This week from The Forklift: The Power of Compounding

We are all investors.

Some of us invest in stocks and bonds. But every one of us is investing something far more valuable every single day: our time, our energy, and our attention.

We invest in our careers. Our health. Our marriages. Our friendships. Our families. Our faith. And just like investing money, the small decisions that seem insignificant today can become enormous over time.

Each decision we make is really a debit or credit, taking us a little closer towards the person and life we want…or taking us a little further away.

Do I hit snooze, or get up and go for the run? Do I call a friend to tell them I love them, or stare at my phone for another hour? Do I spend time with my family, or answer one more email? Do I choose discipline over pleasure?

One decision probably won’t change your life… but five years? Ten years? Twenty years of them… and suddenly those little decisions become your life.

That’s the power of compounding.

But that’s also what makes investing and reaping the benefits of compounding so difficult: despite making the right investment, you don’t get evidence every day that it’s working.

Sometimes you make the right decision and nothing seems to change.  You put in the work and don’t see the result. You keep showing up, but you don’t feel like you’re getting anywhere. Or you make the right investment, but get the wrong return.

But that’s where philosophy matters!

A good investment philosophy has to be strong enough to survive uncertainty. It has to keep you doing the right things when the results aren’t showing up yet—and when everything around you is telling you to change course.

I think that’s the one of the things I’m most proud of about finishing the Leadville 100. It wasn’t really about crossing the finish line. It was about making it to the starting line and reaping the benefits of compounding.

It was all those mornings when the alarm went off at 3am and I begrudgingly put on my running shoes to go adventure out solo in the dark desert. The miles when nobody was watching. The days I felt great and the days I felt like hell.  No single run got me to Leadville. They just compounded.  That’s what training is all about I guess…its having a plan, a philosophy in place, to keep moving forward when the right evidence isn’t present.

Somewhere along the way, I didn’t just become someone capable of finishing a 100-mile race.  I became the person who could make it to the starting line. That’s what mattered  to me. 

I believe that’s how life works, too.

Keep making the small investment. Keep calling the friend. Keep showing up for your family. Keep putting on the running shoes. Keep doing the work when nobody notices.  The results may not match the process today, but stay in the game long enough, and eventually the compounding will leave it’s evidence.

One day you will look around and realize all those seemingly insignificant investments didn’t just change your life…They changed who you became.

Make it a great week.  Keep making deposits.

mm