Having an Exponential Mindset can mean the difference between success and failure—between leading disruptive change or being the victim of it.
So, how do you develop an Exponential Mindset? And what are the benefits?
That’s what today’s blog is all about.
As you read the details below, remember that our brains—the 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion synaptic connections that shape everything we think and do—evolved for a world 100,000+ years ago that was “local and linear.”
As a result, we “think” in a local and linear fashion. But we work and operate in a world that is increasing exponential.
The difference between the two can lead to disaster or opportunity.
Let’s dive in...
FIRST, HERE’S AN EXPERIMENT...
You can try this with your kids or grandkids.
Pull them aside, and offer them the following two scenarios:
Option #1: I give you $1 per day for the next 30 days.
or...
Option #2: I give you a penny on the first day, two cents on the second day, four cents on the third day, eight cents on the fourth day, and so on for 30 days.
Now, choose.
Obviously, option #1 nets you $30… it’s easy to predict: the definition of linear.
But option #2, where we are doubling (i.e., growing exponentially), the growth goes from deceptive to disruptive.
The first 5 days (1, 2, 4, 8, 16 cents) net you just 31 cents—it’s deceptively dismal.
But after 30 doublings, the situation gets disruptive. We’ve now increased the payout one-billion fold.
So, if your kid or grandkid choses option #2, they would end up with a payout of $10,737,418.24.
That’s the promise and power of exponential growth!
One of our biggest challenges as entrepreneurs and leaders is to train our brains to think exponentially.
This isn’t easy to do.
But it’s necessary if we want to accomplish big and bold things and empower ourselves with the tools necessary to have a massive impact on the world.
I believe that an Exponential Mindset is one of the critical mindsets for any entrepreneur or leader to actively develop and master.
That’s why I’ve made coaching entrepreneurs and leaders on an Exponential Mindset a focus of my year-round coaching program Abundance360.
Here is a summary of the benefits of having an Exponential Mindset:
5 KEY BENEFITS OF AN EXPONENTIAL MINDSET
(1) You understand the power of exponential growth. Even though our brains are linear, you recognize that the power of our technology is doubling every 18 months. And you know the power of those doublings. For example, 10 doublings equal ~1,000X growth, 20 doubling equals ~1,000,000X growth and 30 doublings equal ~1,000,000,000X growth.
(2) You use the “6 Ds” framework as a lens and a roadmap to predict the future of your business and industry. Here is a summary of the 6 Ds progression:
Digitized: Anything that becomes digitized enters the same exponential growth we see in computing. Digital information is easy to access, share, and distribute—it can spread at the speed of the internet. Once a product or service can be represented as “1s and 0s”—from biotechnology to music—it becomes an information-based technology and enters exponential growth.
Deceptive: Once something is digitized, its initial period of growth is deceptive because exponential trends don’t seem to grow fast at first. Doubling .01 only gets you 0.2, then 0.4, and so on. At this phase, everything looks like “zero.” But exponential growth really takes off after it breaks the whole-number barrier. 2 quickly becomes 32, which then becomes 32,000 before you know it.
Disruptive: The existing market for a given product or service is disrupted by the new market that the exponential technology creates because digital technologies outperform in terms of cost and effectiveness. Once you can stream music on your phone, why buy CDs or records? If you can also snap, store, and share photographs, why buy a camera and film?
Demonetized: Money is increasingly removed from the equation as the technology becomes cheaper—often to the point of being free. Software is less expensive to produce than hardware and copies are virtually free. You can now download any number of apps on your phone to access terabytes of information and enjoy a multitude of services at costs approaching zero.
Dematerialized: Separate physical products are removed from the equation. Technologies that were once bulky or expensive—cameras, GPS, phones, maps—are now all in a smartphone that fits in your pocket.
Democratized: Once something is digitized, more people have access to it. Powerful technologies are no longer only for governments, large organizations, or the wealthy.
(3) You seek to reinvent your business model by leveraging exponential tech such as Artificial Intelligence, 3D Printing, Robotics, and Virtual Reality. You understand that these technologies are converging, disrupting, and transforming business models and industries. Your small team can now compete effectively with large corporations.
(4) You understand the power of the crowd. Increasing connectivity allows you to crowdsource nearly everything you need as an entrepreneur to grow your company—capital, design, ideas, software, and so on. Your job is to know exactly what you want: your Massively Transformative Purpose (MTP). Once you know that, in many cases, the crowd will do the rest.
(5) You seek to become a data-driven, experimentalist company. You understand the importance of collecting data, rapid experimentation, and machine learning to rapidly iterate and create an exponential organization.
So how would your business change if you had an Exponential Mindset?
What more could you accomplish?
JOIN MY ABUNDANCE360 COMMUNITY
If you want my coaching as an exponential entrepreneur and to reinforce those mindsets that will inspire and guide you to create a hopeful, compelling and abundant future for yourself and humanity, then consider joining my year-round Abundance360 coaching program and come to our in-person A360 Summit February 2-4, 2022.
Every year, my team and I select a group of 360 entrepreneurs and CEOs to coach over the course of a year-long program. You can join at any time for a full year’s worth of personal coaching on Exponential Tech, Longevity, Moonshots, and Abundance thinking and a mix of in-person and virtual content.
My mission is to help A360 members obtain mastery in four specific mindsets: an Abundance Mindset; an Exponential Mindset; a Moonshot Mindset; and a Longevity Mindset. Together we will actively select and reinforce your preferred Mindsets.
