The 51% Rule (and 3 More Strategies to Think Like a Millionaire) with Steven Bartlett

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Use the 51% rule instead of waiting for certainty

  Steven Bartlett recalls Barack Obama telling him, on stage in São Paulo, that he went ahead with the Osama bin Laden raid at roughly 50% certainty. Obama's advice was to get to about 51% on big decisions, decide with peace of mind and let it go, because 100% certainty only exists in hindsight. Mel names this the 51% rule for overthinkers and perfectionists. She stresses that overthinking and not deciding are decisions too, and says waiting for certainty is why she didn't start her podcast for years.

• 02

  Most decisions are reversible 'type two' doors

  Bartlett cites Jeff Bezos's shareholder-letter distinction. Type one decisions are doors you can't walk back through, so take your time. Type two decisions can be undone if you're wrong, so make them as fast as possible. Bartlett says most of what we ruminate over is type two. Mel adds her daughter's line: 'Mom, it's not that deep.'

• 03

  Flip the risk equation: not deciding is the bigger risk

  In marketing, Bartlett pitched the same ideas to a father and son running businesses on the same street. The father took six to nine months, waiting for sign-offs and arguing details. The son interrupted halfway through, called in his team and said 'do this now,' even without a contract. Over five years the son's company overtook the father's and sold. Bartlett's read: the father saw being wrong as the risk; the son saw not deciding as the risk.

• 04

  Make your own happiness the North Star

  When a banker stopped Mel in an airport saying she'd love to teach kids, Bartlett argued that staying is the bigger risk. Spending another decade in banking for 'Sally and Jenny's opinion in the WhatsApp group' puts other people's views above your happiness. He cites palliative nurse Bronnie Ware's finding that the dying regret not living their own lives. He keeps sand timers all over his house as a reminder that his time is running out.

• 05

  Failure is feedback, and feedback is power

  Bartlett's chain: failure is feedback, feedback is knowledge, knowledge is power, so failure is the power you're looking for. People stay 'imprisoned in their current misery' because they won't run the experiment. He says his companies win by out-failing competitors and even have a 'head of experimentation and failure' who tracks experiments weekly.

• 06

  Reason from first principles, not convention

  Convention says couples share a bed. Bartlett's first principles: his girlfriend goes to bed around 9 p.m. and rises at 6, while he goes to bed at 1 or 2 a.m. and wakes around 8 or 9. He cites sleep scientist Matthew Walker, who he says links roughly 10–20% of relationship problems to sleep issues. Since he believes much of his restorative sleep falls between 6 and 9 a.m., they use a spare room on early mornings without insecurity.

• 07

  Most limits are circles we've accepted as real

  Bartlett describes videos of an ant that walks in circles inside a pen line drawn around it. A spider that accidentally crosses the line can never be trapped by the pen again. He believes people operate at about '1% of their potential' because of social myths: you must go to university, quitting is for losers. 'When you push on most doors, there's nothing behind there.'

• 08

  Shrink the first step until it's almost embarrassing

  Drawing on Nir Eyal's view that procrastination is avoiding psychological discomfort, Bartlett breaks big goals into pebbles rather than Mount Everest. At 14 he wet himself on stage giving a talk and ran out. He went back a few days later, shaking too hard to read his notes, and ran out again. He credits small steps like that for eventually speaking in an arena alongside Obama.

• 09

  Boundaries, even with family, can be the kind thing

  Bartlett pays for his parents' food, holidays, health and dental bills, but won't fund his mother's businesses after watching her start about 25 that hurt the family. He kicked his best friend out of his spare room and fired another close friend, crying as he did it. Both, he says, are now hugely successful. Mel's point is that propping people up often spares you the discomfort of saying no and robs them of who they could become.