How to Make Persistent Progress
You don't need to take huge leaps to redesign your future
A recent visit to a Notre Dame nano-technology lab was the perfect reminder: Even the littlest changes can have major impacts on your future.
“Do you want to see inside the lab?”
The security guard asked over my shoulder. I’d been surreptitiously trying to take a photo through a side-window of the coolest building in American history, Thomas Edison’s lab at his residence and museum in New Jersey. I’d glimpsed all sorts of age-of-industry machines in the famous innovator’s workshop:
But the door was locked.
“Sorry!” I stepped away from window carefully. I hadn’t heard him walk around the corner.
“Do you have the key?” I asked politely. “Could you let me in for a few minutes?”
The guard looked me over. Perhaps the camera equipment hanging around my neck reminded him of Mr. Edison in some small way.
“Two minutes,” he grinned. “And don’t wander too far in,” he warned as my face lit up like an incandescent bulb. He unlocked the door, I slipped in, and he closed it quickly. I heard him say to someone. “Sorry, the lab is closed today.”
For a moment, I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Here was the lab where some very cool leaps in modern history happened. Where Edison started an idea, then made hundreds of little alterations, sometimes for years on end, until the right result could revolutionize the future.
Patiently. Persistently. And occasionally, creating quite a ripple!
“Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration,” Edison famously said.
And it’s those ninety-nine percents that often look like hard work; the stamina and commitment to progress; and the patience to find the best answer to improve a process, product, or even:
A better you!
When I recall my growth over the years, it’s never been instant. It took five years of speaking before I earned a client beyond New England. It took four years to build a call center good enough to earn the business of a nationwide client, then two more before improving enough to handle six of them. After the pandemic, it took multiple rounds of upgraded cameras, video tech and presentation skills before we could book virtual keynotes with clients as far as Johannesburg, Milan, and Shanghai, not just across America.
So, yes, every innovation eventually reached further than it started.
And no, none of them happened at Instagram-supposed-success-speed.
Boldness in business is important, but so is patient, persistent progress.
History is full of shortcut-takers who led themselves (and others) to disaster: WeWork, FTX, Pets.com, Worldcom, Boo.com…you get the idea. Some people are convinced they don’t have to put in the time to reach the Big Time.
(Some of them even end up doing time.)
I recall people I’ve coached who were baffled they weren’t immediately promoted, published or top producing after their first, second (or even 99th) day on the job. They struggle to believe that instant, leaping progress isn’t always such a great bet.
And yet, as I’ve noted before, we aren’t machines. We aren’t supposed to scale like a circuit or factory robot or downloadable upgrade.
We’re designed to grow. And that takes time.
The great motivator Jim Rohn used to say, “If someone hands you a million dollars, best you become a millionaire. Otherwise, you’re bound to lose all the money.” If we don’t grow to support progress, generating a massive burst of it won’t last.
Nor will it be fun: Imagine your nervous system waking up to hundreds (thousands?) of new social media followers, email inquiries, deal requests, deadlines and people on your payroll.
You might tell yourself you can handle it. But plenty of YouTube and celebrity burn-out stories remind us of what’s more likely.
Persistent Perspiration Pays Better
If you want to make better - sustainable - progress in life, take Edison’s advice. Putting in the perspiration is what gets you ready to capitalize on the next level of performance. While it keeps you from giving up too soon.
“I called three prospects and nobody booked an appointment.”
“I called three salespeople but they won’t discuss joining our firm.”
“I wrote three posts on Substack or social media, but only got two new subscribers.”
Yes, but what happened the next day, when you made adjustments and tried again?
Ninety-nine more times.
Like Edison did.
Nano-revolutionizing the Future
I recently worked with a company in South Bend, Indiana. Their leader is someone I liken to Edison: tenacious. He’s navigated many business cycles, each time leading his company to its next, best version of itself. But he has been careful to give his people the time to learn, adapt, try and succeed - rather than super-scale by some secret potion.
He’s a Notre Dame graduate and embodies their mission to ask more questions than most, keeping the dangers that come with the temptation for speed-obsessed acceptance of the flavor of the day.
After dinner at the campus inn, we went for walk. “I’ve got a surprise you’ll love,” he said as we navigated the historic streets and buildings. He talked about the University’s leadership in many areas, slowly building upon the successes of their traditions.
“They’ve built progress steadily over time,” he said as we entered a quaint chapel. “And each building still boasts a place where students can contemplate the foundations of life at a slower pace.”
He then led us down a hallway, describing the University’s evolution.
“The University today is leading in many modern ways, too,” he said with a flourish, as we turned a corner and I stood, mouth wide open, as the Center for Nano Science burst into view.
It was Edison’s lab, but better!
I could only think Thomas Edison would be jealous.
This is where Notre Dame is making small, persistent progress to improve industry, medicine, science and technology. It’s the perfect example of using the world’s smallest machines to strengthen its largest systems.
And send ripple effects that reach us all.
Nanotech will help cancer drugs reach cells with incredible precision. It’s redesigning solar energy materials efficiency and lowering the costs. Nanoparticles strengthen industrial adhesives, safety equipment, home furniture and even paint. It makes packaging that can keep foodstuffs from spoiling.
With every nano-change, something else gets a lot better.
Including, in a very real way: Me and you!
So What’s Your Nano Lab Strategy?
How can we apply Edison and Notre Dame’s thinking to our work and lives? To pursue progress that’s 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration, without the pressures for instant, gigantic success?
To discover ways of getting better without simply getting faster - something all of us can do!
A century ago Edison’s tinkering led to the telephone, light bulb, movie camera, phonograph and vacuum tubes, launching an era of radio waves and computers from a little lab in New Jersey.
Notre Dame’s nano-changes will do it again, even bigger -
by going smaller.
So could you, if you remember it’s the 99% that gets you there:
If you sweat the little changes
in your life and career;
And shift from instant success to
persistent progress,
and discover the best way
to a better
YOU.
For upgraded subscribers, here are 10 little ways to make persistent progress in your life and career - one percent at a time. 👇👇👇👇
Get crystal clear in your goals. And use them to guide your actions, investments and decisions - from smallest to largest. Much is wasted when you’re not laser-focused on what success looks like for you. Don’t copy others versions, either. Use pictures, words and tech tools to describe your goals at home, work, relationships, health and more. Write them somewhere you will see them every day.
Increase your knowledge a little each day. You don’t need to get a new degree daily, just nurture your most valuable asset - your mind. Read a chapter. Watch a TED talk. Talk to your boss for 10 minutes. Reread your mentor’s recent email. Review your notes from a past class.
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