Penny Drop Moments
How increasing penny drop moments can lead to increased success on your goals and provide a deeper understanding.
Have you ever had a penny drop moment when you read, hear or see something and it suddenly falls in to place in your MinD and starts to provide a deeper understanding or insight into something you’ve been thinking about or learning. It’s like the mental light bulb turning on, and suddenly things make sense in a way they didn’t before.
in simple terms
When the penny drops there is moment of sudden realisation in your MinD. Also known as the light bulb moment, eureka, insight, epiphany etc.
so how can the penny drop moment make a difference to your life?
Ask yourself how often do you have these penny drop moments:
once every couple of years,
once a year,
once a month,
once a day,
once a hour…
In the last post we talked about the concept of time, with keeping discipline on your goals can lead to compounding growth over time.
The penny drop moments are no different and are very closely linked to how you spend your time on your goals.
an example of penny drop moments combined with time
Just take a couple of minutes to delve on the below image and make a few mental notes on your thoughts.
Now we will try to analyse the above image:
Imagine those pennies that are dropping from the 1st image into the jar are now a sand particles inside the sand glass. Those little pennies have now have become sand particles and only one sand particle can drop through the narrow funnel at a single moment of time.
Let’s assume this is a hour glass - there is downwards pressure at the narrowest point of the funnel, and the hour glass has a limited time of one hour. After one hour all the sand particles have passed through and the top half of the glass is empty.
Now at this stage all the sand particles are in the lower section of the hour glass and there no longer any pressure at the funnel point of the glass. At this stage a certain task has been achieved within a hour’s time.
Now visualise the top lid of the hour glass can be removed and there is opportunity to add more sand particles into the glass from the nearby desert. You could keep adding the surrounding sand particles from the desert into the glass at a never ending rate.
The pressure at the funnel point has again been restored, and each spec of sand particle starts to flow to the bottom half. You could continue compounding the amount of sand particles in the bottom half of the glass, by topping up the glass at regular intervals over time.
Then suddenly you notice the sand particles have stopped flowing to the bottom half of the glass. You then notice a the rock has been collected from nearby desert of sand particles, and has been lodged at the funnel’s narrow point. This rock could be stuck there indefinitely or could you hypothetically increase the size of the funnel allowing the rock to fall through, restoring the flow of sand again.
The rock drops by increasing the funnel’s width and lands hard on the sand particles, causing displacement of sand particles resulting in a sudden realisation as the glass shakes. At this point the funnel’s narrow point has slightly become larger allowing for small rocks to pass, only until a larger rock blocks the funnel point again.
Eventually over time if rock blockages are allowed to pass by increasing the size of the funnel point, it becomes as wide as seen in image one and sand particles have become rocks the size of pennies.
From the example above, replace the following words:
sand particle = knowledge
rock = penny drop moment
funnel point = MinD
Replacing the words, it can be seen that over time adding sand particles (knowledge) to your specific areas of focus will lead eventually to rock arriving (penny drop moment). The penny drop will only occur if the funnel point (MinD) is increased in size.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” - Aristotle
A simple summary to the MinDvesting philosophy from todays post:
→ taking the step is upon you.
→ constantly educating yourself (adding knowledge in the form of sand particles).
→ practising patience and delayed gratification (waiting for the rock to arrive).
→ opening your MinD, allowing for expansion to occur in specific focus area’s of your life can lead to compounding growth over time (penny drop moments).
Remember the limiting factor in all of the above is only the MinD, the funnel point.