COMPOUND LEARNING
“ideas have sex. knowledge compounds like interest.”
The Lesson
Learn one thing a day. Soon your ideas start 'having sex.' Idea one plus idea two teaches you something neither could alone. You see patterns, get inventions, make connections. Eventually, you have 'hooks' in your brain for any new fact. Someone explains a zebra? Easy, it's a horse with stripes. You already know horse. The more you know, the faster you can learn because everything connects to something. By your 40s, almost anything new can be compared or contrasted to something you know. Your brain may be less nimble than at 20, but your accumulated knowledge more than compensates. A man who read the newspaper daily for 40 years could answer almost any Trivia Pursuit question. Daily learning compounds over a lifetime.
Real-World Example
A founder in their 20s feels behind more experienced entrepreneurs. They commit to learning something new every day: reading articles, watching talks, talking to smart people. At first, each fact is isolated. But by year three, patterns emerge: a pricing insight connects to a psychology fact which connects to a negotiation technique. By year ten, they can learn new domains rapidly because everything hooks to something they know. Their 'learning interest' has compounded.
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