You can only change your spot in it.
Most people have heard of the 80/20 rule, where in any business or endeavor a relatively small percentage of the people involved are responsible for a disproportionately large percentage of the output.
It’s not exact, of course, but it works pretty well as a rule of thumb.
In a business, a relatively small group of customers will often account for most of the revenue. A relatively small group can account for most of the complaints too. Usually not the same group, unfortunately.
Real estate works that way too. A minority of brokers do a very large percentage of the transactions.
And so forth.
What’s interesting is that you can often see the same thing inside the successful group. Some of the top performers substantially outperform the rest of the top performers.
The pyramid keeps getting narrower as you go up.
You can complain about that if you want, but unequal results show up just about everywhere people are producing, competing, creating or accumulating something.
You probably aren’t going to change the shape of the pyramid.
You can change your spot in it.
Part of that is making sure you’re in a field where you have a reasonable chance of being one of the better performers. We’re all good at different things. Find what you’re good at and start there.
Aside from that, operate in a way that makes success more likely.
Contrary to what many people think, success usually isn’t a matter of doing one big thing at exactly the right time. More often it’s doing a lot of little things right for a long time.
There’s a book called The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson that explains this a lot better than I do.
The basic idea is that you arrange your life so you’re doing things just a little better than average, often by such a small amount that an observer wouldn’t notice much difference from one day to the next.
But those little differences compound.
And eventually the difference isn’t little anymore.
The best part is there’s no name-it-and-claim-it or manifest-the-life-you-want mumbo jumbo.
Just actionable advice you can actually implement in your life.
You can buy it here.
P.S. That link goes through Amazon, and I’m an affiliate. Doesn’t cost you a dime more, but if you click through and buy the book, or anything else while you’re there, I get a small commission.
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