The 33% rule, how to live your life as an entrepreneur
Have you ever heard of the 33% rule? I heard about this concept a couple years ago on the Nomad Cruise and it had made a big impact on my life ever since. Little did I know that I had actually been living this way for the majority of my adult career, I just didn’t realize it.
The concept is simple and it is related to how you spend your time. I’m going to relate this to entrepreneurs, but you can really apply it to anybody you encounter in your life, from your co-workers, to your friends and your family.
So what it is? It is the concept that you should be spending 33% of your time with people that are less skilled than you in a particular area, 33% of your time with people that are on your same level, and 33% of your time with people that are more skilled than you are.
The first 33%: Your peers that you get to grow with
So why this ratio and why is this concept important? Well let’s start with the middle 33%, these are your peers and people that have a similar skill set. The reason you want to be around these people is that they are going to be growing with you, they are going to be super excited when you get something new to happen, and they are going to be very appreciative when you help them with something. You are building your skillset together, so you are going to grow together.
The second 33%: The people you get to teach
The second 33% is probably the most important, it is the people you get to teach. These people are going to be looking to you for advice in a particular skill area and you are providing knowledge and advice. Since we have an extra percent to apply, I’ll add it here since this is the most important one. Spend 34% of your time here.
Why is this so important? Well once you can teach something to someone else, you really feel like you know it. I can remember learning and struggling through calculus in college, it was definitely a challenge. It wasn’t until the following semester where I had friends in Calculus 1 while I was in Calculus 2 that I really started to understand this.
The reason is, I had more experience with the concepts by this point and my friends were looking to me to explain it to them because I had already been through it. That’s when I really began to grow and my confidence level with Calculus improved dramatically.
So remember, once you can teach something, you are going to understand it in a much more in-depth way because now you have to be clear to your student about the concepts they don’t yet understand.
The third 33%: The people you get to learn from
And the last 33% is you guessed it, the people you get to learn from. We should never stop learning; there are too many problems to solve, things to do, and new experiences to have to stop learning. It’s what makes life worth living and it is what makes you grow.
This is arguably the hardest 33% to get access to. If you are an entrepreneur, this is the 33% that have already made it, but those people are so busy that they often don’t have as much time to do the teaching anymore?
So until you make it there, how do you get access to this top 33%? The best way is to have these people as your friends, but what if that hasn’t happened yet? Well start to seek out successful people in your same space that are doing things you want to be doing, then provide value to their life!
Build something for them, offer to do free work for them, or even just write them an email and tell them how much you admire them and love their work. As long as they have time to read that email, I guarantee they are going to be humbled and appreciative that you put in the time and effort to write that email. And they might even be willing to spend some time with you for a coffee, or maybe even bring you on as an intern.
As I was taking my yoga class today in Brooklyn, I realized that yoga teachers are actually a great example of this concept because they never stop learning. The class I took today had at least two other yoga teachers that I have been in other classes with. So these teachers not only teach, but they also take classes themselves to expand their practice and learn from others.
So I hope you take this concept into 2018. Spend this year learning and teaching. And I bet you, each time you find yourself teaching something, you will actually be learning too.
