New Format, Who This?

Welcome to our new subscribers this week! I want to invite you all to complete this brief welcome survey so that I can provide you with the best content each week! Don’t worry, I don’t charge anything and won’t ask you to buy anything.

I also want to let everyone know about our special book review this week. I recently finished Essentialism by Greg McKeown, and I knew I had to share some of the key takeaways with you. So, I decided to create a simple 3-2-1 format for book reviews (I may do one a month or send out a special edition when I finish a great read). Please let me know if you liked this format in the poll below!

Alright, that’s enough housekeeping nonsense, let’s dig in!

3 Quotes from Essentialism

“The word priority came into the English language in the 1400s. It was singular.”

• How often have you heard the word priorities? As if multiple things can be the singular most important thing for you. You can certainly have multiple priorities in various aspects of your life, but I’d encourage you to only focus on one at a time. You can make work and family a priority at different times throughout the day. You run into trouble when you try to combine them—answering emails during playtime, sending a text before the bedtime story—but having multiple priorities is not a bad thing. This quote helps me remember that we can only have one active priority at a time. It helps me focus on what needs to be done in the moment before moving to the next thing.

“If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.”

• Woah! I really felt this one. I’m certain we’ve all experienced this before: that workplace social your wife invites you to, or the awkward work lunch organized by your boss that no one wants to attend. As humans, we have a choice in how we spend our time. We’re remarkably well-suited to make our own decisions. Yet, so many of us would rather have others make decisions for us. This quote is a reminder that you do have the power and freedom to make your own choices. I use this quote to remind me that I need to prioritize my own life. If something feels off, it means my priorities are out of alignment. You only get one life on this Earth, don’t let someone else control it for you.

“If it isn’t a 100% yes, then it’s a clear no.”

• I would guess we’ve all heard this or some variation of the sort. I am also pretty positive that most of us would say we’ve agreed to do something, go somewhere, or be involved in a project that we didn't feel 100% positive about. That’s okay, and it will happen from time to time. This quote is not about avoiding everything but pleasurable activities. It’s about saying yes to things that align with your priorities. You could spend Thursday night at your weekly golf league, or you could watch your son’s tee-ball practice. One is much more fun for you, but unless your priority is to make the PGA tour, you’d probably choose going to tee-ball practice. Things that support your priorities should be treated as a 100% yes. Things that detract from your priorities should be ruthlessly avoided.

2 Takeaways

1. Clarity is key. You need to know how your short-term priorities contribute to your long-term life goals. Prioritization is impossible without clarity on what you need to accomplish, why you must accomplish it, and how you’re going to accomplish it. You need extreme clarity on what, why, and how to achieve your ideal lifestyle. You can’t prioritize until you gain clarity over your life and the future you want to create.

2. You’re in control. I mentioned it above, but it was one of my two biggest takeaways from the book and well worth spending more time on. Sure, you have a boss, but they cannot force you to do anything. We suffer far too long in bad jobs with bad bosses for little reward. Understand that you have the control and power to prioritize the activities that build your ideal lifestyle.

1 Question to Explore

I’m focused on gaining clarity. What do I want my ideal life to be like? What things are important to me and support that lifestyle? I am focused on understanding myself, what I want to achieve, and why I want to achieve it. From there, I can easily begin implementing how to achieve my goals. But it starts with gaining clarity and being willing to act upon that clarity to achieve the life you want. So, I’ll leave you with one question to think about:

What is the (singular) most important thing you can do today to move closer toward the future you want to create?

Poll

Please take a second to let me know what you think of this week’s edition. I’m looking forward to sharing some books with you all this year. And I’m always on the lookout for new reads, so send any suggestions my way!

That’s it for this week. See you next week!

Rick