“Success is simple changes compounded over time”
If success could be graphed, here’s what it would look like:
When I began reading these biographies on famous millionaires and high achievers throughout history, I noticed that they all experienced something similar on their road to success. They had a very difficult time in the beginning but as they progressed they got better and as they got better, they gained momentum. With this momentum, they continued on consistently until they saw an exponential growth in their results.
I used to think that success was a straight line going up in a linear fashion.
But that is not the case. The beginning is always the hardest and that’s where most people give up. Not knowing what they are trying to accomplish might have a steep learning curve and it takes time to learn and adjust. Once someone pushes past the initial barriers they pick up on subtle lessons on the way to the top and each new piece of information, no matter how small, builds on the other. It’s almost like blocks stacking up against each other and bringing you that much higher and closer to where you want to be.
As you progress higher and higher, the rapid growth that you might’ve experienced before begins to slow down. This is where masters begin to home in on their craft and the skill seems to progress slower.
It is often said that it only takes a couple months to get good but to be great, it takes a whole lot of years. If you’ve Malcom Gladwell’s outliers then you understand this concept of 10,000 hours which is the observation that it takes approximately this amount of time for a person to be truly great at something and it can be easily seen when you read the stories of people like Michael Jordan who are revered as not legends, but icons.
One interesting thing to note is that there is no cap to where it stops. There is no level of achievement where “you have arrived” and it’s over.
This can either be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you look at it. It can be detrimental if you view it as never being at the absolute top. But it can be a good thing because you get to continuously do what you love and what you are exceptionally great at.
It is unlimited the amount of success that you can achieve.