There is no medicine like hope,
no incentive so great, and
no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow.
-Orison Swett Marden
Expectation of tomorrow
Hope is everything
Hope sees the invisible,
feels the intangible, and
achieves the impossible.
-Charles Caleb Colton
Better than you
"The principle is competing against yourself. It's about self improvement, about being better than you were the day before."
~ Steve Young
The 1 Percent Rule: Why a Few People Get Most of the Rewards in Life
The 1 Percent Rule: Why a Few People Get Most of the Rewards in Life
by James Clear
Sometime in the late 1800s—nobody is quite sure exactly when—a man named Vilfredo Pareto was fussing about in his garden when he made a small but interesting discovery.
Pareto noticed that a tiny number of pea pods in his garden produced the majority of the peas.
Now, Pareto was a very mathematical fellow. He worked as an economist and one of his lasting legacies was turning economics into a science rooted in hard numbers and facts. Unlike many economists of the time, Pareto's papers and books were filled with equations. And the peas in his garden had set his mathematical brain in motion.
What if this unequal distribution was present in other areas of life as well?
Vilfredo Pareto in the 1870s. Photographer unknown.
The Pareto Principle
At the time, Pareto was studying wealth in various nations. As he was Italian, he began by analyzing the distribution of wealth in Italy. To his surprise, he discovered that approximately 80 percent of the land in Italy was owned by just 20 percent of the people. Similar to the pea pods in his garden, most of the resources were controlled by a minority of the players.
Pareto continued his analysis in other nations and a pattern began to emerge. For instance, after poring through the British income tax records, he noticed that approximately 30 percent of the population in Great Britain earned about 70 percent of the total income.
As he continued researching, Pareto found that the numbers were never quite the same, but the trend was remarkably consistent. The majority of rewards always seemed to accrue to a small percentage of people. This idea that a small number of things account for the majority of the results became known as the Pareto Principle or, more commonly, the 80/20 Rule.
Inequality, Everywhere
In the decades that followed, Pareto's work practically became gospel for economists. Once he opened the world's eyes to this idea, people started seeing it everywhere. And the 80/20 Rule is more prevalent now than ever before.
For example, through the 2015-2016 season in the National Basketball Association, 20 percent of franchises have won 75.3 percent of the championships. Furthermore, just two franchises—the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers—have won nearly half of all the championships in NBA history. Like Pareto's pea pods, a few teams account for the majority of the rewards.
The numbers are even more extreme in soccer. While 77 different nations have competed in the World Cup, just three countries—Brazil, Germany, and Italy—have won 13 of the first 20 World Cup tournaments.
Examples of the Pareto Principle exist in everything from real estate to income inequality to tech startups. In the 1950s, three percent of Guatemalans owned 70 percent of the land in Guatemala. In 2013, 8.4 percent of the world population controlled 83.3 percent of the world's wealth. In 2015, one search engine, Google, received 64 percent of search queries.
Why does this happen? Why do a few people, teams, and organizations enjoy the bulk of the rewards in life? To answer this question, let's consider an example from nature.
The Power of Accumulative Advantage
The Amazon rainforest is one of the most diverse ecosystems on Earth. Scientists have cataloged approximately 16,000 different tree species in the Amazon. But despite this remarkable level of diversity, researchers have discovered that there are approximately 227 "hyperdominant" tree species that make up nearly half of the rainforest. Just 1.4 percent of tree species account for 50 percent of the trees in the Amazon.
But why?
Imagine two plants growing side by side. Each day they will compete for sunlight and soil. If one plant can grow just a little bit faster than the other, then it can stretch taller, catch more sunlight, and soak up more rain. The next day, this additional energy allows the plant to grow even more. This pattern continues until the stronger plant crowds the other out and takes the lion's share of sunlight, soil, and nutrients.
From this advantageous position, the winning plant has a better ability to spread seeds and reproduce, which gives the species an even bigger footprint in the next generation. This process gets repeated again and again until the plants that are slightly better than the competition dominate the entire forest.
Scientists refer to this effect as "accumulative advantage." What begins as a small advantage gets bigger over time. One plant only needs a slight edge in the beginning to crowd out the competition and take over the entire forest.
Winner-Take-All Effects
Something similar happens in our lives.
Like plants in the rainforest, humans are often competing for the same resources. Politicians compete for the same votes. Authors compete for the same spot at the top of the best-seller list. Athletes compete for the same gold medal. Companies compete for the same potential client. Television shows compete for the same hour of your attention.
The difference between these options can be razor thin, but the winners enjoy massively outsized rewards.
Imagine two women swimming in the Olympics. One of them might be 1/100th of a second faster than the other, but she gets all of the gold medal. Ten companies might pitch a potential client, but only one of them will win the project. You only need to be a little bit better than the competition to secure all of the reward. Or, perhaps you are applying for a new job. Two hundred candidates might compete for the same role, but being just slightly better than other candidates earns you the entire position.
These situations in which small differences in performance lead to outsized rewards are known as Winner-Take-All Effects. They typically occur in situations that involve relative comparison, where your performance relative to those around you is the determining factor in your success.
Not everything in life is a Winner-Take-All competition, but nearly every area of life is at least partially affected by limited resources. Any decision that involves using a limited resource like time or money will naturally result in a winner-take-all situation.
In situations like these, being just a little bit better than the competition can lead to outsized rewards because the winner takes all. You only win by one percent or one second or one dollar, but you capture one hundred percent of the victory. The advantage of being a little bit better is not a little bit more reward, but the entire reward. The winner gets one and the rest get zero.
Winner-Take-All Leads to Winner-Take-Most
Winner-Take-All Effects in individual competitions can lead to Winner-Take-Most Effects in the larger game of life.
From this advantageous position—with the gold medal in hand or with cash in the bank or from the chair of the Oval Office—the winner begins the process of accumulating advantages that make it easier for them to win the next time around. What began as a small margin is starting to trend toward the 80/20 Rule.
If one road is slightly more convenient than the other, then more people travel down it and more businesses are likely to build alongside it. As more businesses are built, people have additional reasons for using the road and so it gets even more traffic. Soon you end up with a saying like, "20 percent of the roads receive 80 percent of the traffic."
If one business has a technology that is more innovative than another, then more people will buy their products. As the business makes more money, they can invest in additional technology, pay higher salaries, and hire better people. By the time the competition catches up, there are other reasons for customers to stick with the first business. Soon, one company dominates the industry.
If one author hits the best-seller list, then publishers will be more interested in their next book. When the second book comes out, the publisher will put more resources and marketing power behind it, which makes it easier to hit the best-seller list for a second time. Soon, you begin to understand why a few books sell millions of copies while the majority struggle to sell a few thousand copies.
The margin between good and great is narrower than it seems. What begins as a slight edge over the competition compounds with each additional contest. Winning one competition improves your odds of winning the next. Each additional cycle further cements the status of those at the top.
Over time, those that are slightly better end up with the majority of the rewards. Those that are slightly worse end up with next to nothing. This idea is sometimes referred to as The Matthew Effect, which references a passage in The Bible that says, "For all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away."
Now, let's come back to the question I posed near the beginning of this article. Why do a few people, teams, and organizations enjoy the bulk of the rewards in life?
The 1 Percent Rule
Small differences in performance can lead to very unequal distributions when repeated over time. This is yet another reason why habits are so important. The people and organizations that can do the right things, more consistently are more likely to maintain a slight edge and accumulate disproportionate rewards over time.
You only need to be slightly better than your competition, but if you are able to maintain a slight edge today and tomorrow and the day after that, then you can repeat the process of winning by just a little bit over and over again. And thanks to Winner-Take-All Effects, each win delivers outsized rewards.
We can call this The 1 Percent Rule. The 1 Percent Rule states that over time the majority of the rewards in a given field will accumulate to the people, teams, and organizations that maintain a 1 percent advantage over the alternatives. You don't need to be twice as good to get twice the results. You just need to be slightly better.
Hope is...
Hope is the anchor of the soul, the stimulus to action, and the incentive to achievement.
-unknown
Hope arouses...
Hope arouses, as nothing else can arouse, a passion for the possible.
-William Coffin
Leading the blind
'Tis the time's plague when madmen lead the blind.
-William Shakespeare, poet and dramatist (1564-1616)
Enjoy a little...
The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure very much.
-William Hazlitt
Novel & Author
"History is a novel whose author is the people."
-Alfred de Vigny, poet, playwright, and novelist (27 Mar 1797-1863)
Pursuvade with ears...
One of the best ways to persuade others is with your ears – by listening to them.
-Dean Rusk
Important tool...
The most important persuasion tool you have in your entire arsenal is integrity.
-Zig Ziglar
Question things...
| One's first step in wisdom is to question things - the next step is to come to terms with those things. |
| – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg |
Deeply responsive
"One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often."
-Erich Fromm, psychoanalyst and author (23 Mar 1900-1980)
Fights to win
A wise man fights to win, but he is twice a fool who has no plan for possible defeat.
-Louis L'Amour, novelist (22 Mar 1908-1988)
A Little...
"Each person holds so much power within themselves that needs to be let out. Sometimes they just need a little nudge, a little direction, a little support, a little coaching, and the greatest things can happen."
~ Pete Carroll
Respect for...
"Among individuals, as among nations, respect for the rights of others is peace."
-Benito Juárez, President of Mexico (21 Mar 1806-1872)
Protest & Diginity
When an individual is protesting society's refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him.
-Bayard Rustin, civil rights activist (17 Mar 1912-1987)
Life spent...
"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing."
-George Bernard Shaw
Life sentence
Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.
-Sophia Loren
;-) you thought it's Marriage?
Feat impossible
Nature arms each person with some faculty which enables them to do easily some feat impossible to any other [person].
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Dangers from abroad
The fetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been forged out of the weapons provided for defence against real, pretended, or imaginary dangers from abroad.
-James Madison, 4th US president (16 Mar 1751-1836)
Achievement & Expectation
High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.
-Jack Kinder
Achieve...Achieve
Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!
-Andrew Carnegie
High Expectation
High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.
-Jack Kinder
Say(s) about...
| You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him. – Anonymous |
| |
Life Principle
I have lived my life according to this principle:
If I'm afraid of it, then I must do it.
-Erica Jong
Dare & Difficult
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
-Seneca the Younger
Boundaries
Life is a petty thing unless it is moved by the indomitable urge to extend its boundaries.
-Jose Ortega y Gasset
something different
| If what we are doing with our anger is not achieving the desired result, it would seem logical to try something different. - Harriet Lerner |
| |
Low Aim is a sin...
The tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn't a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not disgrace to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim, is a sin.
-Benjamin Mays
Best interview method
"It's more important to know where you're going than where you've been."
-Talent Based Interviewing
Traditional interview questions focus on the applicant's past:
- Where have you worked?
- What have you done?
- What have you learned?
But you need to know how people will perform in YOUR workplace.
Decide to master something...
One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular.
-Tony Robbins
Anger and sorrow
| If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow. – Chinese Proverb |
| |
Ignorance in democracy
"Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens."
-William Beveridge, economist and social reformer (5 Mar 1879-1963)
Attract whatever MOST
"We always attract into our lives whatever we think about most, believe in most strongly, expect on the deeptest level, and imagine most vividly."
-Shakti Gawain
Society - scum on the top
"Society is like a stew. If you don't keep it stirred up you get a lot of scum on the top."
-Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)
Live it...
Wake up with a smile and go after life.... Live it, enjoy it, taste it, smell it, feel it.
- Joe Knapp
Faults seems insignigicant
Most great men and women are not perfectly rounded in their personalities, but are instead people whose one driving enthusiasm is so great it makes their faults seem insignificant.
-Charles Cerami
You want to be...
Instead of thinking about where you are, think about where you want to be. It takes twenty years of hard work to become an overnight success.
-Diana Rankin
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