The ONE Thing

by Gary Keller

  4. ENVIRONMENT DOESN’T SUPPORT YOUR GOALS

  Early in my career, a married mom of two teenagers sat in front of me and cried. Her family had told her they would support her new career as long as nothing at home changed. Meals, carpooling, anything that touched their world couldn’t be disrupted. She had agreed, only to discover later how bad a deal she’d cut. As I listened, I suddenly realized I was hearing about a productivity thief almost everyone overlooks.

  Your environment must support your goals.

  Your environment is simply who you see and what you experience every day. The people are familiar, the places comfortable. You trust these elements of your environment and quite possibly even take them for granted. But be aware. Anyone and anything at any time can become a thief, diverting your attention away from your most important work and stealing your productivity right from under your nose. For you to achieve extraordinary results, the people surrounding you and your physical surroundings must support your goals.

  No one lives or works in isolation. Every day, throughout your day, you come in contact with others and are influenced by them. Unquestionably, these individuals impact your attitude, your health—and ultimately, your performance.

  The people around you may be more important than you think. It’s a fact that you’re likely to pick up some of the attitudes of others by working with them, socializing with them, or simply being around them. From co-workers to friends to family, if they’re generally not positive or fulfilled on the job or away from it, they’ll probably pass on some of their negativity. Attitude is contagious; it spreads easily. As strong as you think you are, no one is strong enough to avoid the influence of negativity forever. So, surrounding yourself with the right people is the right thing to do. While attitude thieves will rob you of energy, effort, and resolve, supportive people will do what they can to encourage or assist you. Ultimately, being with success-minded people creates what researchers call a “positive spiral of success” where they lift you up and send you on your way.

  FIG. 33 Create a productivity-specific environment to support your ONE Thing.

  Who you hang out with also has serious implications for your health habits. Harvard professor Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis and University of California, San Diego associate professor James H. Fowler wrote the book on how our social networks unmistakably impact our well-being. Their book, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, connects the dots between our relationships and drug use, sleeplessness, smoking, drinking, eating, and even happiness. For instance, their 2007 study on obesity revealed that if one of your close friends becomes obese, you’re 57 percent more likely to do the same. Why? The people we see tend to set our standard for what’s appropriate.

  In time, you begin to think, act, and even look a little like those you hang out with. But not only do their attitudes and health habits influence you, their relative success does too. If the people you spend your time with are high achievers, their achievements can influence your own. A study featured in the psychology journal Social Development shows that out of nearly 500 school-age participants with reciprocal “best friend” relationships, “children who establish and maintain relationships with high-achieving students experience gains in their report card grades.” Further, those who have high-achieving friends appear “to benefit with regard to their motivational beliefs and academic performance.” Hanging out with people who seek success will strengthen your motivation and positively push your performance.

  Your mother was right when she cautioned you to be careful of the company you keep. The wrong people in your environment can most certainly dissuade, deter, and distract you from the productivity course you’ve set out on. But the opposite is also true. No one succeeds alone and no one fails alone. Pay attention to the people around you. Seek out those who will support your goals, and show the door to anyone who won’t. The individuals in your life will influence you and impact you—probably more than you give them credit for. Give them their due and make sure that the sway they have on you sends you in the direction you want to go.

  If people are the first priority in creating a supportive environment, place isn’t far behind. When your physical environment isn’t in step with your goals, it can also keep you from ever getting started on them in the first place.

  “Surround yourself only with people who are going to lift you higher.”

  —Oprah Winfrey

  I know this sounds oversimplified, but to succeed at doing your ONE Thing you have to be able to get to it, and your physical environment plays a vital role in whether you do or not. The wrong surroundings may never let you get there. If your environment is so full of distractions and diversions that before you can help yourself you’ve gotten caught doing something you shouldn’t, you won’t get where you need to go. Think of it as having to walk down an aisle of candy every day when you’re trying to lose weight. Some may be able to handle this easily, but most of us are going to sample some sweets along the way.

  What is around you will either aim you toward your time block or pull you away. This starts from the time you wake up and continues until you get to your time-block bunker. What you see and hear from the time your alarm rings to when your time block begins ultimately determines if you get there, when you get there, and whether you’re ready to be productive when you do. So, do a trial run. Walk through the path you’ll take each day, and eradicate all the sight and sound thieves that you find. For me, at home it’s simple things like e-mail, the morning paper, the morning TV news shows, the neighbors out walking their dogs. All wonderful things, but not wonderful when I have an appointment with myself to accomplish my ONE Thing. So, I check off e-mail quickly, I never see the paper, I keep the TV cabinet closed, and I choose my driving route carefully At work, I avoid the community coffee pot and the information boards. They can come later in the day. What I’ve learned is that when you clear the path to success— that’s when you consistently get there.

  Don’t let your environment lead you astray. Your physical surroundings matter and the people around you matter. Having an environment that doesn’t support your goals is all too common, and unfortunately an all-too-common thief of productivity. As actor and comedian Lily Tomlin once said, “The road to success is always under construction.” So don’t allow yourself to be detoured from getting to your ONE Thing. Pave your way with the right people and place.

  BIG IDEAS

  Start saying “no.” Always remember that when you say yes to something, you’re saying no to everything else. It’s the essence of keeping a commitment. Start turning down other requests outright or saying, “No, for now” to distractions so that nothing detracts you from getting to your top priority. Learning to say no can and will liberate you. It’s how you’ll find the time for your ONE Thing.

  Accept chaos. Recognize that pursuing your ONE Thing moves other things to the back burner. Loose ends can feel like snares, creating tangles in your path. This kind of chaos is unavoidable. Make peace with it. Learn to deal with it. The success you have accomplishing your ONE Thing will continually prove you made the right decision.

  Manage your energy. Don’t sacrifice your health by trying to take on too much. Your body is an amazing machine, but it doesn’t come with a warranty, you can’t trade it in, and repairs can be costly. It’s important to manage your energy so you can do what you must do, achieve what you want to achieve, and live the life you want to live.

  Take ownership of your environment. Make sure that the people around you and your physical surroundings support your goals. The right people in your life and the right physical environment on your daily path will support your efforts to get to your ONE Thing. When both are in alignment with your ONE Thing, they will supply the optimism and physical lift you need to make your ONE Thing happen.

  Screenwriter Leo Rosten pulled everything together for us when he said, “I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purp
ose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.” Live with Purpose, Live by Priority, and Live for Productivity. Follow these three for the same reason you make the three commitments and avoid the four thieves—because you want to leave your mark. You want your life to matter.

  18 THE JOURNEY

  “To get through the hardest journey we need take only one step at a time, but we must keep on stepping.”

  —Chinese Proverb

  “One step at a time” may be trite, but it’s still true. No matter the objective, no matter the destination, the journey to anything you want always starts with a single step.

  That step is called the ONE Thing.

  I want you to do something. I want you to close your eyes and imagine your life as big as it can possibly be. As big as you have ever dared to dream, and then some. Can you see it?

  Now, open your eyes and listen to me. Whatever you can see, you have the capacity to move toward. And when what you go for is as vast as you can possibly envision, you’ll be living the biggest life you can possibly live.

  Living large is that simple.

  Let me share a way you can do this. Write down your current income. Then multiply it by a number: 2, 4, 10, 20—it doesn’t matter. Just pick one, multiply your income by it, and write down the new number. Looking at it and ignoring whether you’re frightened or excited, ask yourself, “Will my current actions get me to this number in the next five years?” If they will, then keep doubling the number until they won’t. If you then make your actions match your answer, you’ll be living large.

  Now, I use personal earnings only as an example. This thinking can apply to your spiritual life, your physical conditioning, your personal relationships, your career achievement, your business success, or anything else that matters to you. When you lift the limits of your thinking, you expand the limits of your life. It’s only when you can imagine a bigger life that you can ever hope to have one.

  The challenge is that living the largest life possible requires you not only to think big, but also to take the necessary actions to get there.

  Extraordinary results require you to go small.

  Getting your focus as small as possible simplifies your thinking and crystallizes what you must do. No matter how big you can think, when you know where you’re going and work backwards to what you need to do to get there, you’ll always discover it begins with going small. Years ago, I wanted an apple tree on our property. Turns out you can’t buy a fully mature one. The only option I had was to buy a small one and grow it. I could think big, but I had no choice but to start small. So I did, and five years later we had apples. But because I thought as big as I could, guess what? You got it. I didn’t just plant one. Today—we have an orchard.

  Your life is like this. You don’t get a fully mature one. You get a small one and the opportunity to grow it—if you want to. Think small and your life’s likely to stay small. Think big and your life has a chance to grow big. The choice is yours. When you choose a big life, by default, you’ll have to go small to get there. You must survey your choices, narrow your options, line up your priorities, and do what matters most. You must go small. You must find your ONE Thing.

  There is no surefire thing, but there’s always something, ONE Thing, that out of everything matters more than anything. I’m not saying there will only be one thing, or even the same thing, forever. I’m saying that at any moment in time there can be only ONE Thing, and when that ONE Thing is in line with your purpose and sits atop your priorities, it will be the most productive thing you can do to launch you toward the best you can be.

  Actions build on action. Habits build on habit. Success builds on success. The right domino knocks down another and another and another. So whenever you want extraordinary results, look for the levered action that will start a domino run for you. Big lives ride the powerful wave of chain reactions and are built sequentially, which means when you’re aiming for success you can’t just skip to the end. Extraordinary doesn’t work like that. The knowledge and momentum that build as you live the ONE Thing each day, each week, each month, and each year are what give you the ability to build an extraordinary life.

  “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

  — T. S. Eliot

  But this doesn’t just happen. You have to make it happen.

  One evening an elder Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside all people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us. One is Fear. It carries anxiety, concern, uncertainty, hesitancy, indecision and inaction. The other is Faith. It brings calm, conviction, confidence, enthusiasm, decisiveness, excitement and action.” The grandson thought about it for a moment and then meekly asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee replied, “The one you feed.”

  Your journey toward extraordinary results will be built above all else on faith. It’s only when you have faith in your purpose and priorities that you’ll seek out your ONE Thing. And once certain you know it, you’ll have the personal power necessary to push you through any hesitancy to do it. Faith ultimately leads to action, and when we take action we avoid the very thing that could undermine or undo everything we’ve worked for—regret.

  ADVICE FROM A FRIEND

  As satisfying as succeeding is, as fulfilling as journeying feels, there is actually an even better reason to get up every day and take action on your ONE Thing. On your way to living a life worth living, doing your best to succeed at what matters most to you not only rewards you with success and happiness but with something even more precious.

  No regrets.

  “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

  —Mark Twain

  If you could go back in time and talk to the 18-year-young you or leap forward and visit with the 80-year-old you, who would you want to take advice from? It’s an interesting proposition. For me, it would be my older self. The view from the stern comes with the wisdom gathered from a longer and wider lens.

  So what would an older, wiser you say? “Go live your life. Live it fully, without fear. Live with purpose, give it your all, and never give up.” Effort is important, for without it you will never succeed at your highest level. Achievement is important, for without it you will never experience your true potential. Pursuing purpose is important, for unless you do, you may never find lasting happiness. Step out on faith that these things are true. Go live a life worth living where, in the end, you’ll be able to say, “I’m glad I did,” not “I wish I had.”

  Why do I think this? Because many years ago I began trying to understand what a life worth living would look like. I decided to go out and discover what this might be. It was a trip worth taking. I visited with people older than me, wiser than me, more successful than me. I researched, I read, I sought advice. From every credible source imaginable, I looked for clues and signs. Ultimately I stumbled on a simple point of view: A life worth living might be measured in many ways, but the one way that stands above all others is living a life of no regrets.

  Life is too short to pile up woulda, coulda, shouldas.

  What clinched this for me was when I asked myself who might be the people with the greatest clarity about life. I decided it was those who were nearing the end of theirs. If starting with the end in mind is a good idea, then there’s no end further than the very end of life to look for clues about how to live. I wondered what people with nothing left to do but look back might tell me about how to move forward. Their collective voice was overwhelming, the answer clear: live your life to minimize the regrets you might have at the end.

  What kind of regrets? For me, very few books cause tears, much less re
quire a handkerchief, but Bronnie Ware’s 2012 book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying did both. Ware spent many years caring for those facing their own mortality. When she questioned the dying about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, Bronnie found that common themes surfaced again and again. In descending order, the five most common were these: I wish that I’d let myself be happier—too late they realized happiness is a choice; I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends—too often they failed to give them the time and effort they deserved; I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings—too frequently shut mouths and shuttered feelings weighed too heavy to handle; I wish I hadn’t worked so hard—too much time spent making a living over building a life caused too much remorse.

  As tough as these were, one stood out above them all. The most common regret was this: I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself not the life others expected of me. Half-filled dreams and unfulfilled hopes: this was the number-one regret expressed by the dying. As Ware put it, “Most people had not honored even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.”

  Bronnie Ware’s observations aren’t hers alone. At the conclusion of their exhaustive research, Gilovich and Medvec in 1994 wrote, “When people look back on their lives, it is the things they have not done that generate the greatest regret.... People’s actions may be troublesome initially; it is their inactions that plague them most with long-term feelings of regret.”

  Honoring our hopes and pursuing productive lives through faith in our purpose and priorities is the message from our elders. From the wisest position they’ll ever have comes their clearest message.