The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

Chapter-1: Going Small

 

At the beginning of the book, Gary Keller discusses how he got to the idea of writing this book ‘The ONE Thing.’

 

Keller ran a very successful real estate company. However, after early years of steady growth, his business began to decline. The focus that Keller put into turning around the business is what led to the creation of ‘The One Thing.’

 

Keller asserts that focusing on just ‘The ONE Thing’ is your best approach to achieving your goals. 

 

Keller cites examples from his own company to showcase that success inevitably followed focus. A lack of focus similarly led to a lack of success.

 

His mantra for success is straightforward. Go Small.

 

For you to have the absolute highest chance of success, if it is extraordinary results that you are after, then your approach must be to narrow your focus to the point that you can find that one task that is at the core of what you want to achieve. 

 

Your approach must be to go small. Doing fewer things well will achieve a more significant impact than doing many things that produce no effect at all.

 

To quote the authors, “When you go as small as possible, you’ll be staring at One Thing. And that’s the point.”

 

 

Chapter-2: The Domino Effect

 

Keller makes the case that success is built sequentially and built over time. The key lesson here is that to do things well, you must do them one Thing at a time. 

 

These sequential acts result in creating a domino effect of extraordinary outcomes in your personal life and your professional life.

 

The authors make the case that a domino can knock over the next domino that is 50% bigger than itself. Therefore, if you begin with a 2-inch domino, the 18th domino would be the size of the Tower of Pisa. The 23rd domino will start to reach the height of the Eifel Tower. The 31st domino will be taller than Mount Everest, and if you get to the 57th domino, that would be nearly as tall as the distance from the earth to the moon.

 

Highly successful people understand the logic of how dominos works. This understanding is why they line up their priorities every day anew and knowing that as they grow their skillset or their business from the size of one domino to the next domino, they acquire the ability to knock down a much bigger domino in front of them.

 

The authors aver that this approach works because extraordinary success is sequential. Success is never simultaneous. 

 

Therefore, when you focus on the right priority at hand, that leads to the next right priority.

 

The success that starts as a linear progression rapidly becomes a geometric progression. Success builds on success. Over time success changes scale. This idea is similar to the concept of giant dominos falling in the path of a cascade of smaller dominos.

 

 

Chapter-3: Success Leaves Clues

 

Keller knocks the notion that one can be entirely self-made. He makes the case that absolutely no one ever succeeds alone. 

 

He makes the case that ‘The ONE Thing’ or focus on narrow goals of great consequence show up time and again in the lives of successful people. 

 

The ONE Thing is, in fact, the basis for achieving extraordinary results.

 

The authors list six lies that come between you and success. These are:    

 

– Everything Matters Equally

– Multitasking

– A Disciplined Life

– Willpower Is Always on Will-Call

– A Balanced Life

– Big Is Bad

 

Chapter-4: Everything Matters Equally (The First Lie)

 

It is perhaps self-evident all things cannot matter equally. Keller argues that those things that matter the most must never be equated with things that matter little. 

 

The question, therefore, becomes, how do you find out what the most important things that matter are? And thus, how do you determine what you must do first?

 

Keller introduces the reader to the Pareto principle. Also known as the 80/20 rule. Stated simply this rule states that 80% of your results are attributable to 20% of the things that you do. Or that 80% of your sales will come from 20% of your product line. Or 80% of our account receivables will come from 20% of your customers.

 

Keller recommends that we use Extreme Pareto.

– Begin with the 80/20 principle

– Establish the critical 20% then apply the 80/20 rule again to the 20%

– Repeat until you have just a few vital tasks left.

– Extreme Pareto can help you distill your priority down to one.

 

To quote the authors: “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.” 

 

Achievers have an eye for the essential, and disregard the superfluous and distracting.

 

 

Chapter-5: Multitasking (The Second Lie)

 

To do two things at once is to do neither well. The authors argue that the real problem is that we feel somehow compelled to fit in many different things into the time that we have available.

 

They quote research that estimates worker productivity to find that that the typical workers are interrupted on average every 11 minutes. These workers end up spending a third of their day, just recovering from these interruptions.

 

They concede that you can do two things at the same time. However, you cannot focus efficiently on both things at the same time. Consequently, the quality of the results will suffer.

 

Therefore, the question to ask is, why would we willingly reduce the quality of our output through Multitasking when we are addressing our most important tasks?

 

 

Chapter-6: A Disciplined Life (The Third Lie)

 

The authors state that success needs the focus for what is, in essence, a short sprint. The discipline and perseverance that we need are for the time that it takes for our effort to become a habit. Once you establish a routine and persevere long enough with the routine, the routine becomes a habit. The habit now built takes over to keep us on track.

 

The authors claim that it takes on the average only 66 days for someone to acquire a new habit. 

 

Success cannot be achieved without any discipline. However, it doesn’t need as much discipline as one might imagine. This apparent contradiction is because success is achieved by doing the Right Thing and not by doing everything possible right.

 

That said, be aware that it takes some time to develop the right habit. Therefore, choose the habit that will give you success, practice it, and give it all the discipline that you can to develop the habit.

 

Remember that successful people seem to be the ones with routines that they regularly follow. What is happening here is that these successful people have identified the most important things for them to do periodically. As a result, they just keep becoming better and better at it.

 

 

Chapter-7: Willpower Is Always on Call (The Fourth Lie)

 

Willpower is always on will-call. This is a lie. 

 

When we take the position that we can summon our willpower to achieve something when needed, then we are setting ourselves up for failure.

 

The authors make the point that our willpower for tasks is related to how much we use our minds. The greater the use that we put our mind to, the lesser the power we have over it when we need to turn on maximum effort for critical tasks.

 

This control on the power of our minds may seem counter-intuitive. However, the authors are making a time tested point. This point is that when you need to prioritize doing something mission-critical to your business or your life, then you must attempt to do it when your willpower is at its highest. 

 

Therefore, if you have arrived at that One Thing that you need to do, then ensure that you go after that task early, before your willpower is drained through its application on other minor tasks.

 

 

Chapter-8: A Balanced Life (The Fifth Lie)

 

A balanced life is a lie.

 

The authors argue that if you have an extensive list of things to do, there will inevitably be things left undone at the end of the day. This leftover list will happen despite your best effort. 

 

Therefore, when you put in the most challenging effort, and you have managed to complete the things that matter the most to you, you will nonetheless feel that you have left several things undone. However, leaving some things incomplete or undone is a necessary tradeoff for obtaining extraordinary results. 

 

If you make an effort to ensure that absolutely everything gets done, you will get shortchanged, and nothing that gets done is of quality.

 

You should, therefore, not gamble with your time.  

 

The achievement of extraordinary results requires that you select the tasks that are critical and give that your undivided focus. This effort will result in your feeling that you are extremely out of balance in the context of other tasks that are as yet undone.

 

The authors concede that sometimes you may need to counterbalance to address these unfinished tasks. However, this counterbalancing will be required infrequently.

 

 

Chapter-9: Big is Bad (The Sixth Lie)

 

A limiting belief in life is that going big in your endeavor is a bad thing. The authors argue that this is a myth, and if you follow a myth, then thinking small could define your approach to any endeavor and your life. 

 

Big can be a good thing. Choosing to go Big is can impact your approach to your goals and open out an exciting future.

 

Believing in significant initiatives allows you to ask questions of a bigger scale. It helps you carve out new paths, and experiment with new things.

 

Abundance shows up in our lives as a natural outcome of going after goals with no limits attached.

 

The authors argue that the obstacles to our achieving our goals are not insurmountable. Instead, the obstacles are the more precise paths to smaller goals. 

 

Therefore, to live a great life, you need to adopt a big thinking attitude instead of an incremental thinking attitude. Learn to ask broader questions and adopt a growth mindset instead of a smaller fixed mindset.

 

 

Chapter-10: The Focusing Question

 

The Focusing Question is perhaps what is most at the heart of this book. This book’s secret sauce if you like. The question asked is this – “What is the One Thing I can target to do, such that everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”

 

The key to getting to determining the answer to the focusing question is to make sure that you ask the right question. This process may need some trial and error but a means of repeated distillation using the 80/20 rule that, as Keller himself explains, was the process that got him to write this book while running a real estate company.

  

According to the authors, the Focusing question must aim at getting to what is critically essential to success in your endeavor. Yet, the reason that this question is missed so often is due to the deceptive simplicity of the question.

 

As the authors point out, finding what the Right Thing is for their business or life can be life-altering. If you can find an answer to the ‘right thing to do’ question, then you would immediately know how many things just don’t need to be done at all, if you start doing the Right Thing.

 

What is illuminating about the focusing question is that it can be applied to your business as much as it can be applied to your life, relationships, health, etc.

 

To stay on track for extraordinary results, you must, of course, continually keep asking the Focusing Question.

 

 

Chapter-11: The Success Habit

 

The authors suggest that even success can be a habit. We already know from the authors earlier in the book that a habit takes 66 days of practice to form fully. The question then becomes, how do you build success as a habit?

 

Therefore, once you have distilled your things to do down to a “One Thing,” you then need to do to make this One Thing central to your daily routine?

 

– The first step would be to understand what your One Thing is and why it is fundamental to your success. 

– You need to understand this One Thing for this to become a part of your routine and a habit.

– Set up reminders so that your One Thing remains top of mind for you. Building on an example from action taken by Keller himself: Set aside time every day that you devote to your one Thing. Set a sign at your workplace that could say something like, “Do not disturb while I do my One Thing.”

– Make doing your One Thing a habit.

– Involve your colleagues at work or your family to become a part of a “success support group.” Show them how this One Thing will help you and them achieve a job or family goal. Having this external support will make acquiring the habit of practicing the One Thing much easier.

 

 

Chapter-12: The Path To Great Answers

 

As we have seen in the earlier chapters, the ‘Focusing Question’ enables the identification of your One Thing. For the answer to your question, be the most leverageable i.e., have the potential of taking you to the greatest success; this answer will have to be great too. 

 

The answer becomes a fundamental lever in helping you develop your ultimate success habit.

 

Posing minor questions like how do I increase sales by 5%, that would not be a question of great potential. It would, therefore, not lead you to a great answer.

 

However, asking a question like how would I able to double my sales every year, year on year, is a question of great potential and would have the ability to generate a great answer.

 

Answers to the question you ask could be from one of the following three categories:

 

– Doable: This is perhaps the easiest to do, and it probably has predictable results. This predictability of the results, in essence, makes this is a relatively weak answer.

– Stretch: This answer puts a bit of stretch effort on the Doable solution. This outcome is still within the realm of achievable although this would need extra effort

– Possibility: This answer is in the realm of well “possible.” This answer requires an initiative that is the most significant stretch, but the rewards are fundamentally game-changing. For clarity, this is not a Pie in the sky answer. This outcome is achievable, albeit with great effort being a necessary condition.

 

Benchmarking is a useful device for the best answer. For example, a first-mover advantage. If any of your competitors have found a method to get extraordinary results, It may be possible for you to do the same.

 

 

Chapter-13: Live with Purpose

 

A life lived with purpose is a life of accomplishment. It is also the life with the highest happiness.

 

The purpose of life that we set for ourselves and the priorities that we establish around that for ourselves will determine our output and our productivity.

 

This purpose holds of circumstances as well. How we interpret circumstances will determine how we let them affect us.

 

Once we achieve what we had set out to achieve, that becomes the source of our happiness. However, if we stop at this achievement, then our happiness tends to diminish over time. The way to not let happiness fritter away is by living for a higher purpose. 

 

A sense of purpose achieved provides fulfillment. Happiness is a by-product of fulfillment.

 

 

Chapter-14: Live by Priority

 

If you have a priority, that priority can be compelling only if it is linked to now. Purpose without priority is incapable of producing extraordinary results.

 

To achieve extraordinary results in the future, we need to be able to line up a sequence of moments of achievement or success.

 

If the reward is far away in the future, it will fail to motivate, and sooner or later, the passion for that reward will diminish. It, therefore, becomes imperative to connect all your tomorrows to today.

 

Goal Setting to the Now

 

To prioritize is to visualize the process. A massive goal cannot be achieved in one leap. 

 

The broad overarching goal should be split into more achievable mini-goals. Achieving this series of goals ensure that motivation stays high. 

 

As the authors point out in the book, we need to regress a large someday goal to actions that we need to take today. Therefore, based on my five-year goal, what is the One Thing that I need to do to achieve this goal?

 

Regress this to what One Thing do I need to do this year. Further to what One Thing do I need to do this month, this week, and finally, what is the One Thing that I need to do today to achieve my significant objective five years from now.

 

 

Chapter-15: Live for Productivity

 

The most productive people are also the most successful people. Productive action transform lives.

 

As an outcome of the distillation of your One Thing, you find that vastly disproportionate results come from pursuing that One Thing, then you must give that one activity, your One Thing an excessive amount of your time.

 

The authors recommend Time Blocking as a vital component of your plan towards being the most productive person that you can be. The authors suggest that you block four hours a day, commencing as early in your day as you possibly can, following this order:

 

– Time block your time off

– Time block your ONE Thing

– Time block your planning time

 

The authors explain why the first element for time blocking is ‘Time Off.’ They claim that most successful people simply see themselves as working between vacations. 

 

The least successful people, on the other hand, in the views of the authors don’t deserve any time off, because they don’t think that they will be able to deserve it or be able to afford it. 

 

Most critically block time for your One Thing. This time blocking is what the most productive people do.

 

 

 

Chapter-16: The Three Commitments

 

The authors of the One Thing claim that achieving extraordinary productivity achieved through the process of time blocking, requires that you make three commitments.

 

Follow the Path of Mastery – To begin with, you must commit to adopting the mindset of someone that seeks mastery in their field. Mastery is defined here as the path to becoming the best that you can. This mastery mindset implies, in other words, that to seek to achieve extraordinary results, you must be willing to put in the remarkable effort that is needed to achieve mastery.

 

Move from ‘E’ to ‘P’ – Second, in your journey towards mastery, you must continuously seek the smartest path. ‘E’ in this context stands for entrepreneurship. An entrepreneurial approach, while full of ingenuity and energy, is limiting because it may not always be the best approach. ‘P,’ in this case stands for Purposeful. In a purposeful approach, your goal is to bring in the next model, or system, or relationship that will give you the breakthrough to reach a higher level of business success that is based on a process and is not a one-off.

 

Live the Accountability Cycle – As you commit yourself to the path of mastery, adopt a Purposeful approach to your business actions, there remains one further action that you must take. This action is the willingness to be held accountable. Accountability simply means that you take ownership of the results that you or your company produce. You hold no one but yourself responsible for your results. According to the authors, accountable people plow through setbacks to eventual success. And accountable people achieve extraordinary results!

 

 

Chapter-17: The Four Thieves

 

The authors outline what the Four Thieves of Productivity are. These are things that can take away your productivity without your even being aware of your lost productivity. These things work by taking your focus away from what your real priorities are. These thieves of productivity get you ensnared in side-tasks such that your time commitment to your One Thing suffers.

 

Productivity Thief #1 – Inability to Say No: People find it difficult to say no sometimes. However, an inability to say No could drag you into all sorts of directions that are side-tasks and not central to your One Thing. 

 

According to the authors, when you say Yes to something, in effect, you are saying a No to several other things. The No here is not a negative; it is merely the prioritization of your One Thing.

 

Productivity Thief #2 – Fear of Chaos: The presence of chaos may be scary. However, as a part of prioritizing the One Thing, you may need to allow for is the running back and forth required to preserve order. This chaos may end up being an enormous sink of your time. Chaos may be occurring due to your complete focus on your One Thing.

 

Letting the side tasks slide and letting chaos happen may be liberating.

 

Productivity Thief #3 – Poor Health Habits: The authors use the example of the car to explain that just as a car with bald tires or with a rattling engine is a sign of trouble, similarly, your body is your vehicle and you must take care of it. 

 

You want your body to be in top physical, mental and emotional health so that it can get you to where you need to go most effectively and rapidly.

 

Productivity Thief #4 – Environment Doesn’t Support Your Goals:  Human beings don’t work in a vacuum. We are surrounded by people at work, our families, etc. some of whom may not have bought into our One Thing. Therefore, there may be no support forthcoming from these people.

 

In this environment, your performance and productivity are bound to suffer. The solution is to surround yourself with positive people and themselves goal-oriented. That the people surrounding you genuinely want you to succeed is what is needed to keep this thief of productivity at bay.

 

 

Chapter-18: The Journey

 

The essence of the One Thing is about finding a path that can help you live a life of no regrets. 

 

The best summarization of this book is a quote from the chapter-18 of the book: “Actions build on action. Habits build on habit. Success builds on success. The right domino knocks down another and another and another. So, whenever you want extraordinary results, look for the levered action that will start a domino run for you.”

 

The authors quote from a book by Bronnie Ware titled “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.” These regrets are:

 

– I wish that I’d let myself be happier

– I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends

– I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings

– I wish I hadn’t worked so hard

– I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

 

A life worth living is a life of no regrets. It is being able to say, “I am glad that I did” instead of “I wish that I had.”

This book is for anyone and everyone who can benefit from understanding what the One Thing is for them, or their business, or career, or just life in general.

 

Students, office workers, entrepreneurs, professionals, and even the retired can all benefit from The One Thing, all by just learning to evaluate their priorities to make sure that they are living a life of purpose.

 

I would strongly recommend this book.