Personal Compounding
What have you "doubled down" on?
We naturally underestimate the power of this phrase. Kids are awestruck at the Rice and Chessboard parable. Adults can't comprehend more than a few doublings without some napkin math or a spreadsheet.
Every day we make lots of choices. We eat certain foods, go to work, spend time with friends and family, collect more Things Ordered From Amazon, perhaps read a book, and maybe endure the pain of moving cities or learning something new.
Usually things snowball far too long before we realize we're doubling down on something incorrectly. Then change is messy; we have to work hard against massive momentum. It requires extreme thoughtfulness and inhuman effort to divorce amicably or save a marriage, resign suddenly or fire someone gracefully, pivot a large company sharply and successfully.
As many know and most quickly find out, the advice for young folks to "follow their passion" is often insufficiently nuanced and fails to appropriately define passion. In The Defining Decade, Dr. Jay makes a compelling argument against confused twenty-somethings wasting their most energetic years on whimsy.
However, there's something to be said for exploring the world as one comes of age. If you can figure out how your unique tapestry of experience enables you to work on a meaningful personal project, which can then teach you more about yourself and the world, to inform your next one — that smells like compounding to me!
Dropping out has become a modern high-status myth. The United States might be unique in our country's acceptance of college students changing their majors midway through. I now see this underlying "inefficiency" as a cultural feature rather than a bug. It's in the American spirit to pioneer, to embrace our unique individualism, and to understand it's necessarily rugged.
Of course, there's danger too. It's a form of hiding to constantly flit about, flirting with ideas, or alternating professional identities every few months. We're wary of "authentic" people who've had a string of breakups and tend to find a new partner or new city with each new season. Their resume or Linkedin may look a bit confused.
I know this from first-hand experience, having profoundly tested such boundaries myself. At some point, you must force yourself to sit down and focus. To pursue any worthwhile goal — abdominals, painting, a promotion, a relationship — you have to commit to navigating the inevitable difficulties and discomfort that will arise within and about you. This is Pressfield's War of Art.
Think of people you know. You like some and dislike others. You might admire a capacity you observe in your kind or successful friend. Maybe you wish to avoid falling into certain life traps you've seen in your parents or siblings or cousins.
Have you ever considered that the people or characteristics you admire are probably the result of intentional, exponential double-downs? Take a moment to think of some examples for yourself, and maybe share a comment if this resonates! Who inspires you in your life, and specifically what do they do that's remarkable?
The status quo is linear, so folks who operate in mindless repetition are not so noteworthy, unless the thing they are repeating is awesome for some reason. On the flip side, people or behaviors we dislike are probably double-downs in a compounding trajectory we view as negative.
An extreme example: guy gets of out jail, guy steals and murders again that same day. He's particularly offensive to some moral notion of self-actualization. He's clearly not learning nor interested in bettering himself. He's not only continuing to harm others but doubling down on a path of self-harm too.
As Michael Jackson tells us, every day presents an opportunity to take a hard look at ourselves, to reflect on our observations of the world, and perhaps to make a change within. This is a superpower.
If we've made the right change already, we can double down on it! Invest more time and effort on that thing. Work hard, push through pain.
Figuring out the right balance of reflection versus action — and your particular path or present set of activities and goals — is entirely up to you.
Success can look different for everyone, but often it won't look like success at all for a long time. Eventually however, if you double down every day, maybe after 2-5 years or 750 days, you'll look back and see how the haters were only right in the short term.
