The Story of ‘One Percent‘

Benjamin Franklin said, “Little strokes fell great oaks.” Warren Buffett advised, “Life is like a snowball. The important thing is finding wet snow and a really long hill.” The Japanese have talked for centuries about Kaizen, which means ‘small continuous improvements.’ And you must have seen this equation: 1.01³⁶⁵ = 37.8.

What this equation and the accompanying advice really means is that instead of trying to make radical changes in a short amount of time, if you can just make small improvements – just 1% better – every day, that will gradually lead to the change you want in your life.

Each day, just focus on getting 1% better in whatever it is you are trying to improve. That’s it. Just 1%.

What does 1% a day mean? Nothing, really. It just means get a little better each day – as simple as reading one page of a book per day, or watching one TED talk per day, or exercising for only five minutes per day. It is hard to quantify. But the important thing to know is this – One percent better each day, compounded, is almost 3800% better each year. Big change, with just one percent.

That is the idea behind The One Percent Almanack. To take you on an open-ended exploration into the minds of the wisest people around whose insights and wisdom can help you learn to think, invest, decide, and live each day a little, as little as one percent, better.