Zero to One

“Zero to One,” a book by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters, explores the idea of vertical progress: going from nothing to something, creating something brand new.

This can be applied on a macro-scale, with businesses and ideas that have never before been imagined or developed. In music education, think Sebastian Ruth @ Community MusicWorks. There are lots of copycat schools now, but when he started CMW, he took the world from zero to one.

This idea can also be applied on a micro-scale, to the zero-to-one moments within our own businesses. From not having a website, to having a website. From not tracking income and expenses, to tracking income and expenses. From not having a private lesson contract, to having a private lesson contract. From not blogging, to blogging.

It’s this zero-to-one micro growth that I’m most interested in, because that’s the type of growth that we have agency over, that we can do today. We can’t all have a one-million-dollar business idea that has never been thought of before, but we can all face our fears and take the next step, from wherever we’re at.

Some thoughts about your zero-to-one moments: don’t wait until it’s perfect; it will never be perfect. You have to be bad at something before you can be good at it; better to be bad now than later. Learn from the internet; try an online course in something that will take you to the next level. Don’t be afraid to ask for help; build your team.