Compound It!

Dag nab it. Gosh darn it. Confound it. Or better yet, Compound It! The first three slang terms remind me of being a kid and watching old cartoons where the character would like to swear, but of course it wouldn't be appropriate. The last term is usually associated with complex financial calculations, but is certainly applicable in a variety of situations and has a good lesson for us all in this time when frugality seems to be more popular than in years past.

Perhaps you're familiar with the math problem that asks you to figure out whether you'd have more money at the end of one month if you were given $3.0 million on the first day, or you'd have more money if you got a penny on day one and the amount doubled each day thereafter for the same period of time. Without getting into the whole "time value" of money, "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" or some other nonsense that would make you chose the $3.0 million on day one, know that you'd be wrong to guess that the $3 million would be the better option. If you choose the penny, by the 31st day you'd have $10,737,418.24 and gosh darn it, that's the power of compounding.

Darren Hardy, publisher of Success Magazine, has a fairly new book out, The Compound Effect, which illustrates that everything you do in life exists because you started by making a choice about something. It's the ripple effects of our choices that lead to success or failure. I especially like this book because Darren wrote the book based on his own experiences, giving it extreme credibility. He tells about an upbringing by his single Dad, who wasn't exactly the soft, nurturing type. Actually, he was a former university football coach, who based on his own expectations for himself, hard-wired his son for achievement.

From his early years, Darren learned through example not to expect overnight success and that instituting change is hard work. That's where it seems the compounding effect is most useful. The more change one makes, making choices over and over is required and is the ultimate key to success.

You've heard me say it before...as independent people we love change...but only when it's our idea. So it makes sense that the only way to be successful is to institute change for ourselves over and over and over and take responsibility for the results, good or bad. The compounding effect of good choices is no different than the $3.0 million money "math problem". Compounding bad choices, or even no choices and, well, you get it.

No matter what we might try to pretend, we really are 100% in control of ourselves and pretty much have 0% control of others. We can influence and lead but we sure can't control. We can set examples and teach, but it's like that old saying about taking the horse to water but not being able to make it drink. If you're not inclined to like "change" you're in good company. No one really does. But the successful people get accustomed to the uncomfortable feeling it brings and, like working out or training, understand that the pain is clearly worth the gain.

We all know people, perhaps a whole generation, who have become very successful and have then gotten a little lazy. It's easy to get tired and lose some of the discipline that is needed to achieve whatever we choose as "success". And success isn't a place or time...it's like the horizon...it's there but you can't really get to it and you wouldn't want to because it's "the end". The discipline needed to be successful is real, but it's not always that hard. It takes thinking and caring more about someone other than you and it takes consistency so the compounding effect can work its magic. Chose to check out Success magazine and the works of Hardy, who by example and prose reminds us; "You make your choices, and then your choices make you". Oh, and while you're thinking about it, choose to "do something" and start and share your thoughts here.