80/20

Welcome to another edition of Wabi Sabi. Jim, always great to see you here. And as we prepare for today's episode, we were talking about, you know, last few episodes we've been doing, and you know, there was a couple of episodes where we talked a lot about different laws and different principles. And, you know, we talked about courage. And I think today, you know, you mentioned this topic around the 80-20, and I caught my eye and I was like, let's do that one. And obviously 80-20 is well known for most people, is the Pareto Principle.

Yep.

Uh, and I think it was first observed at my correction. If my, some of them would probably tell me and correct me in the, in the comments. Um, I think it's about the Italian. I don't know if he was a philosopher or he, no, I think he was a economist. Right. It was talking about the 80% of the land in Italy, uh, was owned by 20% of the population. So let's start there, Jim. Let's introduce the topic of why we're talking about 80, 20 and the importance of it and how we can apply that to our life to live a better life of imperfection.

Economist is economist. Yeah For sure Lawrence. Yeah, when I first came across this law, it intrigued me because I wanted to know, how does this work? So it was, Pareto said that it happened in the landowners, but then he applied it to multiple other areas. And he basically would say that 20% of your results, sorry, 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. And there was just these patterns reproduced again and again and again. I saw multiple. areas of life and world that really intrigued me. So it sent me down the journey of identifying what those 20% of actions, thoughts, behaviors, belief, friends, clients, customers, uh, would do. And then really, yes, honoring and improving the relationship with those 20%, but optimizing those, if that was where, if that's where most of my results were coming from, once I want to make sure that I protected that. maximally. So that's really where it started for me in terms of the law.

Yeah, I think, you know, one of the main things, you know, obviously coming in economist, like one of the things I think he was, I remember looking at this prior to this episode, we talked was like the stat in 1989. They were like in the world's GDP. I think 20% is the one that own or, you know, earns about 80% of the income or thereabouts. And it's a pretty freaky stat, you know, after all these years after this principle and this law was discovered, like these things still hold true. And when you start really understanding, oh, like, let's just let's just play with this episode that this is true.

Yep.

I'm sure there's evidence that there's, you know, certain things are, you know, can kind of skew at that, but like it's well known in almost everything we talk about in finances obviously, but we've known that some, you know, it can apply to health, it can apply to mindset, we can apply to productivity. So let's pretend for this episode that this principle is true. And so then we can actually figure it out how to leverage that. And I think one of the most important things is to recognize like, let's talk about finances first. I mean, that's one of the very important thing. And, you know, to me, when I first heard it, it was like, if 20%, uh, you know, really earns the 80% of the income, I want to be part of that 20%. I want to know how to get to the 20%. Right. Like, you know, I can, I can either do one, two things where I can always go, well, like that's not fair. Or I can go, well, how can I be part of that 20% and I don't know. I just, I just feel like if the principle is true, then I'd rather be in that 20% than not being in 20%. So, and then to how to get there, I would imagine is that we're going to have to focus in on.

Exactly.

you know, 80% of the time on the things that actually make us, you know, biggest impact in our life and, you know, in terms of productivity and our work. And so I think we can go many directions here in terms of how we apply this. Where would you like to start? We can talk about finance, we can talk about fitness and

Let's start, yeah, let's start work. Let's start in work, you know, because I think that would be a really easy one. And obviously a lot of people may relate to this, who may be business owners, for example, and that can be a starting point. I think this is gonna go where it needs to go, Lawrence, in terms of the tangents that we perhaps we go to. But yeah, I'd like to start off there, if that's okay. So I was gonna say that I found this in my own practice, in my own businesses,

Okay, sure. All right, so go for it.

You know, not that everybody was always valued, you know, and that's just a given. Everybody was loved and appreciated. However, there were always when we broke down statistics in terms of the businesses and we've owned businesses in several industries, quite often there were a group of people who were your highest utilizers of your products and services. And as a result of that, they generally tended to buy more, stay longer, spend more, et cetera, et cetera. So. I found that these people, you know, and from a purely from a service based industry, people like them tended to associate with more people like them and tended to refer more people like them. So consequently to me, it was almost incubating what was special about those 20% of people that came into our practices and businesses that we could expand and build that relationship or to optimize how our business was going. So that was the most logical thing that I found. What about you?

I'm sorry. Yeah, so like in your, you know, so I just want to refresh that. I mean, you're basically focusing on the 20% that provides 80% of the income or the production of value that your business is generating from them. I kind of flip it, let's flip it on the other side, right? So then oftentimes we spend 80% of our energy on like the 20% of the people that we really don't like and who would drain us, right? So think about from a time perspective, I think that's such an important thing is the flip is reversed. But let's think about our best clients.

Yeah. Yep.

of our best clients, typically, those are the clients that usually don't need as much of our attention, yet they give us 80% of our income because they stay longer, they really kind of honor us by they refer other people and they value our time and they value our work, right? Whereas most of us get caught up in business on the flip side is that we spend so much time on the 20% that actually drains us. And that could be a downside too, in the sense of, we could spend so much time on these clients that they ask a lot of questions, questions that you know are irrelevant or take up so much concentration and time that it really is not even your expertise. They ask you to do more things, and they're the ones who kind of stop showing up or they're the ones who canceled their appointments all the time or reschedule. They're the ones who kind of drain and takes a lot of energy and effort. from a lot of our staff members, and that could be a really debilitating process. So, you know, the ratio is always gonna be there, but I think it's important to kind of look at that side too. We can look at the plus, what you kind of mentioned, who are our top value 20%, they give us a lot of 80% of the income. However, I think it's also just as important as look at who are our 20% energy drainers, the energy vampires, I kind of call them, and takes up 80% of our time so that we can actually maybe systematically move them on. How do we, you know...

Yep. Yep.

push them along the way to actually help and go see other people. And I think that's an important element.

Yeah, 100% like that 100% you know, that was just an instinctive response. No, no, we're talking 20% here. Um, Lawrence, I think I got to the realization, uh, at some point, I can't remember exactly when, you know, I started coaching and my coach helped me get really clear on this as well was you're not going to be everything to everybody. And when you try to be everything to everybody, you end up being vanilla. And vanilla doesn't really move or enthuse or inspire people to take action, etc. So I got clearer and clearer on who I was, what I stood for. And from that, I then worked on working with the people who I felt I could do my greatest and highest level of work with. And then with the people that, you know, there wasn't that energetic exchange. I just didn't necessarily engage working with. I did that. I got to the point where I would either. respectfully go, listen, I'm not your guy anymore. I don't think I can support and help you with it, or I need to refer you to somebody else, purely and simply because I just wasn't feeling like I was giving the best of myself. And so I think you're 100% correct. I identified that and realized that I've got a finite amount of time that I'm working on in a day. For example, I need to focus on the areas that are most fulfilling, joyful, where I do my best work and they're most profitable. And that's really what I got to.

Yeah. Well, if it was, let's talk about niche. Since you were talking about that or niche, depending on where you are in the world, when you talk about niche and marketing, it's such what you kind of brought it up, I think is important from a marketing perspective is that you focus in on 20% of the, of the market that you're trying to go after. Because when you focus on 20% of the market, then the message becomes clear to those 20%, which gives us the 80% result that we actually want. When you try to become vanilla, you end up basically trying to speak to 80% of the marketplace and it becomes the message doesn't resonate and really kind of have.

Yep.

core results. So I think it translates in that area arena as well in business, I think so from a target market area, we really want to hone down of like, given the marketplace, what is what is the niche market within the niche to 20%? What are they? And I think if think from a three perspective, I think of geographic where they located psych demographic, which is, you know, sort of the, you know, age, sex, you know, finance, and, you know, family, and then psychographic, how they think and what makes them what makes them what makes them tick, what are the fears, frustrations and their psychology around it? When you can narrow down that market and target market, everything kind of becomes a little bit easier. Your messaging becomes clear, your communication becomes clear, and your ability to really resonate, you know, to the level of the vibration to those people are gonna be such a higher percentage and higher probability because you spent the time on speaking clearly to those 20%.

Yeah, exactly. And I think that once that's a critical first step, I think that's always an important one. So who do I want to work with? Who want to support? Who do I feel like I do my highest and best work with all my best work with? So step one and then, and then that's the process. Like I think that the reason why I like this, this principle, and it's a, it's a principle I know Dan Sullivan uses a lot, uh, who, who's done a lot of strategic coach coaching with entrepreneurs where you start chunking that down again, you say, as we go, okay, of that, 20%, how do I chunk it down again and identify what are the 20% of the activities, actions, communications, et cetera, that work maximally with this type of group? So it's a process of consistently disciplining yourself to identify the 20% of the 20% of the 20%. So the effect might end up doing one thing that has this huge ripple effect on so many people.

Yeah, so to kind of, I mean, I wish I could show you on a diagram, but, you know, one of the key elements is actually looking at delegation, for example, in that rule. So off the time is you want to kind of be, if you want to be at your best in business and you want to be at your best in, in terms of your running your business, you want to focus on the 20%. Right. Because you know, as based on this principle, the 20% of the effort that you put in is going to create 80% of the results. So the key element here is deciding which 20% is going to give you 80% of the results. right? So if you think about a rectangle graph, you want to take the top 20% and draw a line. And so that's one fifth. So that top of that line, that is you, that's the thing that you do. What is those roles? What are those responsibilities on that 20% that gives you 80% of the of the results? Now, what happens to the other 80%? Well, if you're a great leader, you learn to delegate those 80%. You learn to delegate it to your team. And that's really important to kind of think about. And when you learn to delegate on 80% of the team, then all of a sudden you're allowed to free up the time and you can spend 100% on the 20%. So I hope that we're not losing anybody. But Dan Sullivan talks about that it's kind of cool. Okay, what if we took 20% of the 20%? Okay, so I know now as you take that top rectangular box, you basically cut that in five, right in five. So now you're left in a square on the corner. And that corner really out of the whole 100% is actually 4%. Okay, so you can figure that out. So it's a 4%. So what is the 4% within another 100% that you focus on, which is the 20% in the 20%, okay? Now, what happens to the other 80% of that 20%? Well, what you do is you delegate that to a practice manager, for example, or some sort of manager or some integrator. That person is responsible for... running the whole entire company and running the entire team where you get to focus on your genius and Dan Sullivan talks about that corner as the 4% genius. I don't know if he corny to that, but I kind of call that because it's that corner where it's like that's what you focus on. Instead of focusing on all 20%, no, you only focus on the 20% of the 20%. That's when you create mastery. And that's when we can actually be in a genius mode because when we all know, when we can stay in genius, it lifts us because of the, think about this. If you were able to work every single day, on the things you actually love to do, like really love to do. The things that you're, the only person that is in your company that does this, and you're the genius at it, you're the expert at this one or two things, all of a sudden, when you do those things, I guarantee you, energy, your energy spikes, your energy goes up, it doesn't go down, because it doesn't cost you energy. What costs us energy is usually the other 80%, right? All the other stuff that we don't like, that's-

Yep.

That's not our genius mode is in our excellent mode or incompetence mode. And when we focus on those things, that's what's debilitating in our energy. And that's what you know, kind of causes like, Oh, man, what a drag, what a day that was long. Those are the things are in common. We're just talking to Jim here before I got on the call was a little bit late today, because I have to, you know, put up this monkey bar and, you know, for my for my son, you know, and it took like, I don't know, four or five hours. It's not within my wheelhouse. Okay, like putting something together is not in my wheelhouse. It's not my genius.

Hehehe

and I really probably should have hired someone to do it for me. But I know what it looks like, I've done it before, I've probably done it twice now. And it's like, I thought, you know what, we can just put it together and let's do it. But I'm drained, right? It's like, it's tiring. And it's like, I remember Jim's like, you might want to take a moment before you get on this call. I'm like, okay, I'll take a couple of minutes just to talk this out. And now, this is why, this is genius, right? For me, I can do this, I can talk all day, and you can see the energy's right there. And so.

Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

you know, contrast me like 15 minutes ago before the start of the podcast, you know, my energy was a little bit low, Jim can see it, and he's just like trying to be subtly to say, maybe Lawrence, just let's not start now, right? So, and that's what I mean by staying in your genius and not do the 80% or the 96% of things that you're not really the great at.

Yeah. Yeah. And I reckon anybody who has, um, phobias about mathematics and, um, numbers, we've kind of blown them out of the water in this last few minutes or so, but fundamentally you're spot on. It's, it's about breaking it down to the, the areas that you do your best work. And I've been guilty in the past where my default setting is I just take a longer run up in things, you know, and

I

It got to the point where I realized that I wanted to scale and improve and increase our businesses and our revenue and all these things. But the pattern that I was using was one of just a linear model, which was just work harder, work harder, work harder. And at best, you might double. And what you're going to do is you're going to burn yourself out in the process. So I love what you focused on earlier on is when you stay in those areas that that. rejuvenate you, inspire you, keep you energized, you let go of the things that are the draining. And so consequently, you only ever focus on things that give you joy. So consequently, you're coming from a different perspective and a different motivation. And I know I'm the same. If I have to do, I love big picture stuff. I love big picture stuff. I love, same thing, podcasting, getting up, presenting, whatever. Ask me to put a IKEA bit of furniture together. I just lose my mind. I always, and I mean always, get somebody else to do that for me because I don't have the bandwidth, I don't have the patience and I could be doing something different. And I've learned that through trial and error where I go, hey, there's seven screws left over every time. They must have made a mistake. They didn't make a mistake, dude. You just don't have the capacity. So constantly that's why things fall apart. So I've learned my lesson. I don't, I stay at that 80%.

Yeah, absolutely. The other day, most of the big that we had a bagola being built and these guys said, take, it was taking an hour, hour and a half. I'm like, okay, well, we got to go. It took them four hours and I'm like, I'm so glad I just paid for them to do it. You know, like, and, uh, and so much it's, it's these things that over time, as you get older, you just have to realize like, Mike, it's just certain things are just worth it, right? I mean, the only, the problem with this monkey bar is that there's no instructions because obviously that we rebuilt, had to rebuild it from the past and we have to kind of rebuild it from pictures in our mind. So.

Yeah, right.

Uh, I couldn't really kind of pass it on unfortunately, but it didn't, this goes to show, but yeah, no, not.

And you can't muck up... you can't muck it up. You can't muck a monkey bar up. You've got to really make sure that every screw is tight as well.

Yeah. And it's a delegation part. So I think this is the whole point of what we're talking about. Like, you know, my friend of mine, Dan Martell, talked, you know, has a new book called Buy Back Time. And it's really kind of thinking about like, how do you buy back your time? And really regards to in business, you got to focus on the things that you are gifted at. You got to focus on things that actually matter to you. And, you know, there are people out there who, you know, we often think we don't like to delegate. And I think when it comes to business, oftentimes we think, oh, you know what? No one wants to do the bookkeeping. I don't know. I have to do the bookkeeping. I have to do the accounting. I don't. I don't want to do that because I don't want to pass it on to someone because it's his job they don't like. Wait a second, you're assuming that everyone out there in the world is just like you. And that's a wrong assumption because the reality is that you may not like numbers, but I guarantee you someone out there loves and loves them doing numbers. They like, they're genius at doing numbers and this is their job. They actually thrive at doing it. So when you try to do something that is not within your genius, you're actually robbing of someone being a genius at what they do. So that's how I kind of think about it from a delegation point of view. You need to really be clear on how to learn to delegate. And this is, if you are a manager in a business, it goes to you. Like I know you can probably do all the things you're allowed to do, especially when you've been elevated to a managerial level and you think that, oh, I can do everything, it's better, it's faster, and I know it's being done properly. But the problem is, is when you take on everybody else's role, first, number one, you're burnt out, you're overwhelmed, and number two, you're actually not really passing on any knowledge for anybody else to shine because they're just gonna give it all to you and you start wondering why, you know, everything's always passed on to you and everybody's coming to you all the time. Well, because you're not delegating. You're not really giving any other people opportunity to really shine. And so it's something to really think about.

Mmm. Yeah. And the other thing too is got off, I know I use this term quite a bit. It's called the curse of the capable, where if you're a person who's quite capable and able to do a lot of things, you tend to do a lot of things because you naturally can. And you get into the habit of just doing it because you can. And it's, you know, when it comes to things that are technical, I don't have a problem delegating because I don't know, I know I don't have the skillset and the base, so I'm okay to go, I don't know anything about it, please go and fix that. But if it's something that I do know, I have to discipline myself to go, no, I choose not to. And this is why when our kids were growing up, my wife, Bettina grew up on a farm and on a farm you can do everything. And I was a city kid who couldn't do anything, right? So, you know, Bettina would have the toolbox, Bettina would have all the spanners and the socket sets and everything. And so when tradesmen had come over, they'd say to their kids, hey, your dad got a toolbox. And they go, no, doesn't have one. My mom does. And but Bettina was always, able to do that. So, but that's the discipline that we've had in our house because she is able to do so many of these things, they, the temptation is quite often you go into overwhelm. And so the, the capable thing, the people that I find this sometimes shows up a lot for are people who can normally do things who are, they could be really intelligent people, highly functional. They can do a whole lot of things. And yet they're doing, they're stuck doing a $10. an hour task or a job because they can not realizing that their value is over and above that task. And if they want to buy time back, they've got to surrender and let go of those low priority tasks and focus on their high priority tasks.

Absolutely. So I think from a business perspective, I think we kind of clear up a lot of 80-20. And I think there's so many things that you can apply to it. So we've given you at least three or four there, if not five different ways of kind of making sure you apply the 80-20 into business. Let's apply it back to ourselves. Jim, what about yourself personally? Where do you apply 80-20 in your personal life? Maybe in your fitness or maybe your routines or maybe your health routines? How do you apply this?

Got it. Yep. Yeah, that's a great question. And that I'm glad we went to that one, because that would have been the one that I wanted to go to next. I think for me, I've determined the things that helped me function and operate at my best level. To me, I've identified them. So for me, they're my routines and habits. And so sleep is an important one, definitely. I have to exercise. I drink a lot of water. I don't drink alcohol. I don't find I operate very well too. It doesn't help me operate and think very clearly. So, and also I have to allow time to connect with my family and kids. They're to me, they're what keep me mentally, physically, emotionally healthy and sound, as well as obviously the food that I eat. So I place a priority on those things first, because I know that as a starting principle, when I get those right, everything else seems to just function better.

Hmm. That's, that's really cool. I think the same thing for me. I think for me, I'll add to that as routines actually. So I'm a very, uh, spontaneous, more spontaneous kind of guy than having structure. I don't like structure in my life. Uh, in fact, I find structure kind of restricting or anybody tells me what I have to do. I kind of really find that stifling. However, at the same time, what I learned, you know, many years ago was that in order for me to actually be more, have more freedom in life, I actually need to put a bit of structure in my The more structure, not the more, but with certain amount of structure, and I guarantee if I look at it, it's probably 20%, if I put 20% of structure in my life, I actually would have a lot of freedom in my life. And the reason why I'm talking about that is, for example, is that if, you know, we often think that because you love freedom and the people who are listening to you are like, oh, if they just love freedom, they can just have freedom all the time. But then you get nothing done and you actually have too much time. And but having a little bit, that 20% of structure in your life and routine. So for example, we talked about, you know, my routine is always in the morning, I always get up at, you know, five, 20 or so to go to us, you know, 6 a.m., first thing in the morning, go to exercise, because I want to get that out of the way. And when I can get that out of the way, this is the knock on effect, right? The knock on effect is that if I work out in the first thing in the morning, I feel good, I feel strong, I feel like I've been productive. And before anybody, most people waking up, I've already got the most important task done out of the way. I did hard things already that morning. And so I feel accomplished. And also because I feel good, I tend to probably eat better because I feel so good. I don't want to waste it now. So therefore you can see like just that one little habit of waking up early, going to the gym, getting the hard stuff done, you already set your mind for the rest of the day of a higher probability to not eat junk food, to not eat bad food because you already feel so good about yourself, but you're also being more productive because you already started the day really well. And so those that I mean by having a bit of structure in your life, having those 20% of structure,

Hmm

tightening up, like even like scheduling, like having some schedules around, like when you want to take a holiday. Most people, when they take a holiday, I've been talking a lot about clients here and, you know, some of them feeling a bit burnt out or just feeling like they, you know, they, they need a break or they just had a break and they feel like, man, wish I can time this better. I'm like, well, you, you have a year, like you can just, like, I literally did this with their client the other day. I just went, okay, let's look at the next 12 months, right? And it goes, how often do you want to take a holiday? You know, he said three times, I'm like, okay, great. So that means every four months. Okay, great, and every four months, like how many, what type of holiday do you need? And we just broke it down. And it goes, well, if that's the case, then you should do it, you know, say March and July into November. Like, so, you know, break it every four months, for example. And that will be the way of thinking about this is that you might as well put a structure in it. Because yeah, but you know, and I would say pencil in the date. You know what, you don't have to just randomly choose one right now. You know, the thing is though, when you do that, it's probably 90% time that you're most likely going to go on a holiday on that, the week that you actually chose. and choose a location, all of a sudden, you get excited about that. And just having a bit of structure in life, everything kind of falls around it and to make everything happen. So that's just my tip around routines and structure.

It's interesting, Jocko Willick wrote a book called Discipline is Freedom. And fundamentally it's not about, it's the discipline of routines that you talk about that creates and gives you the freedom, which I really like. And the analogy I always draw is having specific times where I have to be somewhere for training works really well. Like if you have say, Hey, I'm going to get up tomorrow and I'm just going to go and train, but I'm going to go for a run.

Mm-hmm.

and you don't have timelines on that, often you'll see people go, oh yeah, I'll go at 10, oh, I'll go at 12, actually I might have a line check. And then suddenly that's like, they haven't done it. Whereas, and it's the same thing when I always found that when I had structured training sessions at certain times, I always found a way of getting there. When I didn't, something at a higher priority can't got in the way. So I think it was about identifying that These things are really important to me. And if you have a tendency to bump these off for other things, it's having the discipline to structure them into, like you just said, whether it's your holiday, whether it's your audio week, structure those in first, because there's your higher priorities. So that way you are honoring your agreements to yourself first. So you're gonna function and operate better. And then everything else then has to be weighed up against, those priorities have to be weighed up against your highest priorities at those times.

Well, I think about these routines, what you can also think about, based on this 20-80 principle, right, or the 20 principle, is that actually think about, what are the 20% of things in your, say, fitness or workouts that will get you making sure that you do it 80% of the time? So I think about this, so I'll give you some examples of mine that obviously is not the same for everybody, and I'll give you some examples. So for me, I know that when it comes to a workout, I need to choose something that has variety. I'm a variety type of guy. I like, I do not like doing the same thing over and over again every single day. And the second thing I also really find that it's really important is that I need accountability. I really dislike working out by myself because I know I do not push myself anywhere close to my capacity or capability if I'm working out in the gym by myself. I've tried to do that. Even if I go on the holiday, I'll set a routine up and it's like, man, like. I just don't try hard. I always like out think my brain just out think myself. And by having someone there, having a bit of accountability or even someone, you know, having a group of people I train with, knowing that I could like, you know, on the corner of my eye, like I'm kind of like that guy. And you know, he's going a little faster. I'm going to go a little faster to chase him, you know? So it's just having accountability. And the third thing for me, that's really important is I do not like to structure my own workouts. Like if I have to come up with my workout, I'll probably spend like an hour trying to figure out what I need to do that day. Not the best productivity of my time. I don't like it. I have a kinesiology degree from human moons. I have a chiropractic degree. Even then, I just not my thing. So what do I choose? Well, I choose CrossFit. Why? Because it has variety. It's always in group classes and it always do something every something, something different every single day. We never repeat the same thing. And plus someone, I just show up and someone goes, you're doing, you know, a hundred burpees and you're going to do a hundred squats and you're going to do, you know.

Yeah.

202 kilometer run and I'll be thinking like, I can't do that. Like, what are you talking? But you just do it anyways, right? Because why? Because someone believed in you and this is the program you're in, you just do those things and you realize, I'm like, oh, I could do it, right? I mean, doing it for seven, eight years, it surprises me every single time that I go, every time I look at the board, I'm like, nah, I can't do that. And every single time I'm like, oh, you know, 80%, 90% of the time I was able to do it. And yet I'm still surprised that, you know, of what I'm capable of. And that's the thing about me, like I'm...

Yep.

I don't want to fall into that trap. So therefore, having those 20% things, right? Another one would be setting up my clothes. So in order for me to wake up early in the morning, it's still tough, like it's, you know, it's not easy, but I pack up my clothes and what I'm gonna wear the night before. I put them in a place so that it's all ready to go, so that I don't have to think and search for, I don't have to make up the excuse going, oh, I don't know where my socks are, I don't know where my underwear is. You know what? I'll just stay in bed because I want that thought when.

Yep.

while I was actually waking up, not actually me looking for it, right? So that's why it's so important. So those little things that you go, okay, pick anything. I just chose exercise, for example. What are 20% things of item that's gonna give you 80% probability of succeeding and making sure you do that? Those 20% do those, structure those, have discipline in those things, and I guarantee the rest will take care of itself.

Yeah. Yeah, totally, totally. And I think it's, I think over time, when you get to know yourself more, you get to identify what your strengths are, which areas that you thrive in, where you need support. Like for example, I am disciplined. If I say, I'll get up, I'll do it. But what I won't do is push, like you said, I won't push myself to the level that somebody else will. And I know for a fact that stretching, I've got to go do a dedicated stretch, because I couldn't care how many... how simple you make it for me to stretch at home, I am just not gonna, I'll dodge it if I can, because I don't enjoy doing it. So I need someone busting my chops, making sure that I do it to ensure that I stay accountable. So that's just that part of myself that I've identified.

I've seen some people, I've seen some stretch like studios where you go in and get stretched. Have you ever been through one of those?

Yeah, I have, I've seen them and I'm curious about going there because to me it'd be like, I enjoy how I feel afterwards, but the process, especially, you know, especially through the hip stretches that I've got to get to, to be able to bring my legs up around to lock someone in there. It's not fun. And I've got, I've damaged my hip, so it's never pleasant. And you don't willingly expose yourself to those kinds of things. But I know I benefit. So I have to just suck it up and That's when I was doing yoga regularly. I was finding it just helped me so much, but it's something that I'll go, yeah, I've got to get back to that. So the 80-20 was really about me identifying that I need to get back into yoga again to give myself that flexibility that has gradually been decreasing over time.

We got the whole audience calling you accountable there, Jim. So there you go.

Yeah, that's why I declare it. That's the other thing of my, that's a strategy that I use 80-20 is, I'm not sure if you've ever noticed that, Linus, but if I want to do something that's bold, I make it public declaration because I cannot handle the embarrassment of not following it through. So it's actually how I leverage myself by proclaiming it to go, hey, I'm gonna do this so that way, there's no way I'm gonna back out.

Yeah. Yes. So true, so true. So we dealt with the, you know, the physicality and fitness and the routines that I do agree about the discipline. I think I'll leave a one more thought I listened to something the other day and I'm going to butcher this badly. But it's, you know, they said instead of thinking about, you know, your fitness and your workouts, because I know a lot of people struggle with that with that routine is that we oftentimes we're trying to go I want to I want to work out because I want to get fit. What if you just remove the thought around just getting fit and just actually focus in on just developing a routine on showing up at the gym. And, you know, because the fitness actually is the result of just showing up. And so if you focus more on the, of showing up rather than the fitness part, I think the rest will take care of itself. So that's what I feel like it's just a mindset thing, really kind of focusing on more being disciplined enough to show up regularly enough and being consistent in the workout attendance versus about what. you know, your body and how your body's going to turn out. And I think just having that focus, I think will go a long way.

So we've obviously spoken about those two areas. There's multiple areas that we can go to. I've got a really big strong hit about going to the area about our own personal growth. So as we develop and as we grow, what kind of things do we focus on and what kind of things do we let go of? If we consider the 80% of things are things that don't serve us and things that the 20% constitutes, the things that help us.

Sure. Okay. Mm-hmm.

be our best version and our most fulfilled and our most joyful.

Yeah, so I think, you know, for me, I'll start off with relationships. I think the relationship that you have in your personal life and also your relationship that you have with your close friends, we've discussed this multiple times on a specific episode around the five closest friends. I feel like that's gonna be really important because I feel like your 20% con, most, the people that you hang around with, you know, the 20% of like the key people that you hang around with are really gonna give you 80% of the productivity, the push.

Yeah.

the motivation, inspiration and purpose in your life. And I think those people are gonna be such a critical part of your life. And I think so if you've got to choose those key people in your life that you surround yourself with. They're not necessarily the people you hang around with in terms of time. I think it's most about just being in the right energy, in the right field. They're the ones who are rallying for you. They're the ones who are your board of directors, people who are really kind of supporting you and cheering you on. I think having those people in your life is such a vital key component to your own personal development. Without them, I think it's a lonely ride. It doesn't mean it can't be done. It just becomes, I think, a little harder. Having support of a team, having support of people, having a mastermind or having some sort of people to bounce ideas off of, you're just going to be, you're just going to be, you get, you'll get through the success a lot faster.

Yeah, I think you're correct there in saying that you become, as we spoke about, you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And a mum of a very good friend of mine growing up always said that if you can go through your life and the end of your life and you can count your greatest friends on one hand, uh, that you've had for a long time, like that, you're a very blessed person and, and I really truly believe that as well. So for me, I agree with you. Relationships are paramount to my own joy and fulfillment and about my connection and my participation in life and world. So there's interactions, there's acquaintances, there's the concentric circles that go around. But fundamentally for me, it has to start with relationship. Number one with self, and then the next level is my interaction, primary relationship, family, and then the next ring going on there. But to me, I'm glad you started with relationships. I think that's really. All right, from there, what I would say is, okay, so if we've identified we've got that, what type of things, we talked about earlier on about delegating, what kind of things can we delegate, let go of, or surrender that would help us stay in that 20% more often?

For me, I think it's about, you know, you being able to really let go of, you know, the same thing in delegation in business, I think is something to do in your life as well. I think that the things that you can let go of is, you know, it was correct. Come to the first thing that comes to my mind is just the negativity around life. You know, the news, the news cycle, the constant barrage of things that are taking your attention away that really is irrelevant. And that could be social media. That could be a lot of. news, if you're reading news, or just like a lot of the talking heads from variety of different, you know, mediums, whether it be on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, tick tock on all those people, because the reality is those people are you're gonna you're gonna get stuck in an echo chamber. And oftentimes, you are really distracting yourself from actually listening to who you are, and what you're about. Now, I'm not saying you should never listen to them, because I think it's important to kind of get different perspective and different ideas. But I think challenging ourselves to not be you know, form into a swarm to listen to, constantly being distracted, so much so that you're not listening to your own voice. I think we might've mentioned that recently in a recent episode. So I think for me, it's about distractions, removing distractions from your life that are constantly there. And listen, we all need distractions sometimes. I'm not saying that distraction is not helpful. I think it is. Sometimes it is. We need that. We can't be, you know, I'm not a gung-ho, all 24-7 always like positive mindset and just like, you know, go, go all the time. I'm just not. you know, I can't sustain that. I want to live a really, you know, somewhat of a life of a concurrency. And I want to make sure that I do enjoy myself too as well. But I think oftentimes we've got to be careful how much things are distracting us. And you know, social media is a big thing. I find that one of the things I've taken away was I haven't deleted, say Facebook off my app or Instagram, but what I have done is I actually took, taken the notification off. So I'm not getting pinged on every like and comments that I made. And now I'm kind of choosing it to go in there when I'm... when I choose to when my time rather being pulled into it, I think things like that will go a long way. They're small, but I think you can buy back 80% of your time.

And that's where you were talking about, that's actually just that last line you said was really helpful in terms of your productivity, your mental health and wellbeing. I think, you know, a lot of the times that's where I find particularly social media has a negative effect for a lot of people where this comparison is the thief of joy, where you're actually looking at that thinking that for some reason I am less than, I'm not like that person, I'm not. doing everything to the level that they are and that starts robbing our own joy and fulfillment and appreciation of things. So I totally agree with you in there. I'm reminded of a book by, it was a palliative care nurse, I can't remember her name, Bonnie, somewhere, Australian nurse and she talked about the five regrets of the dying and went, yeah, it was a fantastic book and a lot of times

Oh yes, yep.

What she focused on that I do remember is a lot of the things that we quite often regret are not the things that we did, but often the things we didn't do. And to me, identifying the 80% that we let go of often would be, well, if I flip it and say the 20% of it would be to back ourselves, to get clear on what's important to us and to actually embrace and lean into that and live a life by design.

Mm-hmm.

because that is what will give us joy. And letting go of the fears, the doubts, the uncertainties, the approval we're seeking from other people, because that robs us of the joy that we are potentially allowing ourselves to have.

Yeah, and for me, I know that for myself, and I'll speak for myself, that most of the things, I will probably say every single thing that I don't do is usually because of my own fear of that, of the thing I'm doing, or a fear I'm just about to want to do. And that catches me almost daily, actually. I'll admit that, it's most likely it's daily. It's not like it never happens to me. I think I want to be clear on that because I feel like a lot of people listen to, you know, podcasts like this or listen to speakers like this speaker like us where they go Oh, they must have all their stuff together They must have you know, everything's perfect and I'm just trying to tell you no where I like I know I'm not like Jim's You know got the perfect haircut, but I can mean You know, it's I deal with that fear all the time and it's like this fear of Not being able to you know to succeed in whatever it you know, what I'm Trevor trying to achieve however, one of the key elements though is

Jim's definitely not.

in order that I also know that the success that I've had created in my life and that I have designed in my life are always the biggest things that I'm always afraid of that I actually overcame. You know, whether it be, you know, moving, you know, from country to country or, you know, taking on a particular position or buying a particular, I don't know, business or, you know, doing something that traditionally would have been very, very scary. And I think every single time you do or commit to doing something big, you learn something from it. And every time you learn from it, you start to realize, it doesn't mean that the fear will go away. It just means that bigger fears will come to you and you have bigger challenges, but little fears no longer stop you from doing those things. So I think if you look at anybody who's successful, usually it's because they've just committed to more things and they challenge themselves to overcome, not overcome those fears, but they've overcome lower fears, which means they've actually been able to really build up that confidence to take more risk. And when I say risk, we were talking about this before, but risk is more like the risk of relative to your level of risk taking that you can allow yourself, right? And that's important to recognize that not every successful person is a risk taker. I think where most of us are actually risk adverse, if anything. And because of our risk adverse, we're really taking risks that are calculated. We really thought that through that we go, you know what, even if I, I think I mentioned this before, where if I fail, I always want to make sure that I always fail forward. you know, always learn something from it. I always want to make sure that I also fail fast, because I can learn something really quickly rather than having to like learn the lesson two years from now. And always the last thing is always failing firm. I want to make sure that I feel firm so that even if I fail, I want to land on my feet enough that I can still be able to build another foundations for me to kind of work from rather than failing and dying. That's never a good thing, right now taking a chance. We know on our rock climbing thing or whatever and jumping out of a plane without a parachute like that is just dumb. Right? That's not failing firm. But you know, you know, when I take risks of saying like jumping out of a plane or, you know, you know, walking along the top of sea and tower, you know, all of those things it's, it's to, yeah, I'm fighting against my own fear, but at same time, also know logically it's safe now a 99.9% safer, right? So you're kind of failing firm, which means that you know, but it's most likely going to be okay. So I think when you are looking at taking risks, you've got to make sure that you fail from that. You can live another day. You want to be like a video game where you know, you're going to respond somewhere else. and be able to fight again. I think that's the whole idea of life.

Yeah, Lawrence, anybody who is watching this on video, when they look over my right shoulder, they see a print that I have that reminds me every day that you need to take the risk. And it basically it's two rock faces and even as close as they are, you have to get to a point where at some stage you can't mitigate or risk, which is what you're talking about. And you have to leap, there's the leap of faith that's involved in that. And I think that you're right, you mitigated, you...

Hmm

due your due diligence, but at some point that you can't basically take that safe step to the next step. There has to be a leap. You have to back yourself. And that's part of the 20% where you go, I'm investing in myself. I'm letting go of doubt. I'm letting go of opinions and thoughts and fears of everybody else. That is an important 80-20 consideration because any growth, any investment you have in yourself has to be within the 20% of the 20% that allows you to progress and move forward.

So I want to make sure I'm clear, because I see that picture all the time and I've never asked you this question. And so there is another cliff on the other side, is it? Okay, we can't see that on the video. Oh, okay, all right, great. See, sorry. See, see. Uh.

That to me is the biggest. Right. Yeah. There's another cliff. Yeah. I want to move the camera. I'll show you. So there is another. So, so I only just realized it was the way that I had it struck you, Laura. It looked like, Hey, you just got to jump off a cliff. Then, but that's too funny. That's too funny. I didn't, I did.

Yeah, I always look at that and go, that guy's an idiot. He doesn't have a parachute. Like, what is he doing? It's like, so I'm glad you explained that there's another platform. So that's failing firm, right? You're failing firm because there is another platform on the other side.

Yeah. I love it. That is very, that is too funny. That's too funny. Yes, there is. It's take the risk because it's not be reckless. But that's, oh, that is so funny. Now that I look at this from that context of what you're looking at it and all this time, he's talking about risk. This is like, this guy is just out of his mind.

That guy's mental, that guy's mental. Okay, so I think one of the key elements also, like when it comes to business and personal development, when we're talking about this 20% thing about what you said about that guy jumping, I think it's one of those elements that I think is so important, right? When it comes to 2080, I think a lot of times, I find a lot of people focus 80% on the technical aspects on how to execute something. So let's just say maybe the job is on sales. Okay, maybe this person is in the sales job. They focus so much on the time and energy on like the right script, the right things to say and how to like, you know, frame it. How do I say this, you know, to this person? How do I say the right words? And then so that you can actually create a conversation of creating the sale. For me, that really doesn't do it. I can give you a perfect script. I can say like line by line, just say it exactly the way it's written and even teach you how to say it. It most likely won't give you the results that you think it will. Mostly because they don't focus on the 20%. And that 20%, I think is way more important. which is 20% of the belief that you have within yourself. If a person doesn't believe they can sell, if the person believes that the product they're promoting or service they're promoting isn't up to scratch, or it isn't what their belief system is around what they can deliver on, or the promise they can deliver on, I guarantee you that person will not be successful no matter what the script is overall, all on the long term. because that 20% of belief in yourself, you got to believe in, you got to believe in yourself first. You got to also believe in your product and service that you're delivering, and you also got to believe that you can deliver on it. And if you can do all of those things, if you, from a sales perspective, or anybody, a business person, you have to hone in your skills on yourself. That's the development here, that's the development here, and your heart to kind of give to someone, development in your mind, and also then work on the communication, because the communication is just an expression of how you feel internally. So if you work on yourself, That 20%, because you asked the question about personal value, you work on that yourself, I guarantee you, that will create 80% of the sales for you because when you start talking about a product or service that you're talking about, and you have this total firm belief and purpose in your life and in terms of your product and service, and you believe in yourself, that you're doing a good thing and you're actually creating value in people's life, that person automatically earns trust. They trust you. And when you have trust in them, you become more believable. and they will be in a position where they will actually sign up or buy things or whatever, because of you, not because of the product and services, but because they believe in you. And that's how powerful that is, but you have to be in that zone. You have to get into that position. And so my recommendations, forget so much on focusing on so much on the script and the communication or whatever the language is, focus on yourself. Focus on actually believing in what you're able to do. And are you able to communicate the product and service? Do you believe in the product and service? If you don't, Maybe it's a different job or maybe it's figuring out like, what do I need to know about this product service so that it is believable, that I can deliver and help people in the world.

Yeah, what I would, I guess, add to that, Lawrence, is there's a big distinction between activity and progress and there's gold and magic in being able to discern what is effective and what is just noise. And if you are able to have that overview and that capacity, so that's why to me, anytime that I've got to look at something, there's three processes. There's O for overview, S for strategy, T for tactics. And if you're focusing on tactically just doing stuff without understanding how it fits in to the bigger picture and where this is all going, you quite often can focus on the 80%. That's not actually going to give you the outcomes you're looking for that aren't really the difference that makes a difference. And to me, if I was going to dissect everything about everything that we spoke about today, it would be, how do you identify the difference that makes a difference that allows you to leverage your time, create freedom. and optimize your fulfillment and joy through doing the right things at the right time. Pretty much as a summary.

Yeah, and I think, you know, to end this, I think it's really important that you actually understand that you have to be aware of what those 20% is. Like you have to be aware of what's the 20% of the energy you need to put in, what's the 20% of the people that you need to work with, what are the 20% of the business strategies and systems that are actually going to give you the biggest bang for buck, what are the 20% of things you need to invest in? that's gonna give you 8% of the money. And it goes back to a story that I listened to this week. It was a presentation, I can't remember his name for the life of me, but I believe he's a really good friend with Charlie Munger. He's a really amazing investor and he talked about how to invest in times like this in terms of the financial times that we're in when things are kind of like going kind of crazy and you're really unsure how the world's gonna turn out in the next two to three, two to three, five years. And so he kind of analyzed Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett and how they really kind of you know, how they made their wealth. And one of the interesting things that he talked about, he uses analogy about circling the wagons. And the circling the wagons is really about, you know, going back to the Native Americans when they were attack, you know, the Westerners and what they would do, they form their wagons into a circle and to kind of protect, you know, and sort of for a defensive strategy. And so he said in terms of turmoil, you know, in investment is sort of, is like that. It's like, what are the wagons you need to kind of circle? What are the wagons you need to protect? You know, what are the key core businesses, stocks, you know, bonds, or whatever you need to do? What are the key strategies that you're gonna need to know? That's the 20% he's talking about. Like, you know, and if you look at like the history of Warren Buffett and stuff, he didn't make his money from everything he touched. He made his money from like really 20% of the stocks he actually hold that he didn't sell. You know, that would be Geico, Coca-Cola, you know, and others, and it's only a few stocks that has made most of his money comparison to all the other. 80% of the other stocks that he would have bought that actually lost money. But most of his wealth came from those stock portfolios that he did not touch. He just kept on buying more and more. And there was plenty of examples of the of this circling the wagon type of analogy when it comes to investing more translate that to your life, translate to marketing translate that to your business translate that back to finances. All of these things is exactly the same thing. You need to identify your wagons. What are the key wagons? What are the key elements? that 20% in your life that's gonna give you that you need to protect, especially in terminal times. Because that is what's gonna really change your trajectory of your life, and it's gonna change the prospect of your life and the success of your life. But you have to sit down and identify those things. If you just let it randomly, you kinda hope that you will focus on the 20%, it's not gonna happen. You got to really focus and you gotta be aware and you gotta be intentional about putting the time and energy and effort into those 20%. All right.

I was just eating popcorn and just listening to the show. Lawrence, I'm good, actually. That was a good way to finish up there. So thank you very much for today.

All right, perfect. So guys, I hope that you learned something today. We packed a lot in today and we've done from, anything from money to mindset to fitness and discipline and rituals. I'm sure everyone would have got something out of it. The key element is that because we gave you so much, I would recommend you maybe re-listening to this episode or maybe actually just writing some notes and actually taking some action. That's more important, actually taking some action on some of the things we talked about today that would be highly recommended. So guys, I hope that you enjoyed today's episode. And like always, please like us and share this particular podcast with someone else. Share this with the video or the audio version on your YouTube or Spotify or podcast channel. All right, until next week, we'll see you on the next WabiSabi episode.