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GREG MCKEOWN | Essentialism Explained: How To Focus On What Matters | Modern Wisdom Podcast 175

Greg McKeown is a public speaker, leadership & business strategist and New York Times Bestselling Author. Do you feel busy but not productive? Like you're stretched too thin? Like other people's agendas are hijacking your day? Success breeds options & opportunities, which often undermines the things that lead to success in the first place. Today Greg teaches us the art of Essentialism; how not to fall into the undisciplined pursuit of more, how to avoid the trivial many and instead focus our attention onto the vital few. This podcast could change your life, don't miss it. Sponsor: Get Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/MODERNWISDOM (Enter promo code MODERNWISDOM for 85% off and 3 Months Free) Extra Stuff: Buy Essentialism - https://amzn.to/3bSd8jy Check out Greg's website - https://gregmckeown.com/ Subscribe to Greg's Podcast - https://link.chtbl.com/zXR5Fdfq Take a break from alcohol and upgrade your life - https://6monthssober.com/podcast Check out everything I recommend from books to products - https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/modernwisdom #essentialism #gregmckeown #mindset - Listen to all episodes online. Search "Modern Wisdom" on any Podcast App or click here: iTunes: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/modern-wisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: modernwisdompodcast@gmail.com

Greg McKeownguestChris Williamsonhost
May 25, 20201h 31mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 1:32

    The Essentialism problem: success creates too many options

    1. GM

      I was working with high-performing, uh, executives in Silicon Valley and noticed a predictable pattern, which is that in the early days, these, uh, companies, they were really focused. That led to success. That success breeded options and opportunities, which, if you're not careful, can undermine the things that led to success in the first place. Uh, you fall into the undisciplined pursuit of more, so you're just doing too many things, and they may all be good things, but just too many different things. And so you start to plateau in your progress or fail altogether. As I've studied this, I find that almost universally, people feel stretched too thin at work or at home, busy but not productive, feel like their day's being hijacked by other people's agenda for them. Now, this is, this is like the problem that essentialism is seeking to address or solve.

    2. CW

      Greg McKeown, how are you, my friend?

    3. GM

      I'm wonderful. Nice to be with you.

    4. CW

      Nice to be with you as well. Could we have dressed any more polar opposite?

    5. GM

      (laughs)

    6. CW

      You've got this beautiful suit on, lovely pressed suit with a white shirt, and I am in a vest because it's the first hot day of May in Newcastle.

    7. GM

      Listen, that's what it is. That's the difference, is that I'm, I'm in California, so I've got no, no reason to celebrate. Well, I should celebrate, but this, uh, you know, beautiful weather. Now, that, that explains it.

    8. CW

      It's a rarity, you know. And you know what? No, anybody... All these people on the internet, I'm allowed to wear a vest if I want to wear a vest to podcast with Greg McKeown. You know?

    9. GM

      Yes.

    10. CW

      If there was an essentialist outfit for today-

    11. GM

      (laughs)

  2. 1:32 – 4:32

    Chris’s confession: novelty addiction, overcommitment, and the myth of ‘more productivity’

    1. CW

      ... this, this would be, this would be it. Um, so e- essentialism is the word of the day. That's what we're gonna be talking about today. And I, I fear that I might be, um, the, the arch-nemesis of an essentialist, or at least I was for, for quite a long time. So I've got-

    2. GM

      Yeah. Okay. Why do you say that?

    3. CW

      Um, so I have a very high desire for novelty.

    4. GM

      Okay.

    5. CW

      I love new things. Uh, one of my-

    6. GM

      Okay.

    7. CW

      ... five core values is adventure, which also pulls me toward that, and another one is curiosity, which pulls me-

    8. GM

      Okay.

    9. CW

      ... toward that. Um, I tend to work more than I need to. Uh, I enjoy work. I enjoy being busy. I enjoy doing things. And over time, that has led to me adding an awful lot on my plate. Uh, and presuming that I will just be able to up-regulate my productivity or down-regulate my sleep to slot in these extra things. But, and the... To the audience at home, you will know this feeling, right? You will see from the front row seat, you will watch the slippage of your own terrible unproductive- uh, unproductiveness, right? You'll see the, the inefficiencies in your system firsthand, and you think, "Well, I can add that, that project in, and all that'll happen is I'll just have to get rid of those inefficiencies." And you just presume that like a... I don't know, like a, like a system that the oil will be greased sufficiently more to allow it to go in. And I learned, I learned the hard way over a career of 13 years of running club nights and, and being a DJ and being a model and being a podcaster and doing coaching and being... fitness and all this sort of stuff, I realized that you can't, you can't-

    10. GM

      You can't do it all.

    11. CW

      No. Who knew? I mean, you knew actually-

    12. GM

      (laughs)

    13. CW

      ... which is, which is the question. So why, why don't you give us a bit of a background, essentialism and sort of what you do in your, your, uh, approach to this?

    14. GM

      Look, I was working with high-performing, uh, executives in Silicon Valley and noticed a predictable pattern, which is that in the early days, these, uh, companies, they were really focused. That led to success. That success breeded options and opportunities, which, if you're not careful, can undermine the things that led to success in the first place. Uh, you fall into the undisciplined pursuit of more, so you're just doing too many things. And they may all be good things, but just too many different things. You get pulled a million different directions. And so you start to plateau in your progress or fail altogether. Uh, a- and as it turns out, this is a pattern that a lot of people, uh, well, you just said, just described it a little bit, um, feel the same thing. So, uh, a- as I've studied this, I find that almost universally, people feel stretched too thin at work or at home, uh, busy but not productive, uh, feel like their day's being hijacked by other people's agenda for them. Now, this is, this is like the problem that essentialism is seeking, uh, to, to address or solve.

  3. 4:32 – 7:02

    “Less but better” and Dieter Rams: design as a metaphor for life

    1. CW

      Yeah. Can you pronounce that German word for me, please?

    2. GM

      Which German word?

    3. CW

      The le-

    4. GM

      The, the-

    5. CW

      Less but better.

    6. GM

      Less but better. Yeah. Typically, they just do the English less but better.

    7. CW

      (laughs)

    8. GM

      (laughs)

    9. CW

      I wondered if you, I wondered if it... 'Cause it's quite an ugly word, less but better.

    10. GM

      Oh, oh, oh, hold on, hold on. We're gonna find it here now. We're gonna, we're gonna do this.

    11. CW

      Okay, cool.

    12. GM

      All right. Do you know what page it's on?

    13. CW

      Uh, uh, no, sorry. I'm Kindling as well, so on a, uh, in a different sense.

    14. GM

      Yeah, so you have, you have no idea. I love that you put that on me.

    15. CW

      I... Look-

    16. GM

      Yeah.

    17. CW

      ... Greg, I can't... Well, I know for a fact that I can't pronounce that German word, and I thought, "Do you know what it is? See if Greg, see if Greg can pronounce it," you know?

    18. GM

      Yeah, and then you, you put, put it all on me, and I can't even find it.

    19. CW

      Um-

    20. GM

      It's a- it's a... Here's, here's where it is while we're trying to find it. It's, um... It comes from... Dieter Rams is the one that at least is credited with having made this idea. And, uh, and, and he's, he's the... I can't find it now.

    21. CW

      It's fine. It doesn't matter. We couldn't... We, we're not gonna be able to pronounce it in any case. Even if we do, we'll just garble the words-

    22. GM

      (laughs)

    23. CW

      ... and, and completely-

    24. GM

      We probably should just move on.

    25. CW

      (laughs)

    26. GM

      The... Uh, it, it, it's, uh... He's, he's this amazing designer who was the first person to see... one of the first people to see how rubbish it was the way that we'd been designing a whole bunch of furniture. So he's working over at Braun, and he has this insight. He says, um, I mean, well... He doesn't give an example of this. At the time, if you wanted to buy a record player, the first record players did not look like...... the record players that, you know, that if you think of that right now, you know what that looks like. They didn't look like that. They looked like massive pieces of furniture, you know, because, i- i- it takes a while for people to lose the old in any design. I- i- i- and so, and so as soon as you're creating record players, they say, "Well, it has to look like a piece of furniture, and it has to look like a closet," sort of thing. And so he was the one that said, "No, hold on, we get rid of the closet, we'll just have the record player."

    27. CW

      (laughs)

    28. GM

      And at first when he designed that, people w- actually they were a little hesitant about it. They thought, "Well, this is, this is..." They, they described it as like a glass coffin, like Snow White's coffin or something. It was so pristine and simple and clear. But what's interesting is that forever afterwards, every design of every record player looked like his, 'cause he'd stripped away all the nonessential stuff and he'd said, "This is, this is how it needs to be." And he did that for many, many products over 35 years. He summarized everything he'd learned into those three words, uh, less but better.

  4. 7:02 – 9:16

    Self-diagnosing nonessentialism and realizing there’s an alternative

    1. CW

      I love less but better. It is, it is phenomenal. So people that are listening, and we've mentioned essentialism, we've said less but better in this chaotic, how can people self-diagnose if they're a nonessentialist?

    2. GM

      Look, the, the, the, the questions I already put I think are the simplest questions, right? Like, have you ever found yourself busy but not productive? Yes or no? Have you ever found yourself stretched too thin at work or at home or both? Uh, you know, have you ever felt like your day is being hijacked by other people's agenda for you? Are you trying to do too many things and ending up doing them averagely well? Have you ever, uh, found yourself making just a millimeter progress in many, many different directions? Someone who says yes to any of the above, especially if you say yes to all of the above-

    3. CW

      (laughs)

    4. GM

      ... yeah, pretty good chance, you know, you're operating more as a nonessentialist than an essentialist currently. Uh, I mean, the good news about all of this is that i- it's, people are completely redeemable. Th- this is, the reason that people are nonessentialists, there's a few, but the primary reason is because they didn't know they were choosing that, they didn't know there was an alternative. They didn't wake up in the morning, "I just want to be a nonessentialist."

    5. CW

      (laughs)

    6. GM

      You know, "I just wanna do too many things in too many different directions."

    7. CW

      Yeah.

    8. GM

      They just, they just woke, they just lived in a world that happens to emphasize that, happens to pursue too many different things, and they just went along with everybody else. And, and so the w- the awakening is where you say, "Well, hold on, there are a group of people who aren't operating like that, and the, the, the results they get are extraordinary. They're able to produce far, far better results at a lower stress level, so they can break through to a higher point of contribution and enjoy the process at the same time. These are the essentialists." And so, uh, and so learning that is a, is, is, is a big moment, it's a big change in mindset, uh, and therefore you can change your life quite quickly afterwards.

  5. 9:16 – 18:23

    Busyness as status, social comparison, and moving from FOMO to JOMO

    1. CW

      Yeah, I think there's, there's two, uh, main realizations I had when I was reflecting on that particular area of your work. And one of them was, um, to me busyness was inbuilt into life. And you're right, I didn't know that there was an alternative. I was like, "Well, this is just what life is," you know?

    2. GM

      Yes.

    3. CW

      Life is just, life just happens to go a million miles an hour, uh-

    4. GM

      (laughs)

    5. CW

      ... in, in, in, uh, across the galaxy, and I need to-

    6. GM

      It's the default setting.

    7. CW

      Yeah, yeah, that's what, that's what you, you, your entry level. Uh, and the other, the other thing was, um, it gave me, especially as a younger businessman, it gave me a, a sense of accomplishment, you know? It made me feel important, it made me feel like I was doing things, um, because... And it was impressive. Low key, it was impressive for me to s- so for people to say, "What do you do?" And for me to have a laundry list and be like, "So what do you do?" "Well, it's a interesting question actually. I hope you've got about 10 minutes. So I do the modeling, I do the podcast. Oh, I've been on reality TV and I do the this thing, and I do the that thing, and I do..." You know, you've got this big list. So those are the two things. I was like, "I didn't know there was an alternative," and, uh, it made me feel important and, and, and busy and, and valued. And I'd wager a lot of other people feel like that as well.

    8. GM

      Yeah, and that, that right there is interesting. This idea of, of it being important, that busyness somehow has come to equal importance is not... and it's not a, a, a necessary human condition or understanding, but it does seem to be this current culture's understanding. And so, I mean, I remember talking to a woman one time and I was asking, yeah, I said, "How are you?" And she said, "Oh, I'm so busy." She said, "I'm so busy. Greg, I tell you, I've slept on average four hours a night for the last two weeks That's how busy I am," you know? And she's smiling. I mean, first of all, why is she smiling?

    9. CW

      (laughs)

    10. GM

      And, and, and, and what I, she didn't say this, but what I think she was saying was, "Look, I hate to break it to you, Greg, I'm just a little more important than you are."

    11. CW

      (laughs)

    12. GM

      "You know, you get to sleep a normal night's rest, but I am under so much demand, you see, that's how-"

    13. CW

      You mere mortal.

    14. GM

      "Yeah, exactly. That's how important I am." And she didn't know of course that she was right, you know, speaking to, um, well, to an aspiring essentialist, you know. So she didn't know that this was not, this is not impressive to me. This is not an achievement to me. And so it was, it led to a very genuinely friendly conversation. And a couple of weeks after that, she came back to me and said, "Okay, my goodness, I have like completely stripped away the way I was doing it. Sleeping properly, I've like made prioritized decisions about what I actually want to go after and don't, and I feel this increase of productivity, right? My stress is going down, my productivity is going up." Like this...... is the value proposition of essentialism, and, and it's, in that story there's also the nonsense of nonessentialism, what a, what a con that it is.

    15. CW

      (laughs) Yeah. Uh, I think it's a Ray Dalio quote that felt like it should've been in Essentialism.

    16. GM

      Yeah.

    17. CW

      Um, and it says, uh, "A truth in this life is that you can have anything you want, but you can't have everything you want."

    18. GM

      Yeah.

    19. CW

      And accepting that, uh, genuinely, truly, not just going, "Yeah, yeah, sounds good. Sounds, sounds, sounds, sounds nice, mate. But I'm gonna get... I'll get, I'll get the other thing after I've had this thing. So I'll have this anything, then I'll have the next anything." And you n- know that's the everything mentality. Um-

    20. GM

      Yeah.

    21. CW

      ... and, uh, I wonder how much of this comes from people not knowing what they want in life.

    22. GM

      Yeah, absolutely. It c- it comes from people, it comes from people not taking the time to explore that, you know? They just, they're just going along. And the busyness begets busyness, and that's what everyone else is doing, so they're just, they're, they, actually in a way, it, they're not having to make any decisions, they're just doing what everybody else is doing. "Oh, they're doing that, what are my next-door neighbors doing?" It, I mean, it used to be just, you know, keeping up with the Joneses, but now of course it's social media keeping up the Joneses, which is a, a much different challenge, right? You're g- you're getting to compare yourself to everybody's best possible version of themselves. Basically sort of a form of lying, uh, you know, 'cause it's so curated and different than the rest of their life. And you're comparing yourself against the best of everybody's.

    23. CW

      (laughs)

    24. GM

      So this is really like a recipe for, for nonessentialism. Uh, you know, it's not just opinion overload. I mean, rather it's not information overload, it is opinion overload. We're just getting crammed with all this stuff. And so our job is to try and push all of that away and get quiet and ask, "What..." Not just even, "What do I want?" although that's not bad. It's, "What am I supposed to do? What, what is, what is my mission? What is the thing I came here to do? What, what, what am I, what did I come here to do?" That, that is a, that is a completely different kind of question. And as you start to explore that, you find that you already have more answers than you realize. But it comes from inside of you instead of just from all this outside stuff. And you can start to have quiet. Instead of the fear of missing out, or FOMO, you start to have the joy of missing out, right, or JOMO.

    25. CW

      (laughs) wasn't she a singer?

    26. GM

      Oh, yeah. (laughs)

    27. CW

      Yeah. Or that was, that was at Dido.

    28. GM

      Yeah, I don't know. Don't know, don't know.

    29. CW

      (laughs)

    30. GM

      Yes, so you could probably . But JOMO is a, uh, he ought to be a singer. But we ought to make a s- song to it. You can do that. But JOMO is, uh, you know, this, you discover that just because other people do... In fact, you like not doing things that other people are doing. You start to go, "Yeah, that's great for you. You can celebrate it for them, but that's not what I'm doing. It's not what I'm about. It's not what I'm supposed to be doing in my life." And you start to feel this joy and momentum in doing, as I keep saying, what you came here to do.

  6. 18:23 – 26:44

    A live essentialism coaching session: Chris’s stalled writing habit

    1. GM

      Okay, so you're asking that question in, like, still a hypothetical way-... um, or you could be. Uh, so, but, but we could do it in a literal way, right? So, we'll just do it with you right now.

    2. CW

      I'm in.

    3. GM

      You in? Okay, so tell me, first thought, what is something that's essential to you, it's very important to you, but you're, uh, under-investing in it currently? You might even be doing something, but you're under-investing. Go. First thoughts?

    4. CW

      Writing.

    5. GM

      Okay. Um, w- what, uh, what does success look like for you in writing?

    6. CW

      One new article per week.

    7. GM

      Um, and, uh, that you're putting out, in your blog, to your, to your newsletter? That's what you want to do. Uh, h- how are you doing it right now? How, how much are you managing to do currently?

    8. CW

      Zero.

    9. GM

      (laughs) okay, good. So, good. It is an under-investment we've successfully -

    10. CW

      I thought I - I warned you that I was a very good avatar for this.

    11. GM

      No, no. No, I like it. I like your honesty very much.

    12. CW

      (laughs)

    13. GM

      Um, okay, so there's, so it's, so th- i- when you say you're not, you're not publishing any, you are not doing any writing at all?

    14. CW

      So, I've been, I've been gesticulating over the- the font size of the website and, and the- the tiny little m- m- things that I know is really a glorified version of procrastination to put me off from actually putting in hard work. I have six half-finished articles, all of which r- require two hours of focused work to be really good, and I really like them. Um-

    15. GM

      Yes.

    16. CW

      ... but, uh, there's- there's just s- six half-finished meals and they're all in the kitch-

    17. GM

      Yep.

    18. CW

      ... and they're all in the kitchen.

    19. GM

      Yeah, I like, uh, well, um-

    20. CW

      (laughs)

    21. GM

      ... I like how practical that example is. I- I think a lot of people can relate to that. Okay, so how long have you been doing those six and a half articles? How long have they been sort of sitting there getting old?

    22. CW

      Probably since the beginning of lockdown. That's maybe a, maybe a, a, a-

    23. GM

      Yeah. Okay, so couple of months.

    24. CW

      ... yeah, yeah.

    25. GM

      You- you started working on them then?

    26. CW

      Started working on one and then did a bit, and then I would go, "Oh, that's a bit, that's enough for today." And then when I came back, I'd go, I'd go do something else. I got a podcast to do, or I got a business call, or I got training-

    27. GM

      Yep.

    28. CW

      ... or I got, you know, life.

    29. GM

      Yep.

    30. CW

      Come back, start a new one. I- well, I'll, that one's already, it's kinda done. I'll just, I'll do a new one. There's a, the, the, that illusion, sorry, allure of novelty, again, gets me in. Oh, new. New, new, new idea.

  7. 26:44 – 31:30

    Courage to be ‘rubbish’: making essentialism easy, not heroic

    1. GM

      is that you want the first article to be of the same quality as the other writers that you admire and have read their work from. That's what I think this is about, and I want to encourage you to have the courage to be rubbish.

    2. CW

      (laughs)

    3. GM

      To, to just go, "Success is posting that first podcast, f- first blog." And, and here's how I would recommend you do it. I would recommend that you send it to your list as a link to your blog, rather than the whole content is in the email, right? And here's why. Because if you do it that way, you can keep updating it as you need to. Right? So, the first version you send out on the day you send that link doesn't have to be the permanent state of that article. That is just how it is now, and own it right there in the, in the email you send out to everybody, you just say ... I assume that's how you're sending it to people. Is that how you're gonna get, send it out to everyone?

    4. CW

      Combination of that and sending it through social media and stuff like that.

    5. GM

      Sa- same thing. You just have the link to be somewhere where you can keep editing it over time. I'll tell you something that happened to me that's similar to this. I once wrote at like, late at night, a very rubbish piece-

    6. CW

      (laughs)

    7. GM

      ... on LinkedIn. They'd asked me to be an influencer on LinkedIn, and it was. It was rubbish, and I just was new to that platform. It, at the time, it was a brand-new platform that they were using. And they said, um ... A- and so, I, I post this thing, the number one career mistake capable people make. That's the title I came up with. Post it, and, uh, the next morning when I wake up, 60,000 people have viewed it. And there's a ton of comments and a ton of criticism. (laughs) It wasn't all negative, but I had just written this like, you know, just sort of two, three paragraphs. And I, like, jumped in and started editing it immediately, and improved it and improved it. And a couple of million people read that too. Maybe more than that in the end.

    8. CW

      Wow. Wow.

    9. GM

      Uh, it was like, it, it was pre- relatively viral piece at the time, and it was so encouraging that, okay, so it started off as this piece, but we were able to improve it as we went. Now, that's not necessarily how you always want it to be, but you have to get over the hump here. So, you have to lower the hump that you're trying to get over, this mental hump of, "It has to be fantastic or I can't put it out." Put something out. Is, is, is, is ... It's a smaller amount. I- it isn't gonna be perfect. I don't even know what that would mean, a perfect article. But you will get feedback, and you will learn, and you'll be in the same mode. Before we started this idea, what did you say? Uh, I can't remember, find the name. The, the, the skill takeoff.

    10. CW

      Yeah.

    11. GM

      And that sensation of a skill takeoff. And so, maybe what you say is, "I'm gonna, I'm just gonna publish." Maybe you say, "I'm gonna publish all ..." Yeah, I don't know.

    12. CW

      Okay.

    13. GM

      And so, I am trying to encourage you to, to ... And here's, here's really my, probably my biggest insight since writing Essentialism.

    14. CW

      Ooh.

    15. GM

      Is that, is that, uh, (laughs) is that people, people ... What, uh ... There's a piece of feedback people often give. It's not the most common feedback, but it is regular enough that I definitely noted it, and it is where they'll say, "Oh, yeah. It's hard, isn't it? Essentialism, though. It's hard, that. Focusing on what's essential and, and not, and what's non-essential, it has to, you know." And in fact, somebody once said to me, they said, "Look, you know, Essentialism should come with a warning: This will be the hardest thing that you will ever do." And for like, a year or two, I absorbed that titl- that, that, like, line, and would share that with people. "Well, the thing, problem with Essentialism, it's the hardest thing you'll ever do." And what a con that is. That's a totally non-essentialist idea. It's like, completely wrong. It's only, it's only the harder thing to do because you're a non-essentialist trying to be an essentialist. Like, you're, you're trying to be an essentialist in a non-essentialist way.... you're like, "I have to do this perfectly. I have to do anything essential, right now."

    16. CW

      (laughs)

    17. GM

      This is not what essentialism is about. I think there's a way to do essentialism that's so easy, and that's what we need to do. Let's cut away all these layers of... that get in the way of you actually publishing what you've written. You don't need the fancy website, you don't need the article to be perfect, whatever that means, you don't even have to have 10 of them. Doesn't have to be perfect, it just needs to be published. (laughs) And then the feedback will come, and then you'll learn something, and then you can progress to the next step. You've got, you've got to have this... and this is only a couple of the things one can do to make them easier but, but that is my primary learning since Essentialism was written.

  8. 31:30 – 35:08

    Risk hedging vs progress: why ‘more options’ is a seductive trap

    1. CW

      That's a very cool way to look at it, and I've seen and heard other people as well say the challenge of The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, you know, especially, I think relinquishing, relinquishing your hand on novelty is something that I want to get into in a second because I, you know, for the people out there who similarly to me like adventure, like new things, new experiences, it just leads to yeses all over the place. Just because you think, "Well, that's interesting. Oh, that's interesting. Well, that could be fun. Well, that could be fun. Well, oh, I could- I could do that." And then you, you post-hoc rationalize it, right? You, the way... this is the, this is the most fucking insidious way that you post-hoc rationalize it, all the non-essentialists listening, which is everybody. Most, the most insidious way that you, um, rationalize doing too much is by hedging your risk.

    2. GM

      (laughs)

    3. CW

      That's the most insidious way because it's got a kernel of truth in it. It's got a kernel of truth in it, that if you were to do two things instead of one, you half your risk if that one thing goes shit.

    4. GM

      (laughs) Yeah. Yeah.

    5. CW

      Um, but you then take it to, "Well, if I do 100 things and one of them goes to shit, that's only 1%."

    6. GM

      Yeah.

    7. CW

      And you don't realize that the price that you pay for doing 100 things is that you've only gone one unit of distance over 100 things as opposed to 100 units of distance over one thing.

    8. GM

      Yeah, that's right. And it also, the other faulty... th- the other false assumption in that is the idea that all opportunities, all a- actions, uh, are randomly... like success is randomly assigned to those 100. Right? Like if you ne- if you couldn't understand any cause and effect between anything, you might be best to just do 100 things and you only make an inch progress in all of them, but at least you'll make an inch progress in one thing that's going to work 'cause it's totally random. Uh, that's fine. So, you wanna believe life is completely random? Fine, you go, you live that one out and see how that works for you, right? But on the basis that, and this is the first principle of essentialism, is to explore what's essential, right? It's to actually create space looking for the thing you feel really good about pursuing, the thing that you feel you're best built to do. Uh, and, and, and so, and so in that process, you come to a point of view that says, "I'm, I'm built to do this and not to do that, so I'm gonna go strong on the thing that I am good at, passionate about, I think is relevant right now." I mean, all of those things are risk mitigation techniques, so that you can then lean into something fully that you're actually, you know, is your highest point of contribution. And one of the things for me about that is writing. I mean, there's so many career paths I would have been rubbish at-

    9. CW

      (laughs)

    10. GM

      ... and failed at, in a sort of capital F way, right? Like just not (?) wouldn't have worked well. I, I went big on something not because I was high... like not, not because I had a high tolerance for risk, because I am actually quite risk averse and I wanted to do things that I really felt strong and good at and so on. And I think that's what we have to do. You have to... ye- yet instead of thinking it's all random, you take the time to explore, figure out what you really can make a great contribution in and then go big in it.

  9. 35:08 – 38:08

    Finding your ‘thing’ when you’re not great at anything (yet)

    1. CW

      What about someone that says, "Well, I'm not great at anything"?

    2. GM

      Yeah, so you can start with, I mean, you know, what we're talking about here is criteria, right? What criteria to use to evaluate what to do. And you start off with maybe like, "Well, what are the things I have no interest in?" Well, don't do that stuff.

    3. CW

      Fishing.

    4. GM

      If you don't like fishing, don't do fishing, right? Just because your mates are doing fishing doesn't mean you have to go fishing.

    5. CW

      Shite.

    6. GM

      I have lots of people who love skiing, and I always feel this guilt like I need to do sk-... I've got to go skiing. Of course, if you go skiing, you want to be able to go skiing, you know? It's such a fan-... fabulous (???) (mumbles) ... love the snow. You love it. You would love it.

    7. CW

      Yeah.

    8. GM

      You would love it up there. This is what... you always feel this. And I'm like, "No, I'm not interested."

    9. CW

      (laughs)

    10. GM

      Not interested, so start with the stuff you're not interested in. Start with the stuff that you go, "Yeah, I... not only am I not good at that, I could not imagine ever being good at that. That is not my thing." So you just start at the, at the extremes, right? The periphery, and move forward. So you don't have to say, "What am I great at?" But you can say, "What am I interested in? What do I think I might have a little bit of talent for?" Uh, you know, (laughs) you look on like, you know, uh, Britain's Got Talent or whatever the talent show is, and you see these people in these... that are just terrible at that thing, and they got high passion, but really low talent for it. And you feel for those people, right? Uh, or you wonder why they don't understand it.... what we're looking for is things that have, you feel some passion for, that you think you might be quite good at, that you th- you could become good at it, uh, e- meets a need in the world. And that overlap, that's where your highest point of contribution can lie. Uh, and then over time, you're developing that more and more narrowly, so that over time, as your competency increases, you aren't just interested in doing the things you're good at, you are looking for the thing you would be the best at, really great at. Eventually, down the journey, it's like, "W- w- could I be the best in the world at this thing?" You know, maybe there, maybe there's just a tiny group of people who can do this thing. Uh, but that's, that's a, that, you know, that's a ... You increase your s-selectivity as your competence increases.

    11. CW

      Mm-hmm. I like the idea of using inversion and a contrasting effect to work out where you don't go.

    12. GM

      (clears throat)

    13. CW

      Um, (clears throat) it's the same for ... The easiest way to avoid being depressed is to work out not what makes you happy, but how you would make a happy person depressed.

    14. GM

      Yeah.

    15. CW

      I would fuck up with their sleep, I'd fuck up with their nutrition, I'd make sure they didn't get any daylight, I'd, you know, do all of the different bits and pieces. (clears throat) And you're like, "Oh, yeah. Well, that makes a happy person depressed." Then you go, "Right, okay. What's the im- what's, what's the implication of that?" Um, it's also funny that that's, as you were saying about the different things, that sounded to me like a, "Hell, no." It's like, "Would you go, would you go fishing?" "Hell, no." "Would you go skiing?"

    16. GM

      Yeah. (laughs)

  10. 38:08 – 40:30

    The 90% rule: extreme selectivity and the hidden cost of ‘good’

    1. CW

      "Hell, no." And as past Modern Wisdom guest and good buddy, Derek Sivers says, it's either, "Hell, yes," or, "No." And that ties into something I actually wanted you to run us through, which is the, the 90% rule. Could you take us through that?

    2. GM

      Yeah. So i- imagine a, you know, everything, every option that you have on a, on a ... that could be plotted on a, a continuum from zero to 100 and it's an importance continuum. So on an importance continuum of zero is, it's totally unimportant and 100 is completely important, absolutely essential, right? So everything, you know, whether it's writing this article that you just talked about, or exercise, or doing the next podcast, uh, reading, uh, going on YouTube, like all ... Every activity can be plotted on this continuum. And what I'm encouraging people to do is, to say anything that is underneath 90%, anything that's lower than 90% important, you question and maybe even eliminate. You're looking for just the things that are 90% or above essential. Vitally important relationships, you know, absolutely must-do-before-I-die projects, uh, i- i- i- you know, habits that I know will make the rest of my life significantly improved and different, might even make a difference with my children and grandchildren, you're looking for those things. Because every time you do something that's below 90%, you're taking it away from something that, that is 90% or above. You're making a trade-off. People don't really know about that, they don't see it that way often, so they just think, "Well, is this good?" My only word, good might be 40, might be 40% important, 30% important. "Yeah, it's good. It's fine. It's fine. There's nothing wrong with doing that." But they don't ... Aware that they're taking it away from the thing that is absolutely vital. So I'm always encouraging people, like, like, "Look at the extremes, look at the things that are 90% r- important and invest there, look at the stuff that's below 10% and just eliminate there. Make the trade-off between the two, so that you can actually go further faster on the things that matter."

  11. 40:30 – 44:17

    Essentialism isn’t rigid: freedom, joy, and using time well

    1. CW

      I think what some people may be concerned about is that sounds like a very totalitarian, disciplined life. "Right. Well, I'm not allowed to have cake, 'cause cake isn't contributing to my highest sense of importance. And I, I used to like YouTube, but Greg and Chris told me that YouTube's only ... that I really, I looked at the importance of that, and that's only 30%. So now, I've got to delete the YouTube app and now I just feel like I'm this kind of robot that's sort of rolling through life." So how do people find that balance between turning it on and turning it off, of having the focus on the essential few whilst being able to give us enough kind of leeway to, to, to, to live a life that doesn't feel like it's completely under, under super control all the time?

    2. GM

      Well, what it sounds like you just said is that freedom, creativity, exploration is really important to you.

    3. CW

      That wasn't me. That's ... I'm, I'm all right without cake. I love a- I love me a bit of cake, but right now, it's summertime, you know what I mean?

    4. GM

      You're, you're just saying other people might find what we described as being really stringent. All, all I'm saying is that if, if somebody feels that, something important to them is probably being violated. So they haven't got their list right yet. When you're working on the 90% and above, you're not, you're not feeling rigid and controlled. You're feeling free, liberated from all this nonsense that you don't value, that's keeping you back from living the things you actually do want. So there's a lot of joy. There's more joy in the 90% and above than there is probably in the rest of the 90% combined. Whe- when, when I'm working on something that's meaningful to me, that's inspiring to me ... I mean, I'll give you an example just this week. So, (clears throat) so it was, uh, it was doing, uh, you know, having a- an evening with my children, my wife and, uh, and we were doing s'mores, which, which I don't even know if ... People don't know what s'mores are, do you? Yeah.

    5. CW

      S'mores, s'mores, s'mores is ... I mean, even without the wife and the children, the s'mores on their own would be in the 90% for me, so.

    6. GM

      (laughs)

    7. CW

      Yeah.

    8. GM

      Uh, and so, and so, uh, so we d- so we just spent the evening doing that outside, over a fire, together enjoying that time. That was a 90% or above for me.... that's not stringent and rigid, that's playfulness and, and joyfulness. And it's way better than me just sort of going, "Okay, I'll just, uh, I'll just scan social media and just be on my own infinite scanning on that in some room somewhere." Like, that's what we're talking about. We're saying get rid of all that stuff that doesn't feed you, that isn't joyful, that isn't, uh, that isn't taking you forward. Uh, a- a- and, and so I think that there's a bit of creativity and imagination as to what really matters for people to have a good vision of this.

    9. CW

      Yeah, it's interesting with time, isn't it? The way that time works because it's, it's the only thing you can't choose to not spend. Like, you can't not spend time. You can choose to not spend your money and it's the, the mad thing about people that are able to get in shape or the people that are able to accumulate wealth, like, they, they do that by having an asymmetry between what they bring in-

    10. GM

      (clears throat)

    11. CW

      ... and what they put out.

    12. GM

      Yeah.

    13. CW

      There isn't an equivalent with time.

    14. GM

      Yeah, there's no time bank. You can't say, "Today, I'm gonna just take half of this time. I don't know what to do with it, so I'll put it over there-"

    15. CW

      (laughs)

    16. GM

      "... and wait while I figure this out." Right? (laughs) It's being spent at exactly the same rate all of the time, no matter what. It's more like a, it's more like a conveyor belt going past and that, that, that, that's moving no matter what you use it for, so it's, it's, it's, it's present. Uh, yeah, what you're saying is true.

  12. 44:17 – 50:09

    Winning the wrong game: exploration, conscience, and the ‘sacred voice’

    1. CW

      There's a quote from Naval Ravikant that I've been playing around with recently which is, "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes."

    2. GM

      (laughs) Yeah.

    3. CW

      And, um-

    4. GM

      What does that mean to you?

    5. CW

      So it's meant a lot. I've spent a lot of time thinking about these little uh, uh, that as an aphorism. Um, play stupid games, win stupid prizes to me means what is the... what would be winning the thing that you're doing right now? So for instance, what would be winning always replying to an Instagram DM message within 30 minutes, all day, every day? What's, what's the, what's the prize? Play a stupid game, win a stupid prize. A stupid prize doesn't exist. It's the satisfying of some people who wouldn't have cared if you'd waited a week to reply to them, who maybe you're never gonna see again, who you've maybe never met. Um, play another stupid game. If you want to take it to a, a kind of a little bit more vicious degree, play a stupid game which would be have unprotected sex with someone that you don't know after a night out. That is playing a very stupid game. What's the prize that you win for that when you compare it with the alternative of having protected sex? What would be play a stupid game of texting while you drive as opposed to waiting until you get to your destination? That's a very stupid game to play when you win a stupid prize. What's the prize? It's, oh, well, the lads in the group chat got that meme off me a little bit quicker than if I'd waited and I got to have a little bit of a giggle at the lights as opposed to sit and look out the window or whatever it is. Um, play stupid games, win stupid prizes slots into essentialism somehow for me.

    6. GM

      Yeah, well, I think that's right because I, I remember working with a, uh, this was maybe, like, 50 of the top leaders from, uh, from American industry. And as I walked into the room (sighs) it's a very... it was a very sort of dark, oak room. It was this very secretive meeting, actually. It was quite interesting. I mean, it wasn't... there was nothing bad being done there, but it was just, like, very kind of elite feeling as you walked into the room. And I liked ev- I liked all the people I talked with there, but the, the, the overwhelming sensation I had in that room was here is a group of people that won at the wrong game.

    7. CW

      What's that mean?

    8. GM

      Well, one of them was vulnerable at one point and just said, "Look, my relationship with my teenager is completely shot right now, all right? He's almost ready to leave the house and my, I just don't have a relationship with him." It's like, so it's everything's rough between us. And so here he is, he's, he's got up the corporate ladder, but he's won at, at a game that now he realizes didn't matter, or certainly didn't matter in comparison to these relationships that he's taken for granted over those same years. And so I just think there's many of the prizes that people think are the most important things. So I don't mean the total trivia, I think there's many goals people set that, that actually if they were... if they spent a little longer pondering them and thinking about them, they would find, "That's the wrong game. I, I, I won at the wrong thing. I got... I did... I achieved it, I got there, but then it was like, you know, uh, it w- it was, it was unsatisfying when I actually arrived there. That wasn't what it was actually... that is not what the..." Uh, uh, i- it was unsatisfying achievement. That's what I mean by it.

    9. CW

      And that's where the explore before you exploit, uh, importance comes in at the beginning of, of looking at your options, of assessing the things that you want.

    10. GM

      Yes, and there's, there's a few ways of thinking about exploration, right? One is, one is just, uh, intellectually, here are my options, let me evaluate the options in front of me. A second way of thinking about it is what I think one's highest priority is, which is to protect our ability to prioritize, protect our ability to discern. Yeah, all of us have many, many nonessential voices outside of us and inside of us, right? Just all different... a mind just telling us a million thing, "Oh, you gotta do this and that matters and how... look how you compare to that person and look..." Com- competitions and comparisons and complaining voices and all these voices, right? There's all of this noise.And then there's another voice, uh, one of, one of my friends, uh, in England says it this way. He says, he says, "There's, there's a lot, there's a scared voice and then there's a sacred voice." My distinction would be I think there's many, many scared voices and one sacred voice, right? And we all know that other voice, I think. I think almost all of us have experienced it where we just go, "That's right. That's wrong." And you just know. And nobody else had to tell it to you, you didn't, you didn't learn it from someone. You just, you just know that's the right thing to do in this moment, that's the wrong thing to do in this moment. And if we are quiet enough, that voice becomes the voice that leads us. So exploring what is essential, to me, at its highest manifestation, means tuning into amplifying that voice of conscience that really guides you in the right direction. If you do that today in small ways, you don't wake up 20 years from now and go, "Oh my goodness, I just, I've just given myself 20 years to the wrong goal." That's what I think it means.

    11. CW

      That's scary. You know? That, uh, I tweeted something, I can't even remember where I found it, but it stuck with me for years. I tweeted this the other day, "True hell is when the person you are meets the person you could have been."

  13. 50:09 – 58:58

    Letting go: Stormtrooper goals, sunk costs, and the monkey trap

    1. GM

      (smacks lips) Yeah, that's, I, I, you know, I like, I like that sentiment. It is a bit scary, like you say. Um, I, I want, I want... I'll give you a story. So I was, um, I was staring at myself in the mirror, um, dressed from head to toe in a Stormtrooper costume.

    2. CW

      Good luck. It's good luck.

    3. GM

      (laughs) Well, it was a moment, that's certainly what it was, and I was thinking about buying it. This was like a, you know, pretty close to movie level quality suit.

    4. CW

      (laughs)

    5. GM

      Right, and I'm in my, I'm in, like, late 30s looking at myself in this mirror and I look... It, it, it was for Halloween, right, and it, I still kind of, I think, I get why I thought that was a cool thing, why it might have been a fun idea. But as I'm staring at the mirror, I, I'm struck by two things completely at the same time. One is there's not one part of me that wants this anymore, right?

    6. CW

      (laughs)

    7. GM

      Like, "Wh- why am I even thinking about it? I do not want that suit. I do not want this." And the second, in the same moment, I realized that for 30 years I've had in my, uh, mind the idea that one day I would buy this because 30 years previously, that's when Return of the Jedi had come out, and my older brother, one of my older brothers had said to me, "Wouldn't it be so cool to own, like, a costume right from, you know, from the movies? Like movie level quality costume stuff." And my little, like, young self, influenced by my brother saying this, just, it just, like, caught on. And that little goal stuck with me for all of those years. Now, this is the power of goals. We get that, goals are really powerful. They, they, one of my professors once said, "They're the theory that works." But what he was saying is that they work too well. Once you have a goal, you can get on autopilot, and now you're racing down some path to get something that really you didn't stop to question. So what I'm saying here is be careful that some of the goals that we set aren't Storm- Are they Stormtroopers? You know, should we just have eliminated them already? Could we give up on them halfway because we go, "No, that doesn't even matter. Someone else wanted to do that. Schwarzenegger wanted to do that. I don't have to do that." (laughs) You, you know, just 'cause The Rock's doing it doesn't mean I have to do it.

    8. CW

      (laughs) Yeah, The Rock is cool. I, um, I absolutely love that. I had Tucker Max on, and he is a man who has gone through about as big of a 180 as you can imagine from this, uh, what, what was it called? Uh, frat, frat literacy or something. He created an entire new literary genre, which was like party boy, party boy stories type thing. Um, and he, uh, he'd gone through this big, and then he's done a decade of psychotherapy and-

    9. GM

      Hmm.

    10. CW

      ... a, a ton of internal work, and this guy is so, so fucking s- uh, aware now and just completely present, speaking his truth forward, just stripping away ego left, right, and center, really, really delivering. Uh, he's phenomenal. I love the person he is now. I would have hated the guy that he was back then, but I love the person he is now. And, um, you see when someone makes such a change like that and you got these weird, like, epochs in your life, right? You've got like the, the kid, then the teenager, then, like, the young kind of 20s, then, like, the mid-20s, then the, you know, da-da-da-da-da-da. And, um, it takes a lot of work, you know? It takes a lot of work to realize that you thought that having a faster car than your mates when you were 19 was a big deal, but now you're 32 and your wife loves you and you've got two kids and a dog that you care about. And because you never questioned whether or not still having a faster, bigger, better car was, it's just, it's like it's just there, it's just a modus operandi, right? And it's just running below you and you kind of don't really realize and the stream just takes you along. I absolutely love, I love that concept. You touched on something actually that I had, I had in my notes I wanted to bring up, which is why is it so hard to cut losses? Is it just sunk cost fallacy? Is it just, "Oh, well, I've, I've, I've got this far with the huge tech company which is destroying my relationship with my teenager, uh, I might as well, I might as well go all the way"? Is that why people have a fear or is there anything else?

    11. GM

      Yeah, because you, you, you're having to face the potentially poor decision of not having cut it off yesterday or the day before-

    12. CW

      (laughs)

    13. GM

      ... or the day before that. And so you're more... The longer it goes...... the harder it is to admit that we weren't wise in the previous scenario. Uh, and so, and so yes, of course, we, we want to ... Well, you've h- heard the old metaphor, right, of the, the how do you catch a monkey? You've heard this, right? How do you catch a monkey? Y- y- y- there's a trap and you ... The monkey puts their hand in the trap ... You never heard this?

    14. CW

      No.

    15. GM

      You put ... The monkey puts their hand in the trap and, and they can't ... Once they... once their hand is in the trap, they're holding onto the, you know, the, the nuts in there or the fruit, whatever's in there, and th- because their hand is clenched, they can't get their hand out. Right? Because it's small enough they can put their hand in but not big enough that they can get their hand out, so they want to hold onto it. And I- I thought for a long time that this was, uh, this was just sort of a, you know, made up myth or whatever, but you can go on YouTube and there's somebody who's actually done this. Uh, and it's ... Actually, it's really brilliant little video. Uh, and, and, and they just w- fi- first of all, they just will not let go, and he's completely trapped and the man's coming over to get him, and they will not let go of this, of this thing. And then right as the man actually takes hold of the monkey, he does let go and he gets focused on something else. And that's the key to letting go, is we have to focus on the next, something that's more important to us, something that actually is ... uh, that is a deeper, better version of what we want to be, uh, so that we can let go of these old, these old things that don't matter anymore. Let them go. I mean, th- this idea of not growing up, holding onto the, the 20-year-old version of us, then holding onto the 25-year-old version of us and not ... What ... It's a failure to mature, it's a failure to thrive. We're trying to win yesterday's battle, trying to win yesterday's version of the, of the world. And so, and so I think that, I think that it's ... I- I ... We've got onto the, onto the monkey and catching monkeys, didn't we? So that's-

    16. CW

      Uh, yeah.

    17. GM

      ... I'm not sure if I'm answering your question, but-

    18. CW

      I know you are.

    19. GM

      ... I feel like, I feel like that ... W- we, we're holding onto all this investment we've made in something and we've just got to look to the next thing that's actually better and it gives us the courage to let go of the thing that we're, we keep holding onto.

    20. CW

      Yeah. There's a story from Kamal Ravikant, who's Naval's brother, and I had him on the podcast just before Christmas, and he lost pretty much all of his blood in an operation, accidentally. The ... His- the sutures burst on his artery, and he basically bled out and he was anemic and all this stuff happened, in terrible pain. And, um, uh, Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It, uh, was just about to come out, the second version, and he'd sold tons, uh, self-published, uh, and he was, like, the, the, um, perfect patient zero for who needs drugs. And the doctors were like, "If anyone ever needed opium- opiates, it's you. Like, you are the guy for drugs." Uh, so he's taking 'em and he gets the first proof, m- uncorrected manuscript or whatever it is back, and he realizes that because of the drugs that he's on that he can't view the punctuation with enough dexterity, uh, uh, and that resolution that he needs to, 'cause he wants every word ... It's quite a short book. It's only, like, maybe f- 70 pages or something. And, um, he wants everything. H- he needs to craft every single word, every line break, every piece of punctuation, all the rest of it, and he realizes he can't do it. Um, so y- he just stops taking the drugs.

    21. GM

      Mm.

    22. CW

      And he's in pain, but he has something which is greater than his pain. He has the book, and the book allows him to transcend what it is that he's suffering with, right? And I loved that story. And I wouldn't have, I would have never heard ... And I've never heard him tell it on a different, uh, uh, any other podcast. It was just 'cause I was being, like, a bit nosy about the pain that he'd gone through in this recent near-death experience. (laughs)

    23. GM

      Yeah. Yeah.

    24. CW

      And, um, it's so powerful. It's r- like allegorical, almost. You're like, look, you've got this, this thing which occurs which is greater than your suffering and it allows you to transcend the difficulty of just existing, of just getting through your day-to-day life. And that's kind of like the monkey thing, right? It's like, you know, if, if only you could let go of the thing that you w- that you thought you wanted, to move on to the thing which you truly want. And one of the best ways for that to happen is to have something which you know that you truly want so much more, because it makes letting go an awful lot easier.

  14. 58:58 – 1:11:54

    Self-transcendence: escaping success traps through service and purpose

    1. GM

      Yeah. I was, um ... A- a- as you know, I've just, uh, just about to launch a podcast, and, and one of the reasons I did it was 'cause I was talking to one of my podcasting friends and, um, a- a- and he has this great line. He says, he says, "Success traps are harder to get out of than failure traps."

    2. CW

      (laughs) Yeah.

    3. GM

      And, and, and that, to me, is so, such a brilliant illustration of the problem you're describing, and, and the cure of it is higher purpose. It's always something ab- it's, it's serving someone else, it's doing something more meaningful, so you get out of the trap of being so self-centered in life, where we're worried constantly about how we'll appear and what we'll do and how we ... You gotta get rid of th- I think that's probably the ultimate monkey trap, is just that we haven't got past ourselves yet. An- and the, and, and, and this is where all the suffering is, this is where all of the nonessential habits lie. As soon as we step out to serve somebody else, I think a lot of that nonessential stuff starts to fall apart, fall away, and we, uh, we can get out of the trap.

    4. CW

      Scott Barry Kaufman's new book, Transcend, is, is precisely about that. He talks about-

    5. GM

      Yeah.

    6. CW

      ... uh, re-doing Maslow's hierarchy of needs and he talks about you can't ... You ... He literally believes that you can't reach your fullest potential without serving others.

    7. GM

      Yeah.

    8. CW

      And spent-

    9. GM

      Well, so did Maslow, you know.

    10. CW

      Yes. Yeah. He was talk-

    11. GM

      (laughs) .

    12. CW

      He said, um-

    13. GM

      If he ... Yeah, go on.

    14. CW

      This story about Maslow. Did you hear about his mother-in-law? I think it was his mother-in-law. Um, and he said that-

    15. GM

      Think I did, yeah.

    16. CW

      ... he said that, um, his mother-in-law was the most actualized person that he'd ever met. And she w- she was, like, just a mum, just a mum living at home, you know?

    17. GM

      Yeah.

    18. CW

      Wasn't the picture of, of the, the guy on the top of the mountain, you know, just slaying businesses and, and driving fast cars and doing all that stuff. But he said she was the most actualized person that he'd ever met.

    19. GM

      Well, and towards the end of his life, he rebuilt his own model, but it was just too late 'cause it was already, like, become popularized and everybody ... No one's updated it.... so the top of his model was not self-actualization by the end of his life, it was self-transcendence. And, and that, that distinction makes all the difference, doesn't it? I, I have met so many people trying to pursue a self-actualized life, and you can feel the absence of some... of, of, uh, what, of, of (laughs) what matters so much more than self-actualization. As important as self-actualization is and sort of going after goals and just achieving them, but self-transcendence, where you really are in contribution mode, where you really are in service mode, to a calling, to a purpose that's higher and more important than, than our own sort of proximate concerns, this is such... this is the big distinction, to me. This is the difference that I'm always looking for in people. This is the difference I want to see in myself, the transition to be... uh, to live a life of contribution, not just one of productivity or just of, you know, sort of external worldly success. That that's, that's really what I want. So, I think my- uh, I think Maslow sort of did appreciate that distinction before the end, but then got misquoted-

    20. CW

      Yeah.

    21. GM

      ... in a sense, for the rest of us.

    22. CW

      What about, uh, are you, um... Do you feel like you're moving in the right direction? Are you still getting yourself towards the top of this newly extended hierarchy of needs?

    23. GM

      Yeah, I mean, for, f- for me, (sighs) for me when I think about, you know, s- it's an ongoing journey, but when I think about the last almost 20 years now, that journey, that essentialist journey, not just the book and all of that, but I mean, the, the journey of my own life has been a- all about that transition. So, for me, it looks like, uh, it looks like investing primarily in my relationship with Anna, my wife, and our four children, and really seriously investing in it. Not saying lip service, "Oh, yes, they're the most important people in my life," but actually building those relationships. So, when I travel, for example, about 80% of the time, I'll take one of my children with me, uh, so that we have that one-on-one time. Uh, it, it, it means that, it means that instead of joining that book club or going to that, th- the, the lodge or the golfing thing or the tennis tournament, you just say no to all of that and you just try to make your own children like, not just your best friends, but also your best friends, people that you really want to be with and spend time together with. And the effect of all of that has been that the culture that has been created is something really special. So, even as my children now are like, you know, three of them are teenagers, uh, I, I could not have believed 10 years ago that m- my relationship now would be what it is, with teenagers.

    24. CW

      (laughs)

    25. GM

      Now, I was a teenager. I know lots of teenagers. I understand that journey. I've worked with lots of teenagers over the years, and I, and I've got a lot of respect for, for, for, obviously for young people. I'm, I'm, uh, not knocking them, but it isn't... th- this is just completely not like any of the stereotypical descriptions. You know, our worst problems are like, my, one of my, my teenage son is like, he, he reads too many books. He reads like, late into the night. He reads fiction and he loves it, and it... that's like our... that's my biggest problem with him.

    26. CW

      (laughs)

    27. GM

      And I'm not kidding either. I'm lit-... I'm not kidding. They, they're delightful. And they play together and they spend time together. They did. They just spent five hours, this is like a week ago, five hours, uh, up on a hill close to where we live, we live up in the hills, and they were filming, for my eldest daughter wants to be a director and she's do-... taking a film class at university right now and, um, and she's just... I mean she's 17, but she's like, you know, really like focused about what she wants to do and her highest point of contribution. And, and so she went up there and led a... uh, th- th- they took, um, they took, uh, uh, what is it called? Uh, Princess Bride, you know the movie Princess Bride?

    28. CW

      Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    29. GM

      Right. So, it's... she had to redo a scene from any movie and they chose a scene from that movie, the iocane powder scene for those that know this cult classic. Uh, and, uh, and they redid it absolutely scene by scene. It took them five hours to do it. We didn't hear of one problem the whole time. We weren't there, we didn't oversee any of it. The video is brilliant. It's like frame by frame the same as the original. They were all the actors. They had... did the whole costumes. They f- fulfilled it, whatever, I think it was fi-... uh, 50 points. She got 50 points for this. She just got the results back a couple of days ago. That, to me, is like illustrative. That's like a version of what e- essentialism looks like. It, it, it was the natural outgrowth of investing in something 90% more important for years and years and it just now bears this fruit all the time. There's just this flowing of it. And, uh, and so, you know, anyway, I just share that story because, uh, because I think th- this is, this is wh- what, what you just said about Maslow and his mother is no, is no throwaway comment to me. Right? It's, it's like this is where my relationships with my family aren't a little more important than the next most important thing. Like this is it. This is, this is miles above the next most important thing. And I think most people know that, but they get very busy and consumed with other voices just telling them something else and giving them, you know, immediate feedback and positivity. But those relationships, I mean at the end of my life it's completely obvious to me that on my deathbed I will not be saying, "Well, how many books did I sell? How many people did..."

    30. CW

      (laughs)

  15. 1:11:54 – 1:27:36

    Practical execution toolkit: reverse pilots, phone boundaries, naps, and daily priorities

    1. CW

      Awesome. So I want to finish off so that the listeners have got some, some tacit takeaways about how we can, how we can execute and how we can make sure that the vital few things are effortless and the trivial many just, you know, they, they, they stay in the shed.

    2. GM

      Oh, you just want me to do that?

    3. CW

      I would love to find out ... I mean, if you could do it for me, that would be better, but if you could give us some, some ways that we can, um, instantiate it, that would be, that would be wonderful.

    4. GM

      Here's one thing people can start with. Uh, they can start with a reverse pilot right now. A reverse pilot, like, what is a pilot? A pilot is trying something out and seeing what happens. A reverse pilot is stopping doing something and seeing what happens. Just, just stop. Ch- choose one thing that you normally have, look on your calendar, you take one thing and you, you just cut it off, I'm not gonna do that.

    5. CW

      What like?

    6. GM

      Um ... You, you can look, uh ... Okay, I'll do it right now.

    7. CW

      (laughs)

    8. GM

      Don't know if I can.

    9. CW

      (laughs) Oh.

    10. GM

      But here's what I'll do. I have, I have a meeting Sunday morning, it's not a, uh, it's not like a business meeting, I'm not, I'm not failing this. It's like a, it's like a ... Actually, it's a church meeting that, uh, that I do. Uh, but, uh-... that, that's out of date. I shouldn't be still having that at that time, and, uh, and that, uh, it's, it's gone.

    11. CW

      But maybe-

    12. GM

      So now I have to-

    13. CW

      Ma- maybe it could be-

    14. GM

      ... go on?

    15. CW

      Maybe it could be checking your phone in the morning?

    16. GM

      Uh, of course it could be checking your phone in the morning. Take- take your phone out of your bedroom.

    17. CW

      You are among friends here-

    18. GM

      Yeah. Good.

    19. CW

      ... Greg. You are among very good friends here, my friend.

    20. GM

      Yeah. There's a, actually, there's a ... You know what? We should send a link out w- with this, with a 21-day challenge that I've put together. It's 21-

    21. CW

      Ooh, yes.

    22. GM

      ... day little things that people can do, especially with me trying to go from memory right in this second, but one of them is that, right? You have a tech-free room. Certainly your phone shouldn't be there. I once worked with a lady who, um, was doing a ... Steve Harvey had a ta- TV show and he was, he'd asked me to, to work with one of his guests and I went to her home and going around her home looking at where she's at and where she's too busy and cluttered and, and I asked her, "Okay, where do you put your phone?" And, uh, "Well, in my bed." "In your bed or you mean by your bed?" "Oh, actually in my bed, yeah, under my, under my, you know, under my pillow at night." She sleeps with it under her pillow, and, uh, there's two things I love about that, but one is like it's, of course, it's horrendous. I mean she really wakes up in the middle of the night, true. If anyone texts or emails, she wakes up, responds, puts it back. So this is literally true. Th- that's the first thing. But the second thing that I think is equally horrendous is, (laughs) is the rest of us are self-righteousness about it. (laughs)

    23. CW

      I'm feeling it.

    24. GM

      People hear that story-

    25. CW

      I'm feeling it burbling in me at the moment and going, "What?"

    26. GM

      No, you're probably all right 'cause I know you don't do this, but, but there's so many people I've shared that story with who say, "Ugh. It's outrageous. Shocking." And I'll say, "Well, where do you put your phone?" And they say, "Well, you know, on my bedside table."

    27. CW

      (laughs)

    28. GM

      Their self-righteousness is built upon 12 inches of difference between that story.

    29. CW

      (laughs) Yes. Yeah.

    30. GM

      And, and, and, and so what, what's the difference? There's hardly a difference in that story. I mean take the phone out. It doesn't ... You do not ... You can ... You know, people, people had alarm clocks before they had phones, so that's no ex- "Oh, it wakes me up in the morning." Yeah, you can solve that problem with an analog solution. You can have a little alarm clock and the, the first thing you do in the morning doesn't have to be checking your phone. Last thing at night, first thing in the morning, you know? Who's, who's owning who?

Episode duration: 1:31:20

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