5 Universal Principles That Guide Your Life

Hello 👋🏾,

Welcome to another edition of the Chase Growth Newsletter!

Each Saturday I send out one email sharing my thoughts and findings around:

• Personal Development

• Online Automation

• Content Creation

Today's edition is a slightly longer 6-minute read.

I promise it is worth your time!

Let's dive into it.

5 Universal Principles That Guide Your Life

Life is a solo-player game.

An obstacle course where we try to find meaning and purpose.

Even though our paths are unique, certain principles hold true for everyone.

Learning these principles will prove invaluable on your journey.

Even a basic understanding will change the way you approach most things.

By the end of this issue, these principles will help you:

• Achieve greater success

• Build stronger relationships

• Live a life of purpose and meaning

• Make decisions with confidence and verve

• Save time worrying about things that do not matter

Onward.

1. Law of First Principles

Life is full of seemingly complex problems.

If you dig deeper, you will find smaller components interacting with each other.

At the foundation of the problem lies a few fundamental building blocks.

These fundamental blocks can be manipulated to create new, unique solutions.

This is the theory of First Principles Thinking.

Critical thinking helps us identify underlying beliefs and assumptions.

Some of these are not always true and can even be outdated.

First principles allow for solving complex problems from the ground up.

Apply this mental model to see opportunities where others see stress.

2. Pareto Principle

Have you heard of the 80/20 rule?

Where 80% of results come from 20% of your efforts.

That 80% of revenue is created by 20% of customers.

That 80% of revenue is generated from 20% of products.

This rule is known as Pareto Principle.

It is a reminder to focus on the most important and impactful activities.

Apply this principle to consistently maintain forward momentum.

3. Law of Diminishing Returns

Let’s imagine there was a farmer named Carl.

Carl was known for his hard work and determination.

He had a small plot of land where he grew vegetables to sell at the market.

Carl decided to invest in better tools and fertilizer to help increase his yield.

It was a success!

That year he had his biggest returns and he was proud of his decisions.

The following year he decided to double down.

Only to notice that the yield was only marginally better than the previous year.

He was confused.

He consulted his mentor and was given some great words of advice.

The wise old man explained,

“There is a point where increasing input will not proportionally increase output.”

He explained that balance and ingenuity are key to maintaining high yields.

And so, Carl learned about the Law Of Diminishing Returns.

Relentlessly increasing effort only produces results to a certain point.

Utilize this principle to keep your approach fresh and test new inputs.

4. Self-Fulfilling Bias

We all have our own beliefs on various topics.

For instance:

Who will win the Super Bowl tomorrow? (Kansas City, obviously)

Will Rihanna give the best halftime performance ever? (Yes, obviously)

Will the Super Bowl ads this year be the best of all time? (Yes, maybe)

Whether you agree or not doesn’t matter.

What matters is that you have an opinion.

Relying heavily on our preconceived opinions can be dangerous.

If things go as you thought it skews your confidence in your decision-making.

Making you think you are much better than you circumstantially are.

This is what is referred to as a self-fulfilling bias.

Pre-conceived beliefs also heavily influence the actions you take.

Causing a situation to unfold in a way that confirms your bias.

Becoming objective about actions will help avoid delusion.

Be aware of this principle to avoid perpetuating misinformed action.

5. Sunk Cost Fallacy

You start a project,

Your work on it diligently,

Day after day you show up and invest everything to move it forward.

Time passes yet you are not able to see the results you thought possible.

Other opportunities start to arise.

Do you give up your project to pursue other potentially big opportunities?

It depends.

The way you make your decision is more important than the decision itself.

If you decide based on the premise that you have done a lot of work,

Instead of accounting for the potential upside of the new opportunity,

You could be falling victim to the “sunk cost fallacy.”

Basically, persisting in a failing venture, rather than just cutting your losses.

Of course, this is much easier said than done.

To avoid fallacy, the way you evaluate decisions is crucial.

Focus on future potential rather than investments that can not be recovered.

Apply this principle to avoid passing up life-changing opportunities.

In case you skipped till the end. (I do too sometimes)

5 Universal Principles That Guide Your Life:

1. Pareto’s Principle

2. Law of Diminishing Returns

3. First Principles

4. Self-Fulfilling Bias

5. Sunk Cost Fallacy

Some interesting finds from last week:

📖 Read this: Best tools to automate your workflow

📺 Watch this: Great movie on Netflix

🎧 Listen to this: My cousin starred in Rihanna’s Super Bowl promo video

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Until next time, take care.

Carl Hinkson

When in doubt, Chase Growth.