The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.

The Exponential function is used to describe the size of anything that’s growing steadily, for example, 5% per year.

We are talking about a situation where the time that is required for the growing quantity to increase by a fixed fraction is constant.

If it takes a fixed length of time to grow 5%, then it follows that it takes a longer fixed length of time to grow by 100%. This longer time is called the doubling time.

We can calculate the doubling time:
T² = 70 / (% growth per unit time)
Thus, a growing rate of 5% per year has a doubling time of:
T² = 70 / 5 = 14 years

Doubling time for 7% growth = 10 years.

In just 10 doubling times it’s a thousand times larger than when it started.

The growth in any doubling time is greater than the total of all the preceding growth!

Steady Growth for 70 Years:

Growth Rate                           Factor
1% per year                            2 = 2
2%                                 2 x 2 = 4
3%                             2 x 2 x 2 = 8
4%                        2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 16
…
7%                                 2^7 = 128

Imagine bacteria growing steadily in a bottle. They double in number every minute.

At 11:00 am there is one bacteria in the bottle.
At 12:00 noon the bottle is full.

11:54 am                1/64 = 1.6% full
11:55 am                1/32 = 3.1% full
11:56 am                1/16 = 6.3% full
11:57 am                1/8 = 12.5% full
11:58 am                  1/4 = 25% full
11:59 am                  1/2 = 50% full
12:00 noon                     100% full
12:01 pm                       200% full
12:02 pm                       400% full

We cannot let others do our thinking for us.

Growth of populations and growth of rates of consumption of resources can not be sustained.

Central to the things that we must do is to recognize that population growth is the immediate cause of all of our resource and environmental crises.

by Albert Bartlett

Looking back at everything I’ve done, failed, and learned over the course of the last 12 months, I feel like I’m on the right path to achieve my goals. I’m stubborn, persistent, and that makes me confident in the future.

However, the amount of hard work required to make my dreams come true is at an all time high, having failed to achieve any of my goals last year. Therefore, consistent and intelligent work will be my primary objective for this year.

In the end, I hope that 2011 will mark the beginning of change for and from me, where what ought to be will finally be.

How we use this freedom defines who we are and, as with every great power, there must also come great responsibility.

Freedom is only part of the story and half the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness.

— Viktor E. Frankl

Freedom allows for both good and evil; while our society tries to enforce that nobody falls to the dark side, it remains our responsibility to choose between the many different shades of good.

Furthermore, this new age of science and technology has expanded our choice and revealed to us the full scope of our freedom. While our ancestors could rely on traditions, such as religions, to tell them what they ought to do, we now stand fully aware of the infinite different ways in which we could live our lives.

Why is it that human beings, surely the most intelligent life form on earth, do not strive to achieve their maximum potential? The reason is simple: we have been given the freedom of choice.

— Jim Rohn

In facing a choice, multiplying the options does not always lead to a better outcome, for it then requires that we make up our mind and be strong enough to act. In particular, the former requires a certain level of knowledge that grows exponentially with the number of options.

In the case of life, some options are attractive at first sight but disappointing in truth, while others take great courage to choose but offer immense rewards in the end. Most important, some are unknown to us until we acquire the knowledge that will reveal them to our minds.

That is why I find acquiring knowledge to be one of the most important pastimes, because it broadens my view and understanding of the world, thus increasing my opportunities and improving my judgment.

We all have a remarkable potential and we must decide what to make of it. While some might be satisfied with less than others, many strive for more. Whatever we decide, we should not forget that everything is possible, so long as we believe, and put in the mental effort to become what we ought to be.

It is our responsibility to choose what’s best for us, our loved ones, and the world.

Read the Positive World Manifesto

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Imagination has been the seedling of all human progress but it’s also the motive power of our individual lives. The more one uses it, combined with a burning desire for its actualization and a definite purpose, the greater one’s achievements will be.

With experience and intelligence, imagination becomes creativity—the ability to create new things with some kind of value—and can then be transformed into riches. The transformation is not an easy step but we are all capable of achieving it, unless we surrender to the manual.

Man’s obsession with creating maps and manuals for how to live his life goes against the human nature, for there is no limits to what he can achieve and become. Maps, in this sense, are counter-productive because they set boundaries where none existed before. They help avoid the mental effort of finding a path, but offer no surprise to what the destination will be.

In the face of an infinite sea of choices, it’s natural to put blinders on, to ask for a map, to beg for instructions, or failing that, to do exactly what you did last time, even if it didn’t work.

— Seth Godin

Life offers an infinite sea of choices because man is always able to choose what his existence will be in the next moment. In this frightening journey, imagination is our own personal navigation tool. It’s always available to us, but we must deliberately and repeatedly make the choice to use it.

Today’s world of factories has created countless manuals and mapped a vast number of paths which are followed by many. Our education system reinforces this by making us believe that the only way for us to succeed is to follow those paths. They offer a quick and easy fix to a broader problem that is the meaning of one’s life, but do not come free of charge.

While following a map can offer a temporary remedy to some of our fears, it will only take us where someone else wishes us to go, usually for his personal benefit. Moreover, if you’re not prepared to work without a map and be wrong, you cannot let free of your creativity and achieve your full potential.

On the contrary, following your imagination won’t give you the comfort of knowing what to do and where to go at any given moment, but its rewards are invaluable compared to the wages that you can expect by working at the office. Beyond success, it’ll bring you happiness and fulfillment, for you will be the man in charge.

Man’s only limitation, within reason, lies in his development and use of his imagination.

— Napoleon Hill

Within the laws of physics, the power of our imagination is simply limitless.

In the marketplace, the easier people are to replace the less they need to be paid and the easier they are to lay off. The industrial revolution has created a world of factories and factory workers—a world that goes against the human nature.

On the other hand, artists are now rewarded far more than they used to be. The new age of technology makes it possible for everyone to be both remarkable and remarked.

Artists are people who give more than they receive, drive change, and make things happen. They prevent organizations from falling into pieces because they do their best and more than what they’re paid for. They are the ones who keep the marketplace running.

There is an artist in each of us but in this factory world we’re being taught to follow the crowd instead of striving for our own, unique path. For millenniums man has been in charge of his own life; nowadays he is being brainwashed into thinking that the only way for him to succeed is to fit in the system and do what others think he should be doing.

I especially agree with Seth when he blames our education system for this brainwashing. Schools are on the front line of our education and yet they teach us to comply with a set of rules and to live only within those limits. They stigmatize mistakes, thus preventing the expression of creativity—the essential quality of an artist.

The essential thing measured by school is whether or not you are good at school.

But creativity, imagination, and the freedom of choice are all part of the human condition; they are always available for us to use and cannot be coerced into retreat.

Most of the resistance sits in our own mind. Fear is the greatest barrier to becoming an artist: fear of failure, fear of working without a map, fear of criticism… They can all be easily overcome once one has found a meaning to his life.

The linchpin feels the fear, acknowledges it, then proceeds.

As Seth puts it, “every day is a new chance to choose”, and becoming a linchpin is certainly the best choice you could make. I leave you with one the most memorable quotes I’ve come to know about, from one of the most memorable man there is to know.

Why is it that human beings, surely the most intelligent life form on earth, do not strive to achieve their maximum potential? The reason is simple: we have been given the freedom of choice.

— Jim Rohn

Today’s marketplace is an essential and central part of our world but its rules (or the lack of it) make it a completely unsustainable economic system. By permitting and rewarding selfish greed it creates conflicts that result in an outstandingly negative effect on our world.

A Positive Business, on the contrary, is striving for innovation and sustainable change. Although it shares the same objective of earning profits, it has a higher purpose beyond just money.

Read the Positive Business Manifesto

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The purpose of this publication is to spell out my goals, values, and guide decision-making. It’ll help me stay focused on what matters to me and ensure that I lead my life in the right direction.

If you have comments, questions, or want to share with us your own mission statement, please do so on this blog post as comments are disabled on the page.

Now that the sail is set, it’s time to make things happen!

For years I’ve believed that to execute is like to build. I focused too much on the details and lost sight of the essential, that good execution is about having good judgment—making the right decisions.

To build something requires mainly technical skills. The better your skills are, the better your creations will be. However, in the business world, if your creation isn’t something that people are willing to pay for then it’s worthless.

While technical skills can be acquired rather easily and in a relatively short period of time, the skill of great judgment takes time and experience to acquire, which makes it much more valuable. It is, by and large, the difference between an employee and his manager.

Doing the right things is more important than doing things right.

This quote (attributed to various sources) says it all. It’s not enough to do it right, you have to do what’s right.

Hill spent more than two decades interviewing and synthesizing the experience and insights of over five hundred people who achieved great wealth during their lifetimes.

Energetic, the book is an easy read filled with practical advice. Although some passages might feel out-dated from a scientific point of view (the world has since made tremendous progress in the field of cognitive science), the text is remarkably relevant for our time.

As today is a time of unprecedented opportunity, all of the book’s principles and ideas still apply, in an even more significant manner.

Success comes to those who are success conscious.

Both poverty and riches are the offspring of thought.

— Napoleon Hill

While some worry about origin, education or amount of capital, Hill’s central idea is that the source of wealth is non-material. Successful men and women were not born this way, they thought and grew rich.

He describes 13 principles that makes for the perfect personal philosophy. In my opinion, mastering the first two—Desire and Faith—is both essential and enough, because they will make you do whatever it takes to achieve whatever you want.

Success is neither magical or mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals.

— Jim Rohn

Think and Grow Rich is a list of fundamentals that will change the way you think and, as an extra, make you rich.