ALANA WEISS: Welcome, everyone.
Good afternoon.
My name is Alana Weiss.
And today, it is my pleasure to welcome
Greg McKeown to the Authors at Google series.
Greg was here in 2010, on his book "Multipliers.
How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter."
And today, he's here to present on "Essentialism.
The Disciplined Pursuit of Less."
Please join me in welcoming Greg.
[APPLAUSE]
GREG MCKEOWN: Thank you so much for having me.
It's just a thrill to be with Google, and to have all of you
come and join us.
So 15 years ago, and I might need a little cheer for this.
That's a warning.
15 years ago, I was at law school,
and I quit to do something useful with my life.
OK, so now's the cheer.
That was it.
[APPLAUSE]
I was expecting no less from Google.
And the reason I quit was because I
had a particular question in mind.
And I realized that I just couldn't actually
do both, both do the work I was doing,
and really pursue this question to eventually teach and write
on it.
And here's the question.
So I've had 15 years to think about the answer
to this question.
You're going to have 15 seconds, but I expect great things
from you, so it's no problem.
OK, so here's the question.
What is it that keeps otherwise capable and driven people
from breaking through to the next level?
So, I'm going to ask it again, and then
I really want-- don't be shy.
Real answers, as fast as you can.
AUDIENCE: Focus.
GREG MCKEOWN: That was really fast.
I was going to ask it again, and there was none of that.
OK, so say what did you say?
AUDIENCE: Focus.
GREG MCKEOWN: Focus, that's what keeps us back.
That's because you think you know
what the subject of the-- lack of focus.
Good.
More.
AUDIENCE: Fear.
GREG MCKEOWN: Fear, like what kind of fear?
AUDIENCE: Fear of the unknown.
Fear of change.
GREG MCKEOWN: Just don't want to get out of our comfort zone.
Right.
Thank you.
Fear of failure, good.
More.
Justin?
AUDIENCE: Themselves.
GREG MCKEOWN: How does that work?
AUDIENCE: The person.
GREG MCKEOWN: Just get rid of myself.
AUDIENCE: The person is our own worst enemy sometimes.
GREG MCKEOWN: Worst enemy.
In what way?
How do you, how does your--
AUDIENCE: Self-confidence, fear.
It's all of it, but it's all that person.
You are your worst enemy at times.
GREG MCKEOWN: You are your worst enemy.
AUDIENCE: You overthink things.
You're afraid of failure.
GREG MCKEOWN: Get rid of yourself,
and you're on your way to success.
AUDIENCE: That's right.
GREG MCKEOWN: No, it's an interesting point
that you made.
We'll come back to it.
Go, Frank.
AUDIENCE: Not focusing on the-- Letting little things that
aren't important take up your time.
GREG MCKEOWN: Right.
Being consumed by all the different things that
can come along, that maybe aren't so important.
OK, I want a couple more thoughts on this.
AUDIENCE: Lack of time.
GREG MCKEOWN: Lack of time.
Too many big things get in the way
of being able to break through to the next level.
What is it that keeps back capable and driven people
from breaking through the next level?
The answer that I came to, eventually,
was counter intuitive.
Something hidden in plain sight.
The answer to the question of why
otherwise capable and driven people don't break
through the next level is success.
And this is how it works.
I first observed this working with executive teams
in Silicon Valley.
And this is the process.
The paradox of success is that when
they were focused on a few essential things,
the right things, they could get unified behind it and so on.
And it coalesced to momentum, and with that, they
were able to produce success.
But success came with it, options and opportunities,
which, although they're the right problems,
they do turn out, in fact, to be problems.
Because they undermine the very focus on essentials
that led to success in the first place.
So I'm exaggerating the point in order to make it,
but success can become a catalyst for failure.
And if not that, at least success
can become a catalyst for plateauing in our progress.
And suddenly, we're just consumed
with all of the good things.
So think about it this way.
So this is a true story, somebody
I interviewed for the book.
Based in a stone's throw from where we are right now.
And he was in a company.
He was focused on the things that he loved to do.
He's doing a great job at them, but then his company
was purchased by a larger, more bureaucratic firm.
And he went in there wanting to be a good citizen.
A team player, which was code for try to say yes to every one
without really thinking about it.
So if there's an email chain, he wants
to be the first person on it.
If there's a conference call, and he's invited, he goes.
A meeting, the same.
But what he found was that as the frustration and stress was
going up, his quality of work was going down.
And eventually, that gap became so large and painful,
he considered leaving the company altogether.
And just to make the temptation even greater,
they actually came to him, and offered him an early retirement
package.
Well, what to do?
He goes to a mentor, and as they discuss this,
they realize that he doesn't want to retire at all.
What he wants to do is do this kind of work.
Even if he retired, he'd just start a consultancy
doing the same kind of work he's already doing.
And then, he thought who would my clients be?
Well, one of them would be the company
I'm currently working for, because they could clearly
use the help.
So the mentor listening to all of this says, you know what?
You need to retire in role.
Now that's different than quit, stay, and don't tell anybody.
We've sometimes worked with people in that category.
It was to use a lens of focusing on a few things.
For example, he just said, well, if I was a consultant
into this company, I wouldn't be on every email chain.
And I wouldn't go to every meeting.
I would use so much more selectivity about what I did.
And so he started pushing back.
Started not simply going to everything.
Not attending every meeting.
In fact, one of the meetings he'd been regularly going to,
he just stopped going to.
It was an experiment.
That doesn't always work well, but what
happened for him is that they came to him a little concerned.
We missed you at the meeting.
He said, what do you need?
Well, we needed this project getting done.
Oh, great, I'll do that by the end of the week.
Solved his our commitment in the meeting.
Two minutes conversation, done.
Well, he continued this experiment for a few months.
What happened?
He got fired.
He didn't get fired, but it would
change the tenor of the conversation
if that is what had happened.
No, this is what happened.
Let's start at home, first of all.
At home, what he got back was-- Well,
he said, he got his life back.
At 6 o'clock, he put off the phone.
It wasn't necessary anymore.
He set different expectations.
So he ate dinner with his wife every night.
He went to the gym.
Suddenly, he got a sense of control back.
What happened at work?
By the end of the year, his performance ratings went up.
Massively up.
And he ended off the year with one
of the largest bonuses of his whole career.
How's it possible?
Well, actually, the way it's possible is arithmetic.
It's a really simple idea, and possible to execute.
Because you can either do many, many things averagely well,
or you can do a few things superbly well.
And if you do the right few things superbly well,
you're far more likely to be acknowledged for what you've
done and to make a significant contribution.
So this is the value proposition of essentialism.
It's done right, you can increase your contribution,
overall.
Well, what about you?
All right.
So I want you to snap if these are true for you, OK?
I want you to think about this.
So, have you ever been overworked,
and at the same time underutilized?
OK, snap for that.
[FINGERS SNAPPING]
OK.
Have you ever been stretched too thin at work or at home?
Snap for that.
[FINGERS SNAPPING]
Have you ever said yes just to please?
[FINGERS SNAPPING]
Or just to appease?
[FINGERS SNAPPING]
Or just to avoid trouble?
[FINGERS SNAPPING]
So if you snap to any of the above,
then the way out is what I would call
the way of the essentialist.
It's a very different way of thinking about everything else.
It's not one more thing to cram into your overstuffed life.
It's not just one more little idea.
OK, that's good.
I should be an essentialist sometimes, too.
It's a different way of looking at everything.
A different lens.
A different mindset.
And it's radically, totally different
than what we see today in society.
Because I would argue to you, With you,
that we are going through right now, a new bubble.
So we've had, of course, Silicon Valley bubbles before.
We've had real estate bubbles.
And years and years before that, centuries
before, we had the tulip bubble and all of this, right?
We know about bubbles.
But I think, right now, we have a bubble of more, where
we are irrationally overvaluing the idea of having it all,
doing it all, fitting it all in if we possibly can.
That this, in fact, is the very way to success.
But what I found is the opposite.
That that logic leads to the undisciplined pursuit of more,
to use Jim Collin's phrase.
And the antidote to it is the disciplined pursuit
of less, but better.
So you can take that design ethic.
The design ethic, by the way, came
from Dieter Rams, the head designer at Braun for 35 years.
And he summarized all of his life's learnings
into 10 principles, summarized those even further to one,
and then summarized that into three words.
Less, but better.
And he applied it to the design of products,
and superbly successful in doing so.
But I want to make the case that we can take that same design
ethic, and use it to great advantage in our careers,
in our leadership, and also, in our lives, writ large.
And the importance of that is difficult to overstate.
Because it is a matter of fact, and I want to put it to you,
and then ask kind of a big and crucial question
for our conversation today.
I'll put it to you that the evidence is,
that at the end of our lives, there
seems to be a tendency to regret the way we lived them.
Bronnie Ware is the Australian nurse.
This is just one example, one data point,
but she spoke to a lot of people at the end of their lives,
captured them, and wrote a piece called
"The Five Regrets of the Dying."
At the top of that list was having
lived a life that was not true to myself, but to the life
other people expected of me.
And the second was, too much time in work,
too little time with family and key relationships.
And then the list goes on.
But the point I want to put to you
is that nobody intended to be there.
Nobody designed that outcome.
It happened by default.
And my question to you is how it happened.
So here's the question.
Why is it that otherwise intelligent people end up
getting tricked by the trivial?
This is my question to you.
It's not an insignificant question,
because other people just as smart as you, as us.
Just as driven.
Just as thoughtful.
Just as careful, somehow seem to end up
where they didn't intend to end up.
And that is more than intellectual curiosity,
although it is that, to me.
It's also just a question we ought to ask about,
because we just get the one wild and precious life, after all,
so how do we design our choices really matters.
So coming back to you now, I want the answers again,
fast and furious.
why is it otherwise intelligent people get tricked
by the trivial?
This is the question I want to put to you.
What are your thoughts?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].
GREG MCKEOWN: So you're just so busy, you
get into a busyness cycle, where you're so busy,
you don't have any time to think.
So that means that you're so busy,
that you don't have any time to think.
And so it goes for many, many years.
And so this is why very routinely, I'm
talking to people, here in Valley and all over,
that will say, Yeah, I ended up spending 15 years at X company,
and I just can't understand how I did that.
Why that happened or why I spent the time doing that,
when there were other things I really wanted to do.
So I love that idea.
A busyness cycle.
Thank you for that answer.
More.
Go.
AUDIENCE: It gives a false sense of accomplishment.
When you do trivial things, you can accomplish them,
and the bigger ones are harder.
GREG MCKEOWN: Yes, small, quick wins.
Or at least feel like wins.
They get them off the plate.
I sent the email.
I responded to that person.
It feels like accomplishment.
And by the way, if you didn't say it,
but it was true for you, I want you to snap for those, too.
Thank you for that.
More.
There was another hand.
Go.
And others.
Don't be shy.
I want to hear your thoughts.
Go.
AUDIENCE: Yeah, we respond to urgency more than importance
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
GREG MCKEOWN: That's a great new phrase for us all there.
A to-do list pack rat.
So what does it mean, really, though?
AUDIENCE: Well, your lists get longer, and longer, and longer.
And you're constantly crossing them off to do them.
GREG MCKEOWN: Have you ever notice that?
That by the end of the day, your list
is longer than at the beginning?
I once made a list like this, a list of everything
that was on my mind.
400 things by the time I was done.
Some of you will be much higher.
Smaller brain, that's how it goes.
400 things.
And I just looked at that list, said OK.
And I thought, OK, from now I'm going to cross off
every time I do something, and I'm
going to add it every time I make a commitment to anyone
new, right?
I just did it for a week or two, just to see.
Yeah, it's very predictable.
The list got longer every single day.
There's a problem there, isn't there?
Take that forward for the next however many years,
and you've got a problem with perpetually
being in a certain cycle.
A certain challenge.
Thank you for that.
More.
AUDIENCE: Passive participation [INAUDIBLE].
GREG MCKEOWN: Right.
Passive--
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].
GREG MCKEOWN: Passively going along
with other people's agenda.
Let me just speak to that for a moment.
In fact, I was talking to Vint Cerf here.
And we were talking about a few different things,
but one of the things he said in passing,
which I thought was interesting, is
I must have mentioned information overload.
And he said, Oh, information overload.
He says, I hear this all the time,
but we've had information overload
since we had a library.
So this is not some new challenge.
Now I don't fully agree with him because a library is still
so passive, in comparison to the information that
has come over the last 20 years.
But still, I think he's onto something.
That it's not just information overload today
that we're struggling with.
It's opinion overload.
And that's a very different psychological challenge.
Information overload is just stuff.
Stuff you could learn about.
Stuff you could read about.
Opinion overload, that has come with the advancement
of social media and smart technology,
means that people's agendas, which always affected us,
suddenly are affecting us in a hyper connected way.
So I think that's a nice point.
More.
What is it that tricks otherwise intelligent people
to believe that what they're doing
is important when it's not?
How do we get tricked by the trivial?
Don't be shy.
Speak up.
What are your thoughts?
AUDIENCE: Habit.
GREG MCKEOWN: Habit.
What do you mean by habit?
AUDIENCE: It feels normal.
GREG MCKEOWN: It feels normal to just keep
doing what we're doing.
It's become routine.
I love this.
You two, I want to come back to in a moment.
Let me just talk to this routine idea for a moment,
because one of the things that interested me so much when
I was looking into this whole subject
is how do you make doing the essentials as
effortless as possible?
It's doing the essential work in our life is always difficult.
If it's always the hardest thing,
we won't do it, because we'll tend
in a sort of self interested way,
to do the stuff that's effortless.
So the key, of course, is eventually to get to the point
where our routine supports the things
that we think are actually essential,
and making that as effortless as possible.
And so in that mindset, I was visiting China.
And I was in the cube.
Remember, from the Beijing Olympics,
where Michael Phelps astounded the world.
And as I was sitting there watching it,
I was struck by how different the kind of execution we all
saw in that room, is so different than the kind
of execution we see on a day to day basis.
I mean, for example, no one was forcing it at the last moment
there, right?
Nobody was falling into the pool,
because they hadn't quite got themselves organized.
I mean, the whole thing appeared effortless.
I don't mean it really was, but there's still something
about it being a kind of frictionless experience.
And then, as I went to research that, the Michael Phelps
phenomenon there, I found that he
had followed a very particular selected routine
from his coach, Bob Bowman, and had followed that routine
for many years, prior to being in the Olympics.
And this is the routine.
He arrived two hours ahead of time.
He swam a whole set of lengths.
400 back stroke.
800 freestyle, and so on.
He gets out, puts on a particular kind
of swimming trunks.
Then he sits.
At 45 minutes before the time, he sits on the massage table.
Never lies down.
From a certain point on, he never speaks to the coach,
and the coach never speaks to him.
It's just silent.
When he sits down, about to go up to the podium,
he always sits down and puts the towel
to one side, his goggles to the other.
Puts in the same music.
When they announce his name, they take out the same earbud
first, then the other.
He dries the podium.
Always gets on from the left side.
And on and on it goes.
This incredibly designed routine that he
had practiced hundreds and hundreds of times, prior
to being in the Olympics.
And it doesn't even end there.
His coach had created what he called, "put in the videotape."
There's no videotape, but the idea
was, every night and every morning,
he was to visualize, in slow motion, the perfect race.
Every single stroke from beginning to end,
including the elation of success,
the screaming in triumph, and the water
slow-motion dripping off his face.
Every day, twice a day, for a decade.
When he came to the Olympics, it was so routine, so built-in
to him, he just continued.
He didn't have to think differently about it.
It was routine.
So in a way, what I want to do is turn this around and say,
how do you build a habit or a routine,
that supports the things that are most essential?
So that that becomes the default position,
and not only when we're sort of aggressively
trying to pursue it.
Yeah.
Just what is essential and what isn't essential?
I mean, this is a really important question.
And it's a non-trivial question.
And the thing that I want to put to you about this
is that we just often now don't create the space,
to be able to think about this.
In fact, I was at Twitter recently,
and somebody said in passing.
They just asked.
They said, do you remember what it was like to be bored?
They said, when you're in the airport,
and the flight isn't coming.
And you don't have anything to do.
You have to sort of think.
Maybe you get a book and you read it,
but you have to do something a little deeper.
And he said, now there's none of that.
None at all.
We have used every ounce of that space.
We're on the phone.
We're responding.
We're listening.
We're taking information, and we're doing something.
And it does raise the question of what a society will
be like that doesn't ever ponder.
That just is always plugged in.
That is addicted, in that sense.
So thank you for that thought, and then a comment here, too.
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
So the I said the answer to this.
My opinion is--
GREG MCKEOWN: Yeah.
So the challenge is that if you have a manager who's
completely infected in nonessentialism,
who thinks that the answer is just more,
than you've got yourself a challenge.
And let me just tell you, I feel like I've seen this a hundred
times, because this idea has infiltrated
into corporations, for sure.
And you can see it.
In fact, you can see it in a word.
Let me give the history lesson of the word "priority."
Does anybody know this?
So the word "priority" came into the English language
in the 1400s.
And it was singular.
"Priority."
Now what did it mean?
Tell me what you think it meant.
Give me the obvious.
What does the word mean, "priority?"
Don't overthink it.
What does it mean?
AUDIENCE: The most important.
GREG MCKEOWN: Most important.
The first thing.
The prior thing.
Exactly so.
And it kept that very clear and simple and sensible
definition for the next 500 years.
Only in the 1900s did we pluralize the term,
and start speaking of "priorities."
But what does it mean?
What does the word even mean?
Can you have very many very first prior things?
So you see this Sometimes, coming back to the comment,
that you have managers who say, with no sense of irony at all,
here are the ten priorities.
In fact, I was at group not long ago.
And they knew I was coming to teach about essentialism.
And they knew about this definition of "priority,"
and it still didn't stop them sending out
to the entire group, the nine priorities for the fiscal year,
and not in priority order.
And so what we did, which was kind of fun,
is that after the presentation, they
took the next hour, changed their whole schedule,
and they got everybody to vote on which the ones, what
the order should be, and which ones were essential.
And they did identify what the top one was, and the top three,
and it was clear winners across the other ones.
And it helped, of course, the whole organization
to be able to get sensible about what they would say yes to,
and what they would say no to.
So this whole idea of priority and getting back
to the singular sense of it, I think is important.
What is it that gets in the way?
How do otherwise intelligent people
get tricked by the trivial?
What are your thoughts on this?
How else does it happen?
Go.
So the comment was this idea that the non-trivial is often--
This idea of planning, and so on,
doesn't give an immediate payoff.
And so that's a challenge.
You're planning.
You're thinking.
You're organizing.
You're not doing, in the traditional sense.
And in fact, I would go even one stage further
to suggest that often, we are rewarded for bad behavior,
and punished for good behavior.
So, if you say yes to someone, just like that, immediately,
Oh, thank goodness.
They're relieved, and that's good.
And you're doing it, and you have it.
If you say no, or you push back, then that's
not so emotionally good or safe in the relationship.
So there's a withdrawal that takes place.
But over time, if you simply allow that to guide you,
then you can have your whole life consumed in things
that you didn't otherwise choose.
Thank you for that.
More.
Yes.
When I think about that, it makes
me think of an absolutely classic example of everything
we're talking about, in the embodiment of Rosa Parks.
What I think is interesting about Rosa Parks,
and the very famous story that she is so well known for,
is that she wasn't growing up at all likely,
or even just earlier in her adult life,
at all likely to say no.
In fact, when she first joined the NAACP,
they needed someone to be the secretary,
and she did it because she was asked to do it, and she says,
it never even occurred to her that she could say no.
And so this same person, who was so willing to sort of do
the things that other people were asking her and expecting
of her, is the same person, that in a different situation,
is able to say no in this critical moment.
So when the bus driver came to her-- Now
what's the difference?
It's important, because it's the same person here.
But in the moment that the bus driver came to her and said,
you need to leave.
You need to get up.
You need to leave out of these seats.
She said, in that moment, a feeling of clarity
came over her, like a warm blanket.
Wrapped her around, and she could feel certain.
And she simply knew she would never ride the bus again
in that way.
What I think is interesting is that she
didn't try to manipulate the driver, as a result.
When the driver said, Well, I'll call the police,
her response was, "You may do that."
So she was clear about what she was going to do
and not going to do, and wasn't trying to necessarily even get
to the conversation with him.
Now, of course, it caused conflict.
But this is exactly what I'm suggesting, is
that there's a tension between internal clarity
and social expectation.
And what we need to do to make sure
that social expectation doesn't completely own us,
is to have that time and space to ask the question.
What is essential?
So that we can gain highest levels of clarity on that.
Thank you.
More on this.
Go, thanks.
AUDIENCE: I'd say, passion to get things done.
Because [INAUDIBLE].
GREG MCKEOWN: What you said was the desire to just execute.
That you want to be the one.
So if nobody else picks it up in the team,
you're going to be the one to do it.
AUDIENCE: Not necessarily.
GREG MCKEOWN: So one of the reasons that you take things
on is because other people aren't.
You see it as being important to the project, and you do it.
I mean, of course, one can argue that you're
doing the right thing in that situation.
But the challenge is not simply allowing it to be the default.
The norm.
That you become the yes person.
The I'll pick it up person.
Someone dropped the ball, and I'll take it.
So someone that I really sort of feel
symbolically that the book is written to,
is someone who, learning of essentialism,
suddenly discovered that I can push back.
I don't have to operate the way that I've
been taught to operate.
And as a result of it, she goes and negotiates with her manager
to have five days off work, to be
able to focus solely on the preparation for her wedding.
They negotiate and agree that this
is the work that needs to be accomplished.
This is what's critical.
She does it.
She does it ahead of time.
She makes it happen, and the boss is thrilled with it.
But then, as she enters the five days,
the boss says, well somebody dropped the ball,
and I just need you to do it.
It's really very important.
I need you to do it.
And in the past, by a factor of 100,
she would always have done it.
She'd never said no.
Never pushed back.
She just was that person, and for the first time,
she pushes back.
She says no.
The boss is not pleased.
But what happens is that a week later, when they get back
a week or two later after the wedding,
the boss says, You know what?
I realized after you said that, and pushed back,
that there were other people who hadn't been pulling
their weight properly on the team.
And this was the first time I was really having to face that.
So that's how it sort of ended up turning out there.
But she herself was so touched by the experience,
so impacted that she had more power
than she had previously realized,
that the non essentials were negotiable,
that when she went to her wedding,
she added into her vows the idea that I will essentialize
this marriage relationship over all other commitments
and relationships in my life.
I think that's powerful, because it captures this idea.
That what I'm suggesting is we need
to design our lives deliberately,
or they will end up being designed for us by people that
aren't as invested in us achieving
the essential mission of our lives.
Good.
Let me shift to a slightly different question.
The question is this.
I want you to think about the people in your life.
The inspirational people, that you think do this.
The people that you can look to and say, you know what?
They really do focus on the things
that they are built to do.
That are essential to them.
They live a meaningful life.
They're not simply consumed in all
of the different things that are going on.
And I want you to ask, how do they do it?
And as you're thinking about this,
I want to at least share one story
as we're thinking about it, which is Kay Krill, who I feel
is such a good example, because it's like so many of us,
previously.
And so early on in her life-- so this
is Kay Krill, who's now the CEO of Ann, Inc., and the Ann
Taylor brand, and Loft, and so on.
Early on in her career, in her life,
she found myself saying yes to everything.
Every social meeting after.
Every extracurricular at work, and even social engagements
outside of work.
And a mentor came to her, and said, and I love these words.
They said, you've got to learn to jettison
the activities, and even the relationships
from your life that are less meaningful to you.
So that-- and it's important, the so that--
so that you can invest your time and energy into the things that
are truly meaningful to you.
Why I like this story is that she's really learned to do it.
That over the years in that interim period,
she has practiced.
She has experimented with essentialism.
She has tried it out.
Now she really feels, it's easy for me.
It's easy for me to say no to the things that
are less important, and I know that things that are.
So it's a learnable skill.
Now with that as an intro, back to you.
What is it that the people that inspire you do?
How do they do this?
How are they able to focus on the things that
are really essential, and push the other things aside?
What are your thoughts on this?
How do they do it?
Courage, and commitment, and a sense of unyielding,
purposeful clarity.
That's exactly what I found, is that when we're clear enough
on purpose, when we have a clear enough, strong enough yes
burning within us, then we're able to,
sometimes almost effortlessly, just navigate the no.
We're not running around saying no to everybody.
But at the same time, we've thought so deeply
about what we do, and what we believe, and what is valuable,
we're able to navigate a lot of social pressure.
One of my favorite examples of this,
as I was researching the book.
Steve Jobs is someone who is often
cited as someone who said no, and all of that, right?
But what I love is a story of someone who said no to him.
And this was when he left Apple, and he'd
started the company, NeXT.
And he was trying to find a logo.
And so he found one of the best people in the business, Paul
Rand, who designed ABC's logo, Bloomingdale's,
and a bunch of others.
And they have the meeting, and he
says, look, what I need you to do
is, I need you to bring me a whole bunch of options.
Graphical designs, so I can look at them,
evaluate them, and so on.
And that's what every graphic designer gets asked to do,
so a fairly normal request.
And it's Steve Jobs asking for it.
So maybe, not so easy to push back on.
This is Paul Rand's response.
He says no.
He says, no, I will solve your problem for you.
And then he added, and you will pay me.
And you don't have to use it, but you will pay me,
and I will solve your problem for you.
He says, if you want to have all these other options,
you may get those from someone else.
But this is how it works with me.
Well, Steve Jobs went for it, signs with him,
pays him the $100,000 for the logo,
loves it, describes it as a "jewel."
But also, and this is sort of the most important point
in the story, he described Paul Rand
as the ultimate professional.
He said, because he had thought through the client relationship
more deeply than I had.
So to this idea of when we have a deep enough sense of what
is that we want, and what's the right thing, and the best
use of us, then we're able to navigate
and learn to negotiate the rest.
As Peter Drucker put it, he said, effective people
are effective because they say no.
Because they say, this isn't for me.
But to be able to do that with any conviction at all,
we actually have to do the thinking
time to get the clarity.
And then, with that clarity, we have a force and a power
with which to negotiate.
Thank you for this.
What do they do?
The people that inspire you.
What do they do, and how do they do this?
How they do it?
What are your thoughts?
Let me put to you someone that's inspired me.
Someone that I think captures the very embodiment
of what we're talking about.
And it was another barrister.
Well, I didn't become a barrister,
because I quit, but would have been.
Started in London, England, and he
would have been a barrister for the rest of his life, other
than he had this family thing come up in South Africa.
And so he leaves.
Goes to South Africa, and on the way to South Africa,
has one of these defining moments.
He gets kicked off the train.
And he gets kicked off the train, because he's Indian,
and he's not allowed to be in first class.
And instead of just taking it and dealing with it,
he goes, it's wrong.
It's injustice.
It's wrong.
And he takes on the South African government,
specifically about this issue.
He goes through a whole process with them, and finally wins.
And having won at least a portion of a victory,
he leaves to go back now to India.
We're talking about, of course, Gandhi.
And when he goes back to India, there
is another test for him waiting there.
But it's unusual test.
It's the test of success.
Failure will test us, but nothing like success
will test us.
And so when he arrives, everyone is expecting something
from him.
Everyone wants him to run for public office.
They want him to run.
Be prime minister.
They've heard of his victory.
They want to support him.
There's momentum, and social pressure, and, of course,
he wants to make a difference in his life.
So, of course, that would be the thing to do.
A nonessentialist would have done just that.
But instead, think of the discipline,
and think of the logic that would drive such behavior.
He said, no.
I will spend a year listening to India.
I will travel, and I will go to the paddy fields,
and I will meet people.
And I will try to understand what's going on.
What is essential?
So that I can discern it, and see it.
And you know what he found?
He found what was essential was salt.
It wasn't obvious before.
And this is how he described it.
He said, if you can control salt production as the British did,
then you can control the bread production,
and the rest of the food production.
And so, by this single control mechanism,
you can keep 300 million people easily under control.
And so this is when he came up with the salt
marches, in which he walked across India.
And 600,000 people followed him in a symbolic statement
of support, and pushing back on the British empire.
And then through a series of experiments.
He called them experiments with truth,
but we could call them experiments with essentialism.
The same idea, because what it came down to was a phrase.
He said, I was learning to reduce myself to zero.
Instead, to fill his life with only the purpose
for which he was built.
It included all sorts of fun and sort of strange experiments
including, a diet that he chose.
Many, many different kinds of diets as he
was going through, choosing those things that really
worked, and actually helped him to be
most in attunement in his life.
It included not reading a newspaper for three years
at one time, because it was too cluttering to what
he was trying to focus on.
One day a week, for a period of time, not speaking.
Well, that is a challenge.
And on it went, including eliminating from his life
the stuff.
So he died with just 10 things to his name.
But, of course, not only that to his name, but something else.
As the Secretary of State, George C. Marshall
said at the time, that he'd become the spokesman
for the conscience of all mankind.
And Einstein said of him, "Generations to come
will scarce believe that such a one as this,
ever in flesh and blood, walked upon this earth."
Well, we don't have to be Gandhi.
But we could probably channel some
of the power of that story, to inspire us to make sure
that we live a life built around the voice inside,
instead of the noise outside.
That we can learn to discern what's essential.
The vital few from the trivial many.
That we can make micro adjustments in the things
we do often, to be able to take us closer to the life that
truly is essential down the path.
Well, life is fast and full of opportunity.
And the complication is, we think we have to do everything.
And my position is that we can make a different choice.
That we can learn to eliminate the non essentials, and as
a result of that, live a life that really matters.
Do truly great work.
And I think that that decision really, really matters.
Thank you ever so much for having me.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
AUDIENCE: In order to get to essentialism,
it seems as if discernment is a very large component
of this process.
Do you have any recommendations, in regards to discernment?
GREG MCKEOWN: Yeah.
Thank you for that.
Do I have any recommendations for discernment?
I think we can start really easy on this,
because such low hanging fruit.
Just start the day off.
Don't reach for your phone.
Almost reach for anything else, actually.
But reach for a journal.
I've kept a general now for the last, easily, 10 years,
and hardly missed a day.
And I tell you, just start small.
This is the way to do it.
Just write less than you want to.
But just have a moment.
A space to be able to at least reflect on
yesterday and what you want to do today.
This is a very simple practice.
Start with a minute a day, and eventually it
will become it's own sort of-- I don't
want to use the word "addiction,"
but its own success cycle, where you find yourself wanting
to write more and reflect more.
Because instead of having the world act on you
as our phones do, we can act upon our lives
and upon the future.
It's one very small thing to do, but I
think getting a morning routine.
A first thing routine is a really powerful way to start.
Thank you for that.
AUDIENCE: Thanks for coming out.
I wanted to ask you.
So it seems like the overall goal
is fulfillment and happiness, right?
With essentialism, and the way the workforce works now,
do you see a dichotomy between what people probably
need to do to feel fulfilled, versus what companies
look for in promotions, and moving people up the ranks?
GREG MCKEOWN: Yeah.
I mean, the answer's yes.
I mean, is there a distinction, and a contradiction
between what companies want from us,
and what will actually help us to be able to be successful?
At times, absolutely.
And I think that learning to decide which trade offs
we want to make is the essence of strategy.
So in our personal strategy, it's exactly that.
Which things do I want to do?
Now, one thing I can certainly recommend.
It's a very quick fix.
Or at least a quick fix to understand it,
is work with people who value the same things that you do.
And there's a big range on that.
And I was recently listening to a CEO talk.
And the way that they talked about life
being equivalent to the company.
They said, point blank, in this sort of Q&A session.
I absolutely have given my life to this company for 20 years.
my family have been the victims.
This is completely, not really apologetically,
but just very candidly.
I'm sure lots of other people had done it,
but they were owning it.
And so, in the middle of it they say, "I answer my emails
at 3:00 in the morning, and I respond by 3:05."
And then, as if that wasn't enough, that got our attention.
Then they pointed to the back of the room and said,
"And my assistant is the same way.
Isn't that right?"
And of course, all heads turned, and this assistant at the back
is nodding, as you can imagine.
And they say, "When I email you at 4:00 AM,
you respond by 4:05.
Isn't that right?" "That is right."
So, that is very far on a spectrum,
but it only goes to prove the point
that there is a whole range.
And I think the selection of who you spend time
with, including who your manager is,
and being very careful about that,
will make a big difference to the trade-offs
you have to make.
I have found it in my life.
I mean, I could sell a personal story about this.
I have found a high cost to getting that wrong.
Actually, maybe I'll share that.
And maybe tie it up on this.
So, my wife is here today, Anna.
And so, she could tell you this story maybe better
than I could.
Or at least, a different perspective on it, but this
is how it worked.
So my wife is expecting one of our daughters.
And I got an email from my manager at the time,
and said, "Friday would be a very bad time to have a baby.
Because I need you to be at this client meeting."
And you know, maybe they were joking.
But somehow, that stayed with me through the week.
And instead of being able to focus, and just
enjoy this moment, and so on, I was
torn trying to straddle both.
Do them both.
It's a nonessentialist trick, right?
I can do both.
I can fit them both in.
And the day comes.
Daughter's born on Friday.
And I'm in the hospital, baby's healthy.
My wife's there looking radiant.
And so, I said, filled with clarity now.
I said, with all the conviction I could muster, yes.
And so I went.
I remember after the meeting, my manager said to me,
"The client will respect you for the choice you made."
I don't know that they did.
The look on their faces did not evince that kind of confidence.
But even if they had, and even if some extraordinary thing
had come from it, which nothing did, surely,
even in those best-case scenarios,
I had made a fool's bargain.
It was there, in a sort of quite deep way,
that I learned this lesson.
If you don't prioritize your life, someone else will.
This is not a neutral game we're playing.
People have their own things.
They have their own agendas, and we will simply
become a function of those, unless we deliberately
do something else.
So, in the final analysis, we can either choose deliberately
to pursue the vital few, or we can, by default,
be pulled into the trivial many.
So, again, thank you for your time,
and so great to be with you.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]