FBC – 171 – How One Tiny Change Can Yield HUUUGE results

How One Tiny Change Can Yield HUUUGE results.

Small, targeted changes often produce bigger results than massive overhauls. In this episode of the Freedom By Choice podcast, I share a firsthand example from coaching basketball where one simple drill improved three skills simultaneously, and how this principle applies directly to business and personal growth.

Today we are going to talk about something absolutely mind-blowing that I witnessed first-hand. I witnessed how a small change can make a huge difference on the overall performance.
Here is why it works and how it works… All details inside this podcast

There are some things that you can do that will actually have a big, big impact, a giant impact.

And I told you that if you make small changes in some of your habits and stuff, they can have a significant impact on the rest. So you don't have to make big changes and stuff. I mean, sometimes big changes will bring big results, but if you know which small change to make, it will actually give you awesome results.

All right. And today, I wanted the basketball girls to do one exercise. And this exercise is the simplest exercise on the planet. Right. It's one of the most basic exercises in basketball. And it's so simple that people can actually do it because it seems like it's irrelevant and it doesn't do anything.

But this exercise does a lot of different things at the same time. And you make like exponential progress because you're working on three or four things at a time without realizing it. And if you had to work on them individually, it will take you a lot more time.

I looked at this exercise and I was like, okay, what exactly can they learn from this exercise? And I think this will help them. So the first thing is and this is something we've already talked about. There is something called muscle memory. So muscle memory is not muscle.

There is the equivalent of muscle memory in everything you do at work, for example. Now, let's say I don't know what you do, but at work there's something that you do repeatedly like 300 times a day. You don't need to think about it anymore. Because you have you've acquired muscle memory. You've done it for so long that you don't need to think about it.

And it's the same thing when you're driving. When you're driving or when you're cycling. You know, when you learn how to ride a bicycle, you know, people say, oh, it's like riding a bicycle, then you never forget. Yeah, you don't forget because you have muscle memory.

So that was the first component that I wanted. So muscle memory, I wanted to build muscle memory, because here is the problem that a lot of these girls have. Is that right now, they still haven't found the mechanics for their shot.

You know, when they shoot, the mechanics will change every single time they shoot. They still haven't found it. So this is applicable in basketball, right.

But it's applicable to in in everything else as well. So you need to find your style. So let's say you want to do podcasting, for example. You know, you're doing podcasting in the beginning. You have a vague idea of what you want to do, right. But with repetition, eventually you're going to find the formula that works for you.

And then afterwards, you keep that formula. But before you find it, you need to find the other things that don't work. So you need repetition for this. OK. So this is one of the main problems that I’ve seen.

How One Tiny Change Can Yield HUUUGE results

At the end of the day, there is not one single mechanic. You have to do what comes natural to you and what works for you. OK. And it's the same thing in everything else, even in, you know, in business and stuff or in public speaking or something.

People can tell you, man, you must. You need to do this. Need to do that. But at the end of the day, you need to find your own voice. We talked about this. Right. You have your own voice. In the beginning, you're going to look at other people's voices because they have some sort of framework that you can follow and you are going to explore until you find your own.

So that was one of the things that I wanted the girls to do is with repetition.

The brain is incredibly powerful. You can read about it. You can see all that stuff. I witnessed it, witnessed it firsthand. I kid you not. It's incredible. So we worked on the repetition thing for maybe like ten, fifteen minutes or something. And I told them, I said, you know what?

Key Insight: The most powerful changes are not the biggest ones. They are the smallest ones that happen to affect multiple areas at the same time. One well-chosen adjustment can create exponential improvement across your entire system.

Key Insight: People overestimate what a big change will do and underestimate what a small, consistent change will do over time. The compounding effect of tiny daily improvements is the real secret behind every major success story.

Once you finish working on this exercise, I want you to realize first hand how it helped you, because right after that, we're going to do this exercise that we do every week and you'll see that it's going to be a lot easier.

And I mean, the girls were transformed. It was amazing. Instantaneously after this exercise, I saw a transformation that I have never seen. It was amazing. I was so I was so proud of the girls. It was really, really cool.

So, I mean, it taught me that small changes, like really small changes. If you identify what you need to change and what you need to improve, it can have a like a huge impact. And this, I mean, for me was a proof. I didn't know it was going to be incredible. It was incredible. Like at some point, they went on the run of like 20 baskets in a row.

So if you know what to change and what to focus on, you just need really, really small changes to create a huge, huge impact. And the power of the brain, man. It's incredible. And you just need to do the same thing on your business or whatever you're trying to do. OK. So in the beginning, you were focusing on the muscle memory like the repetition will help you exclude what doesn't work for you.

But you need to figure out what doesn't work for you. And then afterwards, that will tell you the one thing that works really well for you. And this is how you find your voice, OK? These are the lessons that you can take from what happened today at the basketball court.

About the Author

Martin Ebongue is the founder of martinebongue.com, an online business and lifestyle design blog focused on helping aspiring entrepreneurs build location-independent businesses. Since 2014, he has been creating and scaling online ventures across multiple niches, from digital products and affiliate marketing to SaaS and content platforms, while traveling the world. He shares the real-world strategies, tools, and systems that work, with a particular focus on AI-powered automation for solopreneurs. Follow him on YouTube, X (Twitter), and Instagram.

Related Reading

• FBC – 4 Part 1 – This is the story of my life: Success, Failure and The Hurdles.
• FBC – 3 – Escape your life of sacrifice! Don’t settle for less than your dream lifestyle.
• FBC – 8 – The Weirdest Challenge To Boost Your Confidence
• Other really cool tips that will give you an unfair advantage

Frequently Asked Questions

How can a small change produce big results?

When a single change affects multiple areas simultaneously, its impact compounds. For example, one basic basketball drill can improve hand-eye coordination, footwork, and game awareness all at once. In business, optimizing one step in your sales process can improve conversion, retention, and referrals together.

How do I identify which small change will have the biggest impact?

Look for bottlenecks where one improvement would unlock progress in multiple areas. The highest-impact changes are usually found at the intersection of several processes. Fix the one thing that is currently holding back everything else.

Why do people resist making small changes?

Small changes feel insignificant compared to the size of the goal. People assume that a big goal requires a big action. But the compound effect of consistent small improvements is mathematically more powerful than sporadic big moves.

Further reading

• the Diary of a Virtual CEO LinkedIn newsletter: weekly breakdowns of the small operational tweaks that compound into noticeable growth.
• Growth Hacking YouTube playlist: video tutorials on the marginal changes that move conversion in real businesses.
• HubSpot's growth research: data on which single change inside a funnel produces the biggest lift in conversion.
• Zapier on small automations with outsized returns: case studies on the one or two automations that quietly carry the rest of the growth stack.