Essentialism With Greg McKeown

Episode Summary

In this Episode, you’ll Discover Essentialism: How to determine what is essential, how to eliminate the trivial, execute effortlessly, the power of prioritization and more with Greg McKeown.

Greg McKeown is the author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller “Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less.” He is among the most popular bloggers for the Harvard Business Review, an accomplished speaker and adviser.  

Recorded Live from the Genius Network Annual Event.

Here’s a glance at what you’ll learn from Greg in this episode:

  • The biggest lesson Greg learned about prioritization after his daughter was born
  • Why successful people find themselves stretched too thin at work and at home
  • The Undisciplined Pursuit of More: How success can become a catalyst for failure
  • How to determine what is essential, eliminate the trivial and execute almost effortlessly
  • The #1 way to do less better and make your highest possible contribution
  • How to pursue the right things, in the right way, at the right time
  • What you can learn from Gandhi about designing a life that matters

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Show Notes

  • Why did you become successful and your friends from High School didn’t? Most likely it was because you learned to focus on what was essential.
  • Greg learned a difficult lesson following the birth of his daughter: If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will. 02:39
  • Out of that grew a question: Have you ever found yourself stretched too thin at work or at home?
  • Or busy and not productive, saying yes to please, or to appease or just to avoid trouble? 03:06
  • The question is why? Why do otherwise successful people find themselves stretched at work and or at home? 03:26
  • An answer was hidden in plain sight: The reason that otherwise successful people find themselves stretched too thin at work and at home is success. 03:55
  • What’s the pattern?
  • Getting focused generates momentum, and leads to success. Success brings new options and opportunities. 04:02
  • Success becomes a problem if it leads to what Jim Collins calls the “Undisciplined pursuit of more.” 04:21
  • If you fall into that problem, success can become a catalyst for failure. 04:36
  • Bill Gates said, “Success is a very poor teacher.” 04:39
  • I’ve learned that you have to become successful at success. It’s a different kind of discipline. 04:53
  • The antidote to the undisciplined pursuit of more is the disciplined pursuit of less, but better. 05:00
  • Do the right things at the right times for the right reasons.05:18
  • Example,  Silicon Valley Executive, award winning work, starts saying “yes” to everything to be a team player. Stress goes up, quality of his work goes down, the success paradox already at play. 05:48
  • Ask yourself what is essential? Eliminate what’s not. 06:23
  • Do a few things superbly well, or you can do many things average. That basic trade off occurs everywhere. It’s universal. 07:22
  • “You can either be pulled in a million directions, the undisciplined pursuit of more, or the alternative, to be able to focus on the right things, at the right time, for the right reasons.” 07:39
  • If we experiment with the idea of essentialism again and again we can do something significant. 08:51
  • Example of Ghandi:
    • Used prayer, meditation, fasting – a process that he called “reducing himself to zero” be consumed with a single purpose.
    • The priority of his life – to produce independence for the Indian people and he achieved it. 10:53
  • We don’t have to be Ghandi. But doesn’t it matter to create space to live a life around the things that really matter most to us. The essential few. 11:36
  • Life is fast and full of opportunities, and the complication  is that we’ve been conned into believing that we can do everything. 11:52
  • The impact of that is that we make a millimeter of progress in a million directions.
  • We can make a different choice. We can learn, through slow growth, over time to become essentialists, and as a result of doing that we can live a life that really matters. 12:01

 

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