So, what powered the Industrial Revolution?

Water. More specifically and more explosively, steam. Even at 211 degrees Fahrenheit, water is not very exciting.

But add just one more degree and something amazing happens! At 212 degrees, you get steam and steam moves mountains!

I’m convinced this metaphor applies to achieving our dreams.

The difference between ‘good’ and ‘excellent’ is very, very small. For many people, the difference between being slim and fit, versus gradually becoming heavy and unhealthy may only be a hundred calories per day. Eat even a few more calories than you burn each day and you gain weight. Burn a few extra calories each day and you lose weight.

Sure, optimum health may be more complicated, but it starts with a very small number of calories, maybe only one cookie per day!

This applies to any goal you want to achieve. Remember the old saying, “inch by inch, anything’s a cinch?” The opposite is also true. “Yard by yard, everything is hard.”

High achievers know that small differences make all the difference.

The Industrial Revolution changed everything, and it began with only one degree of additional heat applied to common, everyday water.

Boil the water, channel the steam and you’ve got a locomotive to change the world.

What small differences will you make this week? Perhaps you’ll make one more sales call, or prepare a bit more thoroughly for your next presentation?

Whether in golf or sales or in the more “mundane” things like parenting, the top performers are rarely dramatically better. Typically, they are “ordinary people doing ordinary things, extraordinarily well.”

This week, do a few ordinary things just slightly better. I think you’ll see an extraordinary change in your results.