Time plus volume equals enrichment

Wearing a nametag everyday has been a source of eye rolls for many.

But that’s okay. Because doing so has also accelerated my life in ways that would that otherwise be invisible. It’s given me several lifetimes worth of creative output, which has given me innumerable interfaces with myself and others, and that has also allowed me to run into tons of walls, human or otherwise.

All of which has been great training.

What’s your version of that? What ritual or experiment could you embed into your life to exponentially increase your activity level? How could you tap into the power of volume and give yourself an unfair advantage?

My friend who runs a tech startup has a great term for this. He calls it getting your units up. Meaning, find a way to get the sheer mathematics on your side.

It’s not difficult. There is no right way to do it. Anytime you apply intention and attention to your own growth, you can’t help but benefit from it. The greater the volume of experiences you have to work with, the better context you create for yourself. Time plus volume equals enrichment.

Belsky applies this notion to startups and other creative ventures. He writes in his comprehensive book about bold ventures:

Time adds a value to creative work that cannot be replicated any other way. While there is nothing extraordinary about each little moment in isolation, the magnitude of time the experiment represents creates real value.

As the cheesy motivational speaker inside of me loves to say, it doesn’t have to be a nametag, it just has to stick.

Do something, anything, daily, for a long time. Use the sheer volume of experience to allow for all kinds of possibility, including running into as many walls as you can. And just watch how your life improves.

My nametag is the magical object that helps maintain the continuity of my life. And in a chaotic world where we’re all searching for some permanence to help us through the turbulence, personally, it’s deeply comforting for me to know that at least one thing will be the same tomorrow.

What do you have to do create a baseline of value no matter what?