The ONE Thing

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.

First off, I got unclenched. I actually started listening to my body, slowed down, and chilled out. Next, I started wearing T-shirts and jeans to work and defied anyone to make a comment. I dropped the language and the attitude and went back to just being me. I had breakfast with my family. I got in shape physically and spiritually and stayed there

Leaving some things undone is a necessary tradeoff for extraordinary results. But you can’t leave everything undone, and that’s where counterbalancing comes in. The idea of counterbalancing is that you never go so far that you can’t find your way back or stay so long that there is nothing waiting for you when you return.

Right NOW is all we have to work with. Our past is but a former now, our future a potential one. To drive this point home, I started referring to the way to create a powerful priority as “Goal Setting to the Now” to emphasize why we were creating a priority in the first place.

Block an hour each week to review your annual and monthly goals. First, ask what needs to happen that month for you to be on target for your annual goals. Then ask what must happen that week to be on course for your monthly goals.

Sometimes the request is real, needs to be done now, and you must drop what you’re doing and do it. In this situation, follow the rule “If you erase, you must replace” and immediately reschedule your time block.

The best way to make your ONE Thing happen is to make regular appointments with yourself. Block time early in the day, and block big chunks of it—no less than four hours!

My recommendation is to block four hours a day. This isn’t a typo. I repeat: four hours a day. Honestly, that’s the minimum. If you can do more, then do it.

In the end, putting together a life of extraordinary results simply comes down to getting the most out of what you do, when what you do matters.

To experience extraordinary results, be a maker in the morning and a manager in the afternoon.