[Interviewer] Now Laura, you have a series of writings
called What the Most Successful People Do,
something that I too study intently.
So share the one common denominator that you see
that all successful people do no matter what.
[Laura] Successful people are a very diverse crew,
and we know that.
And so it's very hard to come up with one thing
that they all do, but one thing that I really did find
was important is this idea of making steady progress.
We are in it for the long haul.
And we can get a lot done in the long term
if you're willing to settle for small wins
that just keep going.
And so when you look at people who, despite having
full-time jobs and families and various other commitments,
manage to do things like write books,
often what they're doing is saying,
I'm gonna write 500 words every day.
500 words is not that much.
You probably write that in a couple of emails.
But, 500 words, five days a week, is 2,500 words.
In 10 weeks, that's 25,000 words.
In 20 weeks it's 50,000 words.
50,000 words is a book-length manuscript.
So that's really a fascinating thought,
that in 20 weeks of constantly writing
just a little bit a day, you could have a full draft
of a book manuscript.
It's the same thing with running a marathon.
You're running it one step at a time.
You're doing it one training run at a time.
But you just keep going.
If you're trying to build a roster of big clients,
it's just a matter of calling a new one
every single day.
You set a target for yourself.
You make small wins possible.
And progress is just so motivational.
When we have these small wins, I love the work
of Teresa Amabile on this,
we start thinking we can do this.
500 words isn't much, but 500 words today
and tomorrow and the next day is going to get us
where we're going.
And I think it's also important to celebrate
what you have accomplished.
One of my favorite productivity apps is called I Done This.
I've talked with their team a lot,
and they have really convinced me that it's not
just about the to-do list.
It's about the to-done list, the done list,
what you have done.
Celebrate what you have done.
Sometimes stuff on the to-do list doesn't happen,
and yet amazing other things have happened.
So celebrate those amazing things.
Look at what you've done, how far you've come,
and that will keep you motivated to keep going
in the future.
[Interviewer] Okay, so the focus
of small progressive steps accumulated or compounded
over time create big results, I get that,
and celebrate your wins.
What other traits do you see the most successful people
have and do?
If you were to give two or three like really,
the ones that surprised you, the ones that are out
of the ordinary, unusual, but poignantly powerful,
what would you say two or three more would be, real quickly?
[Laura] I am often amazing at how unbusy
highly successful people are.
And I've been surprised when I have interviewed
some of these people, and I've asked for just
can I get 15, 20 minutes on the phone,
and they'll say,
"I have all the time I need right now.
"We can keep talking.
"I'm not in a rush."
And I think that is very powerful.
Because they don't have this constant sense
of there's so much to do, I have to get it, get to it all.
There's so much to do, I have to get to it all.
They have chosen a few things that they really want to do,
and once they have chosen, they will see it through,
and they create the space in their schedule to do that.
And often, it's by making sure that the other things
are done by other people.
So I'm also very amazed and inspired by the ability
of highly successful people to motivate their teams,
to surround themselves with people both at work
and at home, incidentally, who get things done,
who are excellent at what they do,
who are always seeking out solutions to problems
that you didn't even know you had.
And when they do this, that means that the successful person
can just relax.
Life doesn't have to be this constant scramble.
Because they know that whatever it is,
if it's important, somebody is on it.