There were two identical twin brothers who went off to college. They had always done everything together—they even played the same sports. Now that they were off on their own and school had started, they started to form their new routines.
The first brother got in a habit of eating an apple a day and jogging around the block to maintain his energy for class. The other brother just wanted to unwind after a long day of school, so he would grab a burger and fries on the way home and then settle down to watch television for a couple of hours before going to bed.
So here is the question: was there any noticeable difference between the brothers after the first day of their new routines? Is there a difference between one day’s worth of hamburger and one day’s worth of jogging around the block? Probably not. What about after a week? Could you even tell a difference then? I don’t think I could. What about after a month or a year?
Certainly in a year’s time, there would be a difference between an apple a day and two hours of television, don’t you think? If not at a year, then in ten year’s time, the difference would be obvious: it would be the difference between good health and a heart attack, wouldn’t it?
So what is the difference between success and failure? Success or failure is simply the result of small actions compounded over time. So what if you could improve ten percent and then compounded and invested that change over a week, a month or even ten years? What would that look like? What would you be able to do?
This is a story that I adapted from a story that I heard Jim Rohn tell on his album “The Challenge to Succeed available at www.jimrohn.com