In addition to the
tips for successful living, I follow the One Percent
Principle. It's simple: whatever you choose to do, try to get into the
top one percent of it.
Very important, that one in a hundred. Note it's not one in a thousand,
or a million. The point is that to be better than almost anyone
at almost anything,
you don't need to be the absolute greatest; you only have to be in the top 1%.
Beyond that, you're limiting your options - because you'll be devoting so much
of your life to moving up the rankings, you'll never have time for anything else.
Having the top 1% as a target gives you purpose and provides you with far more
benefits than almost anyone else enjoys.
There's another reason to adopt the one percent principle. Because
following it tells you when to stop. If you've made it into the richest, or most
successful, or most intelligent 1% of people, there's no real reason to go any
further; maintain it at that level, and try something else. You'll grow old well-rounded
and interesting.
Here's how it works...
Fitness. The physically fittest 1% of the population
are healthy and happy people. The fittest .01% aren't, because they're on restricted
diets and injure themselves all the time in order to train for whatever their
specific sporting event is. So I looked at some insurance tables, and worked
out what the top 1% does. It turns out they exercise at least once a day, practice
more than one sport, and have resting heart rates below 55. So I took up Triathlon
training, and now swim, cycle, and run at least four times a week. I'm now in
the fittest 1% of people for my age group, with a resting heart rate of 49.
Health. Some people sneeze and cough all the time... and
some don't. Only one percent of people take fewer than one sick day every year;
getting into that group isn't really that hard. It just means keeping an eye
on your diet, watching the weather, thinking preventative rather than curative,
and popping a handful of vitamins at the first tickle of your nose. A positive
mental attitude also helps.
Skills. I've got some way to go on this one. But the
principle is that you learn to do things yourself instead of paying experts to
do them. It's not really that difficult to build up a bike, or screw together
your own PC, or design your own website, yet only a small percentage of people
can do these things. Learning them puts you into the top 1% in each of these
activities.
Work. I'm not the world's best copywriter. Because
to be the best, you have to live and breathe the advertising business dawn to
dusk... and there's more to life than media. But I think I'm in the top one percent,
judging by my day rate and the people who are happy to pay it. And since very
few companies employ more than a few hundred people of any one job description,
reaching the top 1% will always make you the best guy for the job in your boss's
eyes.
Income & wealth. Harder to achieve this - but
not as hard as you think. In the UK, to get into that 1% currently needs an annual
income of £98K,
and I'm some way short (most years, anyway.) But the point is it's a target to
aim for. When you look at wealth rather than income for the UK, the picture's
surprising. To join the wealthiest 1% of one of the world's richest countries,
you need less than £1m.
Possessions. This one's easy. Never trust a bargain and
always go for quality. If the things around you are in the top 1% of their classes
- Global kitchen knives, my bike's XTR groupset, Armani T shirts - they'll inspire
you to get into the top 1% in other areas.
Knowledge. There are only about 200 truly great
works of literature; only about a hundred works of classical music that matter;
only a dozen operas and fewer than 500 songs. Get to know this set of works,
and you're instantly in that group with a broader cultural base
than 99% of people.
Intelligence. We're all born with the same grey
flesh inside our heads; being intelligent is simply a choice, not something programmed
into you. According to IQ tests and the like, I'm well into that top 1%. (On
the British Cattell scale the breakpoint's about 140.)
Cooking. Okay, I'm in a group of 1%, but some would
argue it's at the wrong end of the skills scale. Still, another thing to aim
for.
