Richard Koch on Unreasonable Success (and how to achieve it), and more

Richard John Koch is a British author, speaker, investor, former management consultant, and entrepreneur. He has written more than 20 books on business and ideas including The 80/20 Principle which discussed applying the Pareto principle in management and life.

In this episode we talk about his upcoming book "Unreasonable Success: (and how to achieve it)". 

Unreasonable Success is a phrase coined by Richard to signify such success for an individual to change the world seems unreasonable for one person, for them to have so much impact. 

Unreasonable success also has three other characteristics – it is unexpected, it goes well beyond what the individual’s skills and performance seem to warrant, and it is success based largely on intuition rather than on logic and reason.  The mystery of unreasonable success is that it seems to be, at least in some sense, undeserved and inexplicable.  Why do unreasonably successful people such as Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, or Boris Johnson, or in other spheres such figures as Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Bob Dylan, J. K. Rowling, or Madonna, have such unreasonable success when many of their peers who appear to have greater talent or competence do not make such a mark on the world?

Richard believes he has found the silver bullet.  By observing twenty unreasonably successful people, he has constructed a ‘map’ of nine landmarks common to them all.  By some hidden instinct or sheer luck, the individuals adopted attitudes or strategies that worked amazingly well.  One of the landmarks, for example, is a ‘transforming experience’ which made the individuals almost infinitely more powerful.

In this podcast, in addition to a informal conversation, we discuss the definition of "Unreasonable Success" and key factors which lead to it.