When we picture a dragon, we usually think of the fire. We see the huge wingspan. We imagine the ground shaking when it lands.
Because of this image, we make a mistake about success. We think that to be successful, we need to take massive action. We think we need to make earth-shattering changes overnight. We try to breathe a massive fireball immediately.
But that is not how a dragon is born.
If you look closely at a dragon’s armor, you see thousands of tiny individual scales. Real power doesn’t come from one big event. It comes from polishing your “scales”—your small daily habits—one by one.
The Story of the British Cyclists
To understand this, let’s look at the British professional cycling team.
For 100 years, they were mediocre. Since 1908, they had won only a single gold medal at the Olympics. They were actually so bad that a top bike manufacturer refused to sell them bikes because they didn’t want to hurt their brand’s reputation.
Then, in 2003, they hired a new coach named Dave Brailsford.
Dave didn’t ask the riders to train 10 hours more a day. He didn’t try to change everything at once. He used a strategy called the “aggregation of marginal gains.”
In simple English, this means: Improve everything by just 1 percent.
They looked for tiny scales to polish:
- They redesigned bike seats to be more comfortable.
- They rubbed alcohol on tires for better grip.
- They taught riders the best way to wash their hands to stop them from getting sick.
- They even painted the inside of their truck white so they could spot tiny bits of dust on the bikes.
These sound like small things that don’t matter. But when you add them all up, the results are massive. Just five years later, the British team won 60 percent of the gold medals at the Beijing Olympics in their category.
The Math of the Dragon
There is a mathematical formula for this success.
If you can get just 1 percent better each day for one year, you will end up 37 times better by the time you are done.
$$1.01^{365} = 37.78$$
However, this works the other way, too. If you get 1 percent worse each day, your skills decline down to nearly zero.
Think of your habits like “compound interest.” Money multiplies through compound interest, and the effects of your habits multiply as you repeat them.
The Invisible Flight Path
Why do we often ignore small changes? Because we don’t see the results immediately.
If you go to the gym today, you won’t be in shape tonight. If you study a language for an hour, you won’t be fluent tomorrow. Because we don’t see the result, we quit.
Think of it like an airplane pilot flying from Los Angeles to New York City.
If the pilot turns the nose of the plane just 3.5 degrees south, the passengers won’t notice. The nose of the plane moves just a few feet.
But, over the long journey across the United States, that tiny change means the plane lands in Washington D.C., not New York.
Your habits are the pilot. A tiny shift today changes your destination completely. You should care more about your trajectory (where you are headed) than your current results (where you are now).
Your Challenge: Polish One Scale
Success is the product of daily habits, not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.
So, here is your challenge for today. Stop looking at the giant pile of gold at the end of the journey. Look down at your armor.
Identify one tiny “scale” to polish today.
- Do one pushup.
- Read one page of a book.
- Drink one glass of water instead of soda.
Do it today. Then, do it again tomorrow. That is how you build a dragon.