High density, big growth

It’s hard to imagine how many whales there once were. Now, the low population makes it harder for individuals to find each other to breed, driving the population down further. (Nasjonalbiblioteket)

It's been more than three years of intense work in The Marketing Seminar as both a student and a coach, and I'm still learning new things.

Part of it is because of the way the course is set up. With open-ended prompts, there are many directions in which the work can go and many ways for people to bring their own ideas to it. This creates infinite variation and endless opportunities for learning and going deeper, even if you are familiar with the material.

Compounding the benefits of studying the same material for three years has been the density of my engagement with it. Compressing a high volume of interactions into a relatively short time frame increases the intensity of the experience, meaning that I am learning that much more. I'm making more connections, seeing patterns more regularly, and developing greater insights as a result.

Simply doing an activity over a long period of time reaps rewards, but what is especially powerful is intense effort and attention sustained over that period. There needs to be dedication and consistency. Our relative level of commitment and focus over time is what I'm calling density.

When people ask how long I've been playing guitar, my answer is misleading. More time doesn't equal more dazzling abilities. Jimi Hendrix and I both started learning guitar at age fifteen, but when he died at 27, his accomplishments on the instrument were legendary. At 27, mine were not. I played guitar with significant "density" for the first three months, and after that I mostly maintained the level of skill I had. Even at the two-year mark, I wasn't twice as good as I had been the year before. Meanwhile, Jimi Hendrix started strong and never slowed.

Obviously, if we want to get better results, we can put more effort in. At the moment when we're tempted to taper, we can invest more. When I first started consulting for small businesses, I had experience only with my own business ventures. That rapidly changed as I began to spend hours every day consulting with small business owners. I'm actively learning as I go, increasing the density of interactions I have as much as possible in order to move toward expert status.

It is often my recommendation that, when taking on a new skill, we should compress as much effort as possible into a short period of time to build momentum and confidence. This focus has the added benefit of helping us see patterns that might become invisible if they were stretched over several days or weeks.

However, intensity and time tend to have an inverse relationship. For example, I poured hours into tennis each day for a period of several weeks, but eventually I had scale back this habit. I had to also make time to live my life and take care of other obligations.

More recently, I've begun to how some endeavors lend themselves to high density over a longer period of time. There are certain activities on which I can spend six or eight hours a day. Though these activities might be less intense than playing tennis or guitar, they are still building toward something, and the payoff can be significant.

For example, I have spent countless hours over the years writing emails and other work-related written communication. I'm not sure that's the kind of thing that Gladwell was talking about when he wrote about the 10,000 hour rule in his book Outliers, but there is no doubt that I became an expert in writing emails after a few years of extensive daily practice.

This skill of writing emails has been unexpectedly useful. I can now compose an email in two or three minutes that might have once taken a half hour or more. I can find a way to be direct and kind when addressing a difficult subject. I can filter through a lot of complex situations to find the action that needs to be taken. Somewhere in the hours and hours of email processing, I learned to think clearly, demonstrate compassion, and write effectively.

While I was writing a thousand emails, someone else was changing a thousand diapers and preparing a thousand toddler meals—they were learning forbearance at a level I can only imagine. Meanwhile, else was driving a taxi in Manhattan and building a high capacity for performance under pressure. Another person was standing behind the desk of a busy hotel, dealing with a relentless flow of guests. All the while they were developing an ability to keep their composure even when speaking to someone agitated.

These important skills are highly transferable. The density necessary to acquire and strengthen them can be obtained through everyday interactions, which makes them more accessible than specialized expertise like chess or classical piano (especially if you're getting paid to show up and develop these skills day by day). Most of us don't have six hours a day to become a chess expert, but we can become an expert in, for instance, project management or classroom management.

The lessons of density are twofold. The first is that we can take advantage of this concept to gain skill in a systematic way, recognizing that practice will pay off. When we take a course, go to grad school, or take on a new job, we're giving ourselves the opportunity to increase density in a particular realm.

The second lesson of density is that we can view our existing skills and knowledge through this lens in order to access expertise and wisdom that we might otherwise take for granted. Certain aspects of our life or career may seem to have benefited us little. We might regret the years we spent in a particular career that doesn't match what we want to do now. However, it's likely that there are a lot of portable skills if we view our experience in a different way. What have we already practiced extensively that we might not recognize? How might it help us now?

It's strange to think about the years I spent teaching music lessons now that I have completely discontinued doing this professionally. But those years weren't a dead end. That's because I wasn't just teaching piano. I was learning how people learn. I was practicing the art of reading people to pick up on tiny signs of frustration or satisfaction. I was mastering the art of breaking down complex skills into smaller pieces. I was discovering the magic of positive reinforcement. I was learning the order in which children lose their baby teeth.

Today, I can use these existing skills in a variety of professional contexts (and I can almost always accurately guess children's ages). I can also build up new skills deliberately and intentionally by using the principle of density.

If you are at a crossroads professionally, you might feel insecure about your limited experience in a particular area. You can acquire more skill than you think by increasing the intensity of your focus and effort and benefiting from a high density of repetition. Plus, you might already have more skill than you think based on the work you've done in the past. You spent a lot of time doing something—what was it? Even if the exact mechanics won't translate, it may be that your knowledge, insight, and experience will.