422. Living The ONE Thing with Co-Author Jay Papasan Part 2

Nikki Miller:

Well, I think that, to your point, the world is not designed for us to succeed in the way that most of us learn it and know it when we get into a company. And so we do have to take control to an extent of our results. And sometimes that looks like behaving differently than everyone has told us to behave or doing things in a different fashion than everyone has told us.

And if I'm listening to this, or early on in this journey, I think to myself, okay, so you're telling me to focus on the one thing and forget everything else. And you're telling me to get laser focused on this, and yet I have all these other responsibilities. And if I get laser focus on this, things are going to fall. So in your journey, how have you made peace with that? Because it's something I see in a lot of successful people that they just get clearer and clearer on what absolutely doesn't matter. What's been that journey for you?

Jay Papasan:

I think one, I think once you experience success by doing the one thing versus all the things, you get faith in it. And I think that's the case in a lot of areas of your life, is that you're not sure it's possible until it happens. And so that's one of the reasons we talk about the smallest domino, right? Start where you know you can succeed and build on the momentum and people underestimate the momentum. And so it's not like we went out. It was like our 10th or 11th book that we wrote together that became The One Thing, three million copies. It wasn't the first thing. And people underestimate how impactful it can be to start small and then build on that thing.

And so start with little wins. And it's a real challenge for high achievers, right? They want to run out and do a marathon in three weeks. They don't want to start out just building the habit of being the person that runs every day. And system habits, identity habits, as I think James Clear talks about, those are the most powerful. Before James Clear wrote the book, he was preparing for it. He was in Austin, and he came to my office because he knew that we'd done a lot of airport bookstore advertising co-op and that we had analyzed it. And he said, can you come in and teach me what you do? And I was like, awesome.

I mean, at that point he was just one of my favorite bloggers. He wasn't James Clear yet. And we were talking about health and physicality, and he was like, I don't think he was professional, but he was a collegiate baseball player. He's a real athlete and he's a big dude. And that was the first time I'd ever heard it articulated. And I had just done like 100 push up challenge, and I was still in this place where I was working out, but I was looking for challenges because they got me excited about working out.

And he just said, I made peace a long time ago, that I was just going to focus on being the kind of person that worked out every day. And as a result of that, when I choose to do something like that, it's never very far away. And I was like, oh, wow, that's actually a big idea. I need to not forget this moment. So start small, build a habit, and then that habit can catapult you into those other things. So I've developed a faith in that. I think the number one thing people -- my theory for all of these years, the number one thing a lot of people do after reading this book is they go out and they do a 66-day challenge to form a habit.

And I actually at one point, we had so many crossfitters and athletes doing it, I joked with Gary, I said we were trying to write a business book, we ended up writing a health book because it caught fire in that community. And I think part of it is, and you know this, you're an endurance athlete, you work out, you pay your dues as you post very often every day, that the wonderful thing about physical challenges is the feedback loop is very easy to measure. And it happens usually within a month or two months.

So you're on a diet and you feel like, God, nothing's happening. And then like two months into it and someone goes, wow, you look good. You get that affirmation. And then you're like, okay, this is working or you're working out. It's not as clear cut like if you're trying to write a novel. It could be years before you get the affirmation. But I've learned that that activity committing to it is where all the results come from, just start there. Make that your approach to success and very few things are going to escape you because you approached it that way. I haven't found one, but I don't like to say never.

Nikki Miller:

Well, I think it's really important in today's age too, because we live in this age of the highlight reel and this age of social media where we don't see the person lining up all their dominoes. So we just see the end result of here's my book. And a lot of people don't work backwards knowing that that book took years of research, time, effort in order to bring to fruition.

Jay Papasan:

When I was in private equity, Gary formed a little group, and we had an analyst intern. And I think we had some book like The 50 Greatest Companies of All Time by Forbes. It was one of those lists. And we had that theory about like everybody thinks of these companies as these huge overnight successes and we assign them, I want you to go research all of them from the time they first incorporated, they were in the garage tinkering with the computer. How long on average did it take them to hit the elbow of the curve where they started to blow up? And the average was like 11 or 12 years.

Nikki Miller:

Wow.

Jay Papasan:

So those overnight successes took more than a decade to create. People underestimate the foundation. I mean, I'm an author, right? I'm an author and executive. But James Clear had timing. He wrote a great book. He also had been blogging at that point and had a newsletter that he'd been writing faithfully a couple times a week for like eighr or nine years. When he launched it, he had about 250,000 readers, I believe. So he'd already laid the groundwork for big success. He had his audience right there that he controlled. And I think today, his newsletter list is like two million. So like his next book, oh man, I'll have to create the James Clear bestseller list so the rest of us can survive.

Nikki Miller:

I'm sure he'll be happy to hear that. And I'm going to switch gears a little bit on you, because I think we've talked so much about this habit inside business, a little bit now inside health. And one of the most beautiful habits that I've seen you create that I've wanted to model in my own life is your habits around your marriage and your relationship. And you and Wendy have been together 27 years.

Jay Papasan:

So that's when we met. So Amy Hawthorne was a mutual friend in New York City. We met at the Dew Drop Inn 27 years ago last week. We're in September. I don't know when this shows up. And I had just broken up with a girlfriend, and she had a boyfriend. And she teases me for not -- like it didn't catch fire then. I was like actually being a good kind of boyfriend and she should have been better, but she was wearing purple overalls. I remember what she drew on the table. We interacted briefly, but nothing happened. Exactly a year later, 27 years ago, so it would be 26 years ago, we met and by the end of the night, I had her phone number, but we got married in '99.

Nikki Miller:

Way too close, Jay.

Jay Papasan:

Yeah. I remember, like, the thing that got my eye is she had this, like, second-hand rattle skin jay coat that was like mid-thigh that she got in some thrift shop for, like, five bucks. And it was falling apart, but it looked so cool. And she gave Amy this elaborately wrapped present that was just a thing of Pringles in it. And I was like, this girl is cool. I want to get to know her. So anyway, so we got married in '99. And so 24 years, 25 years next year.

Nikki Miller:

Wow. So I know that you have so much intention around that marriage. And I only say great relationships, much like anything that's successful never happens on accident. So what's the one thing that you've done in that relationship that has made it as successful as it has been?

Jay Papasan:

It doesn't go all the way back to the beginning. I mean, I think we connected because we love to travel. All the reasons that people fall in love. I think we're together, I think a lot of it, sometime after our second child was born, Wendy had stayed home to be with them. We were struggling. We had two kids, 16 months apart. The youngest was colicky. As parents, that's super challenging if you've ever had to deal with a colicky baby, much less having two in diapers at the same time.

And Wendy had stepped out of a professional career. And you know her. She's just a badass businesswoman. And she had lost that part of her identity. She was struggling. And she came to me and said, I want to do a goal setting retreat. We didn't call it that then, but she goes, I want to get out of the house, and I want to talk about our marriage. Purposeful, right.

And she went online and stole questions from like Oprah.com and all these places and had a two-page questionnaire and we went and holed up and I very -- I mean I thought I was in trouble the whole time. Asked like, how's our love life, our dating life, nonexistent when you have two in diapers, right, at that stage. Like we weren't going out, we weren't having fun, but we had to talk about all the hard things.

And I don't want to say that's the only thing, but that became us checking in purposefully on our marriage and having an honest conversation about it. We were able to start having that conversation in a way that didn't leave one party defensive, which is hard to do, right? Because you know how it can be in any long relationship, especially long relationships. People say you're fighting like an old married couple for a reason because we just get to where we're brutally honest sometimes. So we learned how to have some of those hard conversations, thankfully, early in our children's lives and then built on that.

Today, we've been hosting -- this will be the seventh year we've publicly hosted a goal setting retreat. Our process has evolved amazingly. And we've built -- The One Thing came out during that period. We built in The One Thing. We started setting someday goals and five-year goals and one-year goals. We got a framework. We got clear on our values. So I think communication and clarity about what each person wanted has been the key, because I don't know, a lot of entrepreneurs have the other spouse that's also kind of the homemaker, right?

And I'm not going into any genders, but a lot of times there's the person that's the driver and the support. We have two drivers in our family, so communication is vitally important because there are times where something that's really important to her and her business is in direct conflict with me and my life. For instance, her birthday falls every year within a few days of our midyear convention where I'm going to be on stage as an introvert for like two or three straight days, utterly exhausted. I don't want to see people. And yet my wife is going to throw a party in my house with all of her best friends who are my customers. And the first year, she did that, the police came twice and I'm --

Nikki Miller:

We know really fun parties, Jay, to be fair.

Jay Papasan:

Yes. And politely said you need to turn the music off. And I got frustrated with my wife. It's like I have to be up at backstage by 7 a.m. and it's midnight and I'm uncomfortable and I just want to be in bed and all the little things. But we talked about it. And the next year, she did the same thing. And then when she saw me getting ready, I was like, I thought we talked about this. She goes, I booked you a hotel right across the street from the convention center. You've got a free pass, go order room service, watch a movie, go to bed and walk across the street to work. And I was like, I love you. I love you.

Nikki Miller:

Ever.

Jay Papasan:

Yeah. But that's just one example about how by communicating where we are and who needs what. I want my employees, I want my spouse, I want telepathy to be something that works. I want them to know what I want. But the truth is, we have to say it and we have to have a way to communicate what we need and what we want in a way that doesn't threaten other people. So we can just collaborate. We are a partnership, right? There's business partnerships and personal partnerships. If we're truly committed to each other, then we're going to have to make compromises. Right? You go first today. I'll go first tomorrow. Or you go first this year. And it may be a little while, that's the way it works. There's a little bit -- to stay together, you have to find ways to give people one room to grow and evolve and just communicate it.

I drew it our last goal setting retreat and nobody who's listening to this will see it. But I just, like most people, want to believe that a marriage is two parallel lines going from marriage to death, that you're just in lockstep. And the truth is, because we're humans and we're evolving, we're going to diverge. Right? There are times where it feels like we are going in opposite directions, and most people see that happening and think, my marriage is failing. It's not true.

That just means you're married to a human that's going where they need to go and you're going where they need to go because we love each other if we communicate, hey, I'm going to go over here this year, but here's why and here's how we can bridge that gap. You can bridge those really big gaps and make it through those periods because then you look up one day and you're converging, right? Oh, let's play pickleball together. Let's, whatever that is, and all of those things come. But over a long period of time, partnerships, marriages, all of that, you're going to be coming in and out of sync and you just have to have a method for bridging that. So that's a long way. I credit that original goal setting retreat that Wendy forced on us for starting that communication. But I think that regular communication of goals and why those goals were important has preserved the health of our marriage.

Nikki Miller:

I think what's so important about that questionnaire she created is I think one of the bigger challenges for married couples is that they have never been taught how to have that conversation or in what categories to have that conversation. There's just a conversation that happens when one or both parties are frustrated, right? And that's how most --.

Jay Papasan:

Great time to have it.

Nikki Miller:

Yeah, exactly.

Jay Papasan:

Let's break some dishes.

Nikki Miller:

Let's do this right now. And instead, maybe even when you were having -- she clearly noticed something that said we're not on the same page. And so she built a list of questions. And that's what part of the goal setting retreat is, is how do we both feel about where we are? And I think the most interesting piece of that I know when I've done it with my husband, the way we would do it is we separately answer those questions and then come together and explain our answers.

And what's so interesting is that you all will have different answers. Scale 1 to 10, how are you feeling about this place in our marriage, one person might have an eight and one has a four, which opens you up for a dialogue around, well, what would success look like to you here? How would we know if we were succeeding here? And I know that's evolved into some habits inside the marriage for you. What have those been?

Jay Papasan:

Oh, gosh. Can I validate what you just said, though? I like the fact that you all answered them separately. And the reason is, I think in a lot of the partnerships that I've seen, whether they be domestic or professional, you can have a dominant driver that tends to know what they want and be very decisive, and one person who may not be. And those opposites are together probably for a reason. And the unfortunate thing is, unless you create space and time for maybe the less decisive person, the less clear person, I want to say decisive because that feels judgmental. They're just less clear at this moment.

If you give them time and space to get clear about what they want and need so they can communicate it, that person who from the outside might look like they're domineering. Because they are in this together, often will find the accommodations to make that happen. It might take a few steps to get there. They have to break some bad habits, but giving someone the space to identify what they need and articulate it is so important in that process.

And when you're working together, like we all knew that person. I mean, I grew up when we went to Blockbuster to pick a movie, but if you've ever had to pick something on Netflix with a group of people, the person who's most clear about what they want almost always wins. Clarity wins, because in the absence of, well, Nikki seems to really want to watch a murder mystery. So I guess we won't watch a horror movie tonight. And so, like, that just is what happens. So anyway, go back to your question. How do I -- I'm sorry. Because I wanted to validate, separating and getting clear and then coming back together and sharing.

Nikki Miller:

Yeah. Well, when inevitably, when you come back and share, you'll make discoveries in your marriage about what the other person needs. So in the example of the parties happening at your house, Wendy sent you off, said, don't even worry about it. We're going to put you in a hotel room. But from that, I know you've created some habits in the marriage. You talked earlier about one of them, which was working out. And there's other habits that you've created that have happened from those conversations in order for you to both make space for each other, in order for you both to be happy. What have those been?

Jay Papasan:

One that I like to share, because it's been very successful is date night. I mean I already told you we work out together. Brandon Turner, if you're listening to this, you promise me you'd be working out with your wife by now. I followed up with him and he hadn't quite gotten there, but because he saw how much that could impact them. So working out together, we started when our kids were old enough to have a babysitter. We had no family in town. So unlike a lot of other couples who have a grandparent or whatever, we just had no mechanism other than paying someone that was a stranger to watch our children. So we just weren't going on dates.

And I think it was Gary that kind of pushed us a little bit that direction. We started doing Saturday night date night, and we're utterly unsuccessful. And the challenge was we were competing with every other parent in the neighborhood for the five teenagers that wanted to babysit. And so at some point, I wish I could tell you who pushed us this way, but we just said, why don't we just do it on Wednesday nights? And we moved it to Wednesday, which is like, that's not fun for a date night, but it's like it's better than no date night.

And we never had trouble getting a babysitter again. And there was never a sold-out movie. New movies come out on Thursdays, so by the time we were seeing them, they were six days old. There was always a seat at our favorite restaurant. There's just nothing else happening on a Wednesday night. And it broke up our week.

So Wendy believes since we did that, we've now gone on at least 800 dates. And that's not just the Wednesday nights, because the Wednesday nights, you still have the weddings that you go to. You still -- now, we have teenagers. They don't want to hang out with us on the weekend, so we get more. But like, she tracked it and I think that's great. So that was super impactful for us too. At that time, I just said, let's go out and remind ourselves while we had these rug rats to begin with so that when we go back home and we have a crying baby or changing diapers, we're at least refreshed on this whole relationship that brought these human beings into this world.

Nikki Miller:

And I love this idea because I think it's so important, especially when you bring in kids to a marriage. It just changes things so much and can create a whole new dynamic. And really, any change. Now you're on the other side of that where you have kids who are starting to leave, which I imagine will change the dynamic again. And these questions just bring you back to who do we want to be in our marriage at this time?

And something Gary always says that I've really appreciated over the years is that in business, you build these relationships. Right now, we're talking about love and emotional love in a relationship like a marriage. But you build love in your business relationships too. And when that happens, you have to go through this questionnaire not only in your love marriage life, but also in your love business life. In other words, you have to ask, where are we going? What do I like that you do? What do I not like that you do? What do we need to do together differently?

And so it's these questions and these principles that you can use in one place. And I think sometimes people try to pigeonhole any business principle or any success principle. And people look at the one thing and say, oh, it's just the one thing in business. It's really the one thing everywhere. To our point earlier, it's really the one thing in all of the seven circles. And some of these tools that we give, you should be using everywhere.

I always sort of laugh when people will say something to the effect of how were you successful at home and at work? And I'll say it's the same. The principles are the same. So have you used those goal setting principles with your business relationships, your business love relationships as well, or is that where they originally evolved from for you?

Jay Papasan:

Well, no. Definitely in my personal life on that. Right. Trying to make sure. And yes, one of the things we picked up from Quantum Leap, the course I mentioned earlier that you know, there's a page in there about relationships and being purposeful and this idea of wealth determiners. And so for probably the last seven years, Wendy and I would look up and not just in like moms, dads, kids, brothers, sisters, like we would look at our personal relationships and say, who do we need to be this year in order to make those relationships regret free, is the way I ask the question.

We would look at the really key people in our business world and ask the same question How do we need to show up? Who do we need to be for these relationships to continue to flourish? I love who questions because they force you into not just actions that you take one time, but more into behaviors over time. How do I need to show up? Who do I need to become? And there's never more than about seven or eight, like really pivotal, like wealth determiners because it was about money at that time. But we just think of those pivotal relationships that we know, man, if I don't manage this correctly and they leave my business world, I'm going to be in a world of hurt. And so at least we get to ask that question and we've made that a formal process as well.

So are we going to go out on a mutual date night with this couple that's also in our business life? Will we invite them? We use charity. We'll buy tables at charity events and invite these people in our wealth determiner circle. These relationships, we know are disproportionately important and say, would you like to come? Like it's going to be a night of giving. We'll sponsor your seat at the table, we'll get a free meal, we'll get to dress up and have fun together. So we just try to find ways to pour into those relationships differently.

Nikki Miller:

Yeah. And the theme I always see with you and Gary is that it's all on purpose. I always say you both just live life on purpose. When you're doing things, it's with purpose. And so --

Jay Papasan:

We try. I mean, just so you know.

Nikki Miller:

Not all the time.

Jay Papasan:

We're like everybody else. There's lots of days we're just a hot mess. It's just like I don't think it serves anybody. Yes. But I think a lot of people look at Gary and say Gary gets to do that because he's Gary. Gary's Gary because he did the things. And even when they were hard and inconvenient and messy and he wasn't good at them, he did them until he was good at them.

And that's the lesson. If you do that long enough, you get really confident that, okay, I'm about to go through this messy period. I'm about to do that really uncomfortable thing until it becomes comfortable. And yeah, I'm going to go do that now. But it's not. It is purposeful and I appreciate that, but I just don't want people to think that we don't have -- I mean, you see my life up close. I mean, the last few weeks have been a hot mess, right? Chaos. People leaving that you wish didn't leave and all the changes that come with that because life happens to people who are purposeful, too. But being purposeful allows you to respond, not react.

Nikki Miller:

I think what you just said is really important. And this idea that these actions are the leading domino to the future result that we see. And it just so happens that most people are seeing now the future result of you and Gary now, wherein you lined up those dominoes a long time ago. You started doing these things a long time ago. And it's interesting to me because one of the number one questions I get asked and I know you get asked the same is how do I become more confident? And so many people ask it more in the sense of how do I go get confidence? I'm like, well, you can't acquire it and you can't go to the store and pick it up. You can't cheat your way to it and you can't steal it from somebody else. It's literally something that you have to earn. There is no other way. And the --

Jay Papasan:

Confidence comes from evidence, right? I don't know who said that, but we both heard [inaudible] talk at our most recent convention in February. And he said something that I thought, I don't know if it's his or not, but confidence comes from keeping the promises you make to yourself. The people who are the most confident are the ones who, when they said I'm going to work out tomorrow, they actually get up and do it. Because when you start to believe yourself, when you say, I'm going to do that, that's where confidence comes from, but you've got evidence. I think that's the key point. It's not the idea or I'm just going to grip my way through it. That might be that way in the beginning. Confidence comes from knowing that you have done it in the past and can do it again.

Nikki Miller:

And the more you do that, the more evidence you build.

Jay Papasan:

Yes.

Nikki Miller:

And so I think that's what's so -- thank you for saying that, because I do think people put Gary up, you up on a pedestal and think, my gosh, they can just do that because they're them. But there's so much evidence that I've learned over the years in watching you both actually apply these things in your day-to-day life and fail along the way too. And be okay with failing along the way too. And I think that's the one thing about the one thing for me is that people expect it. Well, now I'll just always have clarity and I'm never going to mess this up. Every day is going to be me staying perfectly in my 20 percent, and that's virtually impossible.

Jay Papasan:

But now you have an approach to getting clarity whenever you lose it. That's the difference.

Nikki Miller:

Right.

Jay Papasan:

That's the difference.

Nikki Miller:

And helping everybody else get clarity, too.

Jay Papasan:

Yes.

Nikki Miller:

So I want to go back to this idea, that goal setting retreat, because you or goal setting because you and Wendy started this. And then one day you both had the bright idea to bring a bunch of your friends to come and do it, too. And then that turned into a whole event. So tell me about the goal setting retreat. What it is? How it came about?

Jay Papasan:

And so many people were asking and then taking our evolving process, we just kept updating the document. Like on the first night, we go out to dinner and talk about the fun things and then the next day we do this. And then we have like a whole day and a half schedule basically for making it happen in one weekend because we couldn't afford to have babysitters for that long. So look up, the demand was there and therefore we did the event.

Nikki Miller:

Scottsdale Fairmont, yeah.

Jay Papasan:

Yeah, Fairmont Princess, whatever it's called, and be a really nice venue and it will be a very special weekend.

Nikki Miller:

And now you have close to 400 people who come and do this goal setting retreat with you. And walk me through if I've never heard of this before, and I don't know what these questions are, walk me through what I actually go and get out of this, because a lot of people do bring their significant other, which is amazing. But a lot of people come by themselves. And some people bring their business significant other and bring their business partners with them. So it's not really for one group or type of family or whatever that might be. It's really for anybody or any business. And it's this idea that you can set yourself up for the best year yet, but what does that actually mean and what does that look like?

Jay Papasan:

Nikki Miller:

Someone blows out the candle.

Jay Papasan:

And so that was actually, I think that moment, we were like, okay, wow. We have a real opportunity to help people understand why it's so important to be building goals together versus in silos and so that everybody's voice shows up. So that actually is probably closer to the origin story. So the process basically we have a checklist of things that we're going to do. At the very minimum, we're going to set some day in five year goals.

So a huge learning for me, writing this book was this idea, I'd seen it. We were kind of doing it, but we call it goal setting to the now, which is going into the future and working backwards. And what's funny is if someone asked you, Nikki, how did you become blank? Right? You would look back in your life and you would naturally remember a series of milestones. Oh, I had this high school teacher that believed I was a good writer. And then in college, I took this one course and then this and then that. We see a straight line when we look backwards.

But if you say, oh, I want to write a bestselling book and we look forward, we see this giant branch tree of possibilities that's overwhelming. There's all of these things we can do. So the whole idea of going into the future someday and then working backwards is how we get a straight line between how do I behave this week that we believe is lined up with where we want to go way out in the future?

So as couples, we'll set someday goals, right? Someday, I want to live in another country and work remotely for six months. Someday, I want to write a bestselling novel. Someday, I want to give a Ted talk. Someday I want, fill in the blank, whatever it is for you. But we think it's something that won't happen in the next five years. It's just out in the future. Based on that, what do we have to choose? What would we have to achieve in five years? The singular thing that would make us think that we're on track and then we work our way backwards. So we put those two blocks down. Then we have them set annual goals in conjunction with their five-year goals.

We still have those questions, and we give a big block of time for people to go through those evolving questions. And they're just meant to probe all the things that we don't necessarily think to plan for, like date nights, taking care of elderly parents, preparing our children to go off to school, whatever it is. And a lot of them people skip. But then there's some the thought provoking questions that they'll go through and discuss and realize, wow, we should set some goals around this.

We do an exercise around core values and purpose, which is a great discovery. I think Mark on our team and Jenny, it was so great. They were struggling in their marriage. They did the core values exercise. His first value was fun and hers was order. Like two values that were made to clash.

Nikki Miller:

Right.

Jay Papasan:

Fun for him is let's tear up the living room and have a Nerf war. And she's like, it's out of order, right? But having visibility on what their core values were was allowing them to navigate things. So we do that exercise with couples and partners. Like what is that compass inside of them that's forcing them to go in that direction? And when we understand that, we can work with it. That's like my wife finding a hotel room for me because adventure and fund is way up there for her. And that's not on the top of my list. Right.

And so at the very end of the process and I hope I'm not skipping something, we'll actually come out with a full year calendar and invite people to time block their vacation time and the big things they know that are on their goals, they'll start mapping it out. And that honestly is a lot of times where the rubber hits the road is now that I know where I'm going, do I actually have time or have we over? Are we trying to do too much in one year? And people get kind of clear about this is when we'll do those things and we hope and a lot of them get into coaching or in other parts of our program for like an accountability so they don't walk out with this great plan and clarity and do nothing.

Nikki Miller:

And that's stuffing in a drawer, never look at it again.

Jay Papasan:

But what I've heard more often than not, people might do this on their own or they'll come, and they'll just say, save my marriage. I wasn't sure we were going to last, but now we're really clear about how we both have to show up for this to be successful. And like I said, that's the first thing. When we're clear of what we need to do, the odds that we do it goes way up. If I don't know, it's just luck if I do it, right. So anyway, I have a lot of belief in the process. I love, it's a passion project for Wendy and I, to bring people through it and it's a lot of fun.

Nikki Miller:

Well, you have a belief in the process because you've lived it.

Jay Papasan:

Yeah, but that doesn't guarantee it. Honestly. It could have been just something that worked for me and Wendy, but it was all those people asking for our questions, asking for a process for all those years before we did the event that gave me the faith that this doesn't just work for us. It's a process that anybody can do.

Nikki Miller:

Yeah, everyone needed a model. Gary said something to me when I was very young, when I was very early on in this company, he looked at me and I'll never forget the moment. He said, you're going to have a good life. Like you're going to have a good life. You're talented, you're smart, you're going have a good life. But it will always be less than it could have been were it not intentional. I'll never forget it. It was an oof moment and I went, oof, because it hadn't been up until that point. I really had never defined This is what I want in all of these categories. And so many high achievers are so crystal clear on who they want to be in business and forget everything else.

Jay Papasan:

I don't even think that's true, though, Nikki. I think they're very clear about what they want to achieve next year. You said who they want to be in business, and I think a lot of them are who they are is an achiever. And so they're addicted to finding the next set of goalposts to run through. And that is its own kind of hamster wheel if they're not careful because there's never a goal line that's going to feel like they've made it.

I mean, I don't want to tell people that they have to get there and stop. Like I don't plan on it. Like my retirement looks a lot like a grave. Like I love working, I enjoy working, but I also have clarity about where I'm going and why I need to do it. That one helps me get up and do it on the bad days, but it also doesn't mean I'm not chasing low hanging fruit. I'm not just chasing a target because it will look good when I post it on Facebook. I'm not like it gives you, it makes you more intentional.

So I do think a lot of high achievers are usually very clear about the next goal on their checklist. They're not clear about why they need to hit it or ultimately where it's going to lead them. I know a lot of people who've built wildly profitable businesses and are completely miserable because they didn't do it purposefully.

Nikki Miller:

Well, and I think they're also not clear on what it might cost. And I think that that's what having these questions in all the categories brings clarity around. And by the way, it doesn't mean that it always changes the answer. I think you and I have both coached people where they're like, nope, this is still the plan. And as long as there's an awareness around it, that's okay.

You said something earlier about goal setting to the now, which I want to talk about, because I think sometimes people get a little bit lost in this because I'll ask someone, well, what do you want some day and they'll respond back with, well, I don't know. What do you want in five years? I'm not really sure about that either. And I think some people get stuck because life evolves so much, and they don't want to say the wrong thing or get too attached to something that closes them off from possibility.

And I think you're a great example of this. I'm going to ask you to give your perspective on it because you started as a writer of a newsletter. And then ended up being a multi, multi, multimillion dollar bestseller author. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't know that if somebody had asked you at that phase, what do you want to do in five years that that would have been up on the board?

Jay Papasan:

And we met at Shady Grove, which is now sadly gone. But it was this old Austin institution. We got an uncomfortable booth, ordered our queso, and I'm like, oh, so I hear you're a writer. Would I have read you anywhere? And he goes, oh, I've never been published. I said, like, not a journal, not a blog? No. And I didn't know where to go with the conversation because Wendy had set me up to talk to a writer, and he was someone who wrote, but he had not done anything with it.

And we were driving home, and I was trying to talk through that and I just said I didn't know how to handle that. And she goes, don't be an idiot. Like you struggle so much with figuring out what your job title is. Your job title is not who you are. He identifies as a writer. That's who he is. That's all you need to know about him. And I just remember going, oh, okay, that's very different.

Now I need to think about it. It's not a job title, it's an identity. And who knows? I mean, maybe he's written the Great American novel, and I don't know it. Maybe he never will, but it doesn't matter. What he knows is he's a writer, and that's how he's going to show up in the world. And whatever that meant to him, whether he publishes or not. He didn't say author. He didn't say blog writer. He said writer. And that was his identity.

And that was just like for me, that was a big part of the puzzle is kind of figuring out. And I don't think a lot of people know this, which is why when you say, where do you want to be someday, they're like, well, I know I want to go to Africa someday. Like they know things they want to do, but not who they want to be, which is why you have to have a process. If you don't think about it, you'll never get there. And I'll be honest with you, I still struggle with some day. It feels so far out there, and I like for things to be dialed in. That's my personality.

So man, my five-year goals are great. You go out beyond that and there's something about the murkiness. I'm just stuck. Like, the only thing I know that I'm committed to 100 percent to being out there is I still want to be the best husband I can be and the best father I can be. And what that means and some of the professional stuff is still kind of murky for me. I want to be making an impact, but I'm not quite sure what that will look like.

Nikki Miller:

I love that answer because I've always struggled with this question. When someone says, What do you want to do in five years? I just sort of sit there and am silent. I don't ever really have a great answer to that. But if someone asks me, who do you want to be in five years? I absolutely am crystal clear on that.

Jay Papasan:

Oh, that's great.

Nikki Miller:

But I think it's part of this idea that you identify with those someday goals of who you want to be. And then I always say, and as a result of becoming that person, what might also be achieved? And that's what comes into the five-year goals, which is what you can work backwards from. And I see that show up so much in the businesses that you were involved in and then what you've done inside Keller Williams and inside all of the businesses that you've touched.

Jay Papasan:

Well, here's the thing. And can we just play with that a little bit? I think then the importance is on deciding again, who questions who do I want to become. I think most people are focused on the outcomes as a result of becoming someone. Right. I want to be a bestselling author. Why? Well, because I want to make a lot of money. Good luck with that.

Nikki Miller:

That's not the right profession.

Jay Papasan:

Or I want to walk on big stages, or I want the acclaim, or like those are outcomes that could happen. But I think unless you make peace with who you want to become, those things don't happen, or they don't happen the way you expect. But if you really committed to being a writer and that's it, and you become a writer, guess what? Whether all of those things happen or not, you'll be happy. And that's a very different way of looking at it.

So anyway, just nerding out with you a little bit on the language, but I do think it matters a little bit. Sometimes we see the outcomes and I can help people. We can do this through our coaching, well, based on those outcomes, who do you think is the person that's achieving them can become the conversation. So like I said, someday I want to go to Africa. I could see people have those clues, but they're clues to the identity of the person that they eventually are going to choose to become. And that will get clearer and clearer as they go down that journey.

Nikki Miller:

Well, it also informs your one thing, because if his identity is I'm a writer, then it's pretty clear what his one thing is every day, he's going to write. And then what can make manifest if you do that one thing every day, I mean, the results are limitless. We've seen that in your and Gary's evolution and in what you have both created. I want to actually get back into the book a little bit because one of my favorite concepts of or ways that you set up the one thing is you start with the lies about productivity and then you get to the truth. And I know sometimes people get very uncomfortable with the first part of the book because they're like, I've been lied to.

And by the way, when you read them, it's so obvious because these are really the things that do interrupt productivity. So when you decided to set it up that way, I want you to walk us through what the thought process was. Did you look up and you and Gary said, well, these are the lies that we've been told or the things that we see people, how we see people behave most of the time in business and we just want to debunk those. Or was it what you found in the research?

Jay Papasan:

So it's actually -- those are great answers, but I don't think either of them is the answer. So when we wrote our first book. Gary called me back into his office after we met in the bathroom. I told you about that earlier in our conversation. He laid out five books that he wanted to model, and two of them were books that I'd published. One was Body for Life by Bill Phillips. The other one was Go for the Gold by Mia Hamm. but there were elements of those books that he really admired.

And for Body for Life, I don't expect anybody to know it at this point, it was the first kind of Bill Phillips was the first person to say you don't necessarily lose fat from cardio. You can actually do more of it from strength training. And he had the myths. That's little section. And I remember that being very provocative and we chatted about it. Dave Jenks was there. And it's like as coaches, sometimes before we can put the good ideas in, we have to take the bad ideas out. So before we can teach someone how to think, can we undo some of the damage that's been done?

So if you look at a lot of our books, they have myths or misunderstandings or some version of that. In this book, it was the lies that was very purposeful. We knew what the truth was. And if the book was absolutely perfectly lined up like the book, if they only got one thing, it would actually be starting with the truth. Ask this question. But we knew that we had to get this other junk out of their head and convince them with a lot of research that some of the stuff that they absolutely believed to be true just wasn't so.

Nikki Miller:

Like being a great multitasker.

Jay Papasan:

Yes. Yes. And those are fights that we fight every day, still. No matter -- no amount of research seems capable of convincing someone who thinks they're a great multitasker that they're a bad one. But I can't -- there's like a two percent exception rate to that rule.

Nikki Miller:

And I do think it's so important because it opens up the idea of you may think you're a great multitasker, but then maybe you read the research and you get this idea in your head that what could it look like if I didn't. And then you start to apply. And I think the most important piece of starting that way and why I certainly appreciate it, is that so many of us go about business in this way, that we always thought that we would be productive and multitasking being one of them, that I thought this was the way to get a lot of things done.

And I thought that the way to achieve was to do all the things, as many things as possible. And then all of a sudden you have this book telling you, absolutely not. And here's all the research why that doesn't work. And then here's how you apply differently. So it feels counterintuitive, which almost to me, at least inside The ONE Thing, almost everything feels counterintuitive because of the way that we're taught to achieve. And it feels counterintuitive to start that way. But to your point, you need it. You need to understand how you've been behaving or been set up in a way that's not going to make you as productive as you could be.

Jay Papasan:

And the hard truth is, with our multiple screens and smart phones and everything else, the world isn't lined up to allow us to focus. You have to choose to do that. So when I'm giving a keynote or an incorporation, like I'll go through the research and pretty sure that I've battered everyone in the room now and then I usually pull it right back because people don't like to know that I'm wrong. That's not a fun feeling. Oh, man, I'm an idiot, right? I don't want that in their heads.

Nikki Miller:

I've been doing this wrong the whole time.

Jay Papasan:

Yeah, and, but you've been doing it wrong for lots of reasonable reasons. Let's put it that way. I don't say the right reasons because everybody else has been getting it wrong and the world isn't lined up. And I usually go back at the first lie is everything matters equally. And so what we want people is taking that Pareto principle, the 80-20, the big rocks, however you we want to call it, and identifying their number one priority.

And I usually just go back and just say whatever that number one priority is and that thing that matters to you, just try not multitasking there. Everywhere else, give yourself grace. When you're standing in line to buy a movie ticket, play around on Twitter, the Facebook, the TikTok, whatever. I don't care. Doesn't matter. That doesn't add up.

But see what happens if for just 30 minutes a day you can be fully present with your most important work. And if they're a parent and they have young kids, I'll be like, so how do your kids like it if you're on your phone when it's bedtime? Right. You're trying to read a book. Are you really present or are you just bored because it can be boring reading that book for the 500th time. I've got some of them memorized. Right. But being present, not being present is something that you're going to regret.

And so finding that place to just kind of like go ahead and be in the zone, be fully committed, even if it's for a very short sprint and see what happens. And most people are completely shocked by how much more they achieve when they're present and focused on whatever the activity, personal or professional, that that becomes kind of like if you were Normandy, it's the beachhead, the first place that you get your tanks down and you start taking territory and then you start to see people go, wow, I want to do this in a bigger area of our life.

And even the most focused people I know, they're not focused all day. They're not robots, but they can be for three or four hours and usually early in the day is the best time. And it's amazing how much you can accomplish with a couple of hours of focused work. And if you show it that way every day, you will be light years ahead of everybody else because they're finding these little bursts of energy, right, where they get in the zone, where their ADHD medicine kicks in for that 20-minute sprint, right, and they get a lot done. But that's not sustained excellence. I mean, it's the rabbit and the hare every single day and, excuse me, the tortoise and the hare every single day. And this is the tortoise. It's just making that methodical progress. But over time, you will get momentum.

Nikki Miller:

I'm so appreciative of you saying this, because so many people read this book and when they talk to us about it, they'll say, well, I'm just failing at it because I can't focus on one thing at a time. And again, we go back to it's one thing at a time, not one thing all the time. And to your point, it's not about being focused all day. Yes, when you're in line waiting, play on your phone. You can have social media. You don't have to cut everything and everyone out and say, this is my one thing, and you cannot bother me. It's just one thing at a time and can you stay focused?

And the beautiful thing about this is, especially in this new hustle culture that we're very much in, which is nose to the grindstone, hustle every day all day, work the hardest, it's just a really fast recipe for burnout. And at the end of the day, we look up and say, you don't actually have to do that much to be wildly successful. You just have to do the right things consistently over time. Yeah. Tortoise and the Hare example.

Jay Papasan:

And I can't think of, maybe it's Amara's Law or somebody. I like to cite where the truth's come from, if they're not from me. But this idea that most people overestimate what they can do in one year but underestimate what they can achieve in five. And I think that came from the world of technology and progress, But it's just true in life. And because of that, we try to live our life in these like a lioness or a lion and do these heroic sprints versus just kind of methodically showing up every day and doing a little bit.

And it's just if you just do the math, like over time, you will always outdo yourself saying you do in these little sprints. And like, oh, I wish I could read is like, you can. Well, I just don't have the time. Yes, you do. How much time do I need? Said how long does it take you to read 10 pages? For most people, that's about 10 to 15 minutes, about a page a minute, two pages a minute, depending on how fast they read. Great. So if you read ten pages a day and that was a habit, how many books would you read a year?

Men, you would start making progress. Read a chapter a day. Like what actually happens is you show up and say, I'm just going to read 10 pages. Guess what? If you like it, you're going to keep reading it. And 10 to 30 minutes a day, you can be feeding your brain new ideas. You can. Or if that's just your place to relax, you can go there and relax. But almost everything can be broken down into a small domino that if you can just make that something you're making a stand around, by goodness, I am going to do that today, even if it's the last thing I do before I go to bed. You can build the habit and the confidence that you can do it and then you build on that.

Nikki Miller:

Well, Jay, this idea of the domino effect in the book, it's this geometric progression, the hockey stick effect. And I think what's so important about this that you and Gary have taught me is that almost everything happens slowly and then all at once. And I always say we get to decide which direction that hockey stick is going to go, which direction those dominoes are going to fall.

And I think whenever someone looks back at their life, whether it's something they achieved that was great or something that they achieved that was not great, they can look backwards and figure out what the small domino was that started to compound over time. Some people might call it the compound effect. And the best thing that you all have taught me is this idea that, again, slowly and then all at once. It's like if you ask someone who went bankrupt, they'll say --.

Jay Papasan:

That's the line for me anyway.

Nikki Miller:

How did it happen? Slowly and then all at once. It was that bad habit that I had around money or that bad habit I had around spending, or the fact that I didn't want to check my account, whatever it was. And that didn't all happen in one day. And success doesn't happen that way either. We believe it does because I think especially of the culture we're in now and how people present it. But ultimately, it's a long line of decisions that have been made.

Jay Papasan:

I think I first read that line. I didn't know it was from Hemingway. Gradually, then suddenly, in fierce conversations, Susan Scott's great book, how do relationships fail gradually and then suddenly. And these little investments we make in ourselves every day, they're either good or bad investments. And the impact of those investments is almost never felt in the moment. Like my cheat meal, my favorite cheat meal in the world is like a bacon cheeseburger.

Nikki Miller:

Oh, that's a good one.

Jay Papasan:

Yeah.

Nikki Miller:

Now, I'm hungry.

Jay Papasan:

I nail a keynote or whatever. Like on the way home, I might find a restaurant in the airport, maybe a beer or a glass of wine and a bacon cheeseburger. One of the most unhelpful things I can put in my body, but it's also something that I've reserved for this special thing. You could eat that every day, and there are people who do, but it will take years, right, for the negative impact of that to add up the gradually before the suddenly.

And the same thing is true for the good things. Right. I'm just going to start. I'm going to cut some carbs out of my life or whatever. It's a gradually, then suddenly. So the elbow of the curve, the hockey stick, right, in all things that you do over time, that's what it's going to happen. And my question is, are you being purposeful about choosing to do things that will help you grow in the future or that will diminish you? Most people aren't conscious of those choices.

I think Gretchen Rubin, when I interviewed her, she had a stat. And pardon, Gretchen, I'm going to misquote it, but I think about 77 percent of the average person's day is completely autonomous. It's happening below the conscious level. It's just habits, how they drive to work, how they prepare for work when they get up and brush their teeth, all these little things. And if we had to think about them all the time, we'd go crazy. So we are designed to be creatures of habit.

The point is, did we design our habits for who we want to be or is it who we're going to become by default? And this is a way, just it doesn't happen overnight. You can start with one choice to build a habit in one area of your life and then build that confidence that you can do it and then start changing your life.

And again, maybe it's not so obvious after a year, but in five years people are like, where did this guy come from? Where did this gal come from? Oh my gosh, they're superhuman. No, they're a person of collected habits. Their personal collected habits that was all being directed towards somewhat clear goal, at least as directionally true. This is the direction I want to be moving.

Nikki Miller:

I just wrote that down. Really what you're saying is did you choose this. Again, life on purpose. Did we design our habits around who we want to be?

Jay Papasan:

Life by design versus life by default.

Nikki Miller:

Yeah, I love that. Jay, I want you to take a minute to think back to, you said it was 25 years you've been with Keller Williams?

Jay Papasan:

It's going to be 20. It's 23 years this year. So 23 years.

Nikki Miller:

So I'm going to take you back 23 years ago. You're walking into, I don't think it was this building, another building. You're walking into --

Jay Papasan:

Two buildings ago, actually.

Nikki Miller:

Two buildings ago. You're walking into two buildings ago for the very first time. If you go back and talk to that, Jay, what's the one thing that you would tell him?

Jay Papasan:

I've gotten asked this question a few times, and it's a great question. I think I can say two things. I go back and forth because I hesitate. One is you can think bigger for your life. I wasn't a person of great confidence then. The only, like the big promise that I kept to myself is I'd quit smoking and I'd run a marathon. And both of those have been super impactful. Like I'd seen how little choices every day added up.

And most of my life I've been able to study for the exam the day before and do like a lot of other people. Right. Put it off, put it off, then rush to the finish. And it was good enough and I was doing cool things. And then I started to see this differently. But I was like, if I were to think bigger for my life, it would force me into more of that kind of behavior because those big things don't happen. You don't run a marathon without being somewhat methodical in your preparation unless you really want to hurt yourself. Right?

Nikki Miller:

Never on accident.

Jay Papasan:

Yes. Some of those things, you don't stumble across those finish lines. So I wish I had more confidence to do that earlier, but that could have just been I needed more experience to believe that I could. And the other one is no one succeeds alone, which is kind of one of Gary's mantras. And again, it's so easy to think, but I know how to do this better, I know how to do this faster. And as a parent and as a business person, I need to lean in to developing the people around me as my first mission.

There's a quote by one of the founders of Montessori, and it was, and I'm going to butcher it, but pretty much every time you tell a child the answer that you tie their shoes for them, that you short circuit the process, you've not only denied them the opportunity to learn themselves, you've also told them they're not capable. And I remember reading that, and it's like, man, what am I doing to my kids when I'm so impatient to get to school or I'm so embarrassed at that knot tangle that they've tied their shoes in that I have to do it for them.

And then that carries into not just parenting, it carries into leadership. So it's not just that you short circuited the learning opportunity. You're also teaching them in some subtle, unspoken way that you're not capable, which is why I'm going to do it for you. And you're going to make people dependent on you when you do that. And it might feel good to be the hero, but it's a horrible outcome for their lives and I want to have a positive impact.

So you heard the emotion in my voice. That's a big one for me. I've got to learn to succeed through others, and that means I have to let them fail and learn for themselves on the journey or they won't be capable when they get there, period.

Nikki Miller:

Well, it's also a great way to become the bottleneck in your business and in your life.

Jay Papasan:

Oh yeah.

Nikki Miller:

It feels great at the time, and you get to short circuit it and go fast at the time. But then eventually, if you've taught everyone around you not to think and you're the answer for everything --

Jay Papasan:

They're just waiting for orders.

Nikki Miller:

They're waiting for orders. They can't figure anything out on their own. And it really puts a cap on what you're able to go out and do. You talked about relationships, and I know obviously Gary and yours relationship has been such an important one in your life. What's the biggest thing that Gary has taught you and what would you say the biggest thing that you've taught, Gary, is?

Jay Papasan:

Well, the always answer for this is Gary has consistently, for both Wendy and I, demonstrated that he was willing to think bigger for our lives than we were daring to ourselves. So every time I've come to him as a partner, as an employee, to say, this is what I want to do, he's blown it up and said, but couldn't it be ten times bigger? And it is challenging. At times it's onerous, but it's also a gift to have someone in your corner, that my coach does this too, that is willing to think bigger about my life than I'm willing to do for myself because I see all the other stuff, but they just have a belief and that's just so great. That's been the biggest gift.

I don't know. I think that Gary and I have -- there's not a lot of people who co-author successfully for as long as we have. So I'd like to think that together, the gift that we've given to each other is when we've been able to articulate bigger questions that we could answer on behalf of the people that read our books or take our courses than we could of either of us alone.

And the way we spar with each other intellectually, what I bring to the table versus what he brings to the table, we've managed to find a place where they complement each other really well, and that's always my calculus. People are like, why don't you just go off and write books by yourself? And I was like, because my number one value is impact. And I'm still pretty much convinced that if I'm partnering with him, my impact is still some multiple of what it would be alone. And no one succeeds alone. I would rather, even if it's harder, do it together to have a bigger impact and a bigger legacy.

Nikki Miller:

I ask everyone at the end of these podcasts, so I won't let you get away without it, of all the words that you've put into the world, all the trainings, you've had so many things that you've been able to say to audiences over the years. But I'm going to ask you, if someone's listening to this or has read the book, what's the one thing that you would want them to take away from it?

Jay Papasan:

Start now. Start now. Wherever you are, start where you are and start now, though, because I think a lot of people it's always this game of tomorrow. I will. And you can play that game for your whole life. And you don't know that your dad's going to be on the other end of the phone tomorrow. You don't know that that opportunity will still be there tomorrow. You just don't know. So I just say start, start earlier, far earlier than you think you should because the cost of failure, you're going to fail. So get over that. So just start failing forward because you know that's where you want to go. Start today. Just start today. Start right now.

Nikki Miller:

I wish we could make a sign of that and just have it everywhere for everyone.

Jay Papasan:

Well, just put it on your mirror, because we all need to see it.

Nikki Miller:

Yeah. Jay, people want to follow you or find you, what's the best way to do that?

Jay Papasan:

I think I'm the only Jay Papasan of the seven billion inhabitants in the world.

Nikki Miller:

That's an accomplishment in and of itself.

Jay Papasan:

Just weird combination of two names that are somewhat uncommon. Papasan's very uncommon. So they can Google me, but I'm still the person behind everything on my socials. I'm most active on Instagram. They come to The ONE Thing, that's kind of like the stopping spot, but they can find me, like I can't hide, which is good and bad.

Nikki Miller:

Well, and thank you for just being a living example of everything that you've taught everyone over the years. And thank you for being here today.

Jay Papasan:

Thanks for having me. It's been fun.

Outro:

Thanks for listening to the One Thing podcast. If you're a bold risk taker who wants to dream big and achieve a higher level of success in your life or business, visit theonething.com. There, you'll find information on one-on-one coaching, our exclusive community membership program and customized workshops that will help you get your team or organization aligned and rowing in the same direction.

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