What Are You Listening To?

One of our greatest assets is the wisdom we have inside. And yet, with all of the messaging we get from the many inputs in our world, it's one of the things we can wind up ignoring the most! Most people I know say they feel inundated by the amount of information and advice coming at them each day, which easily drowns out the messaging from within. The answer, in my experience, is about choice: the choice to listen. I was interviewed on Hallmark Channel's "New Morning," talking about how to wade through all of the noise and truly listen to your inner voice. Here are some clips from that interview.

Put More Into Your 20%

The events unfolding on the world stage are like nothing any of us have seen in our lifetime. And for many of us, these events are having a direct, personal impact. Now, more than ever, it’s time to find ways to do more with less and maximize our resources. And yet I have found that this idea of “doing more with less” tends to be a vague sentiment that people agree with and don't necessarily know how to apply.

80/20
Years ago, in my work with engineers, I learned a piece of economic theory that can give us some answers. In the early 19th century, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, in studying the economies of European nations, uncovered a consistent economic distribution trend: 20% of the population had 80% of the wealth. Since that discovery, this 80/20 ratio has moved beyond the realm of economics and can accurately describe many elements of common human experience:

• 20% of the clothes in your closet get 80% of the wear
  
• 20% of your waking time produces 80% of your achievements
  
• 20% of your customers bring you 80% of your revenue
  
• 20% of your marketing efforts generate 80% of your new business

When we really get our minds around this, the implications are staggering:

• What am I doing wasting all of that closet space on clothes I never wear? 
  
• Why aren’t I noticing the times of day and the conditions and the activities I’m engaged in when I’m achieving the most, and replicating those? 
  
• Why don’t I stop beating myself up over customers that don’t really like us and don’t do much business, and focus on the ones that do?
  
• Why don’t I stop putting marketing efforts into plans that don’t yield much, and put more effort into the ones that do?

Focus on the 20%
Smart living starts with smart thinking- a truly strategic approach that applies 80/20 thinking to every area of life, identifies the very effective 20% in those areas and capitalizes on it, giving it more focus, more resources, more effort.

Try This
Hold the 80/20 lens to your life, and see what you find out. You may decide to:

• Give away clothes you rarely wear, gaining space
  
• Stop buying groceries that often don’t get eaten, saving money
  
• Stop spending time with people who drag you down and make you angry, and more with people you like and respect who help you feel, think, and live better
• Stop funding marketing activities that don't yield much, and put resources into the ones that do, generating new business
• Shift focus off of your products that yield little revenue, and onto your high-revenue products, which can generate yet more products of this type, and more customers, and more revenue 

Enjoy your analysis, and let me know how it goes!