GET 37 TIMES BETTER A Japanese Secret Written By Don Sevcik
After 30 days, you’d be 1.01^30 = 1.35 times better After 60 days, you’d be 1.01^60 = 1.82 times better After 90 days, you’d be 1.01^90 = 2.44 times better Kaizen at 1% Suppose you get 1% better at something every day: After 90 days, you more than double in improvement. What if you extended the 1% improvement daily for one year:
An overweight woman reaches the end of her patience. She’s been to five different personal trainers. She bought every lotion and potion under the sun. She visited three different dieticians. And she still struggles to lose weight. Workouts don’t suit her because they get too intense too fast. And diets fail because the changes feel like a shock to her system. Before giving up, she talks to one more specialist recommended by a close friend. This specialist throws all the prior advice out the window. The specialist tells the woman on day one to pack her gym shoes into her workout bag. The woman thinks the specialist is crazy but trusts her friend enough to try it out. So the woman packs her gym bag with her shoes. On day two, the specialist has her pack her shoes and a waterbottle. The woman thinks this is odd but follows instructions. On day three, the specialist asks her to pack her shoes, fill up her water bottle, and put it in her car. The woman does as instructed.
Each day, she acts on one more small request. By day five, she’s driving to the gym. By day eight, she steps on a treadmill for 30 seconds. After two weeks, she’s doing regular 15-minute workouts every day. After a month, she’s lost seven pounds without noticing any change in her life. How? It’s all thanks to a Japanese management consultant named Masaaki Imai.
The
Birth
of
Continuous
After 365 days, you’d be 1.01^365 = 37.8 times better
Improvement
Masaaki Imai made the term “Kaizen” famous in his book Kaizen: The Key to Japan's Competitive Success . Roughly translated, Kaizen means small continuous improvements. And it’s the secret to why the woman lost weight after all other plans failed. You see, other trainers asked the woman to start intense training on day one. This acted like a shock to her system. But the last specialist embraced Kaizen. Instead of asking the woman to work out heavily on day one, he asked for a continuous small commitment.
Being 37.8 times better means you or anybody else would be unrecognizable one year later.
One Percent—Your Way To Greatness
The next time you take on a new skill or optimize a current skill. Stop shooting for the moon. Instead, figure out a 1% improvement each day and work on that. Follow the path of Kaizen to a 37 times improvement.
Don Sevcik is the creator and president of the fastest math tutor on the planet, MathCelebrity. MathCelebrity served 8.2 million parents and students in over 190 countries. He’s a best-selling author of 5 books and also consults on SEO and mental models. donsevcik@gmail.com.
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