I was on my morning walk yesterday, headphones in, half-listening to a financial podcast, something I never imagined myself doing. But here we are. When you find yourself single after thirty years, you do a lot of things you never imagined.
The podcast was by investing ninja Kristen Wonch, and she was explaining compound interest using the most relatable analogy I’ve ever heard: a rumour in high school.
Picture it. One person whispers something deliciously scandalous to two people. Those two people each tell two more. And so on and so on. After just 20 days? Two million people know that story.
But here’s where it gets wild. If that first person had told just three people instead of two, and each of those people told three, and so on, after 20 days, the number doesn’t climb to three million. It doesn’t even double.
It goes to 15 billion.
Let that sink in. One extra person. Compounded over time. An almost incomprehensible difference.
And that’s when it hit me. What if the thing spreading wasn’t gossip, but your healing?
When Everything Changed at Once
When my marriage ended after three decades, the fear that moved in alongside the grief wasn’t just emotional. It was financial. It was existential. It was: what does the rest of my life actually look like?
I did what I do. I researched. I listened to podcasts on my walks. I read everything I could get my hands on. And somewhere in that process of trying to figure out how to create financial stability, I started realizing that everything I was learning about financial habits applied, sometimes perfectly, to my health.
Because the truth is, both had been on autopilot for a long time. And autopilot, as it turns out, is not a strategy.
Tiny Habits Are Compound Interest for Your Health
I used to ask myself, in the slightly sarcastic voice I reserve for things I suspect are too good to be true: How much difference can it actually make to spend five minutes outside first thing in the morning? What does five minutes of meditation really do?
The answer, it turns out, is an insurmountable difference. Just not overnight.
Unlike the rumour mill, which spreads fast and furious and usually ends in someone crying in a bathroom, the compounding of healthy habits happens slowly. Quietly. Through tiny shifts that you almost don’t notice until one day you do.
A five-minute walk becomes a twenty-minute walk. The morning air clears your head enough that you sleep better. You sleep better so you have a little more energy. A little more energy means you feel like cooking instead of ordering in. Better food means your body feels different. Your body feeling different means you actually want to move it. And on it goes.
Each habit creates the conditions for the next one. That’s the flywheel. That’s the compound interest. The return on investment isn’t obvious at first, but it’s absolutely, undeniably real.
The Titanic and the 1% Shift
I’ve been thinking about the Titanic a lot lately. Bear with me.
That ship did not sink because of the iceberg, exactly. It sank because by the time the iceberg was a problem, the ship was already committed to its course. I’m speculating here, obviously, but I imagine the thinking was something like: well, this thing is too massive to turn, so let’s just keep going and hope for the best.
We all know how that ended.
But what if the captain had started a 1% course correction the moment he first heard about the ice? What if the adjustment had been small enough to feel almost pointless, but consistent, and early?
The tragedy might have been entirely averted.
We’re all captains of our own ships. And most of us, at some point, have had an iceberg on the horizon that we kept sailing toward because change felt too big, too slow, too hard to bother with. I’ll start Monday. I’ll start in January. I’ll start when things calm down.
The thing is, the ship’s already moving. You might as well start turning.
From Hindsight to Foresight
Here’s something I’ve made peace with recently: I wish I’d started investing in my twenties. My dad told me to. I didn’t listen. It was too complicated. I didn’t have the ‘extra’ money. All the usual excuses. Now that I understand how compound interest works, I can see exactly what that cost me.
For a while, that knowledge felt like punishment. Like proof that I had done life wrong.
But I’ve stopped doing that. Because beating yourself up about what you didn’t start ten years ago is the opposite of useful. It’s actually just another version of the Titanic problem, staying committed to a course that isn’t working because changing it feels too late.
It’s not too late. It’s never too late. And here’s the reframe that changed everything for me:
Instead of looking back at the last ten years with regret, and ‘shoulding’ all over myself, I use the power of foresight to look forward at the next ten. Where do I want to be? What does that person look like? And what’s the smallest, most manageable 1% shift I can make today to start becoming her?
True with money. True with health. Always.
Nobody Is Coming With a Life Raft
I want to say something that might sting a little, but I mean it with love.
Nobody is coming to save you.
Not a doctor who hands you a magic prescription. Not a diet that fixes everything in thirty days. Not a wellness trend, a detox, or a supplement. The life raft is not coming because you’re not drowning. You’re swimming. And you’re more capable than you’ve been led to believe.
You have a tremendous amount of control over your own health. More than the healthcare system tends to tell you. More than you might feel right now, especially if you’re in the middle of something hard. Even MS.
It doesn’t matter what habit you start with. It only matters that you do. Five minutes outside. One glass of water before your coffee. A single deep breath before you look at your phone in the morning. Something so small it almost feels silly.
Start there. Let it compound.
The Best Investment You’ll Ever Make. And It’s Free.
Financial security is important. I won’t pretend otherwise, I spent enough sleepless nights worrying about it to know that money stress is real and it’s heavy.
But there’s no better investment than your health. Not one. Because without it, nothing else works. Not the retirement fund, not the dream trip, not the relationship or the career or the creative project you keep putting off.
And my favourite part of this whole analogy? Most of the habits that change your life the most are completely, entirely free.
Sleep. Movement. Sunlight. Water. Stillness. Connection. Breathing. These are not luxuries. They’re the compound interest machine, and you already own it.
So I’ll leave you with the question I keep asking myself:
Where could you be in ten years if you add one tiny habit today?
The rumour has to start somewhere. Let it start with you.
❤️Amanda
Walk a Myelin My Shoes 