John opened session three with a very quick principle:

Few leaders are successful unless a lot of people want them to be. You don’t get to the top by yourself, so if you are lonely you might want to turn around and go find your followers! John repeated this phrase over and over: “Walk slowly through the crowd.”

Main point of session three:

Keep Your Mind on the Main Thing

John shared the Pareto Principle, which shaped and impacted his life more than any other leadership lesson he’s learned. The Pareto Principle says that 20 percent of your priorities will give you 80 percent of your production. IF you spend your time, energy and money on the top 20 percent of your priorities.

What this means in practical terms is this: when you have listed out your priorities, whether for the day, week or year, spend 80% of your time on the top 20% of your goals. You will then earn 80% of the reward for accomplishing your goals.

John went on to outline some lessons learned from the Pareto Principle.

  1. It’s not how hard you work, it’s how smart you work.
  2. Organize now or agonize forever.
    • high importance/high urgency items: tackle these projects first.
    • high importance/low urgency items: set deadlines to complete these.
    • low importance/high urgency items: find a quick way to handle these by delegating.
    • low importance/low urgency items: forget them.
  3. Choose (to be an initiator) or lose (by being a reactor)

To finish out the Pareto Principle, John urged us to consider what is truly required of us as leaders that can only be done by us alone When you know what you can’t ignore or delegate, then you have focused your priorities.