Be like a postage stamp–stick to one thing until you get there.
So the more things you do, the less successful you are at any one of them.
Leaving some things undone is a necessary tradeoff for extraordinary results.
GOING SMALL If everyone has the same number of hours in a day, why do some people seem to get so much more done than others? How do they do more, achieve more, earn more, have more? If time is the currency of achievement, then why are some able to cash in their allotment for more chips than others? The answer is they make getting to the heart of things the heart of their approach. They go small.
Don’t fear big. Fear mediocrity. Fear waste. Fear the lack of living to your fullest.
My mom lived to be ninety-five. Every morning I would ask her, “Are you going to have a good day?” She would always answer, “I choose to have a good day. I don’t have enough days left in my life to have a bad one.” She was right, she didn’t. And neither do I!
If you can honestly say, “This is where I’m meant to be right now, doing exactly what I’m doing,” then all the amazing possibilities for your life become possible.
It’s important to realize that on the journey to achieving big, you get bigger. Big requires growth, and by the time you arrive, you’re big too! What seemed an insurmountable mountain from a distance is just a small hill when you arrive – at least in proportion to the person you’ve become. Your thinking, your skills, your relationships, your sense of what is possible and what it takes all grow on the journey to big. As you experience big, you become big.
It’s important for you to accept this instead of fighting it. Oscar-winning filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola warns us that “anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos.” In other words, get used to it and get over it.
Multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time.
You do the right thing and then you do the next right thing. Over time it adds up, and the geometric potential of success is unleashed.
If today your company doesn’t know what its ONE Thing is, then the company’s ONE Thing is to find out.
Happiness happens when you have a bigger purpose than having more fulfills, which is why we say happiness happens on the way to fulfillment.
Since there is always another level to learn, mastery actually means you’re a master of what you know and an apprentice of what you don’t. In other words, we become masters of what is behind us and apprentices for what is ahead. This is why mastery is a journey. Alex.
Lacking a clear formula for making decisions, we get reactive and fall back on familiar, comfortable ways to decide what to do. Pinballing through our day like a confused character in a B-horror movie, we end up running up the stairs instead of out the front door. The best decision gets traded for any decision.
No matter how many to-dos you start with, you can always narrow it to one. Keep going. You can actually take 20 percent of the 20 percent of the 20 percent and continue until you get to the single most important thing!
Saying yes to everyone is the same as saying yes to nothing. Each additional obligation chips away at your effectiveness at everything you try.
When life happens, you can be either the author of your life or the victim of it. Those are your only two choices – accountable or unaccountable. This may sound harsh, but it’s true. Every day we choose one approach or the other, and the consequences follow us forever.
Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.” – Alan Lakein.
BIG IDEAS Distraction is natural. Don’t feel bad when you get distracted. Everyone gets distracted. Multitasking takes a toll. At home or at work, distractions lead to poor choices, painful mistakes, and unnecessary stress. Distraction undermines results. When you try to do too much at once, you can end up doing nothing well. Figure out what matters most in the moment and give it your undivided attention.