From Beginner to Top 5%: How 17 Minutes a Day Can Transform Your Life
This episode is a deep dive into the “Rule of 100,” a powerful concept that could significantly up your skills game. Imagine investing just 17 minutes a day into learning something new, and before you know it, you’re outperforming 95% of people worldwide in that skill. Intrigued? We’re here to explain how dedicating a mere 100 hours a year or about 17 minutes daily can propel you into the top tier of virtually any discipline, from languages to coding to fitness. We draw on insights from thought leaders like Cal Newport and Tim Ferriss, and touches on Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000-hour rule, all leading us back to the rule of 100 and its potential to revolutionize how we approach mastery and personal development. Grab a seat, and let’s dissect the nuances of this rule, figuring out how we often underestimate what we can accomplish in a year and how a systematic effort, 100 reps at a time, can lead to an easy life through hard choices. Ready to become part of the top 5%? Let’s begin.
Enjoy the episode!
if you spent just 100 hours a year
In just a few years, you will be the most interesting person in the world.
SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE
21: Side Effects Of Your Goals
87| Top 3 Things To Stop Doing
Episode Transcriptions
Show notes and transcripts powered with the help of Castmagic. Episode Transcriptions Unedited, Auto-Generated.
Tyson Gaylord [00:00:04]:Welcome to the Social Community Show. We’re talking about how you learn, grow, and transform when you wanna become. Today, we’re talking about the rule of 100. Take 17 minutes a day to be in the top 5% of anything. Sounds crazy? Because it is. Let’s talk about it. The law of 100 is a concept that encourages individuals to focus on the process rather than immediate results. It emphasizes the importance of compelling of comp completing the first 100 iterations of a task or project or whatever.
Tyson Gaylord [00:00:35]:We’ll talk about different things without worrying about perfection. Not to say sacrificing quality, though. Right? But by prioritizing quantity over quality initially, the law of 100 promotes continuous improvement through experimentation, learning from mistakes, and gradual refinement. This approach is beneficial for anyone seeking to master a new skill, launch a project, or achieve personal growth. The idea is that if you spend just 100 hours a year, roughly 17 minutes or 16.5 minutes a day on any given skill, whether playing guitar, practicing a sport, learning a new skill or language, you could surpass 95% of the world. That’s just 4.6 days a year or 0.05 weeks a year. You’re gonna be in the top 5%. Think about let’s think about that.
Tyson Gaylord [00:01:26]:Oh, that’s not a lot. Right? Now so imagine devoting 17 minutes a day for 1 year to what’s your favorite sport or a new sport you wanna learn, to self defense, jujitsu, or anything like that over the next year. And then and then the year after that, learn a new language. In just a few short years, you’ll be the most interesting person in the world. Imagine how many skills in 10 years you could you could achieve. You just did 17 minutes a day for a year. You focus on one thing. In 10 years, you’d have 10 new unique skills, not to mention the compounding effects of of a person that knows, you know, Spanish and jujitsu and coding and whatever other you know, 8 other things you choose, you’re gonna be a very unique person that has a unique skill.
Tyson Gaylord [00:02:20]:Cal Newport talks about that similar concept in his book, so good they can’t annoy you. Tim Ferris, I believe, also speaks about the thing. You know? There’s not a lot of people that are lawyers that speak Spanish and then can write code. Like, those somebody that does all three of those thing, they’re not many of them. Right? So you easily put yourself in the top 5% of the world. Think Think about what you can do. Right? How about devoting that time or another 17 minutes, right, to your career, learning new skill, reading books, or anything out or anything that you could possibly do to advance yourself and put yourself in a better financial position to to progress to where you want to go or to level new levels you never thought of. So imagine if you did 17 minutes in the morning and 17 minutes in the evening.
Tyson Gaylord [00:03:08]:How much maybe this is not this has to be about how much more you can get done. This is not the point of that. But, however, if you could take, you know, 17 minutes in the morning and do let’s just say, you’re trying to get better. You’re trying to learn coding. Right? So you take 17 minutes in the morning before you go to your your regular job. You you do your coding activity. You come home at night. You do another coding activity.
Tyson Gaylord [00:03:32]:Right? You can compress these windows. Like I said, it’s the point of this is not to blithe blaze through things, but you could get yourself to new heights in a relatively quick manner. And think about that. Right? So you get up. So get up, whatever, 20 minutes earlier than you normally do. Right? Go ahead. Get warmed up. Get in your thing.
Tyson Gaylord [00:03:54]:Spend that 17 minutes doing that thing, and then go by the rest of your day. And then maybe come home before you do whatever, before you, you know, you watch Netflix or before you, you know, you turn on the game or something like that or whatever. You do another 17 minutes. It’s not a lot. Right? Thinking about this, these small incremental pieces, you’ll be quickly become in the top 5% of it. Like I said, this is not about speed and hacking and getting this getting you to some superhuman thing in fucking 17 weeks. No. It’s not about that.
Tyson Gaylord [00:04:22]:But I want the thought in our heads about what we can really achieve. Right? We as humans, we grossly underestimate what we can accomplish in a year. Right? So if you did this for a year, let’s just say you stack this in the morning and the evening. Right? You can bang out 200 hours. Now there is a concept, Malcolm Gladwell talks about in his book, outliers, the 10000 hour rule. Now I think this has been widely abused and ever. But the the idea is is when you when you look at masters and look at people that are the top one percent of their craft, they’ve spent about 10000 hours of deliberate practice. That’s the key.
Tyson Gaylord [00:05:03]:Right? Deliberate practice doing these things to become the master. So how how much less time could you compress things if you if you just didn’t get overwhelmed by why, you know, now I gotta spend an hour doing this, and I gotta spend this. I have a full time job. I have a family. I have this. Right? So you start getting overwhelmed with these things, but, like, well, I’ll start Monday or I’ll start next week, and then, you know, well, I’m busy. I got projects at work or whatever. And, oh, you know, the kids are this.
Tyson Gaylord [00:05:30]:And so then all of a sudden, we start, you know, thinking this takes so much time, we start pushing these things out. Right? But I’m here to tell you that listen. 70 minutes a day, that gets you a 100 hours a year. That’s all we had to do. Right? How much more progress are you gonna make towards that 10000 hours to mastery? Right? Maybe you don’t get to mastery, but in a year, you’re gonna be better than 95% of the world. And that is a huge change in your life. Right? It’s a huge game changer in your career. It’s a huge game changer in the things you wanna accomplish and the things you wanna do.
Tyson Gaylord [00:06:08]:Right? If you wanna get in shape, you know, there is actual research and studies of that or whatever, that it doesn’t take an hour of a workout. Right? You can get in into any space. In your hotel room, in your home, you don’t have anything, whether you go to the gym or you don’t go to the gym. Right? You can knock out some push ups. You can knock out some squats. Right? You can get on you can grab a kettlebell. This doesn’t take a lot of effort to become the top 5%. Right? This is very interesting when we start to think about these things.
Tyson Gaylord [00:06:35]:And we’ll go we’re gonna go into some different things about this and broaden the idea of this a little bit. Okay? This is very it’s very fascinating. When I came across this, I was like, now I gotta share this with you guys. At least this is a a great concept. I’ve heard this a lot of times in different things. When I heard it broken down into minutes like this, I was very intrigued, and I started diving into it. That’s where we are today. This concept can be applied to anything you wanna do to improve your life or improve your situation, your finances, your career, yourself, anything and everything you can think of.
Tyson Gaylord [00:07:06]:The law of 100 encourages individuals to commit to their craft by completing the first 100 iterations without fixating on perfection. And I think that’s where a lot of us get bogged down. Let me tell you right now, I am captain bogged down by perfection. Captain bogged down by I just need a little bit more information if I just knew a little bit more. And this is a good reminder of let’s just get through a 100 things. Let’s just get through iterations. Let’s let’s just do these things in a manner that doesn’t sacrifice quality. Right? But it also doesn’t get weighed down by perfectionism.
Tyson Gaylord [00:07:40]:K? This is a good concept. I think it’s good to practice. And it’s good I think it’s a good thing to know as well when you’re when you’re counting these things down in a way. You’re like, because I’m on day 5. You know? I think you can little let a little bit of pressure off. Like, you can really, you know, understand and treat yourself as like, I’m a beginner on day 5. You know? And then we get to the 100. Like, I’ve only done this a 100 times.
Tyson Gaylord [00:08:04]:And you look back and go, man, I’m pretty good now, though, but I’ve only done this a 100 times. I’m gonna I’m gonna 0 in on perfection by de facto of repetition. Right? So I think it’s a nice way also to lessen the pressure off of ourselves. Right? So by embracing quantity over quality initially, the methodology fosters continuous improvement through experimentation, learning from mistakes, and gradual refinement. Right? This is what we’re talking about here. Here’s some here’s some concepts we can think about in this, not just in the factor of of minutes, maybe. Right? So in behavioral change, right, rule of a 100, might suggest committing to put to your action or habit 100 times, you know, to increase you know, significantly increase the likelihood of it becoming a lasting habit. There’s some great things out there.
Tyson Gaylord [00:08:49]:Tiny Habits and Atomic Habits, those are 2 books. They definitely are in line with this thought process. Right? How about how about in your business or, in in in a company work for your marketing. Right? How about we did we’ll just we could try this idea. So this could rule could relate to the idea of sampling or reaching out to 100 customers to gauge the reaction to a product or campaign effectively. In the in the book, The Ultimate Sales Machine, they talk about your 100 dream customers. In in the line of YouTube, mister Beast talks about making at least 100 videos and improving just a little each time. He says, if you’re not doing a 100 videos, you’re not even serious.
Tyson Gaylord [00:09:24]:So you get to your 100 video. We’re on episode 96. So, you know, I’m trying to get a little serious here. It’s been a few years, but that’s okay. It’s right. Every, you know, every week, every month, we just keep keep plugging along with this. In the $1,000,000 Weekend by Noah Kagan, of, AppSumo. If you’re familiar with that company, I’ll link to these different resources for you guys to investigate further.
Tyson Gaylord [00:09:44]:He refers to the to the principle that encourages individuals to seek 100 rejections in order to find success. He believes that actively pursuing rejection can overcome the fear of failure and ultimately find the new the few yeses that lead to success. He’s famous for, promoting idea of of the coffee challenge. So this is what I also want you guys to do. Embrace this concept. Right? Next time you go get a cup of coffee, you go get lunch, you anything. You’re gonna you’re you’re you’re you’re there and you’re making a transaction. I want you to ask for a discount.
Tyson Gaylord [00:10:16]:At first, it’s gonna be scary. K? Here’s a little maybe a little bit of a trick, a little bit of hack to that. If you use the word because, no matter what comes after because, the person that’s hearing this is is compelled in a way. There’s something that triggers in our brain that’s just like, oh, okay. You gave a reason. Therefore, I’ll do it. So if you’re like, hey. You know, can I get can I get 10% discount on my cup of coffee? Because you’re an amazing barista.
Tyson Gaylord [00:10:41]:Just it has nothing to do with that that that if you stop to think about that for 10 seconds, it doesn’t even make any sense to anything. But we when you use the word because, it will help, you know, compel that person to to fulfill your request. So try that if you’re a little scared as a add a little because and just because anything at the end of it. Think of something nice. Think of something polite. You know? I would try to focus on the other person that that’s you’re asking asking this about. That’s a little hack. But do this.
Tyson Gaylord [00:11:07]:This is what he talks this is what Noah’s talking about. Right? 100 rejections. So you’re gonna go out there. He tells a story in the book about his father was a copy salesman, and he go to business to business. No. No. No. And he’s it was what his dad is.
Tyson Gaylord [00:11:19]:Dude, what dad, what what is going on? And he’s like, you everybody just says no to you. He’s like, good. Good. Alright. That’s that’s what I’m here for. I know eventually I’m gonna get a yes. Right? So this is the this is that concept. Right? This is a powerful rule of 100.
Tyson Gaylord [00:11:31]:Right? There’s so many things we can go through. How about in project management here? Setting a list of milestone of 100 steps, tasks, or hours dedicated to a project to assess to assess the progress and adjust the project trajectories early on. Right? How much more, maybe time, money, things could we say if we had these milestones. Right? Like, we’re gonna do a 100 things and we’re gonna reevaluate. Something we can consider. Like, we’re talking about learning learning skills and acquisition. Right? Practicing skill or learning content for 100 hours to achieve at least basic competence. Right? And like I said, this is, I think, a way a fun way to, like, step off the hook a little bit and bring down that pressure, bring down the temperature of these things.
Tyson Gaylord [00:12:12]:I know people we can get overwhelmed with these things. We pile on, you know, 47 New Year’s resolutions, and we don’t know where to start, and we can’t figure it out. This is the way to just take one of those top priorities. I’m a do this a 100 times. I’m gonna add I’m a do this a 100 for a 100 hours. I’m a do this whatever, a 100. Use that as a base smart benchmark. Right? Robert Kiyosaki talk talks about this in, I don’t know if it’s in Rich Dad Poor Dad or or just in general, but he’s he talks about looking at 100 properties before making a a decision.
Tyson Gaylord [00:12:38]:Interesting how this number 100 keeps coming up quite often in in a lot of different things. You’re gonna start seeing this now when you’re when you’re interacting with life. You’re gonna start seeing these 100 kind of things start popping up. K? How about creating a 100 small things? Maybe try it in a 100 days. You know, those are fun little challenges we can do. Right? One little tiny thing I’m gonna create today. I’m gonna ping a little thing. I’m gonna draw a little thing.
Tyson Gaylord [00:12:59]:Whatever you’re into, I’ll make a little wood thing today. I’m gonna make I’m a, you know, I’m a I’m a write a little bit on a code, you know, and I’m a do that for a 100 days. Whatever you wanna do. Or you should do it a 100 times. Whatever you feel like, you know, is the thing. Or how about, committing to fixing a 100 bugs or defects in your product or code or whatever it is before adding any new features to to build stability and reliability of your software product. How about to build a reputation and customer loyalty, a company could aim to achieve a 100 positive customer interactions or resolve a 100 customer complaints and, you know, satisfactorily. How much of an impact could that make in your business if you reached out to a 100 customer? I tell this to a lot of my clients that are starting off.
Tyson Gaylord [00:13:42]:You know, especially this your first 100 people, these are the people you can get in. You have the time. You have the ability to to email them, to call them, to get on a hold of them, go to coffee, and talk to these people. If you’re familiar with the story of Airbnb, it’s a great example of this. When they were they first started out and they were trying to get traction, they were trying to figure out, you know, how to get this going, they went to each and every one of their, their host, their I think it was their their high volume hosts. And they were like, what are they doing? They came to this guy. He had a binder of all the things. He had ideas.
Tyson Gaylord [00:14:13]:And a lot of that stuff, they implemented and they still use to this day. They send out professional photographers. They do all these different things. They have checklists and all these different things. That only came about because they took the time, and they went out, and they saw their first 100 customers. And they came across a guy with this binding and have all kind of ideas. And that was part of the road map to the success that they want them having. Very interesting concept.
Tyson Gaylord [00:14:34]:Right? So imagine now you talk to to 100 people. Imagine if you talked and you made sure you satisfactorily resolve a 100 customer complaints. I’m not saying they have to be right necessarily, but can you come to some type of agreement? Right? Can you come to some type of satisfaction with these people? Word-of-mouth is a powerful driver of revenue. McKinsey Consulting estimated somewhere between 20 50% of all sales are directly because of word-of-mouth. How much more leads can you be generating? How much more sales can you can you be doing? How much more bookings can you get if you’ve got a 100 satisfied customers? You know? This also leads into the idea of Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 true fans. Right? And that says, you know, we don’t need these giant audiences and other things. You really think about it. If you got a 1,000 customers, if you got a 1,000 clients, if you got a 1,000 whatever it is that you’re into, you got a 1000 people that are into your band, a 1000 people that are into your music, you can make a freaking really good living on that money.
Tyson Gaylord [00:15:34]:Right? So think about that. You got a 1000 people every month paying you 29.95. Right? You got a 1000 new people every every month, you know, downloading your CD for $7. That’s a lot of that. That’s a lot of money. Right? You know, maybe you’re doing this on the side. So these are these little things that these patterns show up in in nature. Right? These patterns show up in in our lives.
Tyson Gaylord [00:15:52]:There’s a lot of things that that do. This is why this number seems to come up a lot in different things. Right? You can set a rule to save 100 times a year. That’s a 3rd of the year. Right? Regardless of the amount to foster a habit of saving and financial planning. You know, the average American doesn’t have $500 for, you know, a car repair or an emergency to come up. So imagine if you just did a 100 times in a year. You know, there’s 52 weeks a year, you know.
Tyson Gaylord [00:16:19]:So if you did at least once a week, okay, that’s 50 times. You know, and if you sprinkle in a couple times here and there, you know, you throw a dollar in a jar. You know, Robert Kiyosaki also talks about that. Right? You got a jar. You put a dollar in the jar. You put a quarter in the jar. You put whatever. Put a penny in there.
Tyson Gaylord [00:16:32]:I mean, I know. Hey. So everybody has different situations, but, you know, can you put can you get a jar and throw a penny in there, you know, every week, twice a week. You know? Maybe one time you throw a quarter in there. Next thing you know, you’re gonna have a pretty decent sized jar. Change. You know? Just it’s fostering these habits. Right? Habits drive our life.
Tyson Gaylord [00:16:51]:We everything we do is habitual. Right? Everything you do all day long is habitual. So all these different things. And you have these rules and you have these, these frameworks, you know, these strategies. You build a solid foundation, you can build a beautiful house on top of that. Right? You don’t have a good foundation, your building’s not gonna stand. Right? You’re not gonna be able to stand on 2 footing. I got a bunch of other things just to spark ideas.
Tyson Gaylord [00:17:15]:Maybe this is your industry or whatever. I’m gonna put them in the show notes for you guys. I want you guys to go in there. Check these out. Here’s a couple of things. Right? Mental health and mindfulness. Commit to a 100 sessions of mindfulness and meditation. Network approved personal growth.
Tyson Gaylord [00:17:28]:Challenge yourself to meet a 100 people. Right? Cook a 100 meals. Read a 100 books. Do a 100 consecutive days of fitness. There’s a whole I got a whole big list of this. Me and my cowriter, Chatchi Bitti, came up with. But this is some great stuff. This is just to spark ideas for you guys.
Tyson Gaylord [00:17:44]:I want you to think about this. I think it’s a very simple. I hate to use the word hack, but it definitely could be kind of a bit of a hack where you can finally kinda get some things done that’s been on your list and then the things you wanna do. Look at your back at your your goals, your news resolutions, things the things that are keep keep getting pushed every year. I’m gonna put this on my list again. Put this on my list again. Hey. Let’s do a 100 let’s do this for a 100 days.
Tyson Gaylord [00:18:07]:Right? Let’s start doing these things. There’s a great website that came out of the book, Mendel Wiegand from Noah Hagen. He talks about the law of 100. One of the readers went out and made this awesome website. It’s called law of 100.com, and it’s it’s already built for you to check off each day for completing your 100, whatever your 100 is. Right? Whether it’s a 100 days, whether it’s a 100 minutes, 100 hours, whatever it is you’re doing, whatever 100 you’re doing. I will link to James Clear’s blog. He’s the author of the Atomic Habits.
Tyson Gaylord [00:18:37]:This is one of the best selling books on the topic. He goes over not necessarily you might you might not necessarily find the rule of a 100, but you’re gonna find you’re gonna find the concepts in there. Right? Different things to help you with your habits, to help you through with your 100. Zen habits is also another great thing. It focuses on simplicity and mindfulness in daily life, providing actionable advice that can help implement long term habits akin to the rule of 100. Tiny habits, also one of those, seminal books in the space of habits, by BJ Fogg, where he teaches you how to create, tiny habits for life changing events. This is on this concept. This this maps perfectly to the rule of 100.
Tyson Gaylord [00:19:14]:Like I said, some books, Atomic Habits. This book is a comprehensive guide on how tiny habits can lead to a remarkable result, which is much much in line with the rule of 100. Tiny habits, same concept. You know, they come at this from a little different. James Clear, and, BJ Fogg is a professor at Stanford. They come at this from a little bit different angles, but you’re gonna see the base level rules are the same. You know? It’s they they have similar methodologies. That’s what it comes up.
Tyson Gaylord [00:19:41]:Sometimes people resonate more with atomic habits. Some people resonate a little bit more with tiny habits. Whatever works for you. Out of Power Habit is a good one. Outliers, The Sur of Success by Malcolm Gable. This is a fantastic book. I know I’ve recommended this book on the show many times because it is a it is a foundational book. The liberal practice.
Tyson Gaylord [00:20:00]:This goes into that. This this makes you understand why and how Michael Jordan is who he was, how Kobe Bryant is who he was, how the top people in the world are who they are. How the the the 5% that we are gonna get into, right, that we’re that we’re in, right, that we’re headed towards. Right? How you can be the 1% of that 5%. That’s where deliberate practice goes into the things. That’s where the 10,000 hour rule comes in. I highly recommend reading this. Deep Work by Cal Newport.
Tyson Gaylord [00:20:29]:This is a fantastic resource, sir. Focus on the benefits of focus and uninterrupted work, which can be structured around achieving 100 iterations or units of deep work sessions or whatever. Learning the concepts in deep work to be able to have focus on on empty work is gonna allow you to do these 100 iterations, to allow you to do your rule of 100. Whatever you whatever whatever version you’re gonna do with it. It’s a 100 hours, a 100 events, a 100 tasks. Right? And we talked about $1,000 a week, buying a milk. It’s a great book. If you’re looking to start something, you’re thinking about something to do on the side, This book is perfect for that.
Tyson Gaylord [00:21:08]:His message is don’t quit your job. Don’t burn the bridges. They’re very different. Look, Get something on the side. Maybe it just stays your side thing. That’s okay. And we’re not all built to be entrepreneurs. We’re not all built to do these things.
Tyson Gaylord [00:21:19]:And that’s okay. And his book really gives you permission to build something on the side, whether it becomes your your main gig or not. The life skills in here too, the sales skills, and all the different skills in here, you can learn this book. It’s a fabulous book. I would highly recommend it. And then, of course, this week’s challenge, choose a simple action. What do you want to achieve? What do you want to be world class at? What will make you legendary? Set that up. Now set a target.
Tyson Gaylord [00:21:51]:Based on what we went over, choose your 100. Hours, days, iterations, choose your 100. And I want you to track your progress every day. Check that off. Get a checklist. Get a notebook. Use the law of 100 website. Use an app on your phone or something like that.
Tyson Gaylord [00:22:06]:Keep track of your progress. K? Doesn’t have to be fancy. Doesn’t have to be crazy. You can just get a calendar, a regular old old school calendar, and you mark x x. If you miss a day, don’t beat yourself up. Just never miss twice. Okay? Now then I want you to reflect on the experience. Right? At the end of the 100, reflect on the how the challenge went.
Tyson Gaylord [00:22:29]:Did you find it easier than expected? What did the in what did the repetitive action have on your mood, productivity, or and or your habits? I want you to explore that. And then I want you to share your results. This is where this can get powerful when you can inspire others. Right? Share your experience on social media, text or email a friend or colleague. You can even tag us on social media and share how things are going, what results you got, and how we can inspire others. Let’s create a community to inspire others to take this challenge. I’ll leave you guys with this. It’s simple, not easy, and you can do it.
Tyson Gaylord [00:23:04]:Remember, hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life. Enter in the top 5% 100 reps at a time. Let’s get that. Okay? Hey. Listen. If you enjoyed this episode, you wanna get friends, you wanna team up with people, you guys wanna get a little group going, share this with them, get them on the concept of of the law the rule of 100, get moving there. You can connect with us in between shows, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, your favorite podcast app, however you wanna consume this, you guys know what to do.
Tyson Gaylord [00:23:33]:For past episodes and links to everything we discussed here today, you can head over to the social community. Show. Until next time, keep learning, growing, and transforming to the person you wanna become.