Olog

I want to introduce you to a very special group of people. Actually, you’ve seen these people on TV or in the movies; and you’ve certainly seen them onstage, winning award after award at your company’s annual convention.

These are the world’s most successful people. They have most of the wealth, happiness, joy, peace, health and loving relationships — in other words, they have most of what we human beings want as we go through this journey called Life.

Please note: I am talking about fulfilled, wealthy people — what I call being happy and rich. There are lots of people with lots of money who are unhappy, and people who are broke but happy (although not many of those). But I’ve observed that while most people believe you can either be happy or rich, there’s a small percentage of people who realize you can be both.

I call these special people the Three Percenters. Why? Well, you’ve heard of the 80/20 Rule (also known as Pareto’s Principle) — that 80 percent of your results flow from 20 percent of your efforts. But in today’s society, we seem to have what I call the 97/3 Rule — that about 3 percent of the population holds most of the world’s great wealth, while most of the remaining 97 percent struggle just to get by.

While these may not be precise, hard and fast numbers, look around and you can verify them for yourself. Look around your company and you’ll see that the same one, two or five salespeople always, always win the top awards — while the rest never do. Look around your personal relationships and notice that a tiny minority of couples ever stays happily married; the rest stay married. Look around the mall and notice how many people are in shape and healthy … and how many are not. Look around the world and see that only a small percentage of the world’s population are Haves, and the rest are Have-Nots (or at least Have-Not-Much).

Well, you may say, it’s just not fair. Money, wealth, health, happiness — these should be given equally to all people. You’re right, they should — and indeed, they are. It is just that few people ever choose to take them and make correct use of them.

These “lucky” few are the Three Percenters. But here’s their big “secret”: You can be a Three Percenter, too… but only if you learn and follow their secret code.

From chapter 3, pg.37, The Secret Code of Success by Noah St. John.