Arun used to pace a lot.

He wasn’t nervous. Just restless. The kind of restlessness you feel when you’ve done the work… but nothing’s moving. He was 26, two years into building his creative agency, and no one outside his circle even knew it existed.

His friends had started posting job promotions. He had started posting less. Every morning, he showed up before sunrise. Designed. Rewrote proposals. Took client calls that drained him. Built the website again. Stayed in the shadows.

He told himself:“If I just push a little harder… something will click.”

But weeks turned into months. And nothing clicked.
No virality. No traction. Just… silence. Until one evening, he called me.
His voice wasn’t broken….. just tired.

I didn’t give him advice.
I told him a story.

II.

I told him about a forest I walked through, often calm, wild, ancient.
And how, one day, standing beneath a massive tree, I had this strange realization:

Think about it:
A tree takes years before anyone notices it. For months, it's just a seed in darkness.
No applause. No sunlight. Just dirt, cold, and stillness. But under the surface, it’s not waiting. It’s rooting.

The branches you eventually see, they only grow as deep as the roots allow.
If the roots are shallow, the tree will collapse with the first storm.

That’s what I told Arun:

III.

Psychologists call this the Delay of Gratification.
The ability to resist the now… for something better later.

Remember the famous Marshmallow Test?
Kids were offered one marshmallow immediately or two if they could wait 15 minutes. The ones who waited? They weren’t smarter. Just more trusting of time, of their decision, of themselves.

Years later, follow-up studies showed these kids had better self-control, higher achievement, and lower stress. Not because they had talent… but because they had patience.

Arun wasn’t lacking skill. He was just addicted to immediacy like most of us are. Dopamine, the molecule of motivation spikes when we expect instant reward. That’s why likes feel better than unread emails.

But the problem? True growth lives in the quiet phase.
The root phase. The season where no one’s clapping but everything is being built.

IV.

Three months after that call, Arun didn’t go viral.
But something shifted. He stopped checking metrics every hour.
He redesigned his process, not just his website.
He wrote content no one read until the right person did.

And one night, I got a message:

I smiled. Not because of the client.
But because of who he became in the waiting.

V.

The tree still grows slow. But it’s strong now.

And so is Arun.

Because here’s the truth no one sells you:
The things that grow fast usually fade faster.
Fame. Trends. Hacks. Virality.

But the things that grow slow?
They last.

Like a reputation. Like real confidence. Like love. Like mastery.

And like a tree —
you don’t rush that.

VI.

So if you’re reading this and feeling like your work isn’t growing. If you're questioning whether it's even worth it. If you’re wondering why it feels like you’re in the dark…

Maybe you’re not failing. Maybe you’re just in your root season.

A Quiet Challenge for This Week:

Find a moment of silence. No noise. No metrics. Just space.

Then ask yourself:

• What have I planted this year that hasn’t bloomed yet?

• What invisible roots have I been building?

• Can I trust the process, even if I can't see results yet?

Because the truth is: You can’t rush a tree.
And you shouldn’t rush your growth either.

Your bloom is coming.
But first — the roots.