Welcome to the Psychology of Shortcuts

Don't kid yourself into thinking that life is all that different. We began this topic referring to the people in the top 20%, and the top 20% of the top 20%, and so on.  Again and again we see the influence of Pareto's Principle, which states clearly that 80% of all results come from 20% of all efforts.   Let's break that down into a few smaller pieces, and combine it to what we've covered so far so that YOU can make use of it quickly.
 
You might start with a simple tracking exercise: Take 3 pieces of paper, one for each of the next three days.   On it, list 24 separate hours, and as each waking hour goes by, write down exactly what you did for that hour, and whether you did it with low effort, medium effort, or superstar effort. Three days only.
 
At the end of the three days most people are astounded to see how many, many minutes they waste each and every day on minor activities and conversations.
 
The first step in effective time management is to see how many minutes and hours are thoroughly wasted each week, then trade at least some of those frittered minutes and hours away for better minutes. One huge chunk is generally found just on useless conversations with people that have nothing to do with reaching your long-term, mid-term, and short-term goals. Invest more of those minutes writing down a list of people and organizations who MIGHT be able to help you get what you want.
 
Believe it or not, fully 80% of your time is absurdly underused. Creating a three-day written accounting of your time will prove this to you, and provide a little push in a smarter direction --- using your time more intelligently, for more benefit to you and to others.
 
Roughly 80% of all the times you ask for something, you only ask once. Without a doubt, this is the the single greatest mistake of your life, because ASKING is beyond question the single greatest power available to you from birth to death in achieving and/or attaining absolutely anything and everything a human desires. ASK MORE, dummy!
 
Think about it: 80% of the time, birth to death, you only ask once. What a foolish waste. That's why you don't hear the word "YES" far more often. When you stop asking just because you've heard "NO," you're depriving yourself of so much more than you apparently realize; truly a life-depriving waste of your single greatest resource, the resource of simply asking. The truth and proof of this is literally multiplied when we clearmindedly examine the fact that 80% of all the 'yesses' you hear in this life are purely and exclusively because you asked considerably more than once.
 
It can be compared to a typical telemarketer who might ask for the sale one time, hear the negative response, and then hang up and go to the next one.
When you stop and think how many times the telemarketer has to dial that phone just to get one decision maker on the line, it's crazy to let go without giving their best shot, by asking two, three, four, five, even six and seven times. The undeniable fact is:
From birth to death, 80% of all the times we hear "YES," it is only and exclusively because we have asked six or seven times. You can like it, you can dislike it; this fact hasn't changed in thousands of years, and it's not likely to change for you. Should you use enough PowerGems to learn how to get every other person to say yes to you, great. For the purposes of this exercise in creating new millionaires, you do not need to be a great persuader... only a persistent one.
 
You must learn to ask more times, so that the 20% of your efforts that produce... will produce more.
 
You see, if you're asking someone for something, and that person is in a position to say yes, their use of the word "No," does not actually mean "NO!" It means, "NOT YET."      That's right; it only means that you have not given them sufficient reason to say yes.
 
 
Ask again.   And again...  ... and again.  It works.