Epedemias grow exponentially. Success too - if you keep on going long enough

The vast majority of authors, musicians, and entrepreneurs give up too soon. Even people who pursue other goals, such as personal growth or financial freedom, stop their efforts before they can bear fruit.

What they all have in common is that they do not understand the principle of exponential growth.

What is exponential growth?

Exponential growth is entirely different from the linear growth that most of us are used to.

We are dealing with linear growth when we put a certain amount of money under our pillow every month. Each month a constant amount is added.

But if we invest our money at an interest rate, we have exponential growth.

Exponential growth looks very long from the outside, like linear growth, because the effects have to add up over time.

If you invest $1,000 a month at a rate of three percent a year, for the first few years, it will seem like you could have just put the money under your pillow, because after a year you would have $1,195.

That's only $195 more than you would have without interest.

After ten years, however, your capital with interest is already around $138980.

Without interest, it would only be $20,000. So you have made over $18,000 profit.

How is that possible when you only made $195 in one year? Shouldn't it be only $1950 in 10 years?

The reason is compound interest. Every year, not only the amount paid in, but also the additional amount earned through interest is subject to interest.

At first, the effect is hardly visible, and the growth curve is almost flat. But at a certain point, it becomes obvious.

Here is a more straightforward example: If a tiny number doubles every day, the growth for the observer seems to be linear until the small number becomes a large one for the first time. As soon as we arrive at numerical values above one and we have a daily doubling, we have already arrived at over one million after only three weeks.

Exponential growth and success

Suppose I write an article every day and have already written 100. If I am currently earning 100 dollars a month on Medium, for example, each piece will earn me one dollar a month.

Assuming linear growth, I would earn $130 one month or thirty articles later.

But all successful authors, whether on Medium or elsewhere, report completely different growth patterns. After months or years of more or less constant income, at some point, there was suddenly a big leap.

Why is that? Where is the interest when it comes to a career?

In these cases, interest is represented by the growing audience. Every additional pair of eyes that sees the author's work is a potential multiplier.

Most readers will read an article or book by the author and then forget it. But a few will also read all the author's other publications bit by bit.

And then there is a small percentage of fans who are what are called superspreaders in an epidemic.

These are people who call out your message to the world. They share your posts with thousands of followers, tell everyone they know about you, and make other Superspreaders aware of you.

These processes take place in secret for a long time. No artist can know if the process is not already underway for him. It only becomes apparent when the power of your network exceeds a critical point. From then on, the artist will suddenly notice quite clearly exponential leaps in sales figures.

In my case, this was the case in 2018, when from one month to the next I suddenly jumped from about 2000 € earnings to over 8000 €.

I could hardly believe it, but it was real. For the first time in my career, I had experienced an exponential growth leap.

I want to say one thing: If you are still at the very beginning of something, then prepare yourself for long stretches where it doesn't seem to be going forward because something is happening behind the scenes.

And if you've been struggling for years and don't seem to be getting anywhere, then be aware of the power of exponential growth and keep working as hard as you have.

You can't predict the point where your success curve is going to steepen, but one thing is sure: it could be any day now. Do not miss this moment by giving up too soon!