Rule #5: Be patient.
Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it. He who doesn't, pays it." ? Albert Einstein
It affects:
Your health
Your money
Your relationships
Your reputation
Your abilities
On this journey, it's important to keep in mind the true power of compounding.
Take this legendary exchange from Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises:
?How did you go bankrupt?? Bill asked. ?Two ways,? Mike said. ?Gradually, then suddenly.?
The reason this concept is so important to remember (when combined with the leverage component we just covered) is that it takes time.
Most people haven't been patient enough to benefit from compound interest, and substitute their lack of personal experience for a lack of belief in the concept altogether.
The reality, however, is that many just give up before they reach the threshold where compounding kicks in meaningfully.
Those who reach a size where network effects become meaningful benefit massively over the long term.
Underestimating the power of network effects when you're building on the internet is a massive blindspot.
Most people:
Here's a real example from the Visualize Value journey:
A year of network building on the front-end, leveraging personal conversations into paid consulting and design gigs, while building up equity that can now be extracted as dividends via product sales (12 months later).
Had we attempted to sell product out of the gate without building reputational equity, there's no chance we would've seen the results we do today.
