Let me ask you a question. I’m going to make you a hypothetical offer. If I were to offer you a penny or a million dollars, which would you take? Most people of course would say, “I’ll take the million dollars.”
Let me put it another way. I’m going to offer you the choice of having a million dollars now, or I’ll give you a penny today and double it each and every day for an entire month. Now, which one would you take?
Well, if you’re like most people and haven’t seen this exercise before, you’ll likely still take the million dollars. However, you may be surprised to discover that, due to the power of compounding, or what is called the penny principle, you would have actually ended up with over $10.5 million at the end of the month if you had chosen to take the penny offer. Compounding interest is an incredibly powerful way to increase your wealth and, as demonstrated by this exercise, it’s really quite amazing how it takes off after a certain period of time, about day 23 or 24 in this case.
Midway through the month, you’re still at just a few hundred dollars and a million dollars seems a long way off. You’re just barely starting to see an increase and you may in fact be getting a little bit concerned at this point as you go through the exercise. I encourage you to actually get out a calculator, enter just one penny and then keep doubling the amount every day until day 31. In the end, you’ll see that you’ve got over $10 million dollars!
It’s really quite an interesting exercise and when I did it for the first time, I was shocked too, but I also knew there had to be a trick to the question, so I took the penny offer on the first day. The penny principle also applies to investing, and that’s why I brought it up. I’m going to extend the concept of compounding and apply it in terms of living your life exponentially. The principle of exponential growth applies equally whether you are investing your money or whether you are investing in yourself. The rapid exponential growth that begins to occur a bit later, in all cases, is built on the foundation of the previous investments. That’s really the way that we live our lives too. When we start to invest in stocks or real estate, build a business or invest in ourselves, we’re really investing in and building upon our previous successes. Whether you’re a multimillionaire today looking to make more, or whether you’re starting small, have no money or maybe even negative cash flow, you can still do this; the principle applies equally. You can build on the experiences and success that you have today, and continue to compound this with each and every subsequent investment that you make. This is what I mean by living life exponentially.
It all starts with some simple successes. You want to start to develop the habits of success, which will vary depending on who you are and where you are in life, and build on them. Begin by breaking down these habits of success that you want to create into categories, which will likely include: your financial habits; your work habits; your relationship habits; your fitness habits and eating habits. Next, examine what it is you’re currently doing and what you would like to be doing differently. Don’t worry about where you are today, just remember that you really only need to start with one simple success in each of these areas. You can start with the categories above and continue to develop as many others as you would like.
Ask yourself, “How can I have a small success in that area?” and then ask, “ What can I do from there?” Once you’ve achieved success on day one, continue to build on it. Let’s say, for example, that you’d like to start eating better, and you decide to cut your sugar consumption in half. Let’s say you’ve had success on day one, you’ve accomplished your goal, and you feel good about it! Continue this on days two and three. Now, on day four or five you may want to ask yourself, “Can I cut the amount of sugar I’m eating in half again?” Then on day 16, or maybe on day 21, you might decide that you want to cut sugar out of your diet completely. In this way, you can continue to build upon your previous days’ success, gaining momentum and feeling great about accomplishing even more.
This is just a simple example of what you may want to try and achieve, but it works in the same way for everything. Maybe it’s your spending habits that need to change, or your habits when it comes to investing your money. You may want to start putting some money away each and every paycheck. You could decide to start saving $10, $50, $100 or even $500 each paycheck, so you can build that nest egg and start to benefit from the power of compounding interest, until you decide what it is you want to do with that money. Step by step, starting out with small accomplishments, you will begin to build on your previous success. Over time, as your success compounds and grows and you continue to reinvest both in your self and your financial wealth, the lifestyle and financial freedom you desire will begin to materialize, creating exponential success in your life.
Maybe you’ll be starting from zero like I was. After a devastating bankruptcy, I was in a place where it was very difficult for several years. This is why I can tell you from my own experience that it doesn’t matter where you start out. You can begin by building on just one small success, and from there, another one and another. Build on the previous successes, step by step, creating momentum until finally you are able to start taking great leaps and bounds, gaining greater focus and increasing your strides forward. It all begins with those first steps. Your progress will be sustained by the knowledge that with each and every investment you are striding toward the future you have envisioned, and faith that your investments will begin to grow exponentially as you continue along on your path.
For myself, I am always cognizant and never forget that the level of success that I enjoy today began with those first few steps. I still apply these principles and ideas to this day. That’s how I build my life, my business, and my future, one success after another. I know that you can do this as well. I've seen it work for people time and time again, and it really does start with one simple success. As you continue to build on your power habits of success, it will become easier and easier, and, trust me on this, you’ll become enthused and excited. You’ll start to feel exhilarated as you see and feel your life getting better and moving in the direction that you want it to go. You’ll know that you’re in control of your life, and have the ability to create whatever you desire.
Living exponentially means taking charge of your life by building upon success after success. I liken this journey to traversing a mountain range. When you first start out, you are standing in the shadow of the first mountain, with the other mountains in the range still out of your sight, hidden by the first one. Your goal is to climb to the peek of what seems like a giant mountain, and so you begin. You continue climbing hand over hand, in a seemingly endless blur of jagged rocks and dark crevasses, the distant mountains hidden by the rock face that lies in front of you, until at last you reach your goal, the mountain’s peak. All of a sudden, from this vantage point, your perspective broadens, and you can now see another even higher peak which lies just beyond the first, and which had previously been hidden.
So you decide to climb this next peak, and after you’ve reached the summit of this one, you realize there’s yet another peak off in the distance that’s even higher still, and so you decide to climb that one too. Without realizing it, you’ve climbed past 12,000ft, and may now require the assistance of breathing apparatus! Staring back down toward the first mountain, which now seems much smaller, you realize that back then, you might never have believed you could climb to such heights, but you did it, seemingly without realizing it, just by taking one small step at a time, and focusing on each task in turn.
I like this analogy, because it illustrates that it’s possible to accomplish tasks that are daunting and seemingly impossible, if we break them down and simply continue to focus on achieving one small success at a time, and then continue to building on it. I know that you can do this too. So get out there, start to define and break down the things you want to achieve so that you can begin to develop the habits of success. Think about the areas in your life where you can start to take small steps that will create successes you can continue to build on and use to change your life for the better. Do this, and start living your life exponentially every single day. You’ll be building on each past success, enjoying your life, creating financial freedom for yourself, and living rich.
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