The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

by Gary Keller

I stepped down as CEO and made finding those 14 people my singular focus.

This time the earth really did move. Within three years, we began a period of sustained growth that averaged 40 percent year-over-year for almost a decade.

Out of habit, I would end our coaching calls with a recap of the handful of things they were agreeing to accomplish before our next session. Unfortunately, many would get most of them done, but not necessarily what mattered most. Results suffered. Frustration followed. So, in an effort to help them succeed, I started shortening my list: If you can do just three things this week. … If you can do just two things this week. …

Finally, out of desperation, I went as small as I could possibly go and asked: “What’s the ONE Thing you can do this week such that by doing it everything else would be easier or unnecessary?” And the most awesome thing happened.

Where I’d had huge success, I had narrowed my concentration to one thing, and where my success varied, my focus had too.

“Going small” is ignoring all the things you could do and doing what you should do. It’s recognizing that not all things matter equally and finding the things that matter most. It’s a tighter way to connect what you do with what you want. It’s realizing that extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus.

Going small is a simple approach to extraordinary results, and it works.

In Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, on Domino Day, November 13, 2009, Weijers Domino Productions coordinated the world record domino fall by lining up more than 4,491,863 dominoes in a dazzling display. In this instance, a single domino set in motion a domino fall that cumulatively unleashed more than 94,000 joules of energy, which is as much energy as it takes

for an averagesized male to do 545 pushups.

He described how a single domino is capable of bringing down another domino that is actually 50 percent larger.

FIG. 2 A geometric progression is like a long, long train—it starts out too slow to notice until it’s moving too fast to stop. Do you see the implication? Not only can one knock over others but also others that are successively larger.

Imagine what would happen if this kept going. If a regular domino fall is a linear progression, Whitehead’s would be described as a geometric progression.

GETTING EXTRAORDINARY RESULTS So when you think about success, shoot for the moon. The moon is reachable if you prioritize everything and put all of your energy into accomplishing the most important thing. Getting extraordinary results is all about creating a domino effect in your life.

“Here’s where you should start.” 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.

The key is over time. Success is built sequentially. It’s one thing at a time.

“It is those who concentrate on but one thing at a time who advance in this world.” —Og Mandino

Take Google. Their ONE Thing is search, which makes selling advertising, its key source of revenue, possible. And what about Star Wars? Is the ONE Thing movies or merchandise? If you guessed merchandise, you’d be right—and you’d be wrong. Revenue from toys recently totaled over $10 billion, while combined worldwide box office revenue for the six main films totaled less than half that, $4.3 billion. From where I sit, movies are the ONE Thing because they make the toys and products possible.

“There can only be one most important thing. Many things may be important, but only one can be the most important.” —Ross Garber When you get the ONE Thing, you begin to see the business world differently. If today your company doesn’t know what its ONE Thing is, then the company’s ONE Thing is to find out.

Everyone has one person who either means the most to them or was the first to influence, train, or manage them. No one succeeds alone. No one.

ONE PASSION, ONE SKILL Look behind any story of extraordinary success and the ONE Thing is always there.

“Success demands singleness of purpose.” —Vince Lombardi

The ONE Thing sits at the heart of success and is the starting point for achieving extraordinary results.

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” —Mark Twain

The ONE Thing becomes difficult because we’ve unfortunately bought into too many others—and more often than not those “other things” muddle our thinking, misguide our actions, and sidetrack our success.

THE SIX LIES BETWEEN YOU AND SUCCESS 1. Everything Matters Equally 2. Multitasking 3. A Disciplined Life 4. Willpower Is Always on Will-Call 5. A Balanced Life 6. Big Is Bad

“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Equality is a lie.

When everything feels urgent and important, everything seems equal. We become active and busy, but this doesn’t actually move us any closer to success. Activity is often unrelated to productivity, and busyness rarely takes care of business.

“The things which are most important don’t always scream the loudest.” —

Bob Hawke

Achievers operate differently. They have an eye for the essential.

Instead of a to-do list, you need a success list—a list that is purposefully created around extraordinary results.

In the 19th century, Pareto had written a mathematical model for income distribution in Italy that stated that 80 percent of the land was owned by 20 percent of the people. Wealth was not evenly distributed.

Pareto’s Principle, it turns out, is as real as the law of gravity, and yet most people fail to see the gravity of it. It’s not just a theory—it is a provable, predictable certainty of nature and one of the greatest productivity truths ever discovered. Richard Koch, in his book The 80/20 Principle, defined it about as well as anyone: “The 80/20 Principle asserts that a minority of causes, inputs, or effort usually lead to a majority of the results, outputs, or rewards.

FIG. 3 The 80/20 Principle says the minority of your effort leads to the majority of your results.

Pareto points us in a very clear direction: the majority of what you want will come from the minority of what you do. Extraordinary results are disproportionately created by fewer actions than most realize.

FIG. 4 A to-do list becomes a success list when you prioritize it.

EXTREME PARETO Pareto proves everything I’m telling you—but there’s a catch. He doesn’t go far enough. I want you to go further. I want you to take Pareto’s Principle to an extreme. 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. The 80/20 rule is the first word, but not the last, about success.

FIG. 5 No matter how many to-dos you start with, you can always narrow it to one.

Now, again, stop and do the math. One idea out of 100. That is Pareto to the extreme. That’s thinking big, but going very small. That’s applying the ONE Thing to a business challenge in a truly powerful way. But this doesn’t just apply to business. On my 40th birthday, I started taking guitar lessons and quickly discovered I could give only 20 minutes a day to practice. This wasn’t much, so I knew I had

to narrow down what I learned. I asked my friend Eric Johnson (one of the greatest guitarists ever) for advice. Eric said that if I could do only one thing, then I should practice my scales. So, I took his advice and chose the minor blues scale.

BIG IDEAS 1. Go small. Don’t focus on being busy; focus on being productive. Allow what matters most to drive your day. 2. Go extreme. Once you’ve figured out what actually matters, keep asking what matters most until there is only one thing left. That core activity goes at the top of your success list. 3. Say no. Whether you say “later” or “never,” the point is to say “not now” to anything else you could do until your most important work is done. 4. Don’t get trapped in the “check off” game. If we believe things don’t matter equally, we must act accordingly. We can’t fall prey to the notion that everything has to be done, that checking things off our list is what success is all about. We can’t be trapped in a game of “check off” that never produces a winner. The truth is

that things don’t matter equally and success is found in doing what matters most. Sometimes it’s the first thing you do. Sometimes it’s the only thing you do. Regardless, doing the most important thing is always the most important thing.

“To do two things at once is to do neither.” —Publilius Syrus

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.

It always takes some time to start a new task and restart the one you quit, and there’s no guarantee that you’ll ever pick up exactly where you left off. There is a price for this. “The cost in terms of extra time from having to task switch depends on how complex or simple the tasks are,” reports researcher Dr. David Meyer. “It can range from time increases of 25 percent or less for simple tasks to well over 100 percent or more for very complicated tasks.” Task switching exacts a cost few realize they’re even paying.

BIG IDEAS 1. Distraction is natural. Don’t feel bad when you get distracted. Everyone gets distracted. 2. Multitasking takes a toll. At home or at work, distractions lead to poor choices, painful mistakes, and unnecessary stress. 3. Distraction undermines results. When you try to do too much at once, you can end up doing nothing well. Figure out what matters most in the moment and give it your undivided attention.

Success is actually a short race—a sprint fueled by discipline just long enough for habit to kick in and take over.