The Giant Slayer Effect

When you think of David & Goliath, you wonder how a scruffy little guy could take down a giant. Was it just with the stone that he used? How could something so small, smaller than David’s hand knock out a huge giant like Goliath?

The law of physics. We don’t know the full story of David & Goliath, but we’re given clues…

Today in the world of startups, not only are disrupters trying to slay the giants, but younger disrupters are trying to take down the older ones.

Some call it the snowball effect, others call it the domino effect, some even call it the compound effect. I simply call it what is… momentum. If you build enough you CAN change the world.

Once you gain momentum, you will be hard to stop — virtually unbeatable — even though you’re now putting in less effort. Getting greater results with only a little more effort may feel like cheating or an unfair advantage. But that’s the law of nature for you.

A domino can topple down another domino 1.5x it’s size. Don’t believe me? Watch this video of The Domino Effect… and just think for a minute the impact of this.

This means something so small (that could be picked up by forceps) can ultimately tackle something so big and knock them down. If you line your dominoes carefully and there are no blocks — amazing things can happen.

What started with a gentle tick, quickly ended with a loud “SLAM”. The more dominoes you line up, the more potential energy you can unleash.

When it starts, it’s too slow to notice until it’s too fast to stop.

Warren Buffet’s book called The Snowball, was named after the Snowball Effect — where a rolling snowball, once it gains size, starts attracting more to itself and grows even bigger, much like urban cities or empires, much like anything in life.

But the difference here is that once you become a giant snowball, do you continue moving forward or do you allow a scruffy little domino to knock you down?

Don’t worry, nothing fails like success — if you become complacent… that giant slayer will be building momentum for that day to knock you down.

And when you’re down… the first part of the law of inertia will kick in: objects at rest tend to stay at rest unless acted on by an outside force.

The Compound Effect is the principle of reaping huge rewards from a series of small, smart choices.

You can take the first step to building your momentum by reading Darren Hardy’s book — The Compound Effect. And once you’re finished with that read Jay Papasan’s The One Thing — which also talks about doing one thing such that it creates that domino effect. And if you’re really into reading, pick up Warren Buffet’s The Snowball (it’s a long read).

And then recall the second part of the law of inertia: objects in motion tend to stay in motion, unless something stops their momentum.

So find that lead domino, and start hitting it with all you’ve got. Be consistent, and slay those giants…

Jose Paul Martin is a private equity investor & advisor with over 15 years of experience in strategic & financial advisory and currently focuses on the Information Technology, Healthcare & Education sectors.