The Waiting Game

I

know a guy who is a former Marine recon sniper, and I once asked him what the hardest part of the job was. He didn’t hesitate. “The waiting,” he said. “You settle into your position behind the rifle, and you have no idea if you’re going to be there for two minutes or two days. You just sit and wait for the target to show up.”

That resonates in my line of work. When you take on the responsibility of working with an individual, no matter what the issues are, 80% of what you’re going to do is wait.

You build a relationship and you wait. You nurture the relationship and you wait. You learn together, you hang out together, you develop a connection, and you just wait. So that when that person is ready to change, you’re there, in position, ready to take that shot.

Izzy had been asked to leave three yeshivos before he applied to Yesod. I did a little research, and everyone told me the same thing: He’d start out strong but then lose interest and stop showing up. He also never connected with any of the rebbeim.