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The Tim Ferriss Show
#466: Richard Koch on Mastering the 80/20 Principle, Achieving Unreasonable Success, and The Art of Gambling
Sep 22, 2020
02:46:25
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Quick takeaways
- Achieving unreasonable success involves embracing self-belief, seeking mentorship, and pursuing breakthrough achievements.
- Success is subjective and can be achieved by surpassing expectations and making a significant impact.
- Transformative experiences and well-deserved praise contribute to achieving extraordinary success.
- Cultivate high expectations to strive for excellence and adapt to challenging situations.
- Having breakthrough achievements and distorting reality are key landmarks in achieving unreasonable success.
- Unique focus, deep knowledge, and overcoming setbacks are essential for achieving extraordinary success.
Deep dives
Fired from Boston Consulting Group
After being let go from Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the author explored opportunities at other consulting firms and considered a career in headhunting.
Joining Bain and Company
The author interviewed with Bain and Company and was offered a job. He joined the company, attracted by its use of BCG concepts and its hierarchical structure.
Differences Between BCG and Bain and Company
BCG was decentralized with autonomous profit centers, while Bain and Company had a controlled, top-down structure. Despite being fired by BCG, the author valued their business model and skills in relating to clients.
Negotiating a Salary Increase
The author negotiated a higher salary when joining Bain and Company, citing his listening skills and value to the company.
Unreasonable Success and How to Achieve It
The book explores the idea of success, particularly unreasonable success, and what it means to achieve it. The author takes inspiration from Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and looks at the lives of 20 influential individuals to identify common factors that contributed to their success. The book examines success in the context of changing the world and achieving unexpected outcomes. It also delves into the concept of self-belief, high expectations, transforming experiences, and well-deserved praise as drivers of success. The author emphasizes the importance of unique focus and narrowing down one's work to stand out. Overall, the book aims to provide insights and strategies for achieving unreasonable success.
Defining Success and Undertaking the Study
Success is subjective and varies from person to person, depending on their objectives and achievements. Unreasonable success, as explored in the book, refers to success that is unexpected, goes beyond an individual's skills or performance, and has a significant impact in changing the world. The author examines the lives of 20 influential individuals, such as Bill Gates, Winston Churchill, Madonna, and Albert Einstein, to understand the factors that contributed to their extraordinary success. The study aims to identify commonalities among these achievers and provide insights for readers on how to achieve unreasonable success in their own lives.
Key Factors of Unreasonable Success
The book identifies nine key factors that are present in the lives of the 20 individuals studied. These factors include: achieving success in changing the world in an extraordinary manner, having success that is unexpected and not predicted early on, exceeding expectations beyond an individual's skills, embracing self-belief, seeking out phantasy-man mentors who embody the desired achievements, experiencing transforming moments that shape one's path, attracting well-deserved praise, pursuing breakthrough achievements, and narrowing focus to create unique work. The author provides examples from the lives of the individuals studied to highlight these factors and their impact on achieving unreasonable success.
Lessons and Strategies for Achieving Unreasonable Success
The book provides valuable lessons and strategies for readers aiming to achieve unreasonable success. It emphasizes the importance of cultivating self-belief, setting high expectations, seeking out mentorship from individuals who embody desired achievements, embracing transforming experiences, attracting well-deserved praise, pursuing breakthrough achievements, and narrowing focus to create unique work. By delving into the lives of highly successful individuals, the book offers insights and actionable advice for readers to apply in their own pursuit of extraordinary success.
Importance of Having High Expectations
Having high expectations is crucial as it motivates individuals to strive for excellence. People with high expectations tend to adapt to challenging situations and maintain high standards, resulting in exceptional performance.
Transformative Experiences
Many successful individuals have had transformative experiences that significantly changed them and made them more powerful or effective. These experiences can shape a person's character and set them on a path of unprecedented success. Examples include Jeff Bezos' transformation from a failed investment banker to the founder of Amazon and Nelson Mandela's realization of the possibility for a peaceful solution to apartheid while incarcerated.
Key Landmarks for Success
Unreasonable success can be achieved by focusing on key landmarks such as having a breakthrough achievement, making your own trail, finding and driving your personal vehicle, thriving on setbacks, acquiring unique intuition through deep knowledge, and distorting reality to overcome obstacles. These landmarks can propel individuals to achieve extraordinary levels of success.
18.
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Richard Koch (@RichardKoch8020) is an entrepreneur, investor, former strategy consultant, and author of several books on business and ideas, including four on how to apply the 80/20 principle in all walks of life.
His investments have grown at 22 percent compounded annually over 37 years and have included Filofax, Plymouth Gin, Belgo, Betfair (the world’s largest betting exchange), FanDuel, and Auto1. He has worked for Boston Consulting Group and was a partner at Bain & Co. before joining Jim Lawrence and Iain Evans to start LEK, which expanded from three to 350 professionals during the six years Richard was there.
In 1997, Richard’s book The 80/20 Principle reinterpreted the Pareto Rule, which states that most results come from a small minority of causes, and extended it beyond its well-known application in business into personal life, happiness, and success. The book, substantially updated in 2017, has sold more than a million copies, been translated into roughly 40 languages, and become a business classic. It was named by GQ magazine as one of the top 25 business books of all time.
His new book, published on August 13, 2020, and available in the US in December, is Unreasonable Success and How to Achieve it. In it, Richard charts a new map of success, which he says can propel anyone to new heights of accomplishment. High success, he says, does not require genius, consistency, all-round ability, a safe pair of hands, or even basic competence — but it does require the nine key attitudes and strategies he has identified.
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