Converting techniques

Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers) (#680)


Illustration via 99designs

“M. Scott Peck wrote a book which starts, ‘Life is difficult.’ This is one of the great things about life. If you understand this, you can transcend it, because you anticipate that things are going to be difficult, and you can take pride in overcoming difficulties. But if you expect there are going to be no difficulties, obviously you are going to be disillusioned.”

— Richard Koch

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, 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, rewritten in 2022, has sold more than a million copies, been translated into roughly 40 languages, and has become a business classic. It was named by GQ as one of the top 25 business books of all time. Richard’s latest book is Unreasonable Success and How to Achieve It

He has two upcoming books: 80/20 Beliefs, which identifies the very few beliefs in our lives that strongly influence what we do, and, therefore, the results we get, and 80/20 Daily, a collection of 365 short daily readings using the 80/20 philosophy to achieve the good life.

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Musicor on your favorite podcast platform.

Brought to you by Secureframe automated security and privacy compliance platform, Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating, and Wealthfront high-yield savings account.

#680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers)


This episode is brought to you by Secureframe! Secureframe’s industry-leading compliance automation platform, paired with their in-house compliance experts and former auditors, helps you get audit-ready in weeks, not months, so you can close more deals faster. 

Secureframe simplifies and streamlines the process of getting and staying compliant to the most rigorous global privacy and security standards. They help thousands of businesses achieve compliance with security and privacy frameworks including SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI, and GDPRSchedule a demo today at Secureframe.com, and tell them during the demo that Tim Ferriss sent you to unlock 10{1652eb1ffa4184925f6a63a9c04ea6b421acb7a78117241e7d4325cdca8339fa} off for your first year.


This episode is brought to you by Wealthfront! Wealthfront is an app that helps you save and invest your money. Right now, you can earn 4.55{1652eb1ffa4184925f6a63a9c04ea6b421acb7a78117241e7d4325cdca8339fa} APY—that’s the Annual Percentage Yield—with the Wealthfront Cash Account. That’s more than eleven times more interest than if you left your money in a savings account at the average bank, according to FDIC.gov. 

It takes just a few minutes to sign up, and then you’ll immediately start earning 4.55{1652eb1ffa4184925f6a63a9c04ea6b421acb7a78117241e7d4325cdca8339fa} interest on your savings. And when you open an account today, you’ll get an extra fifty-dollar bonus with a deposit of five hundred dollars or more. Visit Wealthfront.com/Tim to get started.


This episode is brought to you by Eight Sleep! Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover is the easiest and fastest way to sleep at the perfect temperature. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking to offer the most advanced (and user-friendly) solution on the market. Simply add the Pod Cover to your current mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. It also splits your bed in half, so your partner can choose a totally different temperature.

Go to EightSleep.com/Tim and save $250 on the Eight Sleep Pod Cover. Eight Sleep currently ships within the USA, Canada, the UK, select countries in the EU, and Australia.


Want to hear the last time Richard Koch was on the show? Listen here to our conversation in which we discussed investing for the mathematically challenged, Oxford Bodleian Library secrets, writing The 80/20 Principle, optimizing happiness, different journaling styles, nine landmarks of successful people, Nelson Mandela’s unique intuition, and much more.

#466: Richard Koch on Mastering the 80/20 Principle, Achieving Unreasonable Success, and the Art of Gambling

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

  • Connect with Richard Koch:

Website | Twitter

SHOW NOTES

  • [06:18] What3Words.
  • [12:59] Upbeat fish pond reflections.
  • [15:04] Journaling toward optimistic investment.
  • [17:14] Betfair vs. bookmakers.
  • [27:42] How history ties in with investment strategy.
  • [33:47] Assigning probabilities.
  • [36:56] The cows, the stars, and the question marks.
  • [45:41] 80/20 happiness.
  • [57:36] A qué será, será quandary.
  • [1:06:48] Toxic beliefs and terrible templates.
  • [1:11:24] A meeting with Bill Bain.
  • [1:14:41] Charm school.
  • [1:15:08] Why Bain & Company was a better fit than BCG had been.
  • [1:17:34] The formula.
  • [1:25:04] Identifying one’s own toxic beliefs.
  • [1:35:04] Opposites to toxic beliefs.
  • [1:41:53] Churchill’s helpful delusion.
  • [1:47:46] The formation of grand beliefs.
  • [1:51:06] How grand beliefs can become toxic.
  • [1:53:37] Pattern interruption.
  • [1:56:08] The Oxford Experience for 99/1 people.
  • [2:09:04] A bespoke request for hands-on art.
  • [2:11:33] Useful beauty.
  • [2:18:55] Parting thoughts.

MORE RICHARD KOCH QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“The 80/20 principle runs … through the whole of my thinking. So, in terms of my own success or money but also things like happiness, I’m trying to think, ‘What are the few things that I need to do in order to attain what I want?’”
— Richard Koch

“I go around asking people, ‘Who are your best five friends in the world?’ And people come up with a list. And then I say, ‘Who are the five people that you spend the most time with?’ And very often, the lists are completely different. And that tells you that that person, they might be happy, but they’re certainly going against the grain.”
— Richard Koch

“M. Scott Peck wrote a book which starts, ‘Life is difficult.’ This is one of the great things about life. If you understand this, you can transcend it, because you anticipate that things are going to be difficult and you can take pride in overcoming difficulties. But if you expect there are going to be no difficulties, obviously you are going to be disillusioned.”
— Richard Koch

“Delusions can be very helpful sometimes.”
— Richard Koch

“Happiness is probably the least selfish thing that you can pursue, because if you’re happy, you’re going to make a lot of other people happy as well. If you’re miserable, you’re going to make other people miserable.”
— Richard Koch

PEOPLE MENTIONED

The Tim Ferriss Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world with more than 900 million downloads. It has been selected for “Best of Apple Podcasts” three times, it is often the #1 interview podcast across all of Apple Podcasts, and it’s been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts on many occasions. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.





Source link