The following contains excerpts from the book, The One Thing (Gary Keller, Jay Papasan).
At our music school in Odessa, Texas we believe that music is more than sound, it is relationships. When delving into the subject of relationships, the subject of Leadership comes to the fore. One of the most profound aspects of successful Leadership is gaining insight into what to focus on, bringing those being led into consensus.
This is a book about focus and priorities. The thesis is essentially the concept of the Pareto Principle, taken to the extreme. If 20 percent of the effort produces 80 percent of the results, then what is the 20 percent of the 20 percent, and even narrower: What is the 20 percent of that 20 percent, down to the One thing that leverages your greatest strength?
Although the author’s direction is toward life-focus, he allows that this can be done for every part of one’s life in this priority structure: spiritual life, physical health, personal life, key relationships, job, business, and financial life.
At our music school in Odessa, Texas we make it our goal to help the student develop core competencies in their areas of study that allow them to achieve success in a myriad of directions they may choose.
In the author’s introduction, he states, “extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus…You need to be doing fewer things for more effect instead of doing more things with side effects.” Analogizing the sequential effect of ‘doing the right things’ in a priority sequence to a string of dominoes, he states, “extraordinary success is sequential, not simultaneous…success builds on success.”
“Often, the line between passion and skill can be blurry. That’s because they’re almost always connected…Passion for something leads to disproportionate time practicing or working at it. That time spent eventually translates to skill, and when skill improves, results improve. Better results generally lead to more enjoyment, and more passion and more time is invested. It can be a virtuous cycle all the way to extraordinary results.”
The Lies
Six Lies Between You and Success
- Everything matters equally
- Multitasking
- A disciplined life
- Willpower is always on will-call
- A balanced life
- Big is bad
Everything Matters Equally
“The things which are most important don’t always scream the loudest” (Bob Hawke, Australian prime minister)
“Achievers operate differently. They have an eye for the essential. They pause just long enough to decide what matters and then allow what matters to drive their day…Achievers always work from a clear sense of priority…To-do lists tend to be long; success lists are short.”
At our music school in Odessa, Texas we help students prioritize their work and focus on core competencies that extend to all areas of artistic development.
“A pioneer of quality-control management, (Joseph M. ) Juran had noticed that a handful of flaws would usually produce a majority of the defects…Pareto points us in a very clear direction: the majority of what you want will come from the minority of what you do…A to-do list becomes a success list when you apply Pareto’s Principle to it…I want you to go small by identifying the 20 percent, and then I want you to go even smaller by finding the vital few of the vital few…You can actually take 20 percent of the 20 percent of the 20 percent and continue until you get to the single most important thing!”
Multitasking
“It’s not that we have too little time to do all the things we need to do, it’s that we feel the need to do too many things in the time we have.”
“In 2009, New York Times reporter Matt Richtel earned a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting with a series of articles (‘Driven to Distraction’) on the dangers of driving while texting or using cell phones. He found that distracted driving is responsible for 16 percent of all traffic fatalities and nearly half a million injuries annually. Even an idle phone conversation when driving takes a 40 percent bite out of your focus and, surprisingly, can have the same effect as being drunk.”
“The people we live with and work with on a daily basis deserve our full attention. When we give people segmented attention, piecemeal time, switching back and forth, the switching cost is higher than just the time involved. We end up damaging relationships.” (Dave Crenshaw, author)
A Disciplined Life
“When you discipline yourself, you’re essentially training yourself to act in a specific way. Stay with this long enough and it becomes routine- in other words, a habit. So, when you see people who look like ‘disciplined’ people, what you’re really seeing is people who’ve trained a handful of habits into their lives. This makes them seem ‘disciplined’ when actually they’re not. No one is…you can become successful with less discipline that you think, for one simple reason: success is about doing the right thing, not about doing everything right. The trick to success is to choose the right habit and bring just enough discipline to establish it. That’s it. That’s all the discipline you need…When you do the right thing, it can liberate you from having to monitor everything.”
We help students at our music school in Odessa, Texas develop habits that relate to the most important aspects of their development. It is through these habits that true freedom of artistic creativity can take hold.
Researchers at the University College of London…asked the question: How long does it take to establish a new habit?…The results suggest that it takes an average of 66 days to acquire a new habit. The full range was 18 to 254 days, but the 66 days represented a sweet spot…Self-help circles tend to preach that it takes 21 days to make a change, but modern science doesn’t back that up. It takes time to develop the right habit, so don’t give up too soon.”
Will Power is Always on Will-Call
“Willpower has a limited battery-life but can be recharged with some downtime…We act as though our supply of willpower were endless. As a result, we don’t consider it a personal resource to be managed, like food or sleep…Studies concluded that willpower is a mental muscle that doesn’t bounce back quickly.”
“So how do you put willpower to work? You think about it. Pay attention to it. Respect it. You make doing what matters most a priority when your willpower is its highest. In other words, you give it the time of day it deserves…Do what matters most first each day when your willpower is strongest. Maximum strength willpower means maximum success.”
A Balanced Life
“The problem with living in the middle is that it prevents you from making extraordinary time commitments to anything…The reason we shouldn’t pursue balance is that the magic never happens in the middle; magic happens at the extremes.”
“Replace the word ‘balance’ with ‘counterbalance’ and what you experience makes sense…When the ballerina poses en pointe, she can appear weightless, floating on air, the very idea of balance and grace. A closer look would reveal her toe shoes vibrating rapidly, making minute adjustments for balance. Counterbalancing done well gives the illusion of balance.”
“The problem is that when you focus on what is truly important, something will always be underserved. No matter how hard you try, there will always be things left undone at the end of your day, week, month, year and life…leaving some things undone is a necessary tradeoff for extraordinary results.”
“In the world of professional success, it’s not about how much overtime you put in; the key ingredient is focused time over time. To achieve an extraordinary result you must choose what matters most and give it all the time it demands. This requires getting extremely out of balance in relation to all other work issues.”
One of the most important life-lessons students in our music school in Odessa, Texas can learn is the power of focus. Coupled with consistent discipline, focus becomes a powerful force that will change the trajectory of a person’s life.
“The question of balance is really a question of priority…When you act on your priority, you’ll automatically go out of balance, giving more time to one thing over another. The challenge then doesn’t become one of not going out of balance, for in fact you must. The challenge becomes how long you stay on your priority.”
Big Is Bad
“When you allow yourself to accept that big is about who you can become, you look at it differently.”
“What you do in the time you work determines what you achieve. And since what you do is determined by what you think, how big you think becomes the launching pad for how high you achieve…Think as big as you possibly can and base what you do, how you do it, and who you do it with on succeeding at that level.”
We have high expectations for students in our music school in Odessa, Texas and we want to inspire each of them to see the enormous potential each one has inside themselves, as they strive to develop their uniqueness and become the best they can be.
“People who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the only ones who do.”