#680: Richard Koch — Revisiting the 80/20 Principle, The Power of Optimistic Journaling, Studying History to Improve Investing, and The Grand Beliefs of Winners (Plus: The Toxic Beliefs of Losers)

**Tim Ferriss** (0:00)
This episode is brought to you by Secureframe. Secureframe's industry leading compliance automation platform, paired with their in-house compliance experts and former auditors, helps you to get audit ready in weeks, not months, so you can close more deals faster. I polled a ton of you online on social, and reviews came back, which were overwhelmingly positive for Secureframe. Secureframe simplifies and streamlines the process of getting and staying compliant to the most rigorous global privacy and security standards. They help thousands of businesses achieve compliance with security and privacy frameworks, including SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI and GDPR. Secureframe is the most comprehensive security and compliance automation platform with hundreds of integrations, built-in security training, vendor and risk management and more. You continuously detect and remediate misconfigurations across your technology stack. You also get complete visibility with actionable insights on critical security and privacy compliance issues.
Security training for SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR and more are built into Secureframe's platform. You can quickly meet security and privacy compliance requirements and save time assigning, tracking and reporting on required training. Secureframe provides unmatched expert guidance every step of the way with their 30 plus former auditors and industry professionals. Secureframe helps you quickly achieve and maintain compliance so you can focus on other things like serving your customers, scaling your business and growing revenue. So consider automating your security and privacy compliance with Secureframe. Schedule a demo today at secureframe.com as it sounds, secureframe.com and tell them Tim Ferris, that's me. Tim Ferris sent you to unlock 10% off for your first year. Again, that's secureframe.com and during your demo, tell them that Tim Ferris sent you to unlock 10% off for your first year. One more time, secureframe.com.
This episode is brought to you by 8Sleep. Temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleep and heat is my personal nemesis. I've suffered for decades, tossing and turning, throwing blankets off, pulling the back on, putting one leg on top and repeating all of that ad nauseum. But now I am falling asleep in record time. Why? Because I'm using a device that was recommended to me by friends called the PodCover by 8Sleep. The PodCover fits on any mattress and allows you to adjust the temperature of your sleeping environment, providing the optimal temperature that gets you the best night's sleep. With the PodCover's dual zone temperature control, you and your partner can set your sides of the bed to as cool as 55 degrees or as hot as 110 degrees.
I think generally in my experience, my partners prefer the high side and I like to sleep very, very cool. So stop fighting, this helps. Based on your biometrics, environment and sleep stages, the PodCover makes temperature adjustments throughout the night that limit wakeups and increase your percentage of deep sleep. In addition to its best in class temperature regulation, the PodCover sensors also track your health and sleep metrics without the need to use a wearable. So go to 8sleep.com/tim, all spelled out 8sleep.com/tim and save $250 on the 8sleep PodCover. That's 8sleep.com/tim. 8sleep currently ships within the US, Canada and the UK, select countries in the EU and Australia. Again, that's 8sleep.com/tim to save $250 on the 8sleep PodCover.
Can I ask you a personal question?
Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to interview and deconstruct world-class performers to tease out the stories, the routines, the habits, the beliefs that you can emulate to improve your own lives. My guest today is a fan favorite. He's been on once before. He always delivers a lot of actionable advice and learnings. His name is Richard Koch, K-O-C-H. Richard is an entrepreneur, investor, former strategy consultant and the author of several books on business and ideas, including four on how to apply the 80-20 principle in all walks of life. His investments have grown at an average of 22% compounded annually over 37 years and have included Filofax, Plymouth Gin, Belgo, Betfair, FanDuel and Auto1. For those who don't have any reference for that, that is absurdly, absurdly good.
He has worked for Boston Consulting Group and was a partner at Bain & Co. before joining Jim Lawrence and Ian Evans to start LEK., which expanded from three to 350 professionals during the six years Richard was there.
In 1997, Richard's book, The 80-20 Principle, reinterpreted the Pareto Rule, which states that most results come from a small minority of causes and extended it beyond its well-known applications and business into personal life, happiness and success. The book, rewritten in 2022, has sold more than a million copies, been translated into roughly 40 languages and has become a business classic. It was named by GQ as one of the top 25 business books of all time and it is a book that has had a huge impact on my life and one that I have recommended for at least a decade at this point. Richard's latest book is Unreasonable Success and How to Achieve It. He has two upcoming books, 80-20 Beliefs, which identifies the very few beliefs in our lives that strongly influence what we do and therefore the results we get when we talk about some of these 80-20 beliefs in this conversation, as well as 80-20 Daily, a collection of 365 short daily readings using the 80-20 philosophy to achieve the good life. You can find him online at richardkosh.net, again, that's richardkosh.net and on Twitter, at richardkosh8020.