowing down to eat intentionally may not seem on the surface to be directly related to how effectively you're able to run your business, it's actually an ideal laboratory for the success-minded entrepreneur. For most people, eating is something they do mindlessly, and both how and what they eat is almost purely habit. That's also how most people choose to approach their work. But entrepreneurs who find sustaining success are neither mindless nor habitual about their work.

The way people allow delayed gratification with food reveals other things, too. In the 1960s, Stanford University psychology researcher Michael Mischel conducted The Marshmallow Study, which demonstrated how children's self-discipline and choices related to food directly corresponds to success later in life.

During the study, Mischel offered a group of 4-year-olds a marshmallow, but said if they waited for him to run an errand, they could have two. The errand ended up taking about 20 minutes. One-third of the children opted to take the marshmallow right away while one-third ended up waiting for Mischel's return so they could have two marshmallows. Fourteen years later, the children who waited turned out to be more positive, more successful in school and better able to pursue their goals by delaying gratification. The children who did not wait for the extra marshmallow ended up scoring an average of 210 fewer points on SAT tests and were also more indecisive and less self-confident in life.

At first glance, this study might suggest that nature wins over nurture. Mischel, however, discovered if children are taught cognitive tricks, they do better. What this means for you is that it's possible to learn how to make better decisions. You may not always use the right mental tools in the right situation.

For example, some people need to know all the options before they make decisions. These people are called maximizers. They tend to need the best possible option and generally are less satisfied and happy in life. Satisfiers tend to be more satisfied with something as long as it has the qualities they want--unlike the maximizer who wants to examine every possible choice. Once you learn which you are, you can begin to train yourself to use your brain to your advantage and actually make better decisions.

Continue to hone your skills of mindfulness, intention and delayed gratification through all of your daily actions--from when you eat that single raisin to when you can reach for seconds.