Elevate with Grace

S1, E5: "The One Thing" Book Review

• Elevate with Grace • Season 1 • Episode 5

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This episode we are bringing you a book review of THE ONE THING, The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results, by Gary Keller & Jay Papasan. 

Having found this book a couple of months into our Elevate with Grace planning we just had to share it as part of our podcast series as there are some terrific synergies with our purpose of curating the amazing content that’s out there in the world into bite sized actionable steps for you to take you on your journey of leading a life of success on your own terms, as defined by you.

Listen in to learn more about taking back your time with a focus on your 'IMPORTANT' time and not 'URGENT' times. 

Elevate Weekly Challenge:
What is the ONE THING they can do this week to help them reach their goals.  Take action on your first domino, and then the next towards your dreams.  The constant mantra of this book - what’s the one thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary.

Check out The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results book.  Affiliate link: booktopia.kh4ffx.net/elevate

Top 10 Quotes from the book:

  • “Work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls-- family, health, friends, integrity-- are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.”
  • "Life is about creating yourself so the trick to success is to choose the right habits with enough discipline to master it."
  • “Extraordinary results happen only when you give the best you have to become the best you can be at your most important work.”
  • “Your next step is simple. You are the first domino.”
  • “Don’t let small thinking cut your life down to size. Think big, aim high, act bold. And see just how big you can blow up your life.”
  • “A different result requires doing something different.”
  • “One of the most empowering moments of my life came when I realized that life is a question and how we live it is our answer.”
  • “Achievers always work from a clear sense of priority.”
  • “Long hours spent checking off a to-do list and ending the day with a full trash can and a clean desk are not virtuous and have nothing to do with success. Instead of a to-do list, you need a success list—a list that is purposefully created around extraordinary results.

    To-do lists tend to be long; success lists are short. One pulls you in all directions; the other aims you in a specific direction. One is a disorganized directory and the other is an organized directive. If a list isn’t built around success, then that’s not where it takes you. If your to-do list contains everything, then it’s probably taking you everywhere but where you really want to go.”
  • “People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.” —F. M. Alexander

References:

  • The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results, Gary Keller with Jay Papasan. 
  • The One Thing Podcast: Geoff Woods
  • Katy Milkman episode: the1thing.com/podcast/310/
  • Miracle Morning: Hal Elrod
  • 80/20 Pareto Principle
  • Brain Rules: John Medina

Want more insights and tips before next week's Pod?
Check out our blogs at www.elevatewithgrace.com.au or bite sized tips on socials -
Instagram & Facebook. https://www.instagram.com/elevate.with.grace/

Music created by Claire's daughter Hannah

Miranda:

Welcome to the Elevate with Grace podcast. For women who are short on time and long to take steps to create success on their own terms. Our aim is to curate and share the best tips, insights, and knowledge from all of the content out there. Then take the brain strain out of it by giving you the, so what, and some immediate actionable steps for you to squeeze into your life each week. Through regular action, we will propel you forward and offer support as we all create our paths to achieving success on our own terms.

Claire:

Hello to our gracious listeners out there and hello to you Miranda. Good morning gorgeous woman, how's things?

Miranda:

I'm good. I'm pleased to share. I feel like I'm riding a this huge wave, and taking whatever the week throws in a very centered, calm, way. So just getting that whole surfing vibe going on. What about you?

Claire:

I am good actually with some warm weather coming and going and things like that, I'm feeling pretty good and motivated which is, I suppose, for all of us in this COVID crazy scenario that comes and goes fairly rapidly, but I am good today so that's the main thing. Now listeners, as we have spoken about this week, we are bringing you our book review of"The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results" by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. As Miranda and I mentioned in our launch episode, we are part of an amazing book club, AKA wine and dinner club. And so we do love our book reviews. So we're pretty chuffed about doing this with you today. Having found this book a couple of months into our Elevate with Grace planning. We wanted to share it as part of our podcast series, as there's some terrific synergies with our purpose of curating amazing content that's out there in the world, into bite-sized actionable steps for you to take on your journey of leading a life of success on your terms as you've defined it. And what the book gives as some great tips and tools in order to do that. But before we dive into the book review as is our MO on this podcast, we want to do a quick check in on how we went with the weekly challenge from last week, which was to have a good crack at articulating and refining your vision into a clear statement that you can relate to. How did you go?

Miranda:

As I shared last week, I had a lengthy vision statement to refine. And prior to this, I actually had narrowed this to three guiding words to elevate plan and connect. So I've got these two dichotomies of a really clear, simple idea and this pretty lengthy vision statement. So I've been aligning this clarity with my updated vision last week, and I hope this is actually going to bring more meaning to my vision. So just in time to tackle today's pod. How'd you go?

Claire:

Yes. I got out an SFD of my vision statement, which is to help as many women and girls as I can with the skills they need to thrive in their lives today and create the success that they want for their future selves. So I'm pretty comfortable with that as a first crack. And with our SFDs of our why's underway, it is a really good time to dive into the book. Why don't you talk about how you came across this book and what your initial reaction to it was? Did you like it immediately or did you take some time to get into it?

Miranda:

Sure thing. I first heard this book on Blinkist where you could pick a topic and automatically it selects a group of short books summaries related to the idea. This is such a don't judge, a book by its cover moment for me. And honestly, I would not have picked it up or actively listened. As the idea of just being able to do one thing, it seems like such a masculine construct. So I started listening and then just was scrambling for pen pausing, flicking back and listening to it several times. So the basic construct of the book is to achieve great success you need to focus on what you want now, 10 years from now and cultivate those great habits. Guided by discipline and regular prompting each day, what is the one thing that I can do today to get towards that vision this week, this month and fabulously, this is the underlying concept behind our work with elevate with grace. So I was so excited to dive in and extract those gems that I actually went and bought the physical book which is a big thing for me because usually i'm audio only. Claire, I think I was certainly sending you some texts and some notes about it. So it was cool that you'd actually heard about it and tell us about that.

Claire:

Yes. A few years ago, I was in a senior leadership meeting with my corporate career hat on talking about how I wanted my team to get laser focused on the one thing that they felt inspired to work on that would make a difference and some meaningful steps to help the company in achieving its purpose and a colleague from one of our key corporate partners recommended the book to me. So I put it in my good reads list and then never got around to reading it. And then you mentioned it that you listened to it on the Blinkest version. So I downloaded it onto my Kindle and read it and loved the concepts in it. And here we are chatting about it on one of our very first podcasts so it's pretty cool. There is a lot of great content in the book. Do you have a favorite passage or quote from the book?

Miranda:

Quite a few good quotes in the book. So I've pulled it out 10 for the show notes, but the one, I guess that's speaking to me right now is about creating yourself. So the trick to success is to choose the right habits with enough discipline to master them. And I've absolutely found this to be true. Most mornings I seek to practice this morning miracle by Hal Elrod. It's just been a great way of fostering good habits before you check your emails and kind of get on the machine. A bit of exercise, meditation, journaling, reading, just getting your head right. Research suggests that it takes an average of 66 days to form a habit. I have heard as low as 21, but I think for those right habits it's worth investing in it as long as it takes to get it really cemented in your life The idea that certain actions or habits each day towards your goal is going to offer far greater results for you long-term it's certainly one that i am hoping for in my own life and also for you.

Claire:

Yeah, continuing on your thought bubble about choosing the right habits that will help you succeed. I like how the authors talk about creating a success list, not just a to do list. A list that you purposely create for yourself around extraordinary results. And the book gives a great action idea for turning your to-do list into your success list by applying the 80 20 Pareto principle to your to do list. It talks about taking the 80 20 rule to an extreme and to go small by identifying the 20% of things on your to-do list that are the ones that will help you drive forward to your one thing and then get your list even smaller by finding the 20% of that 80% and the 20% and the 20% until you get to the single most important thing. I think it's so hard for us to get to one thing on our to do list, but I liked the concept of really critically analyzing that whole laundry list of things that you've got to do. We were talking about just before the podcast Miranda, there is a"One Thing" podcast too, which we both do dip in to, from time to time. It's definitely a dip in and see what's around and see if there's anything that resonates with you kind of podcast. And I do want to make a community announcement for our listeners that while"The One Thing" podcast has heaps of great episodes and content, it still is quite American in its focus. And there's also a solid two to three minutes of ads at the start and the middle of the podcast episodes that can be frankly, a bit frustrating, so I use the skip button to get through those. But recently they had passed 300 episodes. And in episode 300, two of the co-hosts do a recap on what the 20% of the content from the first 300 episodes has given them 80% of their results. So I think that's a good one to have a listen to, as I mentioned, refer a community announcement earlier, but they talk about the importance of knowing your values. And"The One Thing" website has a free values finder apparently. I haven't had a chance to check it out yet, but it ties in nicely to our podcast episode from last week, when we were saying that uncovering your values and your superpowers can really help you define your goals. I also liked what they said in the episode about how progress is more important than perfection. This is really key for a lot of us, that it can be really quite hard to set a high goal for yourself because your perfection tendencies kick in and we worry that we're not going to make it so we lower the bar of the goal. But the thing is, is that we really need to get out of our own way, because if we set a high goal and try our hardest to get there, then we will make heaps more progress than if we set a mediocre goal and just smash it out of the park.

Miranda:

Yeah, Claire. They actually had a really good episode about this recently. Where there was asking the listeners to imagine somebody was asking you to make a decision right now about your life what the biggest thing you could achieve or think for yourself in that moment? You couldn't go again. So you had to pick it right then and there, and that was it for the rest of your life. The most people would go much bigger than the idea they set for themselves in the moment. Really good construct to think about and like, gosh, If somebody was really thinking about the biggest thing they could achieve and then aim for that. I think a goal for all of us is just to aim so much bigger than what we actually think we can achieve.

Claire:

And just on that, who cares if we set a massive goal and we tell a couple of people, or we tell a few people, and we don't make it, who cares? Making a big goal. And then you've got a bunch of steps that you can do to get you there.

Miranda:

So true. Who cares? We do just like to hold ourselves to such an account. But yeah, great point. Let's aim high. So what's your favorite quote from this book

Claire:

One of the quotes that I really liked from the book is that one yes, must be defended over time by one thousand no's. I think that is really, really, really important and one of the key things that I took out from the book was this concept of, by saying yes to one thing, you're saying no to a thousand other things. And actually that's really quite valuable and powerful because I think most of us struggle to some degree, with saying no. And there are many reasons why we do, we want to be helpful, we don't want to be hurtful. We want to be caring and considerate. We don't want to seem cold and callous. However, it's important to understand and know that no is a complete sentence and especially in the construct of everything that we've all been juggling over the last 18 months in COVID, being able to let stuff go and say no to things and not do them is really important for getting where we want to go. And also for our general health and wellbeing. In another one of the recent"One Thing" podcast episodes, I think it's episode 310, they've got an interview with a lady called Katy Milkman. She's written a book called"How To Change". I haven't listened to the book, but they were talking to her about that on the podcast. In that she talks about how she formed a"no club" with some friends and women in her network who are at similar stages in their career in life. And they come to each other when they have challenges and they help each other make better decisions. And I really loved this idea of forming a"no club" with a like-minded tribe of women. Katie also spoke to a couple of unintended benefits that came from the"no club" for her. And one was that it helped her because she felt accountable to live the advice herself that she was giving to her friends who were facing their challenges. And also that it boosted her confidence too, because she realized that she was knowledgeable and useful to her friends on some things that she really probably didn't realize she had the knowledge and experience until she was coaching and helping her friends through some stuff. So yeah, that whole one, yes must be defended by a thousand nos really resonated with me.

Miranda:

I like it, Claire. And what I liked about that is that it wasn't just saying no, the authors didn't hide from the narrative of what happens when you start to say no. If you Laser focus on your one thing, there is going to be other areas where you have to accept underperformance. Even the word is really hard, I think for a lot of us to deal with. The visual offered by this book was one of your life as a series of balls. And I quite liked that as a way to be more comfortable with the idea of this, letting some things go some of the time. It suggests that the work ball is rubber, it bounces back, but your health and your family are glass balls. Neglect your body or your family for too long and they won't bounce back. And I acknowledge that by saying no more on the work side would have been fine for my career to date, I just never thought of it as a rubber ball, that there are more precious balls in my life. It's so demanding. It's so needy that you can easily get absorbed in work and your work colleagues and not think too much about what you want in all those other balls in your life. So I can how these constructs support people going no in the future. What makes this book unique or important to you?

Claire:

Well, you mentioned the balls. The rubber balls being work and glass balls being your health and your family. I'd had forgotten about that concept in the book. So I think what makes the book unique for me is that it has brought home the fact that you and I are on this journey too, with our podcast listeners and our Insta followers. There are so many practical nuggets of advice and steps in"The One Thing" that tie back into bringing out a whole Elevate With Grace model to life for our listeners, as well as for me too. So we're practicing the program together and we're on this journey together. What about you?

Miranda:

I think the key for me was not just that you need to focus on your one thing, but how you're attending to your life and setting up those systems for focus is key. The book goes into four areas of focus you need or areas that if you don't attend to, they will rob you of productivity. Things like fear of chaos, inability to say no, your environment doesn't support your goals. Poor health habits. If anything, I think the last period of time that we've just lived through shy is how those areas can absolutely rob us of productivity and so setting up good sources of energy, and it's in the book, the five sources of energy. So it talks to the physical, so sleep exercise, spirituality whether that's meditation for you or praying or yoga. Um, emotional so family or social, mental willpower focus and security and business. So finance and confidence. And now I see that the book will absolutely work for women. It's not just one thing. One work, one focus, but it's actually to cover these five areas is very female. We don't have the same ability to not answer our family calls and work meetings so acknowledging that this will feed our energy to achieve our goals that these are really key and it's a great takeaway from this book

Claire:

That's really great insights I think Miranda, because the book's main premise is that there is a single question you should always be asking yourself every day, which is what is the one thing I can do this week or this moment, or right now that doing it will make everything else, either easier or unnecessary. And I found that when I've been getting overwhelmed with work and home life and everything all merging in the same physical location as has been the case for a lot of us over the last little while. That pausing and going, right. What is the one thing that I can do right now that will make the rest of the day easier or things, or even unnecessary really helps in the moment re-prioritize stuff, so, I think it is just a good tagline all around. And I also agree with you about having the different buckets and having what's the one thing that I'm going to do for my family this week, or today, what's the one thing I'm going to do for my career today, what's the one thing I'm going to do for Elevate with Grace today, what's the one thing I'm going to do for my health and wellbeing and just having those four or five key things, like you said, that is important to us and identifying one thing for each of those. I think that is pragmatically more realistic, as you said, particularly for women, but probably for everyone. A few other concepts I really liked from the book too, was that distraction is natural. Don't beat yourself up for getting distracted. Everyone gets distracted. It's human nature. Also when you try to do too much at once, you can end up doing nothing well, that again, really resonated with me cause we tend to think that we can do eight things at once and we just can't and we just need to try and remember that. Doing your one thing early before your willpower and your cognitive power is drawn down throughout the rest of the day, I think is great advice if you can manage to get up, I'm not part of the 5:00 AM club like yourself Miranda, but I think getting up early and being what's the one thing I really have to get done today and getting that done is really helpful thought process. And this concept of counter balancing so that of course we can't leave all administrative duties and basic life stuff and not doing them at all. You need to counter balance and you can't leave everything undone. So you do need to recognize that the certain things that you need to get done in life has to take priority and that can work alongside your one thing. So I think, we overthink, we over plan, we overanalyze our careers, our business, and our lives, and, that's not healthy. And that's what I like about the one thing concepts is it helps you get that simplicity thinking into what you're doing with your time each day.

Miranda:

It actually prompted me. Great quote that"productivity isn't about being a work horse, keeping busy, or burning the midnight oil It's about priorities planning and fiercely protecting your time. And that was a quote by Margarita Tartakovsky. There was a domino analogy used a lot in this book about knocking down that lead domino and each action from this gets easier. There was a demonstration where by the 18th domino, it was actually the height of the leaning tower of PISA and by the 56 domino and you hit the moon. And so from that viewpoint that each domino can knock down one 50% larger than its size. It starts to explain how this one thing that can make things easier or unnecessary works in terms of a construct. I thought that was quite an important one to remember. I think we know that intrinsically it's quite true, in habit, forming, tackling achievable tasks. When I think instinctively about how women solve those problems of being overworked, under financed, less likely to take on those big risks. That's what we're looking to do with curating these steps that are bite sized chunks that are actionable. And he has this best-selling book that is also a podcast that is talking about these realistic benefits that we're going to get by tackling those bite-size chunks, tackling our dominoes so that we can achieve extraordinary success on our own terms. Did the book change your opinion or perspective about anything?

Claire:

I think it's difficult to get down to that one thing as we've spoken about but the ideas of having it. So I think the mantra that the authors suggest is that until my one thing is done, everything else is a distraction. And like I just mentioned before, I think that it's really helped me take stock each day, multiple times a day as to right, what am I doing today? And what do I really need to be doing to have a successful day. So that has really helped. There's a couple of bits in the book that didn't resonate with me so well and I think you touched on it right at the beginning when we spoke about there's, possibly some masculine constructs in there, which is you can just let the mess pile up while you're working on your one thing and it's just piling up behind you and I'm not sure that maybe translates for a lot of us. I think that there's a feeling that I can let go of the washing pile that's piling up behind me, but there might be other life admin things in terms of taking care of your family and making sure that they're support.

Miranda:

Sorry. The one thing podcast has come with a warning. It's like. There's one where this guy suggests that I give my family 15 minutes of quality time in the morning and 15 minutes of quality time in the evening. Because they all know I'm doing this one thing in my life that's really important. i was like whoa that's probably not okay

Claire:

Yep. Yep. So maybe not to that extreme, but certainly a massive progress towards the side of what is really important today and getting some of that simplicity. What about you?

Miranda:

I'm not sure how many times people have to tell me that you cannot multitask for it finally to sink in, but I think I'm there. There was another great book, John Medina's brain rules, which mentally demonstrates why multitasking is so wrong and why it doesn't work, but we still try because we just feel so time poor and that the multitasking is somehow going to give us this sense of freedom. The rabbit quote of the chase, two rabbits get none another one of take on two things, your attention is divided, take on three and something's going to get dropped. And I do, I see that glass bowl smashing, all great things to go, you know what enough, no more multitasking. Clear defined focus and yes, it's going to be a habit. There's some really great takeaways and I love a book that has some clear, actionable steps that has some reality and does feed absolutely into that need for curated, bite-sized actionable steps each day, each week, each month to achieving your goals. Very aligned to our heart and our mission. One of the things about this working from home period in the book they talk about having a sign on their door that says"One Thing In Progress" to stop people from coming in, unless they really need them. So time dedicated to focus versus time dedicated to interruptions and people, and they talk about dedicating that time to those interruptions. I can't imagine leaving this talk without asking our listeners as our actionable step challenge for this week to think about, and then write down. We know it doesn't stay in our head for long enough. So write it down. What is the one thing that they can do this week to help them achieve their goals? Take action on that first domino, then the next, and work towards your dreams. With that constant mantra of the book, what is the one thing I can do such that doing it everything else will become easier or unnecessary. It sounds like you've been doing this pretty well, but let see how we all go this week.

Claire:

That's the obvious weekly challenge task for this week. I do and have embraced the concepts of the book, but a quick honorable mention warning for our listeners is that even"The One Thing" team on"The One Thing" podcast talk about the fact that there will be some days where you'll get off track from asking yourself, what's the one thing I can do today or right now that will make everything else either easier or unnecessary. And there could be a bunch of reasons, and there is a bunch of reasons why we get off track on that because we're human and stuff happens. But I think just the reminder is that once you realize that, then you need to course correct and do a level set on zoning in again, on what's your one thing and what's your priorities for the day and then keep moving forward. For me, it's good to keep it front of mind, cause as you said 66 days to form a habit. It can be quite easily forgotten about with life going on. Next Thursday, please be sure to tune into the podcast where Miranda and I will have a chinwag about why embracing and taking smart risks is a really crucial element for creating a life of success for yourself as you've defined it. As always we've put all the curated content we've mentioned today in the pod episode notes. So you can check them out over the next week and to dip into some of the stuff that resonates with you and will inspire you to take some small, actionable steps for your own success journey. Also check out our website, elevate.with.grace.com.au or hop onto our Instagram for more curated content. And we would love, love, love to hear from you and how you going so please drop us an email at elevatewithgrace@gmail.com.

Miranda:

If you like what wetalked about the book and would like to read more. We have included a link in our show notes and website. And of course, please like, and subscribe to this podcast. It's an important way for our podcast to get visibility. We can't wait to chat to you again next week. Thank you so much, Claire. And thank you everyone for listening.

Claire:

Can't wait to chat to you next week. Thanks so much for listening, everyone.