How long does it take to learn something? Of course, that depends on what it is you are learning to do and how you are being taught. But if you had a tutor that was available for one-on-one lessons over a 6 month period, you could learn just about anything from playing a musical instrument, learning a new language or even flying an airplane.
Adding to this, say by the end of that six months, you had learned this one skill well enough to be able to teach it to others. With only 2 students per year, at the end of 10 years, you would have taught a mere 20 people.
But since each of your students would also become teachers (after the 6 months training), this number would begin to multiply, albeit slowly at first. In the first year, only 4 people would know this skill well enough to teach it. 16 total at the end of the second year; 64 by the third; 256 at then end of 4, and 1,024 after 5 years.
Then the numbers start to get crazy.
Year 6: 4096
Year 7: 16,348
Year 8: 65,536
Year 9: 262,144
Year 10: over 1,000,000
In 10 years, even though you will have only taught 20 students, and each of those would have taught less than that, over 1 million student/teachers would now be trained in this skill. Keeping in mind that each teacher only gets one student every 6 months. By this method, halfway through the 17th year, over 8.5 billion people will now possess this skill and be qualified to teach it, which is more than the total population of humans on earth.
That’s right, 17 years to teach the entire world a skill that takes 6 months to learn, and no teacher would have any more than 33 students total over this time period.
So what does this mean?
Simply it means that you should never doubt the power of getting through to just one person. There are no small things in this; the ripple effect will make sure your words and wisdom reach around the globe in less than 2 decades. If you make one person smile every 6 months, and each of those are able to do the same, the entire world will be smiling before the cicadas return.
So get out there and teach! Share what you love and if only 2 people a year successfully ‘get’ what you are offering, that’s enough to cover the entire world.