ESSENTIALISM by Greg McKeown | Animated CORE Message

hello and welcome to another episode of productivity game insights I recently read the book essentialism by Greg McEwan Greg starts up the book by telling us a personal story his story is intended to warn us of the dangers of not adopting an essentialist mindset one day after his baby daughter was born and his wife was laying in the hospital he was pressured to attend a client meeting he says instinctively I knew what to do it was clearly a time to be there for my wife and my newborn child so when asked whether I plan to attend the meeting I said with all the conviction I could muster yes he left his wife in the hospital and attended the meeting his colleague assured him that he was doing the right thing but when he got to the meeting the clients looked at him perplexed as if to say what the heck are you doing here Greg says that he said yes simply to please and in doing so he hurt his family his integrity and even his client relationship nothing came out of that meeting it was a fool's bargain this is a fool's bargain that many of us felt trapped to saying yes to everything it's a tactic that led to our success at one point but now it's leading to failure overstating the point in order to make it the pursuit of success can be a catalyst for failure success can distract us from focusing on the essential things that produce success in the first place as work piles up as responsibilities build the demands start to increase we're busy but were not productive most of us don't realize we're falling into this trap until it's much too late until we've completely burned out and have no choice but to stop but engaging this behavior isn't very uncommon we simply lose sight of our ability to choose to realize that we have the power to choose Greg relays a study in his book - explained learned helplessness which is essentially being conditioned in a negative way which causes us to lose sight of our ability to choose the study involved three dogs who were all connected to a harness the first dog was shocked but a lever was placed in front of him and he could press it to stop the shock a second dog was also being shocked but this time the lever didn't work every time he pressed it nothing happened and a third dog was not shocked at all all three dogs were put into a box on one side of the box there was a pad that was administering intermittent shocks on the other side there was a pad that didn't shock them when the dog were all placed on the side that administered intermittent shocks only the first in a third dog became aware enough to move over to the side that had no shocks the second dog just stood there helpless he must have figured what's the point I don't really have a choice anyway we first need to realize that we aren't helpless that we have a choice to realize that we have a choice we need to recognize the trade-off inherent to every situation we quickly get into the trap of making default decisions and sadly those default decisions are typically short term comfort for long term dissatisfaction brake says that we say yes just because it's an easy reward but we run the risk of having to later say no to a more meaningful one we can either say no and regret it for a few minutes or we can say yes and regret it for days weeks months or even years for the longest time I was trading the certainty of a paycheck for long term discontent I wasn't growing in my job anymore I needed to realize the trade-off I was making every day I went to work recognising that trade-off allowed me to regain my ability to choose and make the tough decision to leave my job we are presented with hundreds of options a day an essentialist looks at those options by asking him or herself what trade-offs am I willing to make I know I can't have it all so what problem do I want to solve Gregg explains two examples of some of the best strategic choosers of our day true essentialists Warren Buffett and Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines Greg relays a quote from the towel of Warren Buffett Warren decided early in his career it would be impossible for him to make hundreds of write investment decisions so he decided that he would invest only in the businesses that he was absolutely sure of and then bet heavily on them he owes 90% of his well - just ten investments sometimes what you don't do is just as important as what you do Greg summarizes this is saying he makes big bets on the essential few investment opportunities and says no to the many merely good ones on a scale of one to ten there are many things that come in at a seven or eight they're good opportunities and we hate to let them pass but we need to adopt what Derek Siver's says a hell yes or a no approach either this is an amazing opportunity hell yeah or no sorry I don't do that Greg says we need to learn the art of letting go of sevens and eights to only do 9s and 10s Warren Buffett once said that for every 100 great opportunities that are brought to me I say no to 99 of them to be one of the best investors of all time you need to be selective you need to hone and be proud of your ability to say no Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines treated every no as a yes for his company when he would say no he would considered a strategic trade off saying no to one thing enabled him to say yes to something else to say yes to his company culture to say yes to standing out amongst the other airlines herb said you have to look at every opportunity and say well no I'm sorry we're not going to do a thousand different things that really won't contribute much to the end result that we're trying to achieve herb made Southwest the dominant airline because he said no to destinations that weren't point-to-point he said no to serving meals and he said no to first-class those noes were made deliberately and they made all the difference Greg says quote at first Southwest was lambasted by critics naysayers and other non essentialist who couldn't believe that his approach could possibly be successful first they mocked him then they copied him after reading Greg's book I've adopted three core ideas to live more essentially to be more selective and have the courage to say no first I'm learning to see no in a new way second I'm learning habits to prevent the non-essential from entering my life and third I'm protecting my ability to prioritize and reserving time for things that are truly essential in to see no in a new way I first need to realize that when I say no to someone I'm saying no to the request we commonly confuse this we associate the rejection of the request to mean the rejection of that person I need to realize that my saying no doesn't have to damage the relationship in fact it gets strengthened that if I come across in a sincere way and I'm able to articulate my priorities and have conviction in maintaining them people respect that that person may even be inspired by that next I need to realize that everyone is selling that's just this today's age where on the internet or walking down the street everyone's trying to sell you something and we're feeling this constant guilt over and over again when we say no to things but that guilt is outdated that guilt stems from a time when we were hunters and gatherers living in tribes that if we had social discomfort it meant that we were close to being kicked out of the tribe which meant death so it's important that we make the distinction that in the modern age it's okay to say no in fact it's a seneschal that we say no otherwise we will die another form of death a death of burnout exhaustion and checking out of life greg's helped me adopt new habits that prevent the non-essential things from creeping into my life first I learned to be more diligent about keeping a journal now it sounds pretty basic and it doesn't sound like it can do much but having the ability to set aside time to take that bigger view to be a journalist of your life allows you to identify patterns of what really is essential what really matters to you day after day because we are easily disillusioned by the media by our environment we need to really check in with ourselves and make sure that we are on track and journaling is one of the best tools to do this to journal often simply leave your journal on your bed or on the couch or in the kitchen table someplace we're always going to run into it where you can just jot down a few words a few ideas that you can then reflect on the second habit of the essentialist is learning the art of the awkward pause if you're about to instinctively say yes to a request just pause for a little bit longer three to four seconds what that does is let the person know that you're seriously considering it it also gives you time to think of the trade-offs that you're going to make by saying yes if you say yes to that what are you saying no to lastly to ensure that our priorities remain our priorities we need to make space in our day to strengthen our ability to be selective and recognize the trade-offs first we need to reserve time to think we need space in our day to allow us to differentiate between the options that we have protecting your thinking time could involve reserving 15 minute blocks throughout the day between meetings and before key events it's a time where you think strategically how you're approaching your life you consider what you're currently saying no to and what you should be saying no to the second thing we need to protect is play time a study of over six thousand people concluded that play leads to brain plasticity adaptability and creativity nothing fires up the brain like play Greg says it helps us to see possibilities we otherwise wouldn't have seen and make connections we would otherwise not have made it opens our minds and broadens our perspective it helps us challenge old assumptions and makes us more receptive to untested ideas so play during conversations with friends and family play by picking up a new sport or activity play by making up and engaging in games a third essential thing we need to protect is sleep time Bill Clinton was quoted as saying every major mistake that I've made has happened as a result of sleep deprivation sleep affects our judgment and our awareness the less sleep we get the more non-essential things are able to creep into our life if you're willing to take the challenge of carving out time to make sure you have a good sleep you'll see that your awareness of choice dramatically goes up and you have the ability to identify the trade-offs and make tough decisions throughout the day Greg leaves us with a basic value proposition of essentialism only once you give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all to stop saying yes to everyone can you make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter the next time you feel overwhelmed by requests remember what Peter Drucker said people are effective because they say no because they say this isn't for me so make tough trade-offs and actively prune out what's non-essential to make room for the essential those are the big ideas that I gathered from Greg's book I believe Greg's book is essential reading for today's age now highly recommended if you would like a one-page PDF summary of the big ideas that I gathered from his book just click the link below and I'd be happy to email it to you if you already subscribe to the free productivity game newsletter this collection of ideas will already be in your inbox thanks for watching and have a productive day

Channel: Productivity Game

Views: 273,046

Keywords: Greg McKeown, Essentialism, Book Review, Book Summary, Book Animation, Animation Video, VideoScribe, Priorities, Priority, McKeown, Gregory, Book, Saying No, Animated Book Review, Book Review Animation, Essentialism book review, Essentialism greg mckeown review, Essentialism book summary, essentialism greg mckeown summary

Id: euJc0UmSik8

Length: 11min 36sec (696 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 03 2016