I was inspired this week by Paul Piotrowski’s e-book article on exponential growth as it relates to not only elements of nature and cell growth, or business and finances, but also things like the power of exponential growth in effort and results, motivation and returns, and a whole host of other real world applications.
From the e-book “Mastering The Most Powerful Force In The Universe”:
The study of success is a multi-billion dollar business. Self help books, courses, coaching programs, home study courses, websites and hundreds of other resources have been created to help us study success so that we may experience it in our lives.
However, there is a slight problem with all this wonderful self-help “stuff”. The problem is that IT doesn’t work, unless YOU work IT. I would venture a guess that 95% of the programs out there would work to achieve the results we want, but 95% of us don’t work the programs long enough to get the results. The problem is not the programs. The problem is our philosophy in life.
We are masters at ignoring the little things. We hate the words “long term”. All we want is the quick fix, the quick pill, the dramatic success story that happens right now. Get rich quick. Make money fast. Lose weight now – 40 pounds in 40 days!
We are surrounded by a culture built on this whole concept of the quick fix. We are mesmerized by movies and stories of instant success. How many movies have we seen where an athlete decides to go for gold and the movie breaks into a 2 minute montage of him working out and getting into the shape of his life and then we watch him go for gold!
This is great, however, in real life we don’t get into top physical shape in 2 minutes. It can take months or years.
Does this mean that we have to take a slow, boring, conservative route to success? No, it’s not about that. It’s all about understanding how exponential growth affects your life.
It got me thinking about sticking with things, dedication and the like. I’ve always been pretty consistent with jobs, a fairly stable long-term employee if you will… But I have also found myself jumping from one new idea to the next in other areas of my life particularly when I’m bored or uninspired.
One of the key points I took away from the article is that this tendency to give up on things in life is really because we’re not seeing the results we want or expect within an initial time frame. Whether this is a few days, several weeks, months or whatever – the point is that often the first 80% of effort will often produce little result. It’s what we do after this point that really counts. Sticking with things potentially allows us to tap into massive powers of exponential growth, available to us in a whole host of areas in life.
I also think there’s a lot to be said for starting things now, today rather than regretting never starting them earlier, or lamenting the time already lost…
** Just as an added disclaimer, I have no affiliation with Paul’s site Inspired Moneymaker – but check it out sometime, he has some interesting thoughts and ideas. The e-book is available for RSS subscribers.
luv ‘think and grow rich’. It’s classic for good reasons.
Welcome back!
I’ve recently read Think and Grow Rich and I love the ideas. I like how you mentioned that dedication and consistency are key. I’ve found that to be true in my life. Whenever I waver in those areas, my results aren’t the same. Or my outlook shifts.
Once again, glad to you have you back.
Great work here. I will definitely need to check out Think and Grow Rich. I have heard so many great things about it. Looking forward to more of your work
Amber’s last blog post..Stuck Inside This Summer? 4 Tips To Make Sure You Don’t Miss Out
@Rich – Hi, thanks for visiting and taking the time to comment!
@Nathalie – Hi there.. I’m a big fan of the book also! Like I said, sometimes we need to remind each other to stick with things from time to time… Thanks for the welcome back comment also!
@Amber – Hi there, thanks for visiting!
Hi Ross-
Have missed you-
I have to pick up the book the next time I am out.
Looking forward to more stuff from you.
Cheers
bunnygotblog’s last blog post..It’s A Bug’s Life
@bunny – Hi, thanks for the comment! Hope all is well…