Shi:
All right, we’re here on the next installment of be a C student week here on the Kay & Shi Show, and the C we’re featuring today is actually two CCs and that’s ‘consistency compounds.’ When we add two CCs of consistency to any action, we can see a compounding effect over time, and this is really one of those lessons that’s easy to say and easy to understand, but can be so hard to continue to believe in and behave in when the going seems slow.
Kay:
Now, the thing that I love most about compounding consistency is that it is not a complicated way of succeeding at whatever it is that you want. Basically, if we get down to it, it really just says, “Don’t freaking quit. Just don’t give up.” Whatever you want to achieve in your life can be achieved if you just keep going at it and you don’t quit.
Shi:
No, not quitting and keeping going doesn’t mean that you don’t course correct, and I know that’s a double negative here, but pick up what I’m putting down. We’re not saying you just stay the one strategy, no matter what, but you do stay the one goal, no matter what. Sometimes we adjust our goals and that’s fine because you learn as you advance towards them that sometimes those kinds of larger adjustments are needed. But any kind of journey or voyage is going to have small course corrections along the way.
You think about even a road in your town. It doesn’t go direct from one destination to another. It kind of zigzags around. It follows the rivers. It has to contour around the neighborhoods and the businesses. But following the path will get you to the destination even though you’re not always technically pointed in that direction. So, we’re not saying that you just stay bullheaded, stubborn and you keep doing something that’s not working. I think Tony Robbin says it best when he says, “Look, you can run East all day long looking for a sunset, but you’re never going to see it; that happens in the west.” So, it’s not that the running is wrong, but the direction might have to change. But if you keep running, you will get there if you’ve allowed yourself to make those adjustments.
Kay:
One of the things that I love about compounding consistency is… We’ve talked about consistency, “Don’t quit, keep going, stay the course, stay the goal,” but this compounding effect is really important. Now I want you to think a little bit about the idea of compounding in finances. If you were to save $100 every single month with some interest that goes into that over time, that $100 a month isn’t just going to add $1,200 a year to your budget. Let’s just say that it has a 10% compounding interest. Over the course of 10 years, the interest that compounds on top of that money gives you way more than the $12,000 that you would have. Chances are that’s going to be closer to a $100,000 investment because of the compounding effect.
Shi:
One of my favorite mathematical approaches and expressions is the compounding effect because the exponential growth of numbers gets really interesting even just after eight or nine folds. You really see this tremendous growth and we as human beings are trained to see growth in a linear fashion. One step in front of the other, one piece in front of the other, and action has to be taken in that way. That’s how time goes too, in this linear fashion, one grain of sand at a time through the hourglass of the great father clock in the sky, if you will. But when it comes to results in our lives and some of those more intangible things like behaviors, habits, results. This compounding piece of exponential growth really comes into play and every successful person has told us the same version that there’s this compounding exponential growth once you consistently engage in a behavior or dedicate yourself to something and you stick to it, and you don’t quit.
Kay:
One of my favorite examples of compounding that is outside of the mathematical realm–if maybe something a little more tangible might help you understand this concept–is thinking about the way that when a sperm and an egg meet and they become one cell, and then that cell splits into two and then those two splits into four and then those four splits into eight and those eight splits to 16 until you have a fetus with trillions of cells. Until you have a human being with fully functioning organs and processes and a brain and everything inside of it. So, thinking about that compounding effect that happens so quickly inside the biological process of birth, taking that from one cell to two, from two to four, and then beyond into trillions. There’s a point where the compound is 1,000 cells that split to 2,000 cells and how much bigger is that than the two to four.
Shi:
Well, I’ve always loved this idea of consistency compounds and I both love it and hate it because there’s no shortcut to it and sometimes the hardest thing in the world is not to quit when everything inside of you is saying to run away from something and you don’t deserve this and this isn’t what you signed up for and you are just tired and you need a break. Those are all things that can prompt us to quit or give up or compromise. But if we don’t, if we can push through it then we get the chance to see the compounding effect of consistency and that’s where the magic really unleashes in our lives. So, we hope that so far, you’ve enjoyed being a C student alongside us and we look forward to getting a little more clear on what the next C is in the next installment.
