Living An Exponential Life

When I graduated law school, I started work at a mid-size firm that specialized in the type of law I wanted to practice—technology. The career path was clear if you stayed on track. Eight years later, you’d be up for partner. From a monetary perspective, that meant in eight years I had a decent chance of quadrupling my salary assuming I busted my ass and did great work. If you were to chart out that career path, it would be fairly linear. Predictable.

Little did I know how constricting this knowledge would be on the rest of my life.

We are creatures of comparison. Everything is great in life until we see something better. That’s why they say ignorance is bliss. In the world of artistic and entrepreneurial pursuits, comparison (especially of the financial kind) can be one of the biggest obstacles to overcome.

Unlike the traditional career path, the artistic or entrepreneurial path is exponential in nature. I hear the word “exponential” thrown around a lot, often talking about the point in the curve where it shoots up or “hockey sticks” as they say. I call that the payoff. But little attention is given to everything leading up to that point—the flat part of the curve.

Let’s look at these two life paths laid side by side.

The x-axis here represents time, and I’ve chosen roughly 10-12 years as the endpoint.

When I first started pursuing music professionally, I researched how long most bands had been at it before they “broke” or hit some level of notoriety and financial success, it was typically in the 8-10 year range. This also seems to be common among most start-up companies and other artistic pursuits, though there will always be exceptions.

The y-axis represents life as we generally know it. In any “normal” job, you can expect your salary to slowly grow over time in a mostly linear fashion.

By laying these two career paths side-by-side on a graph, things started to become clear. The first thing I noticed is these two career paths don’t intersect until around year 8 or 9.

The second thing I noticed is an exponential curve is not what I envisioned the path to my entrepreneurial success looked like. I thought it would be linear. So I drew a new linear path connecting the beginning to my dream. I call this the “expected path.”

We are not conditioned to think exponentially.

We spend more time comparing today to yesterday than we do today to eight years ago. So, it’s only natural that we expect the path to our dreams to unfold in a linear fashion, but that’s not how life works.

When plotting this expected path, I noticed it intersects the traditional, linear career path around year 2. I thought back to where I was emotionally with Mowgli and The Tin Man two years into each endeavor. It was a really hard time. I’d call it a “reality check.”

Roughly two years into any major artistic or entrepreneurial endeavor, your expected path intersects the traditional path. The problem is, the exponential path you’re on has barely gotten off the ground. Many things happen here.

The reality of the sacrifice you’ve made hits you. Hard. What the hell are you doing?! Look where you’d be now if you hadn’t taken this crazy gamble! It feels like you’ve gone nowhere.

You start obsessing about the “overnight success” stories you’ve heard. You see other people succeeding and start panicking about how your day will never come.

As the reality of your sacrifice sets in, something else happens. A new path forms. The path you fear is more likely if you continue. You compare where you are with where you started and draw another linear path in your mind. All of sudden, the best-case scenario looks bleak.

Eight years from now, when you thought you’d be achieving your dreams, it looks like you’ll barely be scraping by. We’ll call this path the “fear of mediocrity.”

Many people stop pursuing their dreams here.

Knowing how much effort it takes to reach any dream, you decide it’s not worth it. If you don’t have a burning passion for your pursuit, it’s all the more likely you’ll drop off.

But let’s say you push on despite this painful reality check. What happens next? The new “fear of mediocrity” path starts to consume more and more of your mental energy. Then about two years later it intersects the exponential path you’re actually on. I call this the “breaking point.”

Two more years have passed, and your exponential path has intersected your fear of mediocrity.

Great news! From now on life will be better than that gloomy picture you painted! Problem is, you don’t know it.

It looks like you’re right on pace with your fear of mediocrity, headed for doom. Besides, you’re still hung up on your expectations and sacrifice. You should be a star by now! You should have sold the company and be chilling on a yacht!

But you’re not.

You’re not even close to where you’d be on the linear path if you’d just listened to those telling you not to give up your day job. Unless you’ve surrounded yourself with like-minded people on similar journeys, this is where outside pressures grow stronger from those around you. “Are you sure you should be doing this? Maybe you’re not cut out for it.”

They reiterate everything you’re already thinking. If you’re not in the flow of loving what you’re doing, the breaking point hits you even harder. At least if you love what you’re doing you don’t care as much about not making it. Mediocrity doesn’t seem so bad anymore. You start to lower your expectations, you start to lose hope, and you stop dreaming.

This shift in energy is toxic and self-fulfilling.

You no longer put your hopes and dreams out into the world. In turn, your work ethic wanes. After all, what’s the point in busting your ass if it’s never going to amount to much? But hey, at least you’re enjoying life.

What’s worse is other people can sense this internal shift. Despite our rational brains, we’re still animals. When gazelles are roaming the plains, they’re hardwired to avoid death by lion. So, if you’re a gazelle, you instinctively hang out with your stronger, speedier brethren. You don’t spend time with the slower, weaker gazelles—they’ll get you eaten.

As humans, we are instinctively repelled from people who will get us eaten. At the top of the food chain, this looks more like negative attitudes and self-defeatist mentalities. If you give in to your fear of mediocrity, you’ll unknowingly push away everyone who would otherwise help you continue along the exponential path.

Maybe this is where you quit or fall into the self-fulfilling prophecy that you’ll never reach your dreams. For the last four years (which is a really long time to be devoting all your efforts to one pursuit by the way) it’s felt like you’re on a linear path to mediocrity at best.

The drop off rate at the breaking point is enormous, and thus far it’s gotten me every time. But let’s say you push on and maintain your hope despite this painful breaking point. What happens next? Finally, after another four years, your exponential path intersects the traditional, linear path. I call this the “flip point.”

This is the moment we all dream about.

The point where you’re not only back in line with the traditional path you could have chosen, but also seated in a rocket ship facing up!

The media loves to write stories about this point. It looks and feels like magic. Money, fame, awards… it all starts to flow in like water. But remember, this point is typically another three to four years after the breaking point! So not only do you have to stay on the exponential path, you must maintain the same level of intense work ethic and hope you’ve been putting in for the last four years!! This is no easy task.

After the breaking point, opportunities will slowly start to trickle in because the people who can help you succeed see that you’re fully committed to this endeavor. You’ve been through hell, and they trust that under no circumstances will you give up. That’s the safest investment anyone can make.

Exponential curves are created through the principle of compounding. All the effort you’ve been putting into your artistic or entrepreneurial endeavor has been compounding like interest. You just haven’t really noticed until now.

The path starts to steepen with every new opportunity that comes your way. Your confidence builds. You shed the feared path of mediocrity and gain an even more intense focus on your dreams. You have no doubt the path you’re on is going to intersect that lame, linear path you could have chosen and blow right past it.

No one can stop you now.

The statistics are right, most companies fail. Most artists never make it. Most people give up, lose hope, or stop putting in the effort needed to press on.

But if your path is pure (you love what you do every day) and you don’t lose sight of your hopes and dreams (you believe in the exponential path), you’ll make it. It’s inevitable.

If you’re considering taking the artistic or entrepreneurial life journey, I promise it will be the hardest thing you’ve ever done. Knowing the reality check is coming won’t make it hurt less. Knowing the breaking point is coming after that won’t make it any easier.

Living life along the exponential path forces a level of introspection and self-honesty that most people can’t handle. But if you stay the course, find the purity in your path, and diligently follow it every day without losing hope in your dreams, you’ll unlock a richness and fulfillment in life you’ve never known.