Unmuted: By Heidi Weir

Tag: inspirational-stories

  • Most of What You Do Doesn’t Matter (And trust me…That’s Good News)

    I’ve decided to highlight Pareto’s Principle in this post — not because it’s new, but because it’s uncomfortable.

    The idea is simple:

    80% of your success comes from 20% of your effort 80% of your results come from 20% of your clients, activities, or decisions

    Simple doesn’t mean easy.

    Because most of us still spend our time trying to make the other 80% work harder.

    Why This Is Worth Repeating (Again and Again)

    If something is responsible for the majority of your results, it deserves the majority of your attention.

    Yet we do the opposite.

    We spread ourselves thin.

    We try to please everyone.

    We chase marginal gains instead of doubling down on what already works.

    And then we wonder why progress feels slow.

    The truth is: focus feels risky.

    But dilution is far riskier.

    Amazon Didn’t Win by Doing More

    One of the clearest real-world examples of the 80/20 rule is Amazon.

    In its early days, Amazon sold everything. But growth didn’t come from trying to push everything equally. It came from recognising patterns.

    A small percentage of products generated most of the revenue.

    A small percentage of customers drove most of the purchases.

    A small percentage of partners created most of the value.

    So they stopped treating everything the same.

    They Prioritized their best-performing products Invested heavily in their most loyal customers Streamlined partnerships to focus on what actually moved the needle Directed marketing spend only where impact was highest

    The result?

    Well… who’s Amazon again? 😉

    The Lesson Most People Miss

    Amazon didn’t grow by working harder.

    They grew by working smarter — and more ruthlessly.

    They didn’t ask:

    “How do we do more?”

    They asked:

    “What actually matters?”

    And then they reorganised everything around the answer.

    What This Means for the Rest of Us

    You don’t need to be Amazon to think like Amazon.

    You just need to be willing to:

    Identify the top 20% of people, actions, or opportunities that drive your results Stop giving equal energy to things that don’t earn it Invest more deeply where there’s already traction

    That might mean:

    Spending more time with your highest-impact relationships Revisiting opportunities you’ve already started instead of chasing new ones Doubling down on what’s proven instead of experimenting endlessly Being more protective of your time and attention

    Focus isn’t about doing less.

    It’s about doing less of what doesn’t matter.

  • What would you do today if you knew you couldn’t fail?

    Today, I want to challenge you to reflect — really reflect — on how you review your own performance. After each call, day, week, month, or quarter… do you have a process?

    Every top performer in every industry has one thing in common: they fail. Then they fail again. And again.

    But most of us still attach negativity to that word: fail.

    Let’s flip that.

    F.A.I.L. = First Attempt In Learning.

    Things go wrong. Mistakes are inevitable. But the real difference is in how you respond.

    Think about it — we were all once babies. We couldn’t sit up, talk, or walk. And no one expects a toddler to get it right the first time. Falls happen (and have to happen) before a toddler actually toddles!

    Sure, parents can be in a rush to hit milestones. They’re competitive creatures — and trust me, I hated that part of parenthood…. other mums! They had a always have a knack of making you feel inadequate:

    “Mine walked at four months!” 🙄

    “Mine was talking at two months!” 🙄

    (As if!)

    Anyway — I digress. But let me ask you this:

    Did you ever once doubt that your child — or you — would eventually walk, talk, and grow into an adult?

    I’ve yet to see a town full of middle-aged people crawling around in nappies — Basildon aside (sorry Basildon, but who doesn’t love a good Essex joke?).

    The point is this: those early falls were critical. Each one taught us something new.

    Literally then — and metaphorically now.

    We need to carry that mindset into everything we do.

    Fail = Learn. And if you fail enough times, success becomes inevitable.

    Look at Alan Sugar, Duncan Bannatyne, Peter Jones, Richard Branson, Elon Musk… They all failed — often spectacularly — before they succeeded. James Dyson created 5,126 failed prototypes before building the one (number 5,127!) that became the bestselling vacuum cleaner of all time.

    He once said:

    “You never learn from success, but you do learn from failure.”

    But here’s the catch: you only learn if you take time to reflect.

    So, ask yourself:

    What did I do well today? What could I have done better? What else could I have done to be more productive?

    Start asking those questions — daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly.

    Self-review is vital for growth.

    So I’ll ask you again:

    What would you do today if you knew you couldn’t fail?

    Don’t wait. Go do it.

    Realign your thinking — because failure isn’t the opposite of success.

    It’s the path to it.

  • You may just be Three Feet from Gold

    You may have noticed that my tagline for this blog is; YOU MAY JUST BE 3 FEET FROM GOLD’. So I thought my 1st post should be a ‘nod’ to that.

    When deciding on what to name my Blog and it’s tag; there was one book that came to mind; it was called ‘Think and Grow Rich’ and the writer tells a story about a guy called Darby back in the 1800’s. He came across gold ore in Colorado; with determination, support and investment; he secured financing for mining machinery to maximise the opportunity believing that he had one of the world’s richest mines. 

    Initially, things went well. The first remnants of gold discovered were shipped to a smelter and the returns provided proof that he was potentially right… a few more gold discoveries like the first would clear Darby of all his debt and leave him very rich so drilling obviously continued.

    Then the unbelievable happened. The gold ore they had been successfully drilling just disappeared….but confident that he would find more gold; Darby continued to drill, day after day, with no luck.

    Every day of drilling drove him deeper into debt until finally, he decided the only sensible thing to do was to QUIT! He sold the drilling machinery to a nearby junkman and returned home.

    Before breaking down and selling the machinery, the junkman hired a mining engineer for an expert opinion as he wasn’t convinced that the gold had run dry. The engineer’s findings showed that it was very likely that the true vein of gold ore that Darby had been seeking, was likely around three feet from where they had stopped drilling!

    The junkman decided to continue drilling and that is exactly where the gold was found! The biggest Goldmine in Colorado… The junkman made millions.

    DARBY STOPPED WHEN HE WAS JUST THREE FEET AWAY!

    Darby eventually became a millionaire later in life and attributes his tenacity and persistence to his learnings from this event.

    So my questions for you to reflect upon are:

    • What are you about to give up on?
    • Have you sought expert advice?
    • Are you stopping 3 feet from GOLD?