Asking yourself this ONE QUESTION will 10X your results
I got it from an international best-selling book.
There’s a goal you want to achieve.
It can be anything. Work goal, business goal, dating goal or fitness goal
You worked hard, put in the hours and lose sleep in the process. Yet, for some reason the result is not what you expect.
And then comes THAT person. You know who i’m talking about.
They put in half or even quarter of the efforts you put in, yet they could achieve twice or thrice what you achieved.
What went wrong?
Myth about Achieving a Goal
We were somewhat led to believe that to achieve a certain goal, we need to do (as mentioned above) a million things.
But in reality, it’s just like the title. A myth.
Only a small percentage of your overall effort would lead you the maximum result.
Take a look at your life if you don’t believe me.
How many percent of the articles you wrote brought in the results?
How many percent out of the hundreds of things you have tried helped you get in shape?
How many clients of yours brought in the maximum revenue?
The answer is, more or less, about 20%.
The Pareto Principle
The story of this man who fixed a ship’s engine can help illustrate the idea.
A giant ship’s engine failed. The ship’s owners tried one ‘professional’ after another but none of them could figure out how to fix the broken engine.
Then they brought in a man who had been fixing ships since he was young.
He carried a large bag of tools with him and when he arrived immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom.Two of the ship’s owners were there watching this man, hoping he would know what to do. After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away and the engine was fixed!
A week later, the owners received an invoice from the old man for $10,000.
What?! the owners exclaimed. “He hardly did anything..!!!”.
So they wrote to the man; “Please send us an itemized invoice.”
The man sent an invoice that read:
Tapping with a hammer………………….. $1.00
Knowing where to tap…………………….. $9,999.00
This is an example of Pareto Principle.
The Pareto principle states that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes. In other words, a small percentage of causes have an outsized effect. This concept is important to understand because it can help you identify which initiatives to prioritize so you can make the most impact. (Source)
In simple terms, 20% of your input (effort) will eventually lead to 80% of your output (Result).
For the man who fixed the ship, knowing where to knock is his 20%.
For Robert Downey Jr., Acting is his 20%.
For Adelle, Singing is her 20%.
For Novac Djokovic, Tennis is his 20%.
Now even in their 20% (Acting, Singing or Tennis) they could probably deepen into something more specific. We call it The ONE Thing.
The ONE Thing
There’s an international best-selling book called The ONE Thing — The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results written by Gary Keller.
I love this book so much because it helped me 100X my focus, productivity and thus result.
Gary Keller, the author of the book is a successful Real Estate Salesperson. He was thinking of a way to bring in more people into his Real Estate Agency and achieved massive success with it.
In the book, the power question is “What’s the ONE Thing I could be doing that would make everything else easier or unecessary?”
This statement seeps into our subconscious and acts as a great equalizer for unimportant thoughts. It leaves at the top of our minds, ONE thing we could do that would reap in the maximum result.
Gary keller did just that. He decided that his ONE Thing was to write an International Best-Selling book.
The book was called “Millionaire Real Estate Agent”, mega best-seller and then considered the bible for Real Estate salespeople all over the world. Because of this, he attracted millions of people and Keller Williams Realty went from a from a single office in Austin, Texas, to one of the largest real estate companies in the world.
What’s the ONE Thing I could be doing, such that by doing it everything else would be easier or unecessary?
This question is powerful. It aligns with the pareto rule, in which you focus majority of your time to the ONE THING that produces most result.
Applying the ONE THING
I had actually read The ONE Thing several years ago, but I got reminded of it again when I read this article written by Jason Mavericks.
When my CEO started his business, the one thing he was focused on was getting funding. Even in the last years before he sold, he always spent a ton of time on the phone with investors, either to get more money or to explain to them what he was doing with their money. My CEO’s number one concern was to drive the business forward with money, and the rest of the super important factors were handled by separate teams:
Tech and design for a great product
Amazing customer success team for customer support
Great marketing team for promotion
High-performing sales team to drive revenue
As much as my CEO learned to focus on his one thing and let go of the rest, things were not always that way. When I started at my job, he was involved in literally each and every one of the teams I just mentioned. He would start his day in the tech room, have lunch with the marketing team, and spend the afternoon with sales. At night he would be in his office on the phone.
Eventually, he had to learn from his mistakes. Investors sat him down and told him he couldn’t be involved in everything around the company. If he felt like he needed to, things had to change internally. For the next 4 years, he learned to let go, to mind his own business (pun intended), and to focus on his one thing. A few years after that he sold for $30 million.
If you’re a CEO, your ONE THING could be building and maintaining relationships with important stakeholders.
If you’re trying to lose weight, your ONE THING could be intermittent fasting + daily workouts.
If you’re trying to get a date, your ONE THING could be attending as much networking / gathering events as possible.
If you wanna be a GREAT writer, your ONE THING could be writing every day.
Focus on your ONE THING and delegate the rest.
The Domino effect
This is another really powerful concept.
Having a BIG goal could scare you into inaction. Not because your ambition isn’t big enough, but you oftentimes get intimidated by the amount of things you need to do to achieve it.
Fret not, here comes the Domino effect.
Imagine a long string of dominoes lined up one after the other, with each one progressively 1.5x larger than the last. If you were to knock down the first two-inch domino, you would set off a chain reaction that would, by the 57th iteration, produce enough force to knock over a domino stretching the distance between the earth and the moon! (Source)
Will Smith once spoke about this in another context, using the Wall analogy which I think is great too.
You want to run a Marathon? Start by running 5 minutes a day.
You want to be a great sales? Start by making one phone call.
You want to date that person? Start by taking them out for coffee.
Don’t let overwhelm turn into indecision and life-long procrastination.
Have a BIG Goal, break it into small steps, knock down the smallest Domino and let the ripple effect take place.
Into the mind of an Expert vs Beginner
We all have finite resources. Time, Money and Energy.
When you are a beginner, you try to make sense how things work. That is why, you would be throwing mud into the wall and seeing what sticks.
You wouldn’t yet know what the ONE Thing is.
Whereas a true Expert knows what the ONE Thing is, does the ONE THING and will delegate the rest.
If you’re a beginner, learn from those who have done it.
They aren’t any different from you. They’re regular guys like you and me, but they have found the ONE THING and lives it every day. That’s it.
Learn from them, find the ONE THING, Do it yourself and then teach others how to do it.
In Conclusion
20% of your inputs would create 80% of your outputs.
Results doesn’t come from doing everything right, it comes from doing the right things.
Focus your time, energy, money and resources on your ONE Thing and watch how results show up in your life.
“What’s the ONE Thing I can do RIGHT NOW, Such that by doing it everything else becomes easier or unecessary?”
