Think Like an Oak, Not Like an Acorn

The Voice in the Next Room

I was twenty-six years old. Government clerk in Little Rock, Arkansas. Making $525 a month, carrying 200 pounds and two packs of cigarettes a day. No college degree. No savings. No goals worth mentioning.

"I never expected to be anything but ordinary. I was raised to be nice and ordinary. I expected I would grow up to be, my dad worked for the phone company, I figured I'd go to work for the phone company."

That was my whole plan. Work until sixty-five, retire, and die somewhere near the statistical average for my gene pool. I was not unhappy. I was not searching. I was just there.

"Until one day in 1972, on the radio in the next room to mine, I heard a voice that changed everything."

The voice belonged to Earl Nightingale. And what he said next rearranged my life like a tornado rearranges a landscape.

The Math That Changed Everything

Nightingale's formula was simple. "If you will spend one extra hour each day studying your chosen field, you'll be a national expert in that field in five years or less."

I sat there and did the arithmetic. "An hour extra a day, say five days a week, 50 weeks a year, that's 1,250 hours over five years. If I spent, me, just ordinary me, 1,250 hours studying one subject, wow, yeah, I could actually be a national expert."

Think about that. Not a genius. Not someone with connections or credentials. Just a person willing to focus on one subject for one hour a day, and let the compounding do its work.

I did not stop at one hour. "I took him seriously, an hour a day. I focused, I thought I was kind of behind the game, so I needed two hours, and three and four and five. So I overcompensated, and I became fanatical about the field of human development."

By 1977, five years in, I was a full-time professional speaker. The formula worked. Not because I was special. Because the math was honest.

The Circle Closes

Here is where the story gets interesting.

"In 1974, I started buying Earl Nightingale's training materials and selling them to businesses. By 1984, his company was selling my training materials worldwide. They sold 3.5 million dollars worth of one of my first audio albums in the first two years it was out."

The man whose voice I heard on the radio in the next room was now publishing my voice for the world. The student became the peer. The circle closed. And the seed that was planted in 1972 started producing seeds of its own.

What the Acorn Already Holds

I spent nine years after that doing psychological research, trying to understand why the formula had worked so well for me and for others I was teaching. What I found was that effort alone does not explain it. Effort aligned with your designed nature explains it.

That is where the acorn comes in.

Pick up an acorn sometime. Hold it in your hand. It has three parts.

"The stem represents its connection to the past, all the acorns, all the oaks that have ever existed in its line before are encoded in that, transferred through that stem, the legacy into this acorn. The cap holds onto the seed until the seed is ready to grow on its own... And when you're ready to grow on your own, the seed of that acorn holds not only your potential but the potential of every future generation of acorns that will spring from that line."

You carry a stem. Every person who came before you, every experience they passed along, lives in you as an imprint. You have had caps. Parents, teachers, coaches, mentors, friends who held you steady until you were ready to stand on your own. And you carry a seed. Not just your own possibility, but the possibility of everyone who will follow you.

"Somewhere deep inside, you know what kind of person you were designed to be. If you want to produce great acorns, think like an oak, not like an acorn."

Respect, Know, Nurture

The framework that grew from this research has three steps. "First, we need to respect our nature. Second, we need to know our nature... And then we need to apply our nature, we need to nurture our nature by expressing ourselves in the world."

Respecting your nature means accepting that you are not a random event. You are part of a continuing chain, and that chain carries both legacy and responsibility.

Knowing your nature is where most people stop too soon. They settle for a personality quiz or a comparison score. That is not enough.

"Know how you're smart, not just how smart you are in comparison to others. In what ways are you smart? Know what you care about. What are the values that motivate your choices? Know what your personal velocity is, the intensity and drive with which you naturally operate."

There is more. "Know the background imprint, positive, neutral or negative, that you carry with you and what effect it's had on you." Know your behavioral style, how you come across to other people. Know the patterns in your choices over time.

These six dimensions of self-knowledge are not abstract ideas. They are measurements. When you understand how you are smart, what you care about, how fast you naturally move, what imprint you carry, how others experience you, and what patterns run through your decisions, you have a map. And a map changes everything about how you spend your one hour a day.

Nurturing your nature means putting that knowledge to work. Not someday. Today. In the next conversation, the next decision, the next hour.

The Question You Can Ask Today

All of this, the formula, the acorn, the six dimensions, can be compressed into a single daily practice.

"Ask yourself, how would the person I'd like to be do the things I am about to do."

That question works at twenty-six. It works at seventy-nine. I know because I have been asking it since 1972 and I asked it again this morning.

It is not a motivational slogan. It is a filter. You hold it up against the next meeting, the next phone call, the next choice about how to spend an evening. The person you would like to be already exists inside you, the way the oak already exists inside the acorn. The question simply invites that person into the room.

The Ripple Goes Worldwide

"As you grow, you become a bigger source for the rest of life to express itself through you. You were put here for a reason. It's contained in that acorn."

Growth is not a selfish act. When one person visibly grows, something happens around them. "I want to nurture that nature. I want to apply myself in the world and put myself to work in such ways that the rest of the world says: 'Well, that's cool. If he or she can do it, I could probably do it. I wonder how they did it.' And then we start spreading that and the ripple goes worldwide."

You are an acorn. The oak is already in you. Your stem connects you to everyone who came before. Your cap held you until you were ready. And your seed carries not only your future but the future of people you may never meet.

Respect your nature. Know your nature. Nurture your nature.

How would the person you'd like to be do the things you are about to do?

In the spirit of growth,

Jim Cathcart