The ONE Thing
Page 15
No regrets.
So make sure every day you do what matters most. When you know what matters most, everything makes sense. When you don’t know what matters most, anything makes sense. The best lives aren’t led this way.
SUCCESS IS AN INSIDE JOB
So, how do you live a life of no regrets? The same way your journey to extraordinary results begins. With purpose, priority, and productivity; with the knowledge that regret must be avoided, and can be; with your ONE Thing at the top of your mind and the top of your schedule; with a single first step we can all take.
I believe the best way to share this is in a story.
One evening, a young boy hopped up on his father’s lap and whispered, “Dad, we don’t spend enough time together.” The father, who dearly loved his son, knew in his heart this was true and replied, “You’re right and I’m so sorry. But I promise I’ll make it up to you. Since tomorrow is Saturday, why don’t we spend the entire day together? Just you and me!” It was a plan, and the boy went to bed that night with a smile on his face, envisioning the day, excited about the adventurous possibilities with his Pops.
The next morning the father rose earlier than usual. He wanted to make sure he could still enjoy his ritual cup of coffee with the morning paper before his son awoke, wound up and ready to go. Lost in thought reading the business section, he was caught by surprise when suddenly his son pulled the newspaper down and enthusiastically shouted, “Dad, I’m up. Let’s play!”
The father, although thrilled to see his son and eager to start the day together, found himself guiltily craving just a little more time to finish his morning routine. Quickly racking his brain, he hit upon a promising idea. He grabbed his son, gave him a huge hug, and announced that their first game would be to put a puzzle together, and when that was done, “we’ll head outside to play for the rest of the day.”
Earlier in his reading, he had seen a full-page ad with a picture of the world. He quickly found it, tore it into little pieces, and spread them out on the table. He found some tape for his son and said, “I want to see how fast you can put this puzzle together.” The boy enthusiastically dove right in, while his father, confident that he had now bought some extra time, buried himself back in his paper.
Within minutes, the boy once again yanked down his father’s newspaper and proudly announced, “Dad, I’m done!” The father was astonished. For what lay in front of him—whole, intact, and complete—was the picture of the world, back together as it was in the ad and not one piece out of place. In a voice mixed with parental pride and wonder, the father asked, “How on earth did you do that so fast?”
The young boy beamed. “It was easy, Dad! I couldn’t do it at first and I started to give up, it was so hard. But then I dropped a piece on the floor, and because it’s a glass-top table, when I looked up I saw that there was a picture of a man on the other side. That gave me an idea!
“When I put the man together, the world just fell into place.”
I first heard this innocent narrative when I was a teenager and I’ve never been able to shake it. It became a tale I continually retell in my head, and ultimately a central theme in my life. What struck me isn’t the apparent issue with life balance the father had, though I certainly got that. What grabbed me and stuck with me was the inspired solution of the son. He cracked a deeper code: a simple and more straightforward approach to life. A starting point for any challenge we face personally or professionally. The ONE Thing we must all understand if we are to achieve extraordinary results at our highest level possible. Undoubtedly. Unquestionably.
Success is an inside job.
Put yourself together, and your world falls into place. When you bring purpose to your life, know your priorities, and achieve high productivity on the priority that matters most every day, your life makes sense and the extraordinary becomes possible.
All success in life starts within you. You know what to do. You know how to do it. Your next step is simple.
You are the first domino.
PUTTING THE ONE THING TO WORK
“In delay there lies no plenty.”
-William Shakespeare
So what now?
You’ve read the book. You get it. You’re ready to experience extraordinary results in your life. So, what do you do? How do you tap into The ONE Thing in the most powerful way? Let’s revisit the heart of the book and look at ways you can put The ONE Thing to work right now.
For brevity’s sake, I’ll shorten the Focusing Question, so be sure to add “... such that by doing it everything will be easier or unnecessary?” at the end of each question!
YOUR PERSONAL LIFE
Let the ONE Thing bring clarity to the key areas of your life. Here’s a short sampling.
What’s the ONE Thing I can do this week to discover or affirm my life’s purpose... ?
What’s the ONE Thing I can do in 90 days to get in the physical shape I want... ?
What’s the ONE Thing I can do today to strengthen my spiritual faith... ?
What’s the ONE Thing I can do to find time to practice the guitar 20 minutes a day... ? Knock five strokes off my golf game in 90 days... ? Learn to paint in six months... ?
YOUR FAMILY
Use the ONE Thing with your family for fun and rewarding experiences. Here are some options.
What’s the ONE Thing we can do this week to improve our marriage... ?
What’s the ONE Thing we can do every week to spend more quality family time together... ?
What’s the ONE Thing we can do tonight to support our kid’s schoolwork... ?
What’s the ONE Thing we can do to make our next vacation the best ever... ? Our next Christmas the best ever... ? Thanksgiving the best ever... ?
Please know that these are simply examples. If they apply to you personally then great. If not, then use them to prompt you to discover what areas you might explore that matter to you.
And don’t forget time blocking. Time block with yourself to make sure the things that matter get done and the activities that matter get mastered. In some cases, you’ll want to block time to find your answer and, other times you’ll just need to block time to implement it.
Now, let’s go to work and see how you might take the power of the ONE Thing with you.
YOUR JOB
Put the ONE Thing to work taking your professional life to the next level. Here’s a few ways to get started.
What’s the ONE Thing I can do today to complete my current project ahead of schedule... ?
What’s the ONE Thing I can do this month to produce better work... ?
What’s the ONE Thing I can do before my next review to get the raise I want... ?
What’s the ONE Thing I can do everyday to finish my work and still get home on time... ?
YOUR WORK TEAM
Pull the ONE Thing into your work with others. Whether you’re a manager, executive, or even a business owner, bring ONE Thing thinking into your everyday work situations to drive productivity upward. Here are some scenarios to consider.
In any meeting ask, “What’s the ONE Thing we can accomplish in this meeting and end early... ?
In building your team ask, What’s the ONE Thing I can do in the next six months to find and develop incredible talent... ?
In planning for the next month, year, or five years ask, What’s the ONE Thing we can do right now to accomplish our goals ahead of schedule and under budget... ?
In your department or at the highest company level ask, What’s the ONE Thing we can do in the next 90 days to create a ONE Thing culture... ?
Again, these are merely examples to get you thinking about the possibilities. And, just as in your personal life, once you’ve decided what matters most, professional time blocking becomes your way of making sure it gets done. At work, this is usually about either a short-term project you must complete or an ongoing long-term activity you’re committed to doing repeatedly. No matter, an appointment with yourself is th
e surest path to ensuring you achieve extraordinary results.
Casual open discussions or short in-house workshops around key concepts in the book might really help everyone at work find their own understanding and get on the same page.
If implementing the ONE Thing in an area requires you to involve others, consider getting them their own copy of the book. Sharing your ahas is a great start and you may be happily surprised with the insights you get back when others have a chance to read the book on their own.
Keep in mind that it takes more than reading the book and a few conversations or mentions in a meeting to make The ONE Thing a new habit in your life or in the lives of those around you. You know from reading the book that it takes on average 66 days to create a new habit, so approach this accordingly. To ignite your life you must focus on ONE Thing long enough for it to catch fire.
Let’s look at a few other areas where The ONE Thing might make a real difference.
YOUR NON-PROFIT
What’s the ONE Thing we can do to fund our annual financial needs... ? Serve twice as many people... ? Double our number of volunteers... ?
YOUR SCHOOL
What’s the ONE Thing we can do to decrease our dropout rate to zero... ? Raise our test scores by 20 percent... ? Increase our graduation rate to 100 percent... ? Double our parent participation... ?
YOUR PLACE OF WORSHIP
What’s the ONE Thing we can do to improve our worship experience... ? Double our mission outreach success... ? Max out our attendance... ? Achieve our finance goals... ?
YOUR COMMUNITY
What’s the ONE Thing we can do to improve our sense of community... ? Help the homebound... ? Double our volunteerism... ? Double voter turnout... ?
After my wife Mary read this book, I asked her to do something. She turned to me and you know what she said? “Gary, that’s not my ONE Thing right now!” We laughed, high-fived, and I got to do it myself!
The ONE Thing forces you to think big, work things through to create a list, prioritize that list so that a geometric progression can happen, and then hammer away on the first thing—the ONE Thing that starts your domino run.
So be prepared to live a new life! And remember that the secret to extraordinary results is to ask a very big and specific question that leads you to one very small and tightly focused answer.
If you try to do everything, you could wind up with nothing. If you try to do just ONE Thing, the right ONE Thing, you could wind up with everything you ever wanted.
The ONE Thing is real. If you put it to work, it will work.
So don’t delay. Ask yourself the question, “What’s the ONE Thing I can do right now to start using The ONE Thing in my life such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”
And make doing the answer your first ONE Thing!
Onward...
Gary Keller
ON THE RESEARCH
Although I’ve lived the lessons of this book for some time, we began researching The ONE Thing in earnest in 2008. Since then, we’ve archived a collection of well over a thousand scholarly articles, scientific studies, and academic papers; hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles; and a large library of books written by the foremost experts in their fields. Binder after binder of discoveries, facts, and anecdotes literally covered every inch of our writing space.
If you want to dive deeper into what you’ve learned from this book, you can find an extensive list of our references organized by topic and by chapter at ThelThing.com. This website is a gateway into our minds—we mention the authors who have inspired us, provide links to articles that are available online, and list those white papers that educated our thinking. We’ve also thrown in some additional interesting factoids and even a fun video here and there. Enjoy the journey.
INDEX
A | B | C | D | E
F | G | H | I | J
K | L | M | N | O
P | Q | R | S | T | V
A
Accountability Cycle, 176, 183–189, 185
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll), 146–147
Allen, Paul, 23
Amorico, Angelo, 21
Attention, 51–53. See also multitasking
Avnaim-Pesso, Liora, 68
B
Balance
balancing versus, 72, 82–83
counterbalancing versus, 79–83
genesis of myth of, 73–75
golden mean and, 73
lie of, 72–83
life as balancing act, 82
middle mismanagement and, 75–77, 76, 77, 79
prioritizing versus balancing, 82
time and, 77–79
work-life balance, 74–75, 75, 214–216
Balancing versus balance, 72, 82–83. See also counterbalancing
Begging Bowl, 140–142
Being Together, Working Apart (Gomory), 74
Bhatia, Sabeer, 87
Big
bold actions and, 93
and ceiling for achievement, 86
and fear of failure, 93–94
going big, 87–93, 208–209
growth mindset versus fixed mindset, 91–94
lie of big as bad, 84–94
living big for greatness, 92, 93, 208–209
negative associations with, 84–85
as placeholder for leap of possibility, 86–87
research on thinking big, 91–92
thinking big and acting big, 87–93
Big & Broad questions, 122
Big & Specific questions, 122, 127–128
Big-picture question, 106, 107, 110, 113. See also Focusing Question
Big Why, 144–145. See also purpose
Business. See also ONE Thing; Priority; Productivity; Purpose; Success
Focusing Question on, 116
reinventing of, 89–90
C
Calendaring, 163, 169–170, 169, 200, 201
Carnegie, Andrew, 102–103
Carroll, Lewis, 146–147
Chaos, fear of, 195–198, 206
Cheng, Ken, 59
Christakis, Nicholas A., 203–204
Christmas Carol (Dickens), 135–139, 147, 156, 157
Coaching, 7–9, 188, 189
Colbert, Stephen, 29
Collins, Billy, 46–47
Connected (Christakis and Fowler), 203–204
Counterbalancing, 79–83. See also balance
Crenshaw, Dave, 52
D
Danziger, Shai, 68
Diamond, Jared, 73–74
Dickens, Charles, 135–139, 147, 156, 157
Discipline
definition of, 55
lie of, 54–60
relationship of habit to, 55–60
selected discipline, 56–57
Disney, Roy, 19
Disney, Walt, 19
Distraction, 51–53. See also multitasking
Domino effect
extraordinary results and, 16
Focusing Question and, 108–110
geometric domino progression, 13–16
priority and, 16
and success built sequentially over time, 16, 210–211
time-blocking and, 170
Dweck, Carol S., 91–92
E
80/20 Principle
definition of, 37–38
extreme Pareto, 39–41
to-do lists and, 38, 41–42
80/20 Principle (Koch), 37
Einstein, Albert, 19, 197
Elite performers, 176–179, 188
Entrepreneurial (“E”) approach, 175–176, 179–183, 189
Ericsson, K. Anders, 177, 188
Expert performance, 176–179, 188
Extraordinary results. See ONE Thing; Priority; Productivity; Purpose; Success
F
Fear
of chaos, 195–198, 206
of failure, 93–94
Finances
definition of financially wealthy people, 142–143
Focus Questions on, 116
happiness and money, 142–143
and living large, 209
Focusing Question
anatomy of, 108–110
big-picture question, 106, 110, 113
on business, 116
Carnegie on, 102–103
criterion for answer to, 109
definition and statement of, 106, 110
domino effect and, 108–110
on finances, 116
focused action and, 108
Great Answers to Great Question, 119–128, 120, 121
on job, 114, 116
on key relationships, 115–116, 219
leverage test and, 109
life as question, 104–108
on personal life, 115, 219
possible action and, 108–109
and power of questions, 104–106
priority and, 108
reminders for using, 117–118
revision of Great Question to form, 123
small-focus question, 106–107, 110
as Success Habit, 112–118
as way of life, 113–118
Foer, Joshua, 182
Forstall, Scott, 92
Fowler, James H., 203–204
G
Gates, Bill, 22–24
Gates, Melinda, 23–24
Geography of Time, A (Levine), 165
Goal Setting to the Now, 147–155, 150, 153. See also ONE Thing
Godin, Seth, 193
Going big, 87–93, 88, 89, 208–209
Going small, 9–11, 41, 209–210. See also ONE Thing
Golden mean, 73. See also balance
Gomory, Ralph E., 74
Good Samaritan Experiment, 190–191
Graham, Paul, 167–168