Bernie Borges [00:00:00]:
Hey. Welcome to episode 215. This is Bernie Borges, host of the Midlife Fulfill podcast. And this is the second episode in a row where I am bringing to you a look back on a previous episode. Specifically, last week, I brought you episode 1, the most downloaded episode out of my 200 plus episodes, since launching in February 2022. And this week, I am bringing you episode 3, and it is the 5th most downloaded episode. This episode is about the 80 20 principle. And what I want you to really think about as you listen to this episode is the impact of 80 20 on your fulfillment journey.
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I give you lots of context. I give you some research, some data, some comedy along the way, and really just give you some things to think about. And it’s why I say at the end of every episode that if you’re 80% fulfilled, you’re doing great. So I hope you enjoy that. And, hey, let me remind you that the one thing I’m asking for in these 2 episodes, episode 214 and 215, the one thing I’m asking is if you’re enjoying the midlife fulfill podcast, won’t you share it with a friend? In fact, if you would just pause and do it right now before you listen, share it with a friend, and I think they’ll thank you for it. I thank you for it. Anyway, happy holidays if you’re listening in late December, early January. Here is episode 215, which is really episode 3 all over again.
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Here it is. Midlife is the best season of our lives. But often many of us like fulfillment in some area of our midlife. It doesn’t have to be that way. This podcast is a resource for midlifers to discover ways to find fulfillment in whatever area of life you need it. I’m your host, Bernie Borges. Join me on the Midlife Fulfilled podcast, a journey to make midlife the most fulfilling season of your life.
Richard Kosch [00:02:18]:
Ladies and gentlemen, few things really matter, but they matter a tremendous amount. These things that really matter are often difficult to find, but once you find the few things that really matter, they give you tremendous power, The power that gives you more from less. The power of the 80 20 principle. The 80 20 principle asserts that a minority of causes, inputs or effort usually leads to the great majority of results from those causes.
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Hello, midlifers. Welcome to episode 3. I’m so glad you’re here. It is truly a privilege to be back in your ears again. Hey, this episode is the last episode that I’m gonna solo, at least for a while anyway. Starting with episode 4, I’m gonna be interviewing other mid lifers who are sharing their b f to a f stories. Remember, that’s before fulfillment to after fulfillment. So let’s get on with this episode, my last solo for a little while anyway.
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Hey. The clip that you just heard is from Richard Kosch. He’s a British management consultant, an author, an entrepreneur, and investor. He’s written 20 books including the 80 20 principle, which has sold over a 1000000 copies. Now, this clip is an excerpt from a speech that he gave to a company many years ago. It was obviously about the 80 20 principle. The reason that I’m featuring the 80 20 principle in this episode is because way back in episode 2, just the previous episode, I shared research from my survey with more than 200 and 60 responses. And you may remember that nearly 80% of the respondents said that they are fulfilled in most, but not all areas of their life.
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And just under 20% said that they’re fulfilled in all areas of their life. Now the actual numbers were just under 80% and just under 20%. The 80 20 principle is not meant to be literal. You probably already know the 80 20 rule. It wasn’t invented by Richard Cauch. It’s actually known as the Pareto Principle. Now here’s a fun fact. It started as an observation by Vilfred Pareto, an economist in Italy.
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He observed that 80% of the peas in his garden came from 20% of the pea pods. He also observed that 80% of Italy’s land was owned by 20% of the Italian population. Now here’s the official definition of the Pareto Principle. It says that 80% of the consequences come from 20% of the causes or inputs resulting in an unequal relationship between consequences and causes. We heard Richard Kosch actually explain that a little bit. Now, I believe that when we understand the significance of the Pareto Principle in our midlife seasons, it can help us understand more about our midlife circumstances and also offer us insights into how to deal with them. This principle can help us understand why most of us, about 80% of us, are fulfilled in some, but not all areas of our life, and why that’s okay. So before I go much further, let me just share some examples of the Pareto Principle.
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And I’ll include a link to this one as well in the show notes. Here we go. 20% of drivers cause 80% of all traffic accidents. 80% of pollution originates from 20% of all factories. 20% of a company’s products represent 80% of its sales. 20% of employees are responsible for 80% of the results. 20% of students have grades 80% or higher. And 20% of the marketing efforts represents 80% of the results.
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I could go on, but you get the idea. The fact is the Pareto principle is in play all around us every day. We may or may not even notice it, but it’s everywhere. For example, did you know that the sickest 20% of people generate 79% of health care costs? And the same skewed distribution is found within that 20% group, with the sickest 20% within that group responsible for nearly 60% of health care costs. And if you keep drilling down into the numbers, you find that a relatively small number of people account for most of the health care costs. Now as I mentioned, and as you see in this health care example, the 80 20 rule is not meant to be literal. It’s not about an exact 80% or an exact 20%. Rather, it’s about a skewed result that can appear out of the ordinary, at least until you dig into it.
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So let me get back to what does the Pareto Principle have to do with midlife fulfillment. Well, remember in episode 2, I told you that about 77% of the respondents to my survey said that they’re fulfilled in some, but not all areas of their life, and about 19% said that they’re fulfilled in all areas of their life. Do you remember my comment when I shared that data? I said that this is pretty darn close to 80 20. Now the 20 ish percent who said that they’re totally fulfilled, and, hey, that’s very admirable, I wanna ask, why would you expect any different? In other words, why don’t we accept being about 80% fulfilled in our lives and accept that about 20% of the other areas of our lives were not gonna be totally fulfilled. Now, I don’t have research based data to answer this question. But I do wanna offer a hypothesis, and then try to support it with as much logic as I can muster. And then you can decide for yourself. Now look, here it is.
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The common theme in the Pareto principle is that the 80% part is aspirational. Here’s what I mean. Take these two examples. 20% of a company’s products represents 80% of sales. 80% is the aspirational part. 20% of employees are responsible for 80% of the results. 80% of the results, that’s the aspirational part. But wouldn’t we be better off if 80% of a company’s products actually represented 80% of sales? That would mean a more even distribution of work resulting in a more equal amount of results.
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But, hey, that’s not true. And wouldn’t we be better off if 80% of employees were responsible for 80% of the results? Again, it’s just not true. And wouldn’t we be better off if 80% of us were totally fulfilled and 20% were fulfilled but not totally fulfilled? In other words, the inverse of what I actually found in my survey. Well, again, according to my survey, that is not true. We actually see the opposite in play. About 80 percent are less than totally fulfilled and 20% are totally fulfilled. So I wanna ask, why would we think that it’s possible or even feasible or we should even expect that for 80% of mid lifers, we would be totally fulfilled when we see an example after example that the high achieving aspiration of the 80 20 rule just doesn’t play out in real life. So here’s what I submit for your consideration.
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Why not admit that we may only achieve total fulfillment in about 80% of our life’s areas. If we accept that, maybe, just maybe, we wouldn’t beat ourselves up so much just by accepting this as reality. Now, look, I’m not a mind reader, but some of you might be thinking, hey, Bernie. You’re just setting the bar too low or you’re compromising. But you know what? I want you to think about how some of the greatest men and women who’ve had amazing achievements throughout history, and they’ve had varying degrees of accomplishment and fulfillment. In fact, nobody out there has ever achieved a 100% of just total achievement. Let me give you a few examples, and there’s so many. I’ve only prepared a few just to illustrate the point and in the interest of brevity.
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Abraham Lincoln. He lost 5 elections before he was elected president. Babe Ruth, arguably one of the most famous baseball players of all time. His lifetime batting average was 342, which is considered really good. But it means that 66% of the time, he didn’t get a base hit. Again, remember, the 80 20 tool is not meant to be literal. More recently, Sara Blakely, she is the founder of Spanx. You may know that company.
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It’s an American apparel company that makes pants and leggings. Well, did you know that she failed the LSAT exam, which is the exam for lawyers, twice trying to become a lawyer just like her father. And when Sarah pitched her leggings idea to manufacturers, virtually all of them rejected her idea until one eventually changed his mind, called her back, and he was the owner of a of a factory. And he said, hey, I’ve got 3 daughters, so I’m gonna give you a shot. But she had all those failures along the way. Look, I could list so many more examples of famous people with great accomplishments who did not accomplishments who did not achieve a 100% of the fulfillment that they were seeking. And while the 80/20 rule, again, isn’t literal in these examples, they are a reminder that achieving fulfillment requires commitment and often great sacrifice. So we should not expect to achieve fulfillment 100% of the time.
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I’m jumping in here to ask you a question. So far, as you listen to this episode, you’re learning more about the 80 twenty principle. Although, I’m sure you knew something about it before listening to this episode. But hopefully, you’re learning even more. My question for you is, what is the impact of this learning on your fulfillment journey? Are you asking yourself where are you fulfilled across these 5 pillars? And are you arriving at anything that resembles the 80 20 principle? Remember, it’s not literally 80% or 20%. It’s about you realizing that getting to 100% is not common. It just isn’t common. So listen to the rest of this episode and then I’ll catch you on the other side.
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Now, anyone who is a 100% fulfilled, I’m not saying that you can’t be because clearly, we saw in my own survey that about 20% were. But anybody that is a 100% fulfilled, fantastic. That’s great. You’re very fortunate. And again, as my survey showed, you’re in the minority. Now once again, I wanna hammer home the point that the 80 20 rule is not meant to be literal. So I want you to look at how numbers can be manipulated just to tell a story. So I want you to listen to this little entertaining clip from the famous comedian, Lou Costello, of the renowned Abbott and Costello comedy team.
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Listen to this and enjoy.
Lou Costello [00:14:26]:
Mister Landlord. Yeah. What are you smoking, an army blanket?
Abbott [00:14:32]:
Never mind about that. You owe me broom rent.
Lou Costello [00:14:34]:
Alright. Here’s $28. $28. Fine. Just a minute.
Abbott [00:14:38]:
You owe me 13 weeks at $7 a week, and that happens to be a lot more than $28.
Lou Costello [00:14:44]:
Well, that comes to $28.
Abbott [00:14:45]:
Did you go to school?
Lou Costello [00:14:46]:
Yes, sir.
Abbott [00:14:47]:
Do you mean to say that you can prove that 7 times 13 is 28?
Lou Costello [00:14:50]:
Well, it’s gotta be. Certainly it is because mister Abbot Knight, that that that’s $28. That’s what you get.
Abbott [00:14:54]:
If you can prove it,
Lou Costello [00:14:55]:
I’ll tell what I’ll do.
Abbott [00:14:56]:
I will give you the room rent for nothing. You will? But if you don’t prove it, you owe me double the back room. Is it a deal?
Lou Costello [00:15:03]:
That’s a deal.
Abbott [00:15:03]:
Okay. Do you happen
Lou Costello [00:15:04]:
to have any Crayola on there? Crayola mine. I got it.
Abbott [00:15:06]:
Oh, you have?
Lou Costello [00:15:07]:
I got the Crayola. 728 is gonna come out 13. That’s your way. That’s my way. It’s gotta come out right. Now first, I put down a 7. Right. Now I’m gonna divide the 7 into 28.
Lou Costello [00:15:18]:
Yep. I put a 28 there. Okay. Ain’t that cute? Now here we go. 7 into 2. 7 will not go into 2.
Abbott [00:15:28]:
It will not.
Lou Costello [00:15:29]:
That’s a very big 7 to push into that little bit of 2.
Abbott [00:15:33]:
As you say it is.
Lou Costello [00:15:34]:
We ain’t gonna hurt that little 2, are we?
Abbott [00:15:35]:
Of course you won’t.
Lou Costello [00:15:36]:
So we take the 2. Open your hand. Yes. And I put that 2 right there for safe keeping. But don’t drop it and don’t lose it. Now 7 up to 8. Once. Once.
Lou Costello [00:15:45]:
I put the 1 over here, 1 over there. Now we’re gonna carry the 7 because it’s very big and it’s getting heavy on my shoulders, and I’m gonna drop the 7 under there. Now 7 from 8? Is 1? Is 1. I put the 1 down there.
Abbott [00:15:59]:
Mhmm. Now
Lou Costello [00:16:00]:
it comes. Would you mind opening up your palm of your hand, please? Or would you like to use that 2? Open it up. Give me that 2. You’ve had it long enough. I’m gonna put that 2 right there. Now 7 in the 21? Three times. That’s right. 7 in the 28? 13? Wait.
Lou Costello [00:16:16]:
Wait a minute. You have
Abbott [00:16:17]:
to prove this even better than that.
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I hope you enjoyed that clip. I I sure did. And by the way, if you ever just need a laugh, go to YouTube and search on Abbott and Costello and watch some of their comedy clips. They’re hilarious. They just don’t make comedy like that anymore. But, I digress. Let’s get back to the regularly scheduled programming here on this episode. Anyway, as you can see in this example with Luca Stella, numbers can sometimes be manipulated to tell a story, and they’re not always perfect.
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And that’s my point. Don’t get hung up on not being fulfilled in a 100% of your life. Okay. I have one more reason that I wanna discuss the Pareto Principle in the context of midlife. This one might give you some serious reason to pause. You ready? Alright. I submit that we spend at least 80% of our entire life in midlife. Think Think about it.
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The first 20 years of your life is youth. Remember that happiness u curve study that I shared way back on episode 1? It says that our happiness begins to decline after age 18. So if we live to be, say, 90 years old, which is no guarantee, 78% of our life would be outside of our youth. Now this next point, this is where I really go off the deep end. Midlife seasons extend all the way to end of life. Yep. Here’s what I mean. Whether you retire at age 65 or you work until age 90, Your end of life season is the season when your health declines, eventually resulting in death.
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Now look, it’s not morbid to say this because everybody dies eventually. All I’m really doing here is I’m evangelizing that midlife seasons are the best seasons in our life, and we can enjoy them for about 80% of our lifetime beyond our early youth years. The key in this principle is that we have many midlife seasons. So if we’re fulfilled in 80% of our life, we should enjoy that. Aiming for a 100% fulfillment can be doable for some, But I remind you that the Pareto principle says it’s unlikely to achieve 100% fulfillment. So why not be grateful for the 80% fulfillment? It’s all about making that count. Alright. Enough about the Pareto Principle.
Bernie Borges [00:19:04]:
Let’s get to my BF to AF story in this episode. So this BF to AF story is a personal one, and I’ll keep it brief. I’m an only child. My parents were very fulfilled when they had the chance to spend their final years living near me and my family. They were able to spend time with my kids, their only grandchildren. They loved every minute of it. They attended piano recitals, soccer games, graduations, birthday parties. I mean, they treasured every moment that they were with my family, my wife, my kids, their grandchildren.
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Now they also had many struggles in their life. So to say that they had about 80% fulfillment in their midlife seasons spent with my family, even though it was a shorter period of time, that’s an understatement. Now they both passed away in their early nineties, and I’ll share with you that their decline was rapid. They went from fulfilled midlife seasons to end of life very quickly. My b f before fulfillment was I felt like I had deprived my parents of living fulfilled lives near me and my family because I was living in California for quite a while. And they were living in Florida, and they were alone. They were not near me or my family. But when my family and I moved to Florida, relocated from California to Florida, it gave my parents the opportunity that they dreamed of to be near me, my wife, and their grandchildren.
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So my AF, my after fulfillment, was seeing them in their joy being with their grandchildren, and just enjoying all those moments. Anyway, as I close out this episode, I wanna encourage you to think about how this Pareto principle, the 80 20 rule, how it might apply in your life. As I always say, your life is unique. All I want you to do is to think about the 80 20 rule in your life. Are you putting unnecessary pressure on yourself or a loved one to achieve fulfillment in some area of their life? In the next episode, I’m gonna feature my first interview with someone who’s willing to come on the show and share their own personal b f to a f experience. Now remember, you can get in touch with me to pitch your b f to a f story, and I encourage you to do that. You can reach me through social media, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok. You can also leave me a voice message.
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Open up your podcast player. By the way, if you’re listening on the Buzzsprout link, that’s cool. But remember, you can click into a a podcast player like Apple, Spotify, Overcast. There’s a whole host of them out there. So if you’re in a podcast player, open it up, look in the show notes in that player, and look for the link where you can leave me a voice message pitching your BFDF story. Hey. Before we sign off here for this episode, I wanna ask you that if you’re enjoying the Midlife Fulfilled podcast, please share it with one person today. Will you do that for me and for them? And remember, this episode is my last solo episode, at least for a while.
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Starting with the next episode, episode 4, I will feature a mid lifer who’s sharing her BFDF story. In fact, I’ll give you a little bit of a preview now. You’re gonna meet Karen. Karen reveals a very personal experience that transformed her life. I guarantee you it’s unlike any story you’ve ever heard. I guarantee it. Be sure to tune in to episode 4 to hear Karen’s b f to a f story. Hey, midlifers.
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Let’s create a worldwide movement toward having a more fulfilled midlife. I’ll see you on the next episode. But first, listen to this closing message. I hope this episode enlightened you on the 80 20 principle and I hope it really gives you some pause, some reason to think about your own fulfillment journey as it relates to this 80 20 principle. And if you’ve listened to me for a while or you follow me on LinkedIn, I have been talking about the fact that I wanna reach 3,000,000,000 people across the globe with the message of seeking fulfillment across these 5 pillars. And I said openly that I don’t expect to be able to reach 3,000,000,000 people on my own. I plan to reach 3,000,000,000 people by going through leaders in organizations because they are the one leading people. They might lead 10, 20, a 100, a 1000, or thousands of people, and that’s how I’m gonna get to 3,000,000,000 people over time.
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I’m doing that through my fulfillment centric leadership program. So I invite you to learn more about that. Listen to this outro message where you can get a little preview of it, and then, of course, check the link in the show notes for more information on that. And I will catch you on episode 216, where we’re back to regularly scheduled podcast episodes. And remember, if you’re 80% fulfilled, you’re doing great. Thanks for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed this episode. And before you go, I encourage you to consider how fulfillment centric leadership can transform employee engagement and retention in your organization.
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Let’s collaborate to bring this powerful model to your team, whether it’s a concise 45 minute keynote or a customized full day workshop, I’d love to help you drive meaningful change in your organization. Get in touch through the link in the show notes or visit midlifefulfilled.com to start the conversation. If you’re a first time listener, welcome. I hope you’ll press that follow or subscribe button on your player and stick around. I show up weekly with interviews that inspire people over 40 to thrive in the 5 key areas of life, health, fitness, career, relationships, and legacy. And as I sign off for this and every episode, I’ll remind you once again that if you’re 80% fulfilled, you’re doing great. I’ll see you on the next episode.
