UNSCRIPTED: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship

by M.J. DeMarco

The process-principle and its echoes can be visualized as a line of dominoes, where each sequential domino gets progressively larger. When you start, the very first domino knocked over is incredibly small. When it drops, nothing is felt or heard. However, its velocity is enough to knock over the next, slightly larger domino. That domino continues the progression, toppling the next larger one. As the dominoes get bigger and fall, suddenly you start hearing and feeling them drop. It’s music to your ears, motivating you forward. The process continues until the last domino tumbles over, a gigantic domino symbolizing your goal—competing in a fitness competition, saving a million bucks, getting out of debt—and it started with a tiny, insignificant domino, which cascaded into incredible change velocity. And yet, the ascending dominoes perfectly illustrate why event-driven failures fail: They start at the biggest domino and are powerless to budge it. If they only saw that it’s the little things that cause the big things.