Compounding Capacity: A Guide to Building a Large Body of Work

Don’t start with the end product. That’s the first common fault. People want to accomplish something they see in others like build a business, create wealth, attain mastery in a skill set. 

This is a trap. 

Most folks see others they want to emulate and start my mimicking their current life. In reality, the best way forward is to be curious about mimicking how they started. Remember, everyone you see is at the end of their journey up until that moment. You’ll need to look into the past for better wisdom about how you should begin. 

Here’s my advice: begin with the smallest repeatable effort you can do well. For me, it was this daily blog. Twelve years ago, my work days were much more relaxed. One of my only responsibilities was this blog and my days look very different today. Yet, they still include this blog. 

Once you build mastery of these small repeatable tasks, it’s much easier to transcend (and include) them for a larger, more compelling body of work. What’s more is that this path introduces you to an ever increasing burden of responsibility. 

What was hard for you last year won’t be hard for you next year and soon your capacity will exceed anything that was possible on Day 1. This advice is simple, but easier said than done. If you’re looking for good news, almost no one is willing to heed this advice and, if you do, you’ll be in rarified air. 

Keep going.