In this solo podcast episode, Bobby Lehew, Chief Content Officer at Commonsku, reads and expands on a previously published blog post titled "The Real Secret to Sudden Success". He introduces the concept of punctuated equilibrium—how incremental habit work can lead to sudden breakthroughs—using Yo‑Yo Ma’s practice routine as a vivid illustration. He shares a personal anecdote about struggling with sleep habits, detailing numerous failed attempts before a sudden turning point, and connects the principle to sales, noting that multiple small outreach efforts often culminate in a rapid win. Throughout, he promotes the upcoming SKUCon conference, highlighting the benefits of virtual attendance and exclusive content, and ends with a Commonsku sponsor message, a call‑to‑action to register for SKUCon, and contact information for listeners.
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Hi friends, I'm Bobby LeHew, the Chief Content Officer at Commonsku. As regular listeners will know, sometimes we reach back into the archives and read a short article from our blog that was popular with the community. Now, as I record this, it's a few days before the US Thanksgiving holiday. For many, it's a quiet week with family, food, and it's generally an uncluttered holiday. There are no multiple Christmas parties to attend, and aside from the chaos of shopping, it's relatively quiet. Which means you might have more time than normal for reflection and planning as you look toward 2022. Today, I want to share one more article with you from our Habits series, an article titled The Real Secret to Sudden Success. This article might surprise you because it has something to do with this piece. Now you've heard that many times. That's Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major. It's a recording of the suite in the public domain. Now what the hell am I doing talking about Bach on the SkewCast? Well, on an episode of NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts, Yo-Yo Ma appeared and played this as a demonstration of the very first piece he learned to play at the age of 4. He talked about incrementalism, how each new habit we build is hard at first, but learning one measure at a time, it becomes slightly different as you progress. Quote, it's not painful to learn something if you do it incrementally, end quote. Now, this might seem basic, but Yo-Yo Ma explains in this article I'm about to read why incrementalism works and why success often looks so sudden. More on that in a minute. Speaking of habit-forming 2022 and setting your sights on bigger ambitions, I want to encourage you, if you haven't done it yet, to invite your team to join us virtually for SKUCon on January 9th. SKUCon is the industries conference for innovators, explorers, and dreamers in the promotional products industry. And though the in-person event is sold out, registration is open to attend SKUCON virtually. Now, I love the virtual option for SKUCON this year because normally when you attend an event, you have to be selective about which team members can come, meaning some might be left at home and honestly feel a little left out. As importantly, this is the one event of the year that's positioned perfectly to kick off 2022. And what better way to tackle the year ahead than to inspire your entire team. Virtual attendees will get exclusive content that in-person attendees won't, such as interviews with CodeApaxy founder Davis Smith and design legend Aaron Draplin. Plus, if you register by December 1st, you'll receive the official SkuCon 2022 t-shirt, a collaboration done with Aaron Draplin that you just have to see. Hop on over to skucon.com to register your entire team today. This episode is brought to you by Commonsku, the work from anywhere platform that powers your connected workflow enabling you to process more orders and dramatically grow your sales. To learn more or to begin your free trial now, visit commonscue.com. Now here's our article, The Real Secret to Sudden Success. You decide you want to get your sleeping under control, or for you, maybe the new habit you want to create is not better sleep, but perhaps it's diet or exercise. But for our example, let's stick with sleeping. Now, you already know that studies reveal how sleeping is a linchpin habit and unlocks a host of other good habits. So you focus, you try multiple life hacks to create an optimal environment for sleep. For example, you eat dinner earlier because you heard that it's not good to go to bed on a full stomach. No luck. You go to bed earlier. Still no luck. You try meditation before bed, stretches before bed. Uh-uh. Yoga? Okay, once. Chamomile tea? Nada. You decide to keep your phone downstairs. Ha. You even quit drinking. Shock and dismay, but zilch. You spend several hundred bucks on a sleep-tracking watch to tell you what you already know: that you're not sleeping well. In frustration, you're just about to give up when suddenly one night it clicks. Everything falls into place. One night of rest turns into two, which turns into a week, which turns into a month. And just like that, a new habit is born. Now, what happened? Evolutionary biologists have a fancy term for it: evolution by jerks. I kid you not, Google it. Or you can call it by its cooler name, which sounds like a Ramones spin-off: punk eek. But its scientific name is punctuated equilibrium, which means you experience a season of equilibrium which is no change, followed by sudden, radical, rapid change, the punctuation part. Even Yo-Yo Ma believes this, and he's the greatest cellist in the world. In his masterclass, Yo-Yo Ma Teaches Music and Connection, Ma said that basically we change very slowly, incrementally, but every once in a while there's a huge amount of change that happens very quickly. In our industry, big wins fall just like punctuated equilibrium. Ma basically described the same process we go through when we're trying to land new business. We launch multiple campaigns, emails, self-promo kits. We connect via social. We research our prospect's business. We send them notes, calls, emails. We try multiple tactics. I can't tell you how many frustrated salespeople I've sat across from, people who are doing all the right things but are not yet breaking through and are about to give up when suddenly one final tactic opens the door and gets the prospect's attention. Often I would hear, quote, that mailer to the prospect did it. They finally called. I got a project. End quote. It wasn't the mailer, it was multiple mailers, multiple reachouts. Everyone wants to know the fast fix to growth, the simple step to landing six-figure sales, the easy pill to swallow to ensure success, lose weight, or win big. There is no one secret. The most impactful change we experience usually occurs suddenly after a period of what feels like gestation or incubation, but that season is never static. It's full of tiny tasks in the same direction, and then suddenly success is born. It's true in life. It's true in business. Lori Gottlieb wrote, most big transformations come about from the hundreds of tiny steps we take along the way. I reached out to a friend to ask how she overcame high blood pressure without meds. As she rattled off a litany of changes she made, I realized it wasn't one habit alone. It was the accumulation of multiple habits in the same direction. Running, eating right, losing weight, meditating. One of those habits would have worked to lower her blood pressure some, but it was the force of multiple changes in the same direction that allowed her to cure her own disease and alter the course of her life. It's our intensity of tiny tasks in a purposed direction that unleashes sudden success. It's an average, ordinary power we possess, one that becomes a superpower when it's an infinitesimal accumulation of force. Yo-Yo Ma estimates that he practices about 10,000 hours every 5 years. He began playing at the age of 4. He's 66 now. That's 124,000 hours of practice over a lifetime. If anyone knows about the accumulation of force in a single direction, it's Ma. Child prodigy, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, 100 albums, 18 Grammy Awards. He has played for 9 presidents and he still practices. Little changes add up to huge changes, says Ma. You are actually in charge. You are the architect of your own life. Thank you for tuning in, and from our entire team, we hope you have a wonderful holiday. And if you enjoyed this article, forward it to a friend. If you have any questions or any comments, email me bobby@commonskeew.com. Com. Take care.
