I came across something on Facebook recently that stayed with me. The message was about trusting God's timing, believing that better days are coming, and learning to appreciate where you are while still working toward where you want to be.
Maybe it stayed with me because entrepreneurs are not particularly good at living in the present.
We build businesses because we believe tomorrow can be bigger than today. We make plans, set targets, chase opportunities and convince ourselves that the next deal, the next client, the next expansion or the next breakthrough might finally change everything.
There is nothing wrong with ambition. I have spent much of my life building things, dreaming about what they could become and working toward a future that did not yet exist. In many ways, that is what entrepreneurship is. You see something that isn't there yet, and for some strange reason, you decide it is your responsibility to make it exist.
But there is a danger in always living for the next chapter.
You can spend so much time trying to reach "there" that you forget God has already given you "here."
We Are Always Chasing Something
Entrepreneurs seem to live permanently one milestone ahead.
When the business becomes profitable, I'll relax. When we land that big client, things will be easier. When the loan is paid, I'll finally breathe. When we reach this revenue target, I'll be satisfied. When the company becomes stable, I'll spend more time with my family.
Then something funny happens.
You reach the target and almost immediately create another one.
Apparently, entrepreneurs are very talented at moving the finish line.
You spend months trying to get ten customers. Then you get ten customers and start worrying about how to get fifty. You finally generate enough revenue to pay the bills, and suddenly you're thinking about expansion. You get the office you wanted, and six months later you're looking at a bigger office.
There is nothing inherently wrong with this. Growth requires ambition. Progress requires us to imagine something better. Dreams give us something to work toward.
The problem begins when we make happiness conditional on achievement.
If happiness is always located at the next milestone, we may spend our entire lives chasing it without ever actually experiencing it.
Maybe "Here" Isn't Where You Wanted to Be
I understand that gratitude is easy to talk about when everything is going well. It becomes much harder when you're struggling.
Maybe your business isn't earning what you expected. Maybe you're carrying debts nobody knows about. Maybe the opportunity you were counting on disappeared. Maybe you've been working hard, doing everything you know how to do, and still wondering why nothing seems to be moving.
There are seasons when you look at your life and think, "God, surely this wasn't the plan." I've had moments like that.
Business teaches us to act. If sales are down, change the strategy. If expenses are high, cut costs. If customers aren't coming, improve the marketing. Entrepreneurs are trained to believe that almost every problem can be solved by doing something.
Faith sometimes teaches a different lesson.
Sometimes you have already done what you can do. You have worked, planned, adjusted and tried again. At that point, the challenge is no longer effort. The challenge is accepting that you cannot control everything.
For people like us, that may be one of the hardest lessons in the world.
What If This Season Has a Purpose Too?
We tend to divide life into two categories: where we are and where we think we should be. And somehow, where we are almost always loses.
We assume the real story begins after the breakthrough. Once the business succeeds, once the money improves, once the problem disappears, once everything finally falls into place — then life can really begin.
But life is already happening.
What if this season is not simply an annoying hallway you have to walk through before God finally opens another door? What if there are things He wants you to see, learn and appreciate right here?
Perhaps patience cannot be learned when everything happens immediately. Perhaps faith cannot grow if everything follows our preferred schedule. Perhaps wisdom develops precisely because some things didn't work the way we wanted them to.
Looking back at my own life, some of the lessons I value most did not come from moments when everything went according to plan. They came from mistakes, disappointments, difficult decisions and seasons when I had no idea what would happen next.
At the time, I certainly wasn't thanking God for the educational experience. Usually, I was asking Him to please end the educational experience as soon as possible.
But eventually, you look back and realize that the person who walked out of that season was not the same person who walked into it.
Don't Put Conditions on Your Joy
One thought from that Facebook message particularly stayed with me: we should not place conditions on our joy.
That is a powerful idea, especially in business.
Entrepreneurs are constantly surrounded by numbers. Revenue. Profit. Growth. Valuation. Sales. Followers. Employees. Customers. Market share. Bank balances.
Numbers are useful. They tell us whether a business is healthy. They help us make decisions. But numbers are terrible at measuring whether a life is meaningful.
A profitable company cannot tell you whether your children enjoy being around you. A large bank account cannot measure whether you sleep peacefully at night. A successful career cannot tell you whether the people you love know that you love them. A balance sheet cannot measure faith, friendship, health, character, laughter or peace.
Yet we sometimes sacrifice the things that cannot be measured in pursuit of the things that can.
We tell ourselves it is temporary. Just one more year. Just one more project. Just one more milestone.
Then one day you realize the years were not waiting for you. They were passing.
There Will Always Be Someone Further Ahead
Business also makes comparison almost unavoidable.
Today, we can open our phones and instantly see somebody who appears to be doing better than us. Someone raised millions. Someone opened another branch. Someone bought a new house. Someone is travelling somewhere beautiful while we are sitting in front of a spreadsheet wondering why the numbers don't balance.
Social media has given us the remarkable ability to compare the most difficult parts of our lives with the most carefully edited parts of somebody else's. That is rarely a fair competition.
There will always be someone with more money. There will always be a larger company, a younger entrepreneur, a more successful investor, a nicer car, a bigger house or a more impressive story.
If your peace depends on being ahead of everyone else, peace will become almost impossible.
Perhaps the better question isn't, "Why am I not where they are?" Perhaps it is, "Have I stopped long enough to appreciate where I am?"
There was probably a time when something you have today was something you once prayed for.
Don't become so focused on what is still missing that you become blind to what has already arrived.
Faith Doesn't Mean You Stop Building
None of this means we should abandon ambition.
I still believe in dreaming big. I still believe in building companies, creating opportunities, investing, growing, taking calculated risks and trying to make tomorrow better than today.
I don't believe God gave us abilities so we could bury them in the ground and call it contentment.
There is a difference between gratitude and complacency.
Gratitude says, "Thank You, God, for what I have."
Ambition says, "Let me see what I can build with it."
Those two things can live together.
You can be grateful for your small business while dreaming of building a large one. You can appreciate your current income while working to increase it. You can love where you are while still believing God is taking you somewhere else.
The important thing is not allowing the destination to steal the beauty of the journey.
Some Things Cannot Be Forced
One of the hardest lessons I continue to learn is that not everything happens according to my schedule.
I can make plans. I can prepare. I can work hard. I can make calls, send proposals, build systems, hire people, invest money and stay up far too late thinking about problems that will still be there in the morning.
But there comes a point where control ends.
Sometimes the deal doesn't happen. Sometimes the timing isn't right. Sometimes a door closes. Sometimes something you desperately wanted disappears, and only much later do you understand why.
I have learned that forcing something simply because I want it badly enough does not always make it right for me.
Sometimes faith means pushing forward. Other times it means having the courage to let go.
Wisdom is learning the difference.
Your Life Is Happening Right Now
We talk about building wealth, but perhaps we should occasionally stop and ask what wealth is actually for.
If you have people who love you, appreciate them now. If your parents are still around, spend time with them now. If you have children, listen to their stories now — even the very long ones that apparently have no ending. If you have good friends, call them. If your body is healthy enough to carry you through another day, be grateful for it.
If you have food on the table, work to do, a roof over your head and another morning in front of you, don't dismiss those things simply because they are ordinary.
Ordinary blessings become extraordinary the moment we lose them.
Perhaps one of the greatest forms of wealth is simply being able to recognize that you are already blessed while you are still building the life you want.
Trust God, but Keep Doing Your Part
I don't know what tomorrow holds.
Neither does any entrepreneur, no matter how impressive the business plan looks.
The company may grow beyond anything you imagined. An unexpected opportunity may appear. A problem that seems impossible today may eventually become nothing more than a story you tell over dinner.
Or life may take you somewhere completely different.
Faith is not knowing exactly what will happen. Faith is trusting God even when you don't.
So keep working. Keep building. Keep learning. Keep improving yourself. Keep showing up and knocking on doors.
But while you're doing all of that, don't forget to live.
Don't postpone gratitude until the bank account reaches a certain number. Don't postpone peace until every problem disappears. Don't postpone time with the people you love until business becomes less busy, because business has a remarkable talent for finding new ways to keep you busy.
And don't make your relationship with God something you remember only when everything else has failed.
Talk to Him now. Thank Him for what you already have. Trust Him with what you cannot control.
The Rise of the Tycoon Is Not Just About Money
Perhaps this is one of the lessons I want The Rise of the Tycoon to stand for.
Building wealth matters. Creating businesses matters. Success matters. Financial independence can give us choices, help our families, create jobs and allow us to do good things for other people.
But becoming wealthy while becoming empty is not success.
The tycoon I want to become is not simply someone who has accumulated more. I want to become someone who has learned more, helped more, appreciated more, forgiven more, loved more and trusted God more along the way.
Because someday, whatever we are building will belong to someone else.
The offices, companies, properties, investments and possessions will eventually change hands. Even the businesses we spent decades building may someday exist without us.
What remains is who we became while building them.
So yes, dream about tomorrow. Work for it. Pray for it. Build toward it with everything you have. Believe that better days can come, that God can still surprise you, and that some of today's struggles may someday make sense when you look back at them.
But don't become so obsessed with tomorrow that you fail to recognize the miracle of today.
You are here. You are still learning, still building and still becoming. You can still change direction. You can still begin again. And you still have today in your hands.
That may not be everything you want yet.
But it is not nothing.
Thank God for it.
Then keep building.
— Angelo R. Villamejor
The Rise of the Tycoon
