How Come You Are Not Where You Want To Be?

I spend a lot of my time reading books on making me better at what I do. To say my library has become extensive over the last year would be a vast understatement. Of all the books I've read and in the process of reading, "The Slight Edge" makes more sense than most of the others. And the more I get into this book the more I realize it's the way I've lived and approached life - more so during my entrepreneurship, but the "way" nonetheless.

What really hit the nail on the head was the following:

"The Power of Compounding Effort"

Picture a huge, heavy flywheel- a massive metal disk mounted horizontally on an axle, about thirty feet in diameter, two feet thick, and weighing about 5,000 pounds. Now imagine that your task is to get the flywheel rotating on the axle as fast and for as long as possible.

Pushing with great effort, you get the flywheel to inch forward, moving almost imperceptibly at first. You keep pushing and, after two or three hours of persistent effort, you get the flywheel to complete on entire turn.

You keep pushing, and the flywheel begins to move it round a second rotation. You keep pushing in a consistent direction. Three turns...four...five...six...the flywheel builds up speed...seven...eight...you keep pushing...nine...ten...it builds momentum...eleven...twelve...moving faster with each turn...twenty...thirty...fifty...a hundred.

Then at some point--breakthrough! The momentum of the thing kicks in your favor, hurling the flywheel forward, turn after turn...whoosh! ... its own heavy weight working for you. You're pushing no harder than the first rotation, but the flywheel goes faster and faster. Each turn of the flywheel builds upon work done earlier, compounding your investment of effort. A thousand times faster, ten thousand, then a hundred thousand. The huge heavy disk flies forward with almost unstoppable momentum.

Now suppose someone came along and asked, What was the one big push that caused this thing to go so fast?"

You wouldn't be able to answer; it's a nonsensical question. Was it the first push? The second? The fifth? The hundredth? No! It was ALL of them added together in an overall accumulation of effort applied in a consistent direction. Some pushes may have been bigger than others, but any single heave---no matter how large----reflects a small fraction of the entire cumulative effect upon the flywheel."

That analogy actually came from Jim Collins, "Good To Great" book, and was used in this book.

As I sit here and look over how my life has played out, I'm amazed at how this is the way I've always done things. Never intentionally until now, but there was always that trait in my DNA that would not allow me to fall for the "Magic Bullet".

For this, I have a smile on my face knowing I am on the right path and have been blessed with the opportunity to teach others as well.