The Amazon Flywheel
…is the strategy that underpins Amazon’s business plan. Following the graphic below, you’ll be able to see it more easily in action. In summary, each portion of the business (ie: customer experience) feeds into and supports the next part.
For example, by having great customer experience, Amazon is able to drive more traffic to their website (because customers want to shop there). This generates more website visits, which increases the demand for third-party sellers (those who want to sell where the shoppers visit). Having greater traffic leads to better selection, which improves customer experience again… and the flywheel rotates faster.
Flywheels and Life
Everything in life is a flywheel, which is another way of saying, most relationships are non-linear.
I’ve blogged about this before: the most important payoffs in life are exponential (they involve compounding over long periods of time). But said another way, nearly all of your actions will assemble a circle of actions that link together. We assume the connection is linear, however when the flywheel is fed, the payoff much greater than 1:1.
The Health Flywheel:
- Workout at the gym
- Eat healthier
- Have more energy
- Live more in the moment (at work and home)
The Relationship Flywheel: You call or check-in with a friend on a weekly basis. That allows more information to flow between both people. Suddenly your daily activities become more relevant to each other and you speak more often. This higher-quality relationship gives each of you motivation to reach out to other friends, and the flywheel continues.
Now imagine these flywheels running a two different speeds for two different people: (1) slow, just starting and (2) fast, full speed. Compare those and you’ll get two vastly different people. This isn’t a surprise – we all have that one friend who works out everyday and eats like a GQ model. Their flywheel is rotating at top speed.
Finally, did I mention that negative flywheels work the same way? Get stuck feeding the wrong actions, and suddenly you haven’t left the house or accomplished anything substantial for weeks at a time.
Feed Your Wheel
Which flywheel have you been feeding?
We rarely think about the repercussions of each choice we make. Next time you think about going to the gym, don’t think about the muscle you’ll build, but instead think of the next connection on the flywheel – (ie: your better eating habits, and your elevated energy).
When we recognize the many to one payoffs in our lives, we prioritize the actions that yield the greatest rewards.
It’s never too late to pick up the right habit, or focus on the right goals.
Pick your flywheel, feed it, and become your best self.