I learned about compound interest from stock market. I read Tony Robbins book ‘Money: Master the Game’ and find the term for the first time. Compound interest basically the power of multiplication when you constantly invest and reinvest with multiplied interest in specific period of time.
Here’s the formula:
- FV – future value of investment
- PV – present value of the investment
- i – interest rate earned in each period
- n – number of periods
FV = PV * (1 + i)n
With this formula, your original investment will grow rapidly. If you invest $500 per month for 11 years, with 20-35% return, you may get almost $1 million dollar by the end of year 11. Basically, you earn interest not only on the principal amount, but also on the interest earned in each compounding period.
If you keep and add the same money below your bed, you can only gain $66,000 or less (because of inflation). Witness how powerful our money can grow with compound interest.
Based on this principle, I make a conclusion that, whatever little we invest in life, if we invest in it regularly for n period of time, make a little effort to be better and create small victories each time, we will gain the momentum and our life will become larger than we imagine we could have.
Our Dream Life = The First Action * (Better Effort + Small Victories)Years of effort
This is exactly what’s happened in my life. I earned $250 per month as a programmer back in 2007. I invest $150 of my salary to buy domain name and hosting, chip in with other partners to start my first business, an online bookstore. Every single day after that, I make small but regular effort to grow and create small victories, 5 little wins daily. It may seemingly irrelevant and trivial efforts, but it contributes to my growth as a person.
I read a lot of book to improve myself, attend classes to add my skills, attend networking events and talk with successful people, I write blog and build my personal branding through social media, I create communities from StartupLokal, Girls in Tech Indonesia, Nulis Buku Club and many more. I basically do what I’m excited about, daily.
Most of my efforts sometimes don’t resulting in financial benefits immediately. Since 2007 ’til 2015 I have no salary at all. I must strive to have my own means while subsidizing the company with tens of employees, in order for the company to grow. Surviving my life and even building my assets with no regular income is a miracle of its own and I’m thankful to Allah for all the abundance and opportunities that He gave me. Eventually my first business is not working, I let it go with a realization that this is not a personal failure and my value as a person won’t get affected by a temporary situation.
But the impact of my effort to start something and stubbornly persistent in doing it, after 9 years, is huge. I am now one of the go to person in Indonesia’s startup Industry, found successful startups in content industry, have half a million people under my reading and writing network and change their life with my products, write 30 books in various genres from novel to biography, become an expert in writing, get paid to teach and speak about what I love, become a global speaker from SouthEast Asia to Morocco, Kazakhstan, UK, Bahrain, Russia, France and USA, become a role model for women and technology, mentioned by Sheryl Sandberg on International Women’s Day and the list goes on. I would never imagine this would happen seeing how small I start, but patience, persistence and continuous effort bring me this far.
If I could reflect few methods on doing this, here are few of them:
- I have deep gratitude and trust to God. I practice it by writing gratitude journal, daily.
- I think big. I choose to look at the bigger perspective, grand vision, plus many other possibilities and refused to be influenced by seemingly awful situation.
- I distract myself from worrying about the future, by writing my dream or what ideal situation would be and watch a lot of standup comedy videos :)) I focused on things that I’m excited about.
- I do the best that I can, right now. And keep doing it, tomorrow. Like I said, create small victories.
- I learned to do things better than before, I read excessively (2 books and 50 articles per day) and watch videos to model the best mentor on my field.
- I declutter my brain, by recognizing and writing anything that keep me from being present, it can be anger/resentment/disappointment, down to my notes.
- I meditate and breath deeply.
- I protect my energy. I don’t gossip or think bad about people or think bad about myself. I don’t hang out with negative people, I blocked them out of my social media
- I believe all people have good intention according to their perception and level of understanding.
- But some of them are assholes and might prefer to hurt you anyway. By all means, let them drown in the dark and light your own candle.
Have a great and productive day.
