The "Get Motivated! seminar I attended on Valentine's Day was put on by Peter Lowe and his wife, Tamara. This is the first time I have attended but apparently they have been putting on this seminar all across the country for 25 years. Even though there was an all-star line-up of speakers, including Zig Ziglar, Steve Forbes, Rudy Giuliani, Marty Shottenheimer and Ladainian Tomlinson and they were all great, it was something that Peter Lowe shared during his presentation that really stuck with me.
He was actually talking about money and saving for retirement, but the story he shared could just as easily apply to small business owners and solo-professionals and their commitment to their business. I'd like to share with you his Dollar Story.
It starts with a question. Do you know how many times you have to double a dollar to get to $1 million? The answer might surprise you. It's only 20 times. That doesn't seem too difficult to achieve. Yet most people never get there.
Peter borrowed a dollar from someone in the audience and proceeded to share what most people do when it comes to saving for their retirement. Most people he explained will diligently save and invest, doubling that dollar 10 times. But at that point, they only have $1024. They are seemingly half way to their goal of 20 doubles, but they are FAR from their goal of $1 million. It seems too far off.
But they are not really THAT far off. Think about where they will be when they have doubled that dollar 19 times. They'd have $500,000. One more double and they hit $1 million. This is the power of compounding. And it can be deceiving.
What do most people do? When they get half way to their goal and are at 10 doubles, they spend that $1024 on a new refrigerator or some other major purchase they think they have to have, putting them back to square one in their retirement savings plan. And they keep doing this over and over, never reaching their goal of $1 million.
If you think about it, many people do the very same thing in their businesses. They work diligently for one year, two years, five years. But they still feel like they are far from away from success. From where they WANT their business to be. So they give up. Usually just before they would have acheived that final doubling. When you're building a business, momentum and compounding apply, too.
So, I'd like to ask you. Are you really committed to your business? Are you going to stick it out until you get there? Or, are you likely to give up right before you make it?