by Dominick Swentosky of the Troutbitten website

I am guessing—though not really—that you have had some older person in your family who was always a master of sitting on a pond or creek bank, or in a boat with a fishing pole extended, straw hat pulled down over their eyes, maybe napping and you marveled at their patience because fishing for you was moving from spot to spot until you found the fish.

This blog by Troutbitten’s Dominick Swentosky does not make the case that these behaviors are complementary. Rather, he proposes that to be a successful trout fisherman (or really in any kind of vocation or hobby), persistence is more important than patience.

I would agree with Dominick that persistence is a critical personal skill, but one cannot achieve integrity—the larger personal attribute of successful people—without also demonstrating patience. 

I wonder. Who have you known in your life who you thought to yourself, “Now there is a person who has it all together.” They probably didn’t have it all together all the time. Still, they did demonstrate integrity when it counted: When an unpopular decision had to be made, when staying the course was absolutely necessary to demonstrate to their children, and when not being consistent was the right thing to do because of the circumstances surrounding the events that led to not being persistent or consistent.

What do these three words, persistence, patience, and integrity, mean to you? If Dominick Swentosky has made you reconsider your definitions of each, I expect he would consider himself successful.

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Energy and persistence conquer all things.— Benjamin Franklin

Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going when the going is hard and
slow – that is patience!— Leo Tolstoy

Integrity is doing the right thing even when noone is watching. — C.C. Lewis