Every book on change says the same thing. Change has changed. Change is no longer incremental. Change is exponential.

Here is what no one will tell you: change is not just incremental, or exponential. Change is infinitesimal.

So you gained a pound or two this year. It happens. Then it happens again next year. And the next year. Suddenly a decade has passed and you realize that “a pound or two” has compounded into two sacks of flour sitting on your hips! Infinitesimal change has caught up with you.

In the early 1950s farmer Clarence Mauerhan was known as the “Chili Pepper King” of Orange County (“Anaheim peppers,” anyone?). A mysterious buyer was paying top dollar for all the farms in the area, but farmer Mauerhan would have none of it. He was the lone holdout against payments for land t…