Okay more from: "My Time in Service."
This one is going to be a little "out there." And some of you may think I am bragging. Believe me, I am not. It is just that the "Power of Ten" got amplified over the decades in a way that the Documentary never intended. And since it is close to New Years....well, it applies. Since I set these goals...and met them. And it all started with Charles and Ray Eames Documentary: "Power of Ten." Yes, the same guys who make the famous chairs and stuff.

So it was 1978. I was a young Section Sgt over in Hawaii. I never watched much TV, but a documentary caught my eye: Powers of Ten. And man, did I get carried away with using Ten...as a personal Power. More on that later.
What that Documentary did, was start with a couple sitting on a park bench...and then in a series of "Order of Magnitude " leaps, it zoomed out, a power of ten, at a time, all the way out to the edge of the known Universe. Then reversed until it got back to the couple in the Park. It went out 35 orders of magnitude. Each segment another power of ten.
Then it went down! From that bench all the way down to the sub atomic level, again, by powers of ten. And it fascinated the heck out of me. By the way, we are almost exactly in the middle of going up to the biggest, and down to the smallest. Might be meaning to that little factoid. Maybe not.

So I thought to myself: "Self, what if you did just ten things...how far could you zoom, out...or in." So I started with books. I decided to read Ten non fiction books. Ten. I gave myself a year. I ended up with 12, because I decided to read one a month. Believe me, I had a much better General Knowledge capacity after reading those ten books. So I decided to go for ...well, 100 books ...all non fiction. Another Power of Ten. That took almost two years. And people started thinking I was smart. I wasn't. I was just well read. I reached, perhaps, the level of a good old fashioned Journalist might achieve. So you guessed it. I went up another Power of Ten. I read (and used to have five by cards with the date I started a book, and when I finished it...along with my notes about what was in the book) a thousand books. All Non Fiction. That took me until almost the end of the 1980's.
One time when my kids were like ten years old, one of my daughter's friends asked why with all the books in the house, we didn't have an Encyclopedia. My daughter replied nonchalantly : "Don't need one. We have Dad."
I loved that.
So in the Eighties I discovered a Lecture on Tape. It was called: "The Strangest Secret" by Earl Nightingale. It was the first "Spoken Word" Album to reach Gold Record level. Turns out, he had a Company with a guy named Vic Conant...and they made these cool little cassette tape lecture series. Usually with ten or twelve cassettes, and maybe a guide book. There most famous, and most successful series was probably : "Unlimited Power" by Anthony Robbins.
So, you guessed it. I started with one. Then Ten of those sets. And then...100. Powers of Ten. I learned about sales, real estate, finance, personal growth, human potential, NLP, and Personal Psychology for Success. And I learned how easy it is to fall for marketing, pseudoscience, and a good story teller.
I ended up having listened to almost all of their offerings. (I know, this is getting old, but bear with me...Powers of ten continues on!)

So then, I got a magazine in the mail. It was from a Company called: "The Great Courses." They kind of did what Earl and Vic did. Put people who knew what they were talking about in a studio, and recorded them on tape. But there were two differences. The Great Courses were Legit Academics. The Best Teachers from the Best Universities...teaching their favorite Subject. And it was on VHS. You could see them!
Each Course was usually about 30 lectures. And I was hooked. Again, just like before. I started with one Course. Then one a month - which was perfect as most had thirty lectures sections. Then well, I kept going. 84 Courses. Didn't quite make it to the next power of Ten, but man those were some in depth courses.
And then...my son in law asked if I had ever heard of TED Talks. They were a new thing when he was in College. And off I went. Same as before: One, Ten, One hundred. and I stopped at one thousand TED Talks. Yep. Watched that many. And then they got to commercial for me...and the ideas dropped off.
So then, I found my first Science Podcast...Veritasium. Then Arvin Ash, Science Clic, Minute Physics, ThreeBlueOne Brown...and then the Crash Courses in History and Biology. Some of them I have watched every episode they ever put out. Others...I dropped off a bit. But same rules: One, Ten, a hundred...etc...
And I even found Podcast or YouTube channels for leisure. Cruising the Cut with David...a narrow boat experience. I have watched him for a decade. Gone with the Wynns...same. I have watched them travel in an RV, then sail around the World, and now they bought an Explorer yacht and will motor into the Arctic. And Sailing Yacht Florence ..with Matt and Amy...never miss an episode.
And so it goes. I am slowing down now.
But my point is this, what if you started with the Power of Ten (and please do watch it, it is a bit dated, but still gets the point across). Just read one book. Take one course. Watch one YouTube channel that catches your interest ....and then ten. One hundred. ...move on up! Who knows how much joy of learning or discovering you might get?
I have been doing this for five decades. And I think Tony Robbins said it best in his book: "Awaken the Giant Within."
"Most people overestimate what they can do in a year. And underestimate what they can do in a decade. "
You may not believe me, and I have forgotten so much of what I learned, but I did indeed follow the Power of Ten.
And in a last real life story of the Power of Ten. I found a site online called: StoryStar.com". It was a place for Writers to post a short story. For free. I had just retired. So I wrote a story. One. Well, you know what happened next. I went for ten published stories. Then One hundred. Two hundred, and then...three years ago...published my 1,000th Story on Story Star. You can go look. They are all up there. Currently I am standing at 1,365 stories and counting. Took me 13 years.
The Power of Ten.