May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done here on earth, just as it is in heaven.”

Business is by nature impatient. No where do I see that like I do in the world of Private Equity. Private equity and Venture Capital are different and also similar. Both are other people’s money. Both are outside influences on a business and on the leaders of the business. Both are in a hurry, but for different reasons. Venture Capital is in a hurry because they are usually racing to be first or largest to market. Venture Capital is like feeding the 16 year old boy as much food and nutrients as the boy can take to keep him growing as fast as he can. Venture Capital creates and expands. Private Equity is different. Private Equity is extremely impatient and will go to extremes to pare and prune back a business to see if the new shoots will grow the business more efficiently with a greater return to the shareholder. Rather than feed, Private Equity starves and limits the overall intake in hope that “fat” will be reduced so muscle is what is left. I have friends in both industries and I must say that the harder job is Private Equity because the draconian actions necessary to cost-cut to increase shareholder value is very, very difficult. The two ways of business building, with neither being better than another, are still both impatient in their own way and demand founders/teams to bend to the will and pace of the investor.

Jesus teaches us to pray for the Kingdom of God to come soon. We are to desire and reach to God for Him to deliver the Kingdom. However, in the next sentence, Jesus tells us to be patient and wait for the will of God to be done. There is much in life that we can influence to go our way, but the will of God is not one of those. This we must trust to happen and then follow the path that God puts in front of us. Maybe in this we are more like Venture Capitalists that we are to be as additive to God’s will as we can to assist in His will being done. And, still we are to be like those in Private Equity in paring and removing the distractions and the superficial that distract or take us away from the main reason we are here. Regardless of the similarities or the differences, we are to learn and have patience to allow God to work in our lives to His will, not ours. This week, let’s have a look at who is leading whom? Is it us trying to pace and lead God, or have we surrendered enough to let Him take the lead?

Reference: Matthew 6:10 (New Living Testament)