Growth

The way we were taught to think about growth limits us in some ways.  We were taught to think about growth in a linear way.  For example, things, when growing, grow at a fixed linear pace.  Every measurement increases by one.  You grow from 4 to 5, or from 19 to 20.  Or even growing in 2’s, or 5’s, or 10’s.  But the key is the growth I’m describing is linear, increasing at a constant pace.

But the reality is you should think exponentially, or in terms of percentage increases, rather than whole numbers.  Let’s take a standard exponential curve.  Something starts at 1, then 2, then instead of 3, it goes to 4, then 8, then 16, then 32… this is the way some things work, and should be your goal.  Anything on a linear growth path is limited to an almost constant state of growth.  But anything on an exponential growth path can grow to be infinite much faster.

That’s a function of exponential growth.  It looks a lot like zero, then suddenly it’s not.

Let me explain the math.  If you double every month your efficiency, or your output, or your money, you don’t see the massive future results for a long time because you’re starting from such a small base.  Say you improve at 0.1%, but you double your improvement on a consistent basis.  You learn something, you build on what you’ve learned with more knowledge, so your progress doubles.  Then doubles again, and again.

Here’s how that looks using a monthly timeline.  Month one, you start with an improvement of 0.1%, then the next month you double to 0.2%, then 0.4%, 0.8%, 1.6%.  Finally! After 5 months you have 1% growth!  It took you 5 months of what feels like banging your head against the wall with no progress to get that 1% improvement.

But keep watching.

Month 6 your improvement doubles to 3.2%, then to 6.4%, 12.8%.  In the next 3 months, your improvement is now over 10%.  But it keeps going: 25.6%, 51.2%, 102.4% and in the 12th month, 204.8%.  In a year, you’ve achieved a more than 200% improvement.

Amazing, but even more amazing is it keeps going from there, from 200% to 400% to 800%… so you see how even though the first 5 months, there was very little progress, but even in a timeline as short as a year, the impact is substantial.  Understanding this, and working through the times when progress appears to be zero, having a compound growth mindset is the key to success.

A variation of the exponential growth function is something called a viral coefficient.  This is a math function describing how fast something spreads, or replicates.  One way to think about this is with your family.  If you have a mother and a father, and you have two children, that is a viral coefficient of 1.  Each unit replicated once.  However each of those children has two children.  And each of those children have two children.  Before you know it you have a family tree that is doubling with every generation.

The same thing happens with growth.  If something is contagious, or grows exponentially, it can be measured by it’s viral coefficient, and anything with a coefficient of greater than 1, grows really, really quickly!  Not to be negative, but think COVID 19.  It spread quickly, and some variants were more contagious than others.

There is one other multiplier you have to be careful of:  zero.  Anything multiplied by zero is zero.  It eliminates any progress you’ve made, any growth you’ve seen.  That said, it is difficult to be objective about any zero-based activities you might be engaging in.

What is a zero based activity?  It could be a fundamental area of weakness you have.  It could be someone who just can’t deliver.  It could be a blind spot you have in either your approach or your activity.  But whatever it is, it is something that is holding you back.  The challenge with this bottleneck is what you’re going to do about it.  Do you take your limited resources and focus on making your strengths better?  Or do you fix the zero spot?

Let’s simplify the question and use math to make the decision.   Any amount of effort, multiplied by 0, equals 0.  Fixing the zero in your life, if there is one, rather than applying more effort elsewhere is the best place to start.

Once you have the zero fixed, you can truly start to grow.