The Science of Self Talk: How to Increase Your Emotional Intelligence and Stop Getting in Your Own Way (Master Your Self Discipline Book 5)

by Ian Tuhovsky

The thing that the Matthew effect or the Pareto distribution shows us is that things naturally take an unequal shape. They naturally tend to asymmetry. And that asymmetry appears because of momentum. So, as psychologist Jordan Peterson emphasizes in his talks, if you make an effort to improve yourself just a little bit every day, every improvement will build on the previous one. That will become the basis for the next improvement, until it becomes exponentially easier. It will have a runaway parabolic effect. “For to everyone who has, more shall be given.” This doesn’t happen by all at once. You don’t jump from the 80% to the 20%. Instead, you accumulate before you climb. I said you accumulate, and, in a certain sense, that accumulation is gradual, but it’s effects will be largely invisible until suddenly they’re not. That can be seen from the shape of the Pareto distribution in the image above. There’s a very small, gradual rise, so gradual that you might not even notice it, like watching a plant grow. Then growth takes off dramatically.

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