In the 18th century, an Italian economist named Vilfredo Pareto invented what’s now known as the “Pareto Distribution.” While it was a rather esoteric concept for decades and decades, it’s recently started to become more popular with the emergence of the lifestyle design types such as Tim Ferris.
…and while I’ve certainly learned a lot from Mr. Ferris, I still don’t believe that the concept of the Pareto Distribution is fully appreciated by most men.
What if I told you that, using this “Law of 80/20,” you could effectively double your income, health, and sexual partners, while simultaneously doubling your relaxation, vacation, and recuperation time? Most men wouldn’t believe me, but this is the power of the “Pareto Distribution.”
You’ve likely heard of this so-called “Pareto Distribution,” and are probably familiar with some of the concepts relating to it, but in this article I really want to go deep and offer you a step-by-step guide to how you can improve your life, double your productivity, and double your income.
What is the Pareto Distribution?
In any creative endeavor, there will always be a select few individuals, machines, or inputs, which creative the vast majority of the outputs—this is known as the “Pareto Distribution.” While it’s commonly expressed as an 80/20 ratio, it can also be even more extreme such as 90/10 or 99/1.
The basic idea behind the “Pareto Distribution” is that there is vast inequality throughout nature, due to a number of factors:
- 20% of US citizens own 80% of the land
- 20% of salesmen generate 80% of the revenues
- 20% of people cause 80% of the world’s suffering
- 20% of your efforts leads to 80% of your outcomes
Again, this is often skewed—for example it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that .01% of people cause 99.99% of the world’s suffering. What of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Kim Jong Un, and the other despots which cause untold millions of individuals to suffer? Most of the outputs come from a small minority of the inputs.
Likewise, it wouldn’t be so far off to state that .01% of people cause 99.99% of the world’s good. What of Nobel Peace Prize winners, scientists and inventors such as Thomas Edison or Albert Einstein? The “Pareto Distribution,” or the “Law of 80/20” is truly a cruel bitch—you either succeed, or you don’t.
Become a High Achiever (Exercise)
While this may seem like common sense, the fact of the matter is that it’s not so obvious. In fact, I guarantee you’re breaking the “Law of 80/20” in many areas of your life, without even being aware of it—unconscious patterns and habits are truly our undoing.
I want you to answer the following questions. Writing them down is best, but if you wan to be a half ass, you can just answer them mentally:
- What 20% of activities produce 80% of your income?
- What 20% of activities in your life provide 80% of the health benefits?
- What 20% of activities gets you 80% of your dates/flings?
While this “Law of 80/20” is applicable to practically everything, I find that asking these three questions is the best way to clarify where you’re getting the most bang for your buck. By analyzing your life using the “Pareto Distribution,” you can see where your time is best spent, and most wasted.
After doing this exercise, I want you to ask these following questions to uncover your biggest time-wasting activities:
- What 20% of your work activities produce 80% of your stress?
- What 20% of activities in your life cause 80% of your sickness and ill health?
- What 20% of girls in your life are causing 80% of the heartbreak?
After you’ve answered these questions you may move onto the following sections. Understand that while I obviously can’t make you do anything, you will get the most benefit when you actually take the time to answer these questions and follow along with me here.
Double Your Income
Have you ever seen those charts, like the one above, where they depict how the top 1% of people in the United States owns a whopping 99% of the wealth? This is yet another example of the “Pareto Distribution,” at work—and no, it’s not for the reasons that you think.
One of the many beliefs that the poor have, is that there’s some “conspiracy” to keep them down. They believe that “the man,” or “the elite” are actively fucking over 99% of society to reap the rewards of their hard work…and they couldn’t be more wrong.
Believe me, I’ve been down that rabbit hole—I’m familiar with the Rothschild family, the Rockefeller conspiracies, and the world banking conspiracies. Yes, obviously there are some “elites” who try to keep the population oppressed, but in reality, millionaires are simply wealthy because they understand the “Pareto Distribution.”
What does a poor person do to earn money? In all honesty, he wastes probably 80% of his time doing mundane, trivial tasks such as the following:
- Checking email 50x each day
- Browsing Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram half the time he’s at work
- Focusing all of his effort on stupid things that don’t bring about results
People aren’t “poor” because of some grand conspiracy. They’re poor because they simply haven’t learned how to effectively channel their effort into things which bring about results. What do you think that “1%” is doing to get all of that wealth? Is some of it inherited? Obviously, yes—but 90% of millionaires in the US are self made.
So what’s that 90% doing differently? They understand the “Pareto Distribution,” and how to apply it to their life. Rather than wasting time on frivolous activities, they knock out two or three mission critical tasks each day, that yield 80% or even more of their results.
Rather than investing in junk food, they just (it’s a smart drug), so that they can get twice as much done in half the time. Rather than checking email 50x each day, they only check their email once a day, or sometimes even less. They focus on the 20% of things which yield 80% of their results, and cut everything else out.
Double Your Health
When I was preparing for my “Body of an Alpha” photoshoot, I quickly learned to discard what was useless and double down on what was effective. See, most people at the gym put in way too much effort into the things that don’t really matter, and way too little effort into the things that actually do.
Every time I would go to the gym, I’d see idiots on toxic doses of steroids, looking like giant bloated cows. They’d spend literally 3-4 hours in the gym PER DAY, and what results did they have to show for this whopping investment of time? They earned the disgust of women everywhere they walked, and they couldn’t even wipe their own asses.
Why in the hell would somebody spend all of this time and effort to get obnoxiously large, when you could spend literally 20% of that time and effort, and look like a lean, shredded Greek god? That’s what I did, and I did it by applying the “Pareto Distribution,” to my gym life.
Did I waste hours and hours in the gym, doing stupid auxiliary exercises to hit my bicep from 500,000 angles? No—I focused on a few key exercises that yield 80% of the results, and because of that, I was in and out of the gym faster than everyone else, and looked much better than everyone else.
So ask yourself: what 20% of activities contribute to 80% of your health? For me, it’s the gym, drinking greens juice on the daily, and perhaps doing intermittent fasting. That’s it—anything else beyond this I can do if I want to get the extra results, but I’m not fooling myself. Most of my results come from working out, eating healthy, and fasting.
Double Your Dating
One of the biggest revelations that I’ve ever had when it comes to dating, was actually gifted to me by a man known as Owen Cook. For those of you who are unaware, he’s one of the “OG Pickup Artists” who pioneered the entire industry. Now he spends most of his time teaching self-help and lifestyle design related stuff.
He told me that you should stop investing in women who don’t care about you, and start rewarding women who want to be a part of your lifestyle. It hit me like a ton of bricks, and while it seemed like something that was so obvious, I realized I’d been doing the exact OPPOSITE.
Most guys chase girls who don’t want them, and ignore girls who do—this is stupid. Why not just cut out the 20% of girls who cause 80% of the flakiness, heartbreak, drama, and suffering? Why not just spend your time with the 20% of girls who give you the most love and affection?
This seems obvious, and yet still, this is something that numerous guys fuck up. It’s something that I even screw up with to this day, but I catch myself far sooner than I did before. Learning to apply the “Pareto Distribution,” or the “Law of 80/20” to your dating life, will be one of the biggest revelations you ever have (or at least it was for me).
Summary
Believe me when I say that this article is just touching the surface—you have absolutely no idea how productive you can get once you start doubling down on what is giving you the results and cutting out the bullshit that’s wasting your time.
You have 100 clients, but 10 of them are giving you 90% of your income? Cut the other clients out and focus on finding more high quality clients. You’re dating 7 different girls, but only a couple of them are really into you? Spend most of your time with them.
Learning to focus on what actually brings about results is one of the key concepts that high achievers understand, that low achievers completely miss. We all have the same 24 hours in each day; some are just better at putting them to good use.
As a side note, if you’d like to explore this concept further I highly recommend Brian Tracy’s Focal Point. It’s a phenomenal book which really goes deep on this concept of the “Pareto Distribution,” and how you can use the “Law of 80/20” to enhance your life with minimal effort.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to drop me a note below. I hope you guys enjoyed the article, and as always, I’ll see you next time.
