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Pursuing a balanced life means never pursuing anything at the extremes.
the magic never happens in the middle; magic happens at the extremes.
Pursuing the extremes presents its own set of problems.
Time waits for no one. Push something to an extreme and postponement can become permanent.
When you gamble with your time, you may be placing a bet you can’t cover. Even if you’re sure you can win, be careful that you can live with what you lose.
if achieving balance is a lie, then what do you do? Counterbalance.
Counterbalancing done well gives the illusion of balance.
when you focus on what is truly important, something will always be underserved.
Trying to get them all done is folly. When the things that matter most get done, you’ll still be left with a sense of things being undone—a sense of imbalance. Leaving some things undone is a necessary tradeoff for extraordinary results. But you can’t leave everything undone,
Extraordinary results at work require longer periods between counterbalancing.
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, with only infrequent counterbalancing to address them.
In your personal life, go short and avoid long periods where you’re out of balance. Going short lets you stay connected to all the things that matter most and move them along together.
In your professional life, go long and make peace with the idea that the pursuit of extraordinary results may require you to be out of balance for long periods.
In your personal life, nothing gets left behind. At work it’s required.
In his novel Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas, James Patterson artfully highlights where our priorities lie in our personal and professional balancing act: “Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends, and integrity. And you’re keeping all of them in the air. But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls—family, health, friends, integrity—are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.”
Your work life is divided into two distinct areas—what matters most and everything else. You will have to take what matters to the extremes and be okay with what happens to the rest.
“We are kept from our goal, not by obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal.” —Robert Brault
balk
When big is believed to be bad, small thinking rules the day and big never sees the light of it.
science isn’t about guessing, but rather the art of progressing.
None of us knows our limits.
Sabeer Bhatia arrived in America with only $250 in his pocket, but he wasn’t alone. Sabeer came with big plans and the belief that he could grow a business faster than any business in history. And he did. He created Hotmail.
As of 2011, Hotmail ranked as one of the most successful webmail service providers in the world, with more than 360 million active users.
Thinking big is essential to extraordinary results. Success requires action, and action requires thought.
the only actions that become springboards to succeeding big are those informed by big thinking to begin with.
Thinking informs actions and actions determine outcomes.
If you learn to do something one way, and with one set of relationships, that may work fine until you want to achieve more. It’s then that you’ll discover you’ve created an artificial ceiling of achievement for yourself that may be too hard to break through.
When people talk about “reinventing” their career or their business, small boxes are often the root cause. What you build today will either empower or restrict you tomorrow. It will either serve as a platform for the next level of your success or as a box, trapping you where you are.
Choose your box—choose your outcome.
“The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man’s foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.” — Thomas Henry Huxley
Before Sam Walton opened the first Wal-Mart, he envisioned a business so big that he felt he needed to go ahead and set up his future estate plan to minimize inheritance taxes. By thinking big, long before he made it big, he was able to save his family an estimated $11 to $13 billion in estate taxes.
on the journey to achieving big, you get bigger.
Big requires growth, and by the time you arrive, you’re big too! What seemed an insurmountable mountain from a distance is just a small hill when you arrive—at least in proportion to the person you’ve become.
As you experience big, you become big.
Think big. Avoid incremental thinking that simply asks, “What do I do next?”
Don’t order from the menu.
Act bold.
As much as we’d like to believe we’re all different, what consistently works for others will almost always work for us.
Don’t fear failure.
Think big, aim high, act bold. And see just how big you can blow up your life.
And what did all of this get me? It got me success, and it got me sick. Eventually, it got me sick of success. So what did I do? I ditched the lies and went in the opposite direction. I joined overachievers anonymous and went antiestablishment on all the success “tactics” that supposedly build success.
the key to success isn’t in all the things we do but in the handful of things we do well.
“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” is all wrong. I tell you “put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket.” Look round you and take notice; men who do that do not often fail. It is easy to watch and carry the one basket. It is trying to carry too many baskets that breaks most eggs
Mark Twain
The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret to getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks and then starting on the first one.
the quality of any answer is directly determined by the quality of the question.
Ask the wrong question, get the wrong answer. Ask the right question, get the right answer. Ask the most powerful question possible, and the answer can be life altering.
Every discoverer and inventor begins his quest with a transformative question.
Nancy Willard,
“Sometimes questions are more important than answers.”
