Do You Know Your 20%?

“When it comes to accelerating performance, there's a paradox: If we want to have greater impact, faster, we have to slow down enough to reflect on what we've done and what we're going to do.”

Hagel, Seely-Brown, de Marr, Wooll

 If nothing else, 2020 has forced us all to rethink how we prioritize our time and specifically, how we use it. In the shutdown precipitated by the World Health Organization’s declaration of a pandemic on March 11, 2020, I distinctly remember a colleague remarking, “ I don’t know what the future holds right now. and I’m working to distract myself from over-thinking the consequences of this pandemic on my life and work”. For many of us, the shutdown refocused our time to family, or a new hobby, personal health and wellness or simply relaxation. Whatever our focus, we were all experiencing changes in our priorities. I took the 12 week period of shutdown to read, write and repeat. Bill Gates had famously popularized the term “think week”—as a week of seclusion with a heaping pile of books across all disciplines, a pen and a notepad. I can’t remember a recent time in my life where I consumed as much content, wrote as much content and spoke to as many people around the world week by week, day by day, and hour by hour.

  “80 percent of the effects come from 20% of the causes. That means if you do 10 things, 2 of them are vastly more important than the others” Brian Tracy

The Pareto Principle states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Vilfredo Pareto, an economist, is often credited as the first to describe this principle in 1896. In Cours d'économie politique, Pareto wrote that approximately 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. The power law distribution , or Pareto distribution, also describes this phenomenon. By extrapolation, it should also apply quite directly to personal success and well being. That is, 20% of the things I do, should be responsible for 80% of my personal wellbeing and success.

  If you want different results, change the way you do things”

The slowdown over the last few months has, by chance or deliberateness, forced all of us to think about what matters, and what it means to have a successful day, a successful week, a successful year, and more broadly --a successful life. I distinctly remember the moment I committed to my 20% [the 20% of things in my work and life, that give me 80% of my satisfaction and joy]. While on a short work meeting to Pune. India, a colleague and I made an impromptu decision to fly across the country to spend a day in a small village of Tumling [15 people, at 10,700 ft] on the Nepal-India border. Staring across a valley into sight of Mount Kangchenjunga, it was hard not to reflect. We both did. For me, it was the realization that meaningful connections, the use of data for decisions, and a mindset of creativity (arts and adventure) were the source of 80% of my personal happiness. After the careful examination, I was able to align most of my decisions each week to one of those 3 items. With time, I have become more convinced that exploration of your 20% can help you moving from a good to great (and great to exceptional) in both work and life. Ask yourself, “Do I know my 20%?”. If you got this far, this may be the most important message of my article. So let me provide 3 critical steps to A.C.T: 1. Ask yourself, “Do I know my 20%”, 2. Create time. You need to find a few minutes to think, really think—no distractions and 3. Today. Start today.

Grab a pen, or pencil, and a piece of paper. Write the 3 or 4 things that give you most of (ie 80%) your personal happiness and joy in life. If you have nothing to write, think some more. If you have too many things to write, reduce your list.

I often use acronyms to remember something very important to me. An acronym becomes really powerful when the word, itself, is the focus of the actions. I urge any of you who feel you need a change to take 30 minutes and T.H.I.N.K.

 T ry new things

H ave fun (if you have passion and purpose, it’s always fun!)

I nvest in your 20% (the 20% of the things that give you 80% of your joy)

N ever fear failure-take a few risks.

K now it’s okay to start again. Whether early, mid or late career, you can reinvent yourself

“ Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.” Mary Lou Cook

To think is to be curious. To be curious is to become more creative. Walter Isaacson’s biography of Leonardo Da Vinci epitomizes an insatiable curiosity for “ALL” things. Leonardo in 1500, was known as a sculptor, an architect, a scientist, a musician, a mathematician, an engineer, an anatomist, a geologist, an astronomer, a botanist, a historian, a cartographer, and a writer. Ofcourse, as Isaacson’s opening chapter begins, “he was also an artist”. (https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/how-committed-you-your-vision-mohit-bhandari/)

Root‐Bernstein and Collegues published a two decade (1958–1978) study in the Creativity Research Journal of scientists, including four Nobel Prize winners identified that the most impactful scientists were those with” simultaneous involvement in research in several areas”. Further, those highly successful scientists had highly integrated networks of enterprise, whereas those less successful colleagues had fewer nonscientific activities. Lots has been published on the hobbies of nobel laureates. Suffice to say, there is clearly an association between pursuing hobbies (whether art, music, creative writing, or sports) and scientific success in highly accomplished scholars. Put another way, nobel laureates, don’t spend all the waking moments in the lab; rather, they seem quite deliberate in cultivating networks of integrated hobbies, relationships and activities. This, I believe, is the critical differentiator in those who continue to grow versus those who plateau.