How to use the S-curve model to support your own and others' growth

Executive overview

Most people expect growth to look like steady visible progress — but real learning follows an S-curve: slow at the base, then rapid, then plateau. The hard part is the base, where results aren't yet visible but neural wiring is happening fast.

Whitney Johnson's smart growth framework applies the S-curve — originally used to track innovation adoption — to individual learning. It identifies why people stall early, and what leaders can do to help others (and themselves) move through it.

Honoring the slow phase, not just the fast one, is what makes growth sustainable.

The S-curve as a learning model

• The S-curve was popularized by Everett Rogers to map how innovations get adopted over time.
• Applied to individuals: base (slow, invisible progress) → knee of the curve (rapid growth) → top (saturation, plateau).
• The slow base feels like failure but is when the most neural mapping occurs.
• Growth looks binary from outside (can't ride bike, then suddenly can) — the work was invisible.
• Mature adults lose tolerance for the slow phase; the "muscle" for being a beginner atrophies.

Auditing your adult self at the launch point

• Before committing to a new curve, do an exploratory audit: is this aligned with my values? Is it hard but not too hard?
• Once committed, identify what resources (internal and external) you need to succeed.
• Ask: what beliefs do I hold that will help or hinder progress on this curve?
• Questions from neuroscientist Tara Swart: what role did I play in my family's social order — and am I still playing it?
• Language patterns reveal hidden beliefs: saying "I have to" (even for wanted things) signals a low-autonomy mindset.
• Children are useful truth-tellers — they see you at your weakest and want you to succeed.

Ghosts of the past

• Ghosts are formative experiences — often involving shame — that you've put in a closet and stopped drawing on.
• Example: a colleague who was a top-20 US junior tennis player never mentioned it because he didn't go pro. The shame hid skills (discipline, drive) that were directly relevant to his professional life.
• In coaching, ask for formative stories, crucible moments, proudest achievements, and perceived failures — people often reveal the most valuable information accidentally.
• If someone hasn't disclosed something, it's usually shame, not irrelevance.

Using images to prime the brain

• Images bypass conscious filtering; the brain doesn't easily dismiss them.
• Curating images of something you want to do starts to focus selective attention toward it.
• Viewing even one minute of a skill (e.g., a tennis serve) daily feeds the subconscious the pattern before conscious effort begins.
• Selective attention: once the brain marks something as important, it surfaces relevant information you'd otherwise miss.
• Daily streaks of any engagement — watching, listening, reading — tell the brain "this matters to me."
• Identity shifts follow repeated input: consistent guitar-related activity eventually produces a self-concept of "I am a guitarist."

Identity language: nouns over verbs

• Research by Gregory Walton: describing oneself as "a voter" (noun) vs. "I vote" (verb) produced an 11-percentage-point increase in voter turnout.
• Noun-based identity language signals commitment, not just behavior.
• "I am" statements work because the subconscious mind cannot distinguish fact from fiction — repeating a statement makes it neurologically real over time.
• You don't need to fully believe it yet; you only need to believe it can be true.
• Marcus Whitney (later a Nashville soccer team co-owner and VC) dropped out of college, had a child, was waiting tables 12 hours a day — and learned to code by saying "I am a programmer," not "I am becoming one."
• Saying "I facilitate meetings well" rather than "I'm going to try to facilitate better" produces a measurable shift in energy and commitment.

What absence of feedback really signals

• If people aren't giving you feedback, it doesn't mean things are fine — it means you're not sufficiently open to receiving it.
• People who love you and are invested in your growth will be direct if they feel safe doing so.
• Getting defensive when corrected on small things (e.g., TV-watching hours) signals a belief that taking breaks is not okay — and shuts down future honesty.
• Reframing: calling out the defensiveness, then asking why, surfaces the underlying belief and allows it to be reprogrammed.
• A relationship where someone is direct with you is a stronger relationship, not a worse one.