On Twitter I follow the endlessly entertaining Ryan Kulp – an American entrepreneur turned K-Pop performer (seriously).

You might not be a fan of all his views, but it’s hard to take issue with the wisdom of his life philosophy:

“Every day I do things that make me Stronger, Smarter and Richer.”

Examples of each might be:

Stronger:

  • Go to the gym
  • Run
  • Take the stairs instead of the lift
  • Walk or cycle instead of driving

Smarter:

  • Read books
  • Learn a language
  • Seek out great conversations
  • Practice generating new ideas

Richer:

  • Create assets
  • Run a side-business
  • Manage your investments

I took a quick inventory of my own habits and was pleased to see that I fare pretty well: every day I study flashcards and read quality articles (smarter), lift weights, run or at least walk a good distance (stronger) and work on growing a business and making investments (richer).

Ryan’s philosophy lines up nicely with Peter Kaufman’s definition of compound interest: “dogged incremental constant progress over a very long time frame“.

He points out that most people go wrong by not being constant. When you interrupt constancy you lose the compounding effect, putting you back on a linear rather than exponential path. It’s like waiting years for £100 to turn into £150 with compound interest, then withdrawing your £50 rather than allowing the effect of the compounding to accelerate.

In other words, a small, consistent effort every day leads to far better results than a herculean effort every so often.

Maybe Stronger/Smarter/Richer isn’t the most meaningful triad for you. Maybe it’s Happier/Calmer/Wiser, or something else entirely.

But if you identify what matters most to you and work on it just a tiny amount every day, over a long enough period of time it’s impossible to fail.

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