My friend Larry Girard pulled a book off his shelf and asked, “What’s the ONE Thing you can do this week such that by doing it everything else would be easier or unnecessary?”* Handing me the book Larry said, “Carlton, you need to read this.”
The book? The One Thing** by Gary Keller with Jay Papasan.
It changed my life—not just by the week, or the day, or even the hour. Sometimes it changes me a moment at a time as I negotiate the unexpected opportunities that arise in my day.
Narrowing focus, identifying my priorities, and choosing one arrow to send flying straight toward my target. That’s what Keller teaches. And my bullseye shooting percentage keeps climbing.
Keller’s book is loaded with penetrating stuff. I’ve selected a quiver-full, five (5), that stimulate my thinking.
“‘Going small’ is ignoring all the things you could do and doing what you should do….It’s realizing that extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus.” (P. 10)
“Toppling dominoes is pretty straightforward. You line them up and tip over the first one….Highly successful people know this. So every day they line up their priorities anew, find the lead domino, and whack away at it until it falls.” (P. 16)
“There is magic in knocking down your most important domino day after day.” (P. 170)
“You don’t need to be a disciplined person to be successful. In fact, you can become successful with less discipline than you think, for one simple reason: success is about doing the right thing, not about doing everything right.” (P. 55)
“What you build today will either empower or restrict you tomorrow.” (P. 89)
“The ONE Thing sits at the heart of success and is the starting point for achieving extraordinary results.” (P. 24)