How To Focus On What Matters Most - Greg McKeown

When we first spoke, nearly five years ago now, I said that I might be your arch nemesis.

(laughs)

And (laughs) in some ways, I've become worse, but in other ways, I've become much better since then. So, I can give you, up top, I can give you a, a thank you for at least adjusting my trajectory over the last five years in a, a positive direction.

Well, one of the things that's interesting about that to me is just, e- in essentialism itself, there's this idea of the paradox of success, you know? So it's five sta- uh, four stages. You have clarity leads to success, leads to options and opportunities, all of that sounds like the right problem to have, and maybe it is, but it doesn't make them less problems, especially if it leads to the undisciplined pursuit of more. And so, I think that the more success somebody experiences, I think the more the case for essentialism, uh, i- e- exists in their life, because they go, "Yeah, e- e- this is the problem I thought I wanted." And maybe it still is, but now you still have to figure out how to be successful at success-

Mm.

... and to not have it eat you alive, uh, and, and spit you out. You know, this is, this is sort of the path eventually, uh, and so the antidote, of course, is the disciplined pursuit of less but better.

Yeah.

Uh, so anyway, there's no-

No, I, I think, uh, it's, it's so right as well that, um, I'm aware talking about success on the internet is one of the least popular things to do-

(laughs)

... because the, the total addressable market is essentially zero compared with talking about grinding from the ground floor up.

Mm-hmm.

But assuming, assuming that the people that are into personal development and work on themselves and, and read books like yours, they've been hugely formative for me, a- assuming that their goal is to achieve a level of success, you better fucking future-proof yourself. If the thing that you want to get is there and you know, like I can pro- and maybe it's one of those things that you just don't get to appreciate or believe until you actually arrive there and you're like, "No, no, no, that's bullshit. When I get to success, it's all gonna be fine." It's like, look, every single person I've spoken to, every single one of them, the problems don't stop, they get more complex the higher up the ladder you get.

Yes, that's, that's what it is, and, and, and y- people struggle to believe it if they're in the first phases because those are really complex, challenging issues as well. But what happens is that the opportunities increase and the s- the, the scale of the impact of those choices increases and, and the, the number of people that are impacted by them and therefore the number of critics also increases and so, and, and on it can go. So you, you... The reward for getting to the top of the mountain is that there are other mountains, and in a way, that's a great part of life, that behind every mountain there's mountains, but it doesn't make it easier. And, and I think this is a, a very poorly understood area of success. People just assume, "If I get to the top of that mountain, all the problems disappear, life is just great." And it's like, no, you, nobody gets to escape, you know, the mortal experience. However it's designed, it's designed in such a way that you just can't do that, it's just never an option. And sometimes I think as people get higher in their level of success, it becomes much more lonely because there's fewer people to appreciate the new set of challenges. So anyway, I think it takes courage, I think every phase of life and every phase, if you wish to get to a higher point of contribution, you have to take your life into your hands, take responsibility (laughs) for it, and be courageous, which means that if you want to keep making progress, you're sort of living in a state of, I don't know, like, not comfort with discomfort, but you're certainly familiar with it all the time.