My 8 year old, Z-Man, got a science kit for Christmas. It’s got petri dishes, so yesterday we started growing bacteria.
We put sugar and gelatin in the dishes. The instructions said to take a cotton swab and get some bacteria from wherever you want. So we rubbed our cotton swab in…
-Dirt
-Dishrag
-Lint from between Z-Man’s toes
-Boogers
We smeared them onto the gelatin. In a few days, we’ll witness thriving colonies of bacteria multiplying in the corner of his bedroom.
I said “Hey Z-Man, come here, let me show you something.” I drew him a picture of how bacteria divide and multiply. “These babies double every 20 minutes. Here’s a calculator. Let’s start with 1 and then start multiplying by 2.”
As he punched numbers, I wrote them down on this piece of paper:
By the time we got to hour #2, he started giggling. “WOW! This is going to go to a million!”
“Yeah, and that’s only gonna take about six hours.” I asked him: “THEN what happens?”
“I don’t know!”
We kept going. One million, two million, four million. He doesn’t even know how to read the numbers anymore. He’s rolling around on the sofa, giggling.
“Z-Man, you can hardly even see a million bacteria cuz they’re so small. They’re just a speck. By tomorrow, you’ll see a little bit. Then what’s going to happen? Are they going to grow and grow until they eat our house?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
He didn’t know. He crinkled his face: “Yes. Maybe?”
He definitely knows that by next week those furry critters are gonna be swimming all over the place. Which colony will be bigger? The one from the dirt, or the one from the boogers?
There’s nothing like exponential growth to fire your imagination. Z-Man GETS it. Them suckers are growing. You can already see tiny colonies form and it’s only been one day.
You know what this is just like?
It’s like your own knowledge, education and wisdom.
It SEEMS like those things are linear. But they’re not. They’re exponential.
Why?
Because every NEW thing you learn connects to everything you already know.
If you know 4 things, there are 6 connections between them. But if you know 6 things, there are 15 connections:
Add a 7th and connections expand to 21. Everything’s connected. Your knowledge grows one step at a time, but your ability to apply it grows exponentially. It multiplies like Z-Man’s bacteria boogers.
You should get all fired up by this, because the difference between a tiny speck of bacteria and a frothing colony that’s shoving the lid off that petri dish is only a few days.
This is why a 70 year old man or woman who feels creaky every morning can still be brimming with wisdom and be a force of nature. It’s why the late Peter Drucker was one of the most sought-after business consultants, even at the ripe old age of 90.
Glenn Livingston says, “Most people overestimate what they can accomplish in 1 year and underestimate what they can accomplish in 5.” Amen brother.
Right now you have problems that have taken you years to solve, that 2 years from now you will be able to solve in FIVE MINUTES.
That’s why you must never give up on your vision, your commitment to education, your passion for excellence, or your dreams. Your power as an active agent in the world is exponential. Never, ever forget that.
Perry Marshall
P.S.: Which bacteria do you think will grow the fastest? The ones from the dirt, the dishrag, the lint from between Z-Man’s toes, or boogers? Cast your vote below.
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About the Author
Perry Marshall has launched two revolutions in sales and marketing. In Pay-Per-Click advertising, he pioneered best practices and wrote the world's best selling book on Google advertising. And he's driven the 80/20 Principle deeper than any other author, creating a new movement in business.
He is referenced across the Internet and by Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, INC and Forbes Magazine.
36 Comments on “Boogers, Bacteria and Z-man”
definitely the dishrag!! let us know how it turns out :)
Dishrag, unless it was just washed with bleach! Tempted by boogers. Humans are loaded with bacteria. Great post.
Great post, Perry! (Not because of the boogers, but because of the eye-opening illustrations about the connections.)
Since I already cheated and read the other posts, I will agree and say that the dish rag will be the winner. I do the dishes occasionally and I can definitely tell if the dish rag hasn’t been replaced in a while.
Just wondering, do you have an email list for number theory?
I love stuff like 80/20 and your connections illustrations. :-)
George
A long time ago I mentioned Stephen Wolfram’s book “A New Kind of Science” (a book for a geek’s geek) and it was gratifying to see that quite a few people were familiar with it. The closest thing I have to an email list about number theory is my blog post http://www.perrymarshall.com/godel/
The brilliance I love in this post is the way analogies are used to connect familiar, everyday things to other things that drive home a point which will be remembered.
Thinking in analogies was one of the reasons Einstein was so brilliant. He applied what worked in one area to an area no one had connected that solution with before.
I relish analogies!
I go for dishrag as well!
I’m seeing neuron connections in your drawing. (Surprise!) This is a very cool explanation.
And, I’d be interested the stats on this email/blog with that awesome title.
I got a 27% open rate. I sent it to a sizable chunk of my list, whereas normally when I mail to that wide range of people I’d get 15%. Yeah talking about boogers activates the lizard brain :^>
Only a father of boys could have written this blog post title!
I am going the dishrag.
Dishrag, Hands down.
Dishrag! ;) I just ordered a kit. My wife loves using dishrags and it drives me crazy. Now go swab the toothbrush!
Voting *dishrag*.
Great post!
Going against the current and voting for dirt!
Boogers.
There are several factors unaccounted for in this experiment that could affect the outcome, so I’ll say it’s probably a toss up between the dish rag and the boogers… with the dish rag having a slight edge.
I think the dirt could win in volume, but have a large diversity.
The dish rag should win in what would make you sick, and won’t have much competition with other bacteria. Which may make it grow faster.
Booger should not do much because it would have mucus and around it.
The toe lint could take it if kept warm enough (80+), it should be a yeast not a bacteria tho.
Have to wait and see!
Dishcloth.
More importantly…… I hit the
’email me on comment’ field :-((
Please make it stop! Pleeasse
It hurts!!
Inbow is slowly filling… I’m drowning
Perry help!
Simon
Wales UK
With all due respect to Dr. Glenn, if solving problems happens like geometric growth, then the reason we underestimate how much we can accomplish in five years is because half of what we do happens on the last day.
(Has your son figured out when half of the agar will be covered with bacteria?)
Once the colonies are big enough to measure, I’ll have him figure that out!
The Boogers
I vote for the dishrag.
Love the post Perry.
Delores
Dishrag.
I vaguely remember a Myth Busters episode where the dishrag was the dirtiest item in the house. I think it was like 100 times worse than the toilet seat.
Hmmm. Can we extend your analogy Perry?
Do the “dirtiest” problems in business have the most potential to grow your business by a factor 100? That is true in my business.
Anyone else see this in their business?
Oh yes absolutely! Tackle the ugliest, thorniest problems you can find.
I am going with the dishrag in the hopes that maybe you blew your nose in it first, then dropped it on the ground, thus encompassing all three potential elements and giving your little experiment a turbo boost of bacterial growth.
I vote dishrag. You should have taken a swab from your cellphone – it would have won easily, I think.
Would have to be the dishrag as the dishrag will have a mix of tonnes of different kinds of foods and what not.
Great email by the way Perry
Hi,
I vote for the boogers. (As I am German, I had to look several of these “dirty” words up!)
I vote boogers based on them just having a denser bacterial content so a greater starting place.
That being said, I’m a little disapointed that there wasn’t more talk about attrition. The post gets to a place where Z-Man doesn’t know why his culture isn’t going to overtake his house. I’d like to see more talk on this.
There are two topics that are very seldom touched on in much marketing materials that I see mentioned here but glossed over. It’s the priming of the pump (how much you start with) and attrition… more on that please… :)
Gypsy,
Actually we did discuss why the bacteria wouldn’t consume our house. I brought that up in the blog post but didn’t finish the thought because 1) it wasn’t really the point of the blog post, and 2) it’s what the NLP people call an “open loop” which is an unfinished thought and you keep thinking about it after you get done reading :^>
Perry
Probably the dirt or the dishrag.
If the dishcloth is used then I’m going with that.
Simon
Wales UK
Dishrag. Great post Perry!
My vote goes to the dishrag bacteria.
Are you kidding? As the mother of four sons, I’m confidently betting on Dishrag. My boys were never sick, despite boogers and dirt and toe jam. Break out the dishrag, however, and they felt quite ill. (Just kidding!)