Nowadays, our world is anything but local and linear. It’s more global and exponential than ever. If you want to keep up with exponential growth, creating an exponential mindset is critical.
People who think exponentially tend to have higher incomes and wealth because they constantly seek to expand their exponential capabilities. Linear thinkers may work the same number of hours, but they operate and create more slowly and inefficiently with their limited linear capabilities.
It’s natural to default to a linear mindset, but it’s dangerous to stay that way in a world that’s changing exponentially and rewarding exponential thinking. Even the tools we use aren’t evolving linearly—they’re growing rapidly, and they directly impact the way we live and do business.
How to create an exponential mindset.
There’s always a better way to do things to increase business growth without sacrificing any more of our time or attention. Creating an exponential mindset does just the opposite and can afford us more freedom. This is a crucial benefit of exponential thinking.
“Exponential” is a simple doubling.
In a linear mindset, it’s 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Steps.
In an exponential mindset, it’s 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32.
Leaps.
Yet multipliers are nothing new.
For centuries, we’ve had big multipliers that permanently changed the way we lived and did business. For example, the internal combustion engine was a massive multiplier, as was deep water navigation, which allowed boats to sail anywhere in the world without getting lost.
The largest corporation in history in relation to its country size was the East India Company, founded in 1600. In 1800, they had a bigger army and navy than the British Navy. They practiced exponential thinking mainly because they took advantage of deep water navigation.
Printing was exponential. Reading was exponential. A simple alphabet was exponential, as was the 10-digit numerical system. These exponential tools sped things up and created a gap between those who embraced them and those who didn’t.
New shortcuts in the form of tools generated by exponential thinking drive the world forward.
Take the longevity field, for example. The way it’s developing through medicine and technology is exponential. So, individuals who have an interest, create a goal, and take advantage of exponential thinking in the field of longevity could plan to live an additional 20 to 25 years.
Your mindset is the most essential tool you have. So, actively choose exponential thinking, continually reinforce it, and enjoy the benefits.
Tools to practice exponential thinking.
Strategic Coach thinking tools are an effective way to learn how to create an exponential mindset. For example, if you have a goal you’re excited about, stop yourself from saying, “How am I going to do it?” and instead practice exponential thinking by asking, “Who’s going to do it for me?”
In my book Who Not How, I tell the story of a manufacturer in China who wanted to diversify and create a new factory in India. He figured it out in six hours with six Impact Filters by first identifying the “Who.” In six months, he had a factory that, in the second half of the year, produced $30 million of revenue.
Meanwhile, Zoom was taking off. So, the manufacturer combined the Who Not How mindset with technology that removed transportation and travel. This is exponential thinking in action. It’s no wonder he was able to create and get things done so quickly.
A YouTuber named Jimmy Donaldson, AKA “MrBeast,” is 23 years old with over 60 million YouTube followers. A couple of months ago, he created 300 new virtual, delivery-only hamburger restaurants in the United States. He essentially created a hamburger brand that leveraged existing restaurant kitchens to cook them and third-party delivery apps to deliver them.
It’s called MrBeast Burger. This new business upgrades his entire capability.
The exponential mindset “on-ramp.”
Peter Diamandis, founder and chairman of the X Prize Foundation, believes that digitizing is the first step. When we discussed the exponential mindset on our Exponential Wisdom podcast, he said, “The on-ramp for an exponential mindset is asking, ‘What am I not digitizing that I should be?’”
There are already great workout apps and interactive meetings in the spatial web, even in engineering, where fellow engineers look at and discuss a rotating, three-dimensional machine from different locations. Special Forces teams use simulations. VR gaming is huge. And even the p*rnography industry has gotten into the VR world. The gaming industry as a sport is more extensive than football, basketball, baseball, and hockey put together. Those sports don’t even show up on the radar screen compared to gaming.
The adoption of exponential thinking and the resulting exponential tools will always be extraordinarily unequal, as some individuals will take to it quickly while others won’t.
Those who see exponential technologies as a way to increase their intelligence, expand their exponential thinking, and make a dent in the universe, will. Then, a community will form around the exponential technology and what it creates. Once a critical mass of users forms, it’ll eventually become normal and attract the attention of the rest.
To keep up with the times and learn more about creating an exponential mindset, get your copy of The Entrepreneur’s Guide to 10x Growth.
