MFL Book Club Podcast: The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan

[00:00:00] Hey, this is Mike from muscle for life, and I’m often asked about books. People ask me for book recommendations on various topics. They ask me. What book I am currently reading and what books I have recently read and what my favorite books are and so forth. And as an avid reader, I am always happy to oblige and get some book recommendations in return as well.

I also just like to encourage people to read as much as possible because I think that knowledge benefits you much like compound interest benefits your bank account, in that the more you learn, the more you know, and the more you know, the more you can do. And the more you can do, the more opportunities you have to succeed.

And on the flip side, I also believe that there is little hope for people who aren’t perpetual learners. I know that might sound a little [00:01:00] bit pessimistic or cynical to you, but let’s face it, life is overwhelmingly complex and chaotic. And if we look around, we can find plenty of evidence that it simply suffocates and devours the lazy and ignorant.

So if you are a bookworm and you’re on the lookout for good reads, or if you’d like to just get into the habit of reading more, then this book club is for you. The idea is very simple. Every week I’m going to share a book that I’ve particularly liked and I’m going to tell you why I liked it and give you several of my key takeaways from it.

I’m also going to keep these episodes short and sweet so you can quickly decide whether or not a book is likely to be up your alley or not. Okay, so let’s get to this week’s book which is The One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan, maybe mispronouncing it, P A S A N. Now, this is one of the books that I have recommended most to people that want to be more successful in business and life.

This book is very short. [00:02:00] It has very little filler content, which is much appreciated, especially with these types of books, but it also delivers a very powerful and practical message, which can be summarized in a simple question. And that is. What’s the one thing I can do such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?

In other words, how can we go from merely being busy in any area of our lives to developing a sense of the essential? Now, Napoleon once said that a military commander should be slow in deliberation and swift in execution. And the authors of this book think that we should apply that type of thinking to every area of our lives.

And I agree. They think that we should, before we act, we should pause long enough to really look at and decide on what matters and allow that to happen. to drive our days, allow that to consume the majority of our time, attention, and effort. And one of the reasons I find this concept so compelling is, I think that modern [00:03:00] living is in many ways, it’s just an embarrassment of riches.

We have More freedoms and more options in every aspect of our lives than we ever have before. And, I think that’s why a major part of achieving success and fulfillment in anything is first identifying the things that are going to produce the disproportionate share of the results. Identify that 20 percent that’s going to produce more.

The 80%. And because of that success, I think is more about doing the right things than doing everything right. It’s not about developing superhuman discipline and endurance. It’s about exerting just enough effort and self control to establish the right habits, the ones that make everything else easier or just unimportant.

So for example, if we’re talking health and fitness, then those one things would be controlling your caloric and macronutritional intakes. regularly eating nutritious foods and doing effective resistance training workouts. If that’s all you knew and did, you could ignore almost everything [00:04:00] else in the health and fitness space and have a lean, muscular, healthy body for the rest of your life.

Period. Now, if we’re talking work, I think it really depends on what you’re doing, what your business or career is. But in my case, it’s creating content. That’s my one thing. Writing articles, recording podcasts, shooting videos, writing books and stuff like that. If that’s all I did, if I ignored pretty much every other opportunity that came my way, then my brand and my companies would just keep growing.

That’s my one thing. Okay. So let’s get down to my five key takeaways, my five favorite takeaways from this book and what I thought about each. All right. So number one, we hear about balance so much. We automatically assume it’s exactly what we should be seeking. It’s not. Purpose, meaning, significance.

These are what make a successful life. Seek them and you will most certainly live your life out of balance, crisscrossing an invisible middle line as you pursue your priorities. The act of living a full life by giving time to what matters is a balancing act. Extraordinary [00:05:00] results require focused energy, attention, and time.

Time on one thing means time away from another. This makes balance impossible. And my thoughts here are that idea that you should strive to keep all aspects of your life in some magical state of perfect balance. It really just never made sense to me because extraordinary results require extraordinary sacrifices of time, attention, and energy.

There’s just No way around it. You can’t all at once. So these, I don’t know how to, and I don’t know anyone that has figured it out. I just, you can’t create an extraordinary career and family life, social life, personal life. You can’t do it all at once. Something has to go. You’re going to have to choose from all of those things, all the many things, the many aspects of life.

You have to choose what matters most to you and give those things all the time that they demand. And that means that your life is probably going to get pretty unbalanced from time to time, and that you’re probably going to have to do something to correct that from time to time, lest it topple. Now, in my case, I focus most on my work and my family.

I’d say [00:06:00] that about 80 percent of my waking hours are spent working or spending time with my family. And maybe 10 percent are spent eating and exercising and the remaining 10% are mainly spent educating myself, reading books, reading articles, or maybe pursuing a hobby or pet project of some kind. Now that life, that probably sounds like torture to some people, but I myself, I love it.

I wouldn’t have it any other way for me, happiness and fulfillment lies in being active and engaged in taking on more responsibility and doing more things as opposed to just being passive and disconnected and unaccountable achievers. Do sooner what others plan to do later, and defer, perhaps indefinitely, what others do sooner.

The difference isn’t in intent, but in right of way. Achievers always work from a clear sense of priority. Now my thoughts here are this is powerful because If we do that, what we’re going to do is we are going to inevitably focus on the things that most people delay and defer, the things [00:07:00] that they don’t want to do, the hard things, the uncomfortable things, the complicated things, the unexciting things, the exhausting things, the things that really produce the powerful long term results.

And if we make those things our priority, then we are going to get a lot more done in our work, as opposed to just being compulsively busy. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth.

So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say, hey, Thank you. You can find me on Instagram at muscle for life, fitness Twitter at muscle for [00:08:00] life and Facebook at muscle for life fitness.

All right. So the third takeaway here is do your most important work. Your one thing early before your willpower is drawn down. And my note here is that most people, they start their days with a full tank of mental energy and willpower. And then every decision that they make, so whether they’re going to snooze their alarm or go to the gym, what clothes they’re going to wear, what they’re going to eat for breakfast, or if they’re going to eat breakfast at all and everything else that the day has in store, all of these decisions, they progressively diminish these reserves.

Now some of us are more mentally resilient than others, but at some point we all just run out of cognitive juice and then we become more susceptible to illogical and impulsive behaviors and it becomes harder and harder. To do the things that we know we should do this, scientifically speaking, this is known as decision fatigue.

And one of the easiest ways to inoculate ourselves against it is to simply eliminate distractions and [00:09:00] decisions that don’t really matter. Reserve your energy and willpower for the activities that are critically important. All right. My fourth key takeaway here, we usually succeed in spite of most of what we do, not because of it.

And my thoughts here are. That the key to success isn’t in all the things that we do, but it’s in the handful of things that we do very well. And because of that, you can gain a lot from just evaluating the various compartments of your life and deciding in very clear terms. What you want and then working backward to identify the key actions, the actions that are going to be most productive, and then make those your number one priority every single day.

Now, if you do that, then what you’ll find is that there’s a shift from Waking up and asking yourself, what shall I do today to what should I do today? If you don’t have a clear sense of purpose and direction, then, I would say it really doesn’t matter what you do, because whatever you do, it’ll get you somewhere.

It’s like an Alice in Wonderland. [00:10:00] When Alice asks the Cheshire cat, Which way she should go. And the cat says that kind of depends on where you’re going and Alice doesn’t know where she’s going. So the cat says then it doesn’t really matter which way you go. There’s a life lesson there because the only way to know what you really should be doing is when you can say you want to go in that direction for this reason.

All right. The fifth and final takeaway. I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose 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 it all. And my note here is going to be a little redundant if you listen to all my podcasts because I’ve said this stuff before, but I’ll say it again.

And that is. Research shows that people are very bad at predicting what will bring them sustained happiness. The great western disease is, I’m gonna be happy when? When I buy that house, when I find that guy or girl, when I get the job, or I get the raise, or whatever. Now, I believe [00:11:00] that true lasting happiness, it can’t be pursued.

It really only can ensue from how we live and specifically from personal dedication to a course greater than ourselves. A course that gives us a compelling reason to put up with all the effort and all the chaos and pain and suffering that must be faced if we’re really going to go out there and live life.

All right. That’s it for this week’s book review. I told you, I keep it short and sweet. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did, and you don’t mind doing me a favor, could you please drop a quick review of the podcast on iTunes or wherever you’re listening from? Because it really helps boost visibility, which ultimately helps more and more people find their way to the show and the book.

Check it out. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then simply subscribe to the podcast and you won’t miss out on any of the new stuff. And lastly, if you didn’t like something about this episode or just about the podcast on the whole, then definitely shoot me an email at Mike at most for life.

com and [00:12:00] share your thoughts on how I could make things better. I read all the emails myself, and I’m always looking for constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to the episode. And I hope to hear from you soon. Oh, and before you leave, let me quickly tell you about one other product of mine that I think you might like.

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