Zooming Out

Hello my friend,

I vividly remember the roller coaster life turned into when I hit rock bottom. One week, brilliant. Money was good, I was happier, it was amazing. The next week, a complete disaster. The cycle continued and while I was doing a lot - I never felt like real progress. There was no consistency.

Then we add in factors in life that take us away from our goals. Responsibilities, distractions, etc. Suddenly, we’re off the path and focused on one bad day or week instead of one amazing year.

But when we zoom out, we can see the journey in years, we slowly improve over time (if we’re lucky). But, if we only look at it day by day, we’re stuck. It feels like it’s barely moving at all (or getting worse over time). It’s so easy to fall into the trap of aiming for big, quick wins, when small gains daily deliver better, more consistent results.

It feels like every young, hungry, hard-working person goes through this (especially if they don’t have mentors to explain this to them).

But, as this is a business newsletter, we can contextualize it to help all of us grow. We take this lesson we learn personally, and apply it to our customers.

Business Context

But this is a business newsletter, so let’s look at it in a business context.

The CEO at beehiiv (one of my bosses at work), walked our entire company through this example.

Which customer is more likely to stay with us?

• Customer A: makes $100 using our product.

• Customer B: makes $20,000 using our product.

Probably customer B, right? But let’s zoom out and look at the overall trajectory.

The next month:

• Customer A: Goes from $100 to $500. A 500% increase (huge).

• Customer B: Goes from $20,000 to $10,000. Negative 50% (also huge, but in a bad way).

Would someone who took a loss be as happy, even if the overall amount of money is still good?

The next month:

• A: $500 to $1,000

• B: $10,000 to $5000.

Do you see what’s happening here?

Even though customer B is making way more money, they’re on a downward trajectory. The impression that they’re crushing it fades.

“Good” money is subjective. Great outcomes are often a result of comparison to the context you have. If you’re used to making $20k a month, $10k doesn’t feel so good. But growth always feels good.

This is about psychology; personally, and in business.

The Statistics

Small gains, daily, add up. Let’s break it down.

In this scenario, was start at 1. We’re at 100%. But, if we improve 1% every day, it doesn’t look like much.

• Day 1: 1.01 (1% better)

• Day 10: 1.10 (10% better)

• Day 20: 1.22 (22% better)

So far, it feels like the first 20 days didn’t do as much for us. But let’s keep going.

• Day 30: 1.35 (35% better)

• Day 40: 1.49 (49% better)

• Day 60: 1.82 (82% better)

• Day 70: 2.01 (101% better - doubled)

Notice how we have doubled in 70 days. Not 100. Suddenly, the compounding make sense.

• Day 80: 2.22 (122% better)

• Day 90: 2.45 (145% better)

• Day 100: 2.70 (170% better)

We’re not 100% better after 100 days. This is where it takes off.

• Day 200: 7.32 (632% better)

• Day 300: 19.84 (1,884% better)

• Day 365: 37.78 (3,678% better)

Read that again. After 365 days, we’re not 365% better. We’re 3,678% better. Almost 37x from 1% per day.

But we would never see that if we never zoomed out

Now, there is a caveat. Life doesn’t always make it easy to constantly go up with no bad days. But zooming out and seeing the overall trajectory, and giving ourselves enough time to get there is critical.

Cool…but is it really that easy?

Absolutely not. If it was easy, more people would do it. Naturally, we have to talk about how to set ourselves up to even be in a position to improve every day.

How are we supposed to improve 1% per day when our job is monotonous, doesn’t challenge us, and leave us doing the same old work every day? How can the business improve if we don’t have a setup that allows for the growth we seek?

I’ll share what I’ve uncovered so far with personal examples.

Here are some of my personal examples, we’ll do this in two sections. Quick wins, and tough changes.

Quick Fixes

Automating one thing per week.

A lot of productivity experts talk about this, but miss the individual context. Automating things is hard at first. The trap I fell into was spending more time tinkering the tech than actually working.

• ChatGPT can guide you every step of the way. Ask it, and it will just tell you what to do.

Managing your energy.

In almost all cases, waking up and getting started an hour earlier can help you solve this. You’ll have to sleep an hour earlier. Morning work is unmatched, and still underrated. Almost every super successful person I know is an early bird. Sleeping at 11 and waking up at 6 was a game-changer for me.

External Support.

There’s no shame in hiring coaches. Making WhatsApp groups with your friends to stay on track. Or bringing in some external force to push you. It works, and you don’t necessarily have to pay for it. A teammate on your ass, a coach you hire (think personal trainer, but for business), or even just a chat group with friends of the same mind can all go a long way to keep you on track.

Tough Changes:

Building discipline and cutting distractions

It’s a lot harder than a guru makes it sound. You have your friends, family, hobbies, life. But you also have goals. So how do you build discipline? It starts with being accountable to yourself. To mean it when you say you want something, and work for it. Easy to say you want it, but then what happens a week later when motivation fades? The trajectory is way off course.

Leaving friends behind, and giving up your hobbies, starts with a big life change. At least for me it was. Different friend groups, different habits (cut drinking, cut gambling, in bed by 11, it goes on). It’s so tough. But so important. Especially if you’re not consistent.

Leaving a dead end job.

I’ve talked about this before. I remember putting in 80 hour weeks in a job that had no room for growth. 12 hours days, weekends, and for what? A bonus cheque that didn’t even cover my car bills? I’ve talked about this a lot, but it still stands. Can’t grow through a dead end. Better to carve out a new path for a better trajectory.

Patience & Priorities.

The hardest part. In my twenties, I rarely committed to 1% gains for a year. I was all about a quick move in the right direction, not realizing that the effort I put in was less efficient. That I was on the wrong path working hard for less.

Adjusting priorities, and being patient were probably the two biggest unlock I’ve experienced. And when you look at the stats at many of the worlds biggest businesses and top CEOs, it’s the common thread.

Wrapping up.

Trajectory is the new priority. Personally, for business. It’s not about highs and lows, but incremental gains. 1% better daily ads up and compounds. But to set up these kinds of gains, we need to be in the right space and make changes. Some are quick and easy. Others (the hard ones), are very difficult, but that’s why they work (at least for me they worked).

Thanks for reading!

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