Character Flywheels

Modeling your path upward

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins explains the concept of the flywheel as a metaphor to how organizations should think about growth:

No matter how dramatic the end result, good-to-great transformations never happen in one fell swoop. In building a great company or social sector enterprise, there is no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no miracle moment. Rather, the process resembles relentlessly pushing a giant, heavy flywheel, turn upon turn, building momentum until a point of breakthrough, and beyond.

— Jim Collins

Amateur philosopher, Rob Long takes Collins's flywheel concept to apply it to his own character to create what he calls his Stoic Flywheel. Long's flywheel consists of the following repeating cycle based on what he notes to be his core virtues, wisdom and courage —

1. use wisdom to determine worthy goals

2. use courage to accomplish those goals

3. use transcendence to view the result of achieving the goal, which generates new wisdom

4. return to the first step

A fun question then becomes —

What turns your flywheel?

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Moving Upward,

Conscious Repository

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