The 51/49 Principle: Why Giving More Changes Everything

What if the key to stronger relationships and greater success is simply giving more than you take?

In this episode of On the Shoulders of Giants, Jeff Wells shares a personal story that brings the 51/49 Principle to life. Through a mentoring relationship, he illustrates why adding value isn't about keeping score—it's about adopting a mindset that looks for opportunities to contribute in every interaction.

Whether in business or in life, you'll learn why consistently seeking to give more than you receive builds trust, strengthens relationships, and creates opportunities that transactional thinking never will.

What got your revenue here won’t get it where it needs to go next. On the Shoulders of Giants is the podcast from High Achiever
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Hosted by Jeff Wells, each episode explores the leadership principles, operating systems, and decision-making frameworks behind scalable, sustainable performance.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

There might be a little dust on the bottle, but don't be fooled because what's inside is wisdom. I'm Jeff Wells, and this is on the shoulders of giants. First principles. I want to take a few minutes here to share with you a specific first principle we call 5149, the mindset of value. It's a simple principle to comprehend, yet one of the more challenging to execute because in some cases it presses against our very nature. When executed, however, it might be the single most important guidepost principle we teach. The principle of 5149 says this. Let me say it again. You will be rewarded in direct proportion to the amount of value you add in the marketplace. You see, we know that as people, we are inherently consumers, and our natural bent is to receive. This shows up in the workplace today in all the expectations that we have of our companies to provide for us. Entitlement is no longer an exception in the workforce. And counter to what you might hear on social media, entitlement is not isolated to one generation. It's multi-generational. Now, entitlement will come and go based on seasons. In a good economy where people are not opportunity constrained and employers are competing for talent, entitlement is exasperated and runs rampant. However, when the economy turns and people are opportunity constrained, gratefulness for opportunities becomes more prevalent and entitlement is subdued. 5149 reframes our mindset by recognizing and embracing the principle of value and helps us reinforce the mindset of gratefulness and contribution, regardless of the circumstances around us. The truth is that the path to all of the rewards we desire will never come as a result of our companies or our profession delivering them to us. They will only come based on our ability to add massive value into the marketplace. And in return, we will receive the rewards that are commensurate with the value we add. The anchor of 5149 serves to remind us that in any of our interactions, personal or professional, we strive to give more than we take, giving at least 51% and only consuming 49%. As we leverage and internalize this guidepost principle, over time we form a foundational belief that is focused on finding ways to add more value. Ultimately, this foundational belief eventually becomes habitual and begins to naturally inform the way we behave. There's a practical application of this we use for business. We call it looking for seams. Let me share a quick story here to help us internalize the concept. One evening, my son Josh, who was 16 at the time, was playing a high school football scrimmage. He was playing running back, and we jumped in the car after practice to head home for dinner. I could tell he was dejected, and I knew he didn't look great in practice, but I also knew not to bring up the subject at that point. We got halfway home and he blurted out that sucked. Calmly, I asked what sucked about it. His response was, I can't get the line to block. It's frustrating when they won't do their job. I paused and thought about the words coming out of his mouth. It was unlike him to blame others for his lack of success. So I knew he was frustrated. After a little while, I asked a pointed question. Josh, what's your job as the running back? His answer was to gain yardage. And what's preventing you from gaining yardage? The line not blocking, he said. I responded with, I think you need to reconsider what your job as a running back is. Your primary job is to find the seam. And in finding the seam, you can't help but gain yardage. Now, for those who may not know what a seam is, it's a hole between the defenders that you're looking to run through. I said to Josh, of course, you hope your offensive line can help create one, but your ability to find the seam is what you get rewarded for. It's not their ability to block that a great running back is dependent on. You have to find the seam, and by the way, there are always seams somewhere. The only limit is your ability to see them and respond to them by getting through them fast enough. Marginal running backs are dependent on the line to open the seam. Great running backs create or find the seams. The conversation with Josh made me begin to think more deeply about the applicability of this idea within our business lives. Think of finding the seam as a place that you can add value. You see, marginal performers wait for the company to show them the seam. High achievers create or find the seams regardless of what the company or others around them do. Now, if that's true, then our pursuit of high in our pursuit of high achievement, it would make sense for us to be looking for seams as part of the way that we operate day to day. Why? Because that's what high achievers do. They're constantly looking for ways to add value. Your ability to find a seam comes down to two simple actions of being attentive and responsive. Now, attentive means paying attention and proactively looking for places and ways to add value. These seams are often simple observations that you have around a problem that you can see because you're close to the business and paying attention to looking for ways to add incremental value. Being responsive means being courageous enough to run through the seam, meaning taking action to solve or contribute to the solving of a meaningful problem that you observe. This is often framed in a point of view that synthesizes the problem statement and offers a potential solution. Let me help you understand the principle in action here. Jim Roden would often tell a story that illuminates the principle of 5149 really well, and I love the way he would preface it. He would preface his story by saying, if we can get this principle right, we can probably do away with the minimum wage. Let me paraphrase. You take out the trash, but on the way to the trash can, you enthusiastically greet a few customers along the way and open the door for another. And while opening the door, you greet people with an energetic welcome to McDonald's. We're happy that you came to visit us today. On the way to the trash can, you pick up trash in the parking lot. You then empty the trash can, and on the way back, you take 30 seconds to grab the hose and rinse the can out. You then bounce back into the building, not looking for praise, but looking for the next job to do and the next place to add value. Now, just do that for the next 30, 60, 90 days, and there's a high probability that the $10 an hour you once made for taking out the trash is $10.50 or something even greater. Why? Because anyone can take out the trash, but not everyone is intentional about adding additional value. The principle of 5149 is the key differentiator between marginal performers and high achievers. As you process that, let me close off on this topic by sharing a couple of things to synthesize the point. For us at HESL, this is a foundational belief that literally drives the way we make business decisions. Over the course of time, we have observed the impact of this principle within companies and the individual lives of people. If you trust the process and do the work for the sheer sake of adding value, you'll begin to see individual and collective results that will shock you. But be careful. The very nature and premise of the principle is rooted in what you give, not what you get. You see, it seems that the minute that we move from simply looking to add value with no expectation of a return to adding value for the sake of what you get from it, you've missed the point and tainted the principle. There's something mysterious about the pure nature of your motivation or the lack of it. The first seems to be rooted in the pursuit of serving, and the other is rooted in the pursuit of your own advancement. Just look to add value and the rest will take care of itself. There's another trap, and that trap is expecting that you can measure the rewards you do get in the form of compensation and/or title, and expect it within a defined time frame. You can rarely measure the direct correlation between your actions and the rewards. Generally, when you can, it's in hindsight, far after the fact. You're also never really clear on what form what form of reward you might receive. Because rewards come in many forms, not just compensation or titles. This is simple. Just keep working on ways to constantly improve your ability to add value and don't worry about the outcome. It'll take care of itself. Making sure that we really comprehend the practical application of each principle within the process of high achievement is important because, in the absence of being able to apply the lesson, we find ourselves once again back in the land of information and in the absence of transformation. So before we exit this session, let me share a quick practical example of the way this works for me in a personal relationship. I have a very good friend that's been a mentor to me for years. He's far more successful than I am. And whenever I ask, he's willing to carve out time for me. We typically meet one-on-one for 90 minutes over lunch where I pepper him with questions about business, success, fitness, and other random topics around how to do life. In those conversations, I'm keenly aware of the fact that I have little to give in the form of adding tangible value to him. Guided by the principle of 5149, the least I can do is pay for lunch, be a friend, and never leave a conversation without asking how I can help. You see, even when my ability to add value is constrained, I'm attentive to trying because in the absence of trying, I'm simply showing up to consume from him. In some cases, like this, I simply don't have the ability to give more than I take, which is okay. The point is that I'm cognizant of making the effort to add as much value as possible in every interaction. You see, in other cases, I give way more than I consume. But keep in mind this is not about balancing the scales. This is about building a value based mindset that is looking for ways to add value. In my business life, I'm simply looking for ways to leverage my capabilities to add more value than would ever be expected of me across the company. We'll see you in the next session.