Vilfredo Pareto deserves all of the buzz and this isn’t an Oscar joke, either. 😉
He’s famous for the “law of distribution” which is now known as “Pareto’s Law and it basically states this….his mathematical formula was used to demonstrate a grossly uneven but predictable distribution of wealth in society—80% of the wealth and income was produced and possessed by 20% of the population—also applied outside of economics.
If we go to what’s happening on the planet now, 90%+ of the money that’s being earned is owned by 2% of the world’s population (Bob Proctor Circa 2006). Do you think that’s an accident? That’s no accident.
Well, let’s jut say Tim Ferris was working those hefty 15 hour days – seven days on – no days off. At the dawn of the day, he was making phone calls to the UK. When the clock struck 9am, he was making phone calls domestically all over the country before making phone calls from 5pm-12am to Japan and New Zealand. Just a helpless man with no way out.
Before we get into what happened, here’s a summarised version of Pareto’s Law.
80% of the consequences flow from 20% of the causes.
80% of the results come from 20% of the effort and time.
80% of company profits come from 20% of the products and customers.
80% of all stock market gains are realized by 20% of the investors and 20% of an individual portfolio.
Tim decided to give Pareto’s Law a run for his money, and he succeeded tremendously.
Let’s try putting it this way. Let’s say you’re a telemarketer making 100 phone calls a day and sending follow up emails along with those phone calls. I guess that’s what accounts to 15 hours workloads; conversely, you decide to chase only the leads that you were making money from.
Tim evaluated everything, even in terms of advertising, and realized that only 5 of the 100 was actually generating money for him. For the other 95? He cut loose. Why? There wasn’t any revenue that he was chasing.
This goes for my life, too, on a much more personal level.
If you look at these ridiculous social media apps such as tinder and scout, some days (two years ago) I would waste an entire morning trying to have conversation with local women who end up ranting about how bad “black people were” or blocking me. OOPS! Can I get that time back?
Suddenly, I asked myself, “what’s accounting for more than 80% of my unhappiness? Oh, engagement with foolish human beings within these borders.” When I identified the problem, I literally not only regained my happiness, but the negative thoughts, too.
Since then, I haven’t even thought about people within these borders (which amassed to so much of my bickering time) and now I’m fiercely productive in everything I’m doing, including my personal projects such as writing a book, making a website, and my podcast.
Figure out what your unhappiness is. Figure out the problem that’s costing you so much valuable time and pleasant conversations with other people. Once you do, it’s like killing two birds with one stone….and it feels DAMN GOOD! (I’m not a bird killer).
Podcast – https://www.spreaker.com/episode/11186594
Arsenio's ESL Podcast 
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