Tyler Bruno's Blog

Add Another Zero

A powerful frame of thinking that I've learned from the greats is to add another zero. In whatever metric you define as "success", add a zero to it, and go after that. What this does is make you expand your thinking. It makes you think bigger, to heights that you wouldn't have dared to think about. This transforms everything.

When you add a zero, it changes how you would go do something. If you launched a product and your original goal was 100 user signups a day, slap a zero on the end. To get 1,000 user signups a day it would take a vastly different approach compared to only 100. We often box our mind in, not allowing it to free roam to any area it would like. We think "there's no way doing that is possible".

Guess what? You're probably correct. But nobody told Musk, Jobs, Chesky, that it would be doable? Instead, they had a vision, aimed for it, had luck, and changed the world. What happens is in the act of shooting higher, you may not hit that goal, but you'll achieve so much more than you would've otherwise. It's exactly the quote: "shoot for the moon and if you miss you will still be among the stars".

So, going forward, expand your thinking by adding another zero. It's an amazing thought experiment and allows you to enter worlds that you wouldn't have otherwise. I bet right now, you have totally limited yourself just by your approach to reaching your goals. Improve your approach, improve your outcomes. It's that simple.

Think about in what aspects of life you have big goals for. Now, what would you have to do to achieve an order of magnitude larger goal than that. Go do that. The worst the happens is you land among the stars. The best? You're on the moon, making your dreams a reality. Our human minds are the biggest limiting factor. Always add another zero.